Chapter 4 #2
“How? You’re not a doctor, Rosy. I know you’re smarter than any girl I’ve ever met, and you sure are beautiful, but—”
“Let me in,” I demand. I can’t believe he’s trying to make me blush rather than letting me inside. That might have worked once, back when I had a small school-girl crush on him, but I don’t have time for romance right now.
Antoni scoffs and backs away from the door, waving an arm out in front of him to not quite invite me in on his own terms. He pokes his head out the door, searches both directions, then locks back up.
“Follow me.”
“Thank you.”
“People talk about you, you know…” he says, moving toward the back of the shop. “Calling you ‘the girl who saves babies.’ Do you truly know what you’re doing?”
“More than I can explain,” I say. People know that my mother passed away in childbirth when I was young, but don’t always know how much time I’ve spent studying the skill of midwifery over the years. They also don’t know I’m the one to blame for the death of Mama and my baby sister.
Antoni pulls back a draped curtain, hung from the ceiling, revealing a narrow wooden door that looks like it hasn’t budged in a century. He digs a hand into his pocket, retrieves a key and unlocks a small lock at the top and then at the bottom, before twisting the doorknob.
A dark opening awaits on the other side.
Another three days come and go before Elena Rozenfeld’s waters break in the middle of the night, which leads to a dozen hours of active labor before she’s ready to push.
Everything is going as well as could be with no troubling signs of strain for mother or baby.
The father-to-be, on the other hand, is as good as a heap of laundry in the corner of the room, pale, and faint. Not unusual.
Just before noon, a baby boy enters the world—blue-lipped, limp, and silent. The cord is wound tightly around his neck. Once. Twice.
My hands move before I can think. Unwinding the cord. Two fingers under the arm, checking for a pulse. Brisk, circular rubbing along his spine, just as I’d read to do in Mama’s books. Then down his chest with firmer pressure. Come on, little one. Come on.
No cry.
I place him down on the blanket and bend low, pressing my mouth to his tiny one, giving him a slow, shallow puff of air.
Another rub.
Another breath.
“What’s happening?” Elena cries out, weak and distraught.
The father is suddenly at my side, as if someone had breathed life into him too. He cradles his newborn’s head in the palm of his hand, eyes welling, lips quivering.
I rub down his chest once more…
Then a cough.
A wet rusty sound. The most beautiful sound.
Elena sobs.
I clamp the umbilical cord and wrap him in the blanket. The father scoops him up and carefully brings him to Elena, where a family takes its first breath together.
That’s my favorite part. Standing in the corner, out of sight, watching love blossom as if magic drapes the three of them. Instant love, a forever bond, never to be broken.
Antonio pokes his head around the corner from the narrow stairwell.
I’m not sure listening to the events is much easier than watching, and the paleness of his complexion confirms this.
“You saved the baby’s life, Rosy,” Antoni says, his words a whisper.
“I shouldn’t have doubted you. You truly are something else. You’re incredible.”
My cheeks redden, but only for a moment. “I appreciate the compliment, but I must go. My father’s waiting.”
“How about I walk you home?” Antoni insists.
“I can walk across the street just fine, thank you.” I smile so my refusal won’t sting and slip out of the cobbler’s shop.
Antoni talks. And people listen. That’s reason enough for why I’ve never accepted one of his many offers to dinner or the theater.
He’s always the one scolded for chatting too much in class.
The cobbler hears all the gossip in the village, and his son keeps it moving.
The only secret Antoni can keep is the whereabouts of Elena Rozenfeld’s little family.
Not even four days have passed since Elena gave birth beneath the cobbler’s shop, and now there’s a well-dressed man standing outside the village hall clock tower, seemingly waiting for me as if he knows me—as if he knows what time I leave for school in the mornings.
“Pardon me. Are you Rosalie Kaufman?” the man asks, his voice quiet, his gesture passive. “The girl who saves babies?”
Until now, my work has been quiet, private, and in secret—cellars, bedrooms, even a couple of closets—places out of sight from uniformed Germans.
“I’m sorry, do I know you?” I reply, continuing down the curb. He isn’t familiar.
“No, but I’m Philip Silberg, a desperate man who has buried three babies in the last six years.
My wife is pregnant. God has blessed us once more, and after so much heartbreak.
She’s already beginning to swell, can hardly sleep, and questions the baby’s movements.
She still has a way to go, and quite frankly, I’m terrified. ”
I don’t have to ask why they aren’t at a hospital or visiting with her physician. Not by the white band looped around his arm, marked with the Star of David.
“I’ll pay you, whatever the cost, for as long as it takes.
” I’ve been under the impression that most Jewish people in Poland don’t have much spare cash, nor are they permitted to employ non-Jewish Poles.
The new German laws are firm and in bold print, posted all over the city.
“You can live at our estate while we wait for her to give birth. We have plenty of space. We’ll provide food and whatever other necessities.
My eldest son, Stefan, and my daughter, Eloise, have a personal tutor who visits daily.
She can school you as well if you’d like. ”
A Jewish family still living in an estate, with the means to sustain upper-class living. I don’t understand how this is possible. They must have special circumstances or advantages, perhaps.
I stop mid-step, turning to face the man with sunlit reflections piercing his troubled hazel eyes. “How do you know who I am?”
“Word spreads quickly when a hero lives among us. The cobbler’s son, Antoni Witkarz, from down the road—he was singing your praise this morning when I dropped off a pair of shoes.
He’s said you’ve been the quiet miracle making your way around the village to the pregnant Jewish women who have lost access to medical care.
” He takes my hand and presses it between us.
“I beg of you. The thought of losing another baby or, God forbid, my wife this time too…Please.”
Antoni. I should have known.
Everything inside of me spills out with a resounding yes, without question. But I still live under my father’s—well, under the clock tower’s roof. “I’ll need to speak to my father. I’m only sixteen,” I tell him.
“I know what you must be thinking—we’re Jewish, and—”
“No, no. That’s not it at all. In fact, I greatly admire the Jewish faith—your pride of culture and tradition, strength and perseverance—if I can do more to look after you, I will.”
I’ve said too much, over-spoken, and made Mister Silberg visibly uncomfortable as he dips his head for a moment before straightening his posture.
“Thank you for your kind words,” he says.
“Well, I don’t want to make you late for school.
Perhaps if it’s all right with you, I might have a word with your father as well? ”
I point up to the clock. “He’s up there, keeping the time.” I’m not sure Mister Silberg will receive the answer he’s hoping for from him.
“Thank you,” he says, his words saturated with unfulfilled gratitude. He bows and backs away. “Only with your father’s permission will I return later to ask you again.”
I didn’t know that moment would be the turning point of my very existence.