“Excellent. Go see Shmuel, the tailor, first thing in the morning; he’s in charge of that.”

Aron nods as if it’s settled. Róża thinks back to the first time she met Natan, the day he came to her father’s workshop for a violin repair. He poked his head into the parlor where Róża was playing her cello and asked, almost reverently, if she’d like to work on duets with him.

“I should return to my bunk,” Róża says.

In the morning, Róża finds Shmuel hunched over an actual pedal-pump sewing machine. The camp is filled with such unlikely objects. Tree saws. Blacksmith tools. A woodstove. All stolen, Róża guesses, and lugged to the camp. The foot pedal needs greasing; it gives off the smell of burnt hair with each push.

“I’m Róża. Sonia sent me to help you with sewing this morning.”

“Good, I can use the help. There is a mission in a few days’ time, and the fighters need their belts to actually hold bullets.”

Róża settles herself at a small table and gets to work, reinforcing the stitches on the belts, as many as she can, paying careful attention so that not a single bullet will slip out. After a time, Róża loses herself in the rhythm—Shmuel’s press of the pedal, the yank and tug of thread through fabric—and her mind goes to the outfits she crocheted for Shira’s make-believe bird and the all-too-real letters she stitched into her blanket seam.

When Shmuel looks up from his work, he frowns to see Róża shiver. “I have an extra jacket in that bin over there if you’re cold.”

“It’s not that. But thank you.”

Across the square, Róża sees a mother bounce her child, hold her close.

At mealtime, Róża stands in a long line for soup. People around her grouse that it’s beets and potatoes once again. Róża tastes it, creamy and thick, before leaving the line. She cannot believe how good it is.

“What’s in this?” Róża asks. Its richness causes her to shudder with pleasure.

“Milk.” The young woman who ladles the soup looks prideful.

“Milk!” Róża can’t think of the last time she had milk! She can think only of the burnt roots and mushrooms that she and Chana have eaten for the last several months.

“Two days ago,” the woman continues, “Itzhak returned from the countryside with a pail of milk. Liquid gold, kept on ice. We’ve taken to guarding it.”

There are potatoes, too, and salt.