Girl in the Blue Coat(29)

My senses are still swimming as I follow her across the street into the building. I try to banish everything I’ve just seen from my mind; it’s the only thing that will let me focus on the task at hand. My brain gobbles up the new information around me, as if each new thing it sees will help me forget an old thing in the theater.

No guards are posted in front of this building. It looks like a regular nursery. Indoors, too: When we walk into the foyer, a young girl in a white nurse’s cap paces back and forth with a sobbing toddler, trying to calm him. She gives me a funny glance; I don’t know if they’re used to getting strangers in here, and I must still be pale and sick-looking. But she smiles in recognition when she sees Judith behind me.

“Are you working here today? I didn’t think it was your shift.”

“I’m just visiting Mina. My friend is, too.”

Judith leads us to a room that looks like a traditional hospital nursery, bassinets filled with sleeping or fussing babies. One girl with her back to us is bent over a crib, but she stands when Judith calls her name. Mina is short and compact to Judith’s willowy height, but they have the same teeth and the same brilliant eyes. “Cousin.” She greets Judith with a kiss on the cheek. “I was just wondering where you were. Did you get—”

“Permission. Yes. They only ask for a name and address, for after.”

“We always do. But they have to understand that names might change, and we can’t promise to keep track.”

Judith nods, obviously understanding this code, which I assume is related to the fake ration cards they’re creating for Jewish families. She touches me on the shoulder. “I have things to do,” she says. “I’ll leave you with Mina and be back for you in an hour? If I can, I’ll see if my uncle can look at the records, to tell you if Mirjam has been brought through.”

Once she’s gone, Mina smiles. “I have work, too. I have to take baby Regina out for some fresh air. If you don’t mind coming with me, then I can answer questions while we walk. It would be nice to have some company. I never get company anymore, and I love the babies, but sometimes it would be nice to talk to people who can speak in syllables. Judith says you want to know about Mirjam?”

Mina has a way of talking so that sentences come out in a ripple, without pausing to take breaths. I have to adjust myself to get used to her bubbliness. How can she manage it, working across from the building she does?

“I knew Mirjam a little,” Mina continues. “I had a few classes with her. Here, could you get me one of those for Regina?” She nods toward a pile of washed blankets and gestures for me to help her wrap one of the sleeping babies in a pink flannel.

Eventually I manage to parcel Regina into a lumpy bundle, while Mina picks up a bag, presumably filled with diapers and supplies. “Would you carry this?” she asks. The strap digs into my shoulder. Who would have thought babies require so many accessories?

“There we go.” Mina tucks Regina into a baby carriage. “Nice and cozy, aren’t we?” She looks up at me and rolls her eyes. “I have three brothers. All younger. I was changing diapers when I was still in diapers. Should we walk?”

Mina leads me through the back exit, which leads to a small courtyard, and then through a gate belonging to a neighboring building. “Shortcut.” Mina winks, and finally we’re on a cobblestoned street.

A pair of older women smile when they see the baby carriage, and Mina smiles back. “Can we peek?” one woman asks, and Mina stops so they can coo at the sleeping baby. As soon as the woman tries to reach into the carriage, though, Mina swiftly starts walking again.

“I need to keep her moving,” she calls over her shoulder. “She didn’t sleep at all last night; she’ll wake up again unless I keep walking.”

“So,” she says to me after we’ve reached the end of the block, “tell me about yourself. How do you know Judith? Are you in university? What are you studying? Do you have a boyfriend?”

I pick through her questions and decide to start by answering the middle one. “I’m not in university. I have a job.”

Her face lights up at this news. “I want to have a job! I want to be a photographer and travel all over the world. I’ve already taken classes.”

She’s so… I search for the right word. Exuberant. Earnest and exuberant, like the world is full of possibilities.

“Can we talk about—” I cut myself off while Mina stops to adjust Regina’s blankets, and start talking again once we’re moving. “Can we talk about Mirjam?”

“What do you already know about her?”

I hesitate. “That she was smart. Top of the class. Maybe a little competitive.”

“Now, that’s an understatement. She was completely preoccupied with grades. I think it was her parents, though. They gave her rewards for good grades. On her own, I didn’t get the impression she would have cared.”

I suppress a smile. It shifts the perspective I have of the studious missing girl, but it sounds like me—like Mama and Papa telling me that if I only applied myself, they knew I was smarter than the middling grades I brought home. Somehow, the Roodveldts actually managed to get Mirjam to perform, though, while my parents eventually gave up.

“What did she care about?” I ask.

Mina purses her lips. “Domestic things, I guess? She would actually talk about things like china patterns, or about how many children she wanted to have, or how she would dress them. Things like that.”