Nina chanced a look at the woman: her eyes were squeezed shut, and her hands had curled into fists on her lap.

“I’m just going to pick up the lamp. I need some extra light.”

Holding the oil lamp in her left hand, Nina bent low to examine the rash. She now saw that the rash was slightly raised and, tellingly, had a defined edge that set it apart from the surrounding skin. She sat back on her heels and considered what to say next.

“What did the doctor in Zschopau tell you?”

“I am not sure of the word. In German it is Ausschlag. I think, perhaps, that ‘rash’ is the correct term.”

“Yes. Well, I can see how he was mistaken. It’s not a simple rash, though. I think you have erysipelas.”

“Erysipel,” Klap said. It was fortunate that the German term was so similar.

“Yes. It’s a bacterial infection in the skin. It must be treated or the infection will spread.”

Klap nodded again, seeming to understand. “How will you heal it?”

It had been years since Nina had discussed the new sulfa drugs with her father, and she couldn’t be sure the doctor in Zschopau would have any version of them at hand. But she had to offer Klap something.

“There isn’t much I can do, but there is a medicine that might help. Sulfanilamide. It’s German. Made by Bayer.”

Klap reached into the breast pocket of her uniform tunic and pulled out a little notebook, the sort that came with its own pencil clipped to the side. “Write it down,” she said, and handed it to Nina.

Erysipel, Nina wrote, hoping she had spelled the German name of the disease correctly. Rss: Sulfanilamide, she added.

With a gesture, the woman indicated that Nina should rewrap her leg.

“I was a teacher before the war,” Klap said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “I taught literature at a school in Berlin. One of the best schools. The very best. And now . . .”

Now she fixed Nina with an implacable stare. “I will provide salve and bandages for those who are burned. You will care for them.”

Nina nodded.

“If you steal again I will have you shot. Now get out.”

Nina spent the rest of the day in a lather of anxiety. What if the doctor in Zschopau disagreed with her diagnosis? What if he objected to a prisoner second-guessing his judgment? What if Klap was allergic to the drug? Nina hadn’t even thought to mention that possibility.

The oberaufseherin was present for evening appell, and her expression seemed a little less pinched than it had been that morning. She didn’t acknowledge Nina, not even with a nod, but neither did she order that Nina be punished. That was what passed for mercy in the camp.