Zwerger spoke to the soldier, and though her knowledge of German was imperfect, she was fairly certain he told Meier to “sit still and act like a man.” The soldier was already looking a little green, but he nodded and set his chin.

“Let me gather my things,” she said, resigned to the task ahead, and returned to the kitchen.

“I’ll need two bowls, one empty and one filled with the water you boiled earlier,” she told Rosa, “and can you fetch me the iodine, tweezers, scissors, needle, and thread from the first-aid box? Nico—can you spare a razor blade? A fresh one?”

Outside the soldier was swallowing a great gulp of something from a silver flask. “Not too much, please,” she said mildly as she set the tray she and Rosa had assembled on a chair Nico had brought outside. “I can’t have him falling over while I’m working.”

“Of course, signora.” Zwerger cleaned the mouth of the flask with his handkerchief and slipped it into a pocket in his jodhpur trousers.

“Does he speak Italian?”

“After a fashion. Enough to understand basic commands.”

“Very well. I’ll start by cutting the remaining sutures and drawing them out. I’ll try to work quickly.” Snip, snip, snip went her scissors, and though the boy flinched when she pulled out the old stitches, he managed to stay still.

Next she cleaned the wound, relying upon Nico to flood it with iodine and Rosa to rinse it with cool water from the kettle. “Can you see where the tissue has died back along the edge of the wound? I need to remove it. It shouldn’t be terribly painful, but it will likely turn your stomach if you watch. Can you look away?”

She waited until Meier had turned his head and then she used the razor blade to trim away the necrotic flesh. “Almost there,” she promised. Now all that remained was to stitch the wound properly. “I know this is painful, but I am a good seamstress and you’ll barely have a scar.” It was true. Papà had made her practice on a ripe tomato, and if she could sew perfect stitches in its uncooperative flesh, she could set sutures in anything or anyone. “I’m almost done,” she promised. “The worst is very nearly over . . . almost there . . . done.”

She finished with a final wash of iodine, then bandaged Meier’s hand so the thumb was well clear of his fingers. “There. Time for more of whatever was in that flask.”

“Good German schnapps,” Zwerger said.

“Ah. Well, not too much. I don’t want him to have a headache in the morning on top of everything else. You will remember what I said about keeping the wound clean and dry? And that he must avoid using the hand at all until the cut is well scabbed over?”

Zwerger translated, and when he was done Meier looked up, a little woozily, and tried to smile at her. “Thank you, signora.”