The baby never opened her eyes. Her breathing turned to a continuous gurgle. The body would lose the battle very soon. Nola covered her with a few silk squares. There was nothing else to do. Another wasted life.

She straightened up to see Daniel watching her. Self-consciously, she untangled her dress and let it drop back down to her ankles.

Her head swimming, she walked to the cluster of crying babies and located the infant who was screaming the loudest. Half naked, he had a badly twisted leg with an atrophied foot. But he was healthy enough to demand what was due him. She gave him her hand, and he clutched. Just like Lulu did. Another baby pulled herself up to a standing position, but when holding out her arms to be picked up, she lost her balance and fell with a thud on her bedmate’s head, who, startled from sleep, let out a weakened shriek.

Nola bent over their crib to comfort them. She must get back to the party. Her party, which she had so looked forward to. “I want to take all these babies with me; who would even know they’re gone?” But there were too many needing her attention. And what if she carried lice or disease back to Lulu? In her softest voice, she began to sing the song she’d written, “The Road to a Better Day.”

The crying subsided while Nola sang and moved about. She caressed a cheek, stroked a head, rubbed a stomach, or let her finger be grasped in an infant’s fist. She circled the aisles again as some babies fell asleep, sucking their thumbs.

Her song ended. “I’ll be back,” she whispered to the babies. “I promise.” The building was a hundred yards from the Silk Market; she could find it again on her own.

She stopped again at the dying baby’s crib. Something dark was moving next to her head. Chomping on the face!

“Oh, my God!” Nola yelled, and flung her handbag at the creature. “There’s a rat!”

The rat shot out of the crib and scrambled away.

Nola's body shook. Blood trickled out of a gash in the cheek.

“It was eating her alive!” Nola cried out.

“Maybe it smelled death.” Daniel halted. “The official death rate in these orphanages is eighty percent.”

Nola's scalp contracted. “How is something like this possible?”

“About the same as in Nazi concentration camps. There are forty thousand welfare institutions in China—often warehousing young, old and disabled together—and most look more like this one than the one on your official itinerary.” He handed her a tissue.

She accepted it and blew her nose. “The Dying Rooms,” she whispered. “Warehouses of discarded lives. No one would ever believe the horror of it.”

“Not unless they were told.”

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 7