Sadie looked back up at me, seeming dismayed that I was not staying with her. “I’ll be back for you,” I promised. “You need to stay out of sight.”

“But I have to look for my mother.” Despite everything I had explained to her, she still wanted to go.

“I will look for her,” I added, putting my hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go to the hospital and check for you. But only if you promise to stay here.” Her expression remained doubtful. “You believe me, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Sadie replied. “But please be careful. Helping me get food was one thing, but going to the hospital and asking questions is much more dangerous.” Her brow furrowed.

“Don’t worry,” I replied, touched by her concern for my safety. “I’ll go quickly and come straight back, all right?” Seemingly satisfied, Sadie turned away.

“Wait,” I said. “What’s your mother’s name?” I had only just realized I didn’t know it.

“Danuta,” she said sadly. “Danuta Gault.” She disappeared into the cellar.

“I’ll be back for her as soon as I can,” I said to Kara. “She could use something to eat, if you can manage it.”

“I can. She needs to be gone by nightfall.”

“I swear it. And thank you.” Without speaking further, Kara closed the cellar door, leaving me on the street alone.

I hurried from Dębniki toward the bridge that connected the south bank to the city center. As I walked, I processed all Sadie had told me. I knew little about having babies, but I could not imagine what Sadie’s mother had been through, giving birth in the sewer. And to be forced to leave her other daughter behind; it was unimaginable. Sadie seemed so hopeful that her mother and sister might be all right. Part of me did not want to know what had become of them, to have to tell her the awful truth if I found out. But I had promised Sadie—and so I had to try.

I crossed the bridge and soon reached the Bonifratrów Hospital, a mammoth building on the edge of Kazimierz. Though I could tell it had once been well-tended, its redbrick facade was pockmarked and stained with soot, sidewalks cracked, the untended bushes and shrubs outside withered and brown. The front door to the hospital, set back in an archway, was locked, so I rang the buzzer beside it. A minute later, a nun appeared. The hospital was owned by a monastic order, I recalled, with a church and rectory just around the corner.

“I’m sorry, but we’re closed to visitors,” she said, looking down at me through crooked spectacles.

“I’m looking for a woman called Danuta Gault.”

A guarded look crossed the nun’s face. “I don’t know any such person.”

I was confused. Sadie had seemed so certain of her mother’s destination. Had she been wrong or had something happened to change her mother’s plans once she was above ground? “Are you sure?” I pressed. “She is a petite woman, quite beautiful, with very light hair,” I said, recalling how Sadie had once described her mother to me.