She was aware of Lies helping her crawl out of the shack. Someone carried her to the doctor’s car. She was traveling somewhere. Had they remembered to bring her suitcase? And her violin? She couldn’t be without her violin! It was all she had left of herself, the last thing that bound her to Avi and Elisheva and to Abba and Mother. She tried to ask about it but couldn’t stop coughing. “Shh, just lie still, Christina,” the doctor said.

She lay on the back seat of his car beneath a woolen blanket, shivering and listening to slushy snow spray beneath the car’s tires. Then she was carried inside and she was warm at last, in a place that was white and smelled of disinfectant. Someone laid her in a white iron bed with white sheets and warm blankets. A hospital? Jewish patients weren’t allowed in hospitals. She coughed and coughed and tasted blood. Dr. Elzinga bent over her with his thick, snowy hair and listened to her lungs. He shook his head. Two women in their fifties, dressed in street clothes, brought water and broth and told Miriam to swallow pills for her fever.

Miriam dreamed of her grandmother’s house and of playing tag with her cousins in the summertime beside Lake Constance. She dreamed of Avi and Elisheva, and she didn’t want to wake up, but the pain from coughing always drove the dreams away. Interwoven among her dreams were loud shouts and cries and moans. Miriam wasn’t sure if they were real or not.

One day she awoke and knew the fever was gone. A dull ache replaced the sharp pain in her chest. Her ribs and stomach muscles felt sore as she propped herself up on her elbows to look around. She was in a small room with two hospital beds. The other one was empty. It didn’t resemble a regular hospital room but was more like the bedroom of a house that had been converted into an infirmary. Heavy feet tromped up and down the steps outside her door. Floors creaked above her head as people walked around upstairs. The shouts and cries she’d heard in her dreams were real. The door opened, and one of the two women who’d taken care of her came inside, smiling when she saw her. “Are you feeling better, Christina?” It took Miriam a moment to remember that was her name.

“Where am I?”

“You’ve been very ill. Dr. Elzinga feared we might lose you. Do you think you can eat something?”

“I’ll try.” The woman left and returned a short time later with a bowl of watery pea soup. She propped pillows behind Miriam’s back, then spooned the soup into her mouth. It was warm and delicious, and Miriam remembered being fed this way when she’d been feverish. “Thank you for taking care of me.”