The woman shook her head firmly. “There is no such person here.” I felt a tug of disappointment. Sadie’s mother was not here. I had nowhere else to look. I was going to have to return to the piwnica and tell Sadie I had failed.

“She was traveling with a newborn child,” I said then. In my haste, I had forgotten to state the obvious. “She was trying to find a safe place for the child.”

Something seemed to shift in the nun’s eyes and I could tell that Sadie’s mother had been here. “I can’t help you.” Though her expression remained unchanged, there was fear in her voice now.

“She’s my mother,” I lied, hoping she would be more willing to help me if the person I was searching for was immediate family. “I have to find her. I’m worried something might have happened to her,” I said, feeling Sadie’s sadness and fear as if they were my own. “Please. She’s the only family I have left. If you could just let me in. I’ll only stay a minute.”

The nun hesitated, then opened the door a crack further. “Inside, quickly.” She led me into the hospital. I followed her down a long corridor, with at least a dozen rooms on either side. There came a beeping sound from a machine in one room, a low moan from another. A metallic smell assaulted my nose. My mind reeled back to when I was a small child, visiting my mother in the hospital. My father had lifted me up to kiss her papery cheek because she was too weak to hold me herself. It was the last time I had ever seen her.

Pushing the memory aside, I focused on the nun who walked briskly ahead of me and led me into a small office. I studied the picture behind her desk, a framed oil painting of Jesus at the crucifixion. Although I often wore the small cross around my neck that Tata had given me for sentimental value, we were not a religious family and I had not been to mass since my mother died. The nun cleared some papers from a chair and gestured for me to sit.

“You can only stay for a minute. We’re under a no-visitors order from the General Government. I would be in grave trouble if anyone found out I let you in.”

“I’ll go quickly,” I promised. “But first, can you tell me if you have seen the woman I asked about?”

“She isn’t your mother, is she?” the nun asked sternly.

I lowered my head. “No. I’m sorry. She is my friend’s mother.” I had lied to a nun. I felt as though lightning might strike at any moment. I wondered if she would be angry, insist that I leave without helping me.

“The woman you mentioned came here. One of our priests found her on the street and brought her in for care. When she arrived here, she was very weak. She had a high fever, an infection from giving birth. She had lost a great deal of blood.” I was surprised; Sadie had not mentioned that her mother was so sick. Perhaps she had not known. “We offered her a bed. At first, she did not want to take it. She said she had to get back, to where or whom, she would not say. But she had no choice—she was simply too weak to leave. So we tended to her, gave her what little food and medicine we had.”