CHAPTER 33
A harrowing hour later, Brenna stood under the overhang of an apartment balcony with Grace beside her, comparing the map that Jasha had hastily sketched on a crumpled scrap of paper to the building across the street.
The front fa?ade of the structure had been blown off.
The apartments lay as exposed as pigeonholes in a postman’s sorting box, their floral wallpaper and brightly-painted walls incongruously festive.
The staircase on the western side of the building dangled like a severed arm in a long-sleeved shirt.
“This should be it,” she said. There were no street signs or house numbers to distinguish one socialist-style unit from the next.
“No one could possibly live here—could they?”
“Jasha said the nursery is on the second floor,” she replied. “We enter there.”
Grace’s eyes followed her pointed finger to a narrow break in the piled garbage lining the road.
Brenna dashed across the road, Grace hard on her heels, and plastered her back against the side wall.
The so-called staircase running up the exterior wall looked more like a rockslide than steps but a faint trail of mountain-goat footholds led upward, alongside a blood-smeared wall.
Brenna frowned. There was a two-gallon water jug snagged on a chunk of concrete.
And it was full. No one willingly abandoned drinking water in Kav?ak.
She rested her index finger across her lips, then cupped her ear.
Grace took her cue and stood motionless beside her, listening attentively.
Closing her eyes, Brenna tuned out the constant poom, poom, poom and listened for a cough, the scratch of a shoe, the slide of a bullet into a chamber.
For all she knew, the Nationalists were upstairs, waiting.
She heard—or thought she heard—a thump. Very faint, coming from above.
She waited, listening intently for what seemed an eternity.
Nothing. Perhaps she was mistaken. Moving carefully, she found her footholds, and sidled upwards, back against the wall, her eyes focused on the landing above.
Three square feet of cracked concrete were all that remained of the top landing.
Following her, Grace crowded onto it beside her.
A mortar hole torn through the side wall provided access to the first apartment. She bent her knees and slid down the wall to glimpse the interior room, hoping there wasn’t a soldier standing on the opposite side of the wall with a cocked gun. She edged forward and peeked cautiously inside.
Bare room, rose-colored paint, front edge of the concrete floor dangling over the street. A narrow footpath snaked through foot-high rubble toward the right. A passage to a rear room? She ducked inside and motioned to Grace. “Quick!” They were higher now, more exposed to sniper fire.
The path cut through the hallway to a rear bedroom with a hole in the side wall. Its narrow crease allowed passage to the bedroom in the adjacent apartment. She suspected there would be a series of such openings to allow interior transit for the length of the building.
“Brenna.” Grace pointed at her feet. She was standing in a pool of dried blood.
She nodded. Judging by the sickly-sweet smell wafting their way, they would soon be finding a corpse.
Or many corpses—and not all adults.
She moved forward, grit crunching beneath the soles of her boots, and reached the last unit. A foul stench extended its infectious embrace from the apartment. This had to be it.
Grace grimaced, sticking her nose into the crook of her elbow.
Brenna shifted her weight to her leading foot, and faltered. If this was an apartment full of dead infants—
Grace’s hand caught hers. “You wait,” she said softly. “I’ll go.”
Her sweetness touched Brenna. She took her hand. Whatever lay ahead, she’d still have to take the pictures. “Together.”
Grace nodded and followed her into the apartment.
The stench hit them like a falling wall. Brenna cried out, gagging, and fought the urge to vomit.
A gray-haired woman lay face down on the living room floor. Roza, Brenna presumed. Their interview.
Viewfinder, Brenna told herself, her hands shaking as she lifted the camera. Put some technology between reality and perception. Turn off the emotions. Switch to auto-pilot. Concentrate on the particulars of aperture, lighting, and composition.
Thump.
She froze, camera halfway to her shoulder.
Grace shot her a wide-eyed look of surprise.
The sound came from the back somewhere, one of the rooms down the hallway.
Brenna cursed herself. She hadn’t checked the full apartment—they could be ambushed. Fool.
She pointed down the central hallway beyond Roza.
Two sets of opposing doors faced each other.
The first set was about four feet away, the second about ten feet further on.
She took one side of the corridor wall. Grace took the other.
Simultaneously easing up to the doorways, they checked their respective rooms.
Kitchen. Bathroom. They crept toward the back. Grace cut left, Brenna went right.
Roza’s bedroom had a twin bed against the far wall, a dresser by the door, with a comb and hairbrush atop it, and a burgundy armchair. Very neat.
“Bren.” Grace’s chilled voice reached across the hallway.
She darted across the corridor. Grace stood frozen just beyond the doorway, her back to the hallway. Over her shoulder, Brenna glimpsed baby cribs.
They’d found the nursery.
Brenna slid her palm across the surface of the door and pressed gently.
It swung further open, deathly quiet, and stopped with a soft thunk against some obstruction behind it.
The room was robin’s egg blue. Four filthy, paint-chipped steel cribs were parked along the walls, each with one or two swaddled bundles—babies—lying motionless and silent behind bars.
A lump as hard as an apple lodged in her throat.
“Are they—“ Grace whispered.
Thump.
Behind the door!
Brenna and Grace whirled in unison. A naked tot stood in the crib, fists clutching the rails, gazing at them with dull eyes. His hair was rough as a mongrel’s, and his stick-thin legs were stained with rivulets of dried urine. The bed sheet sponged beneath his feet, oozing feces between his toes.
“Oh, dear lord,” Grace said.
Brenna lifted the camera. There was decent natural light. She would record this nursery exactly as she found it. These are the consequences, she wanted viewers to know. The fucking consequences when humans behave their worst.
The boy turned his back, braced his hands on the corner rails, ducked his head—and smashed it against the wall.
Thump.
“Omigosh!” Grace dove for the crib.
The little head drew back again, aiming for the dirty dent in the plaster.
Grace yanked the crib away from the wall.
The boy lost his balance and fell on his butt on the disgusting mattress.
He twisted, glaring out beneath the brown bruise on his forehead as she leaned over the crib.
“Hey, little guy. What’re you doing to your forehead?”
With exquisitely gentle fingers, she brushed the boy’s forelock aside, trying to see.
The boy flew into a red-faced rage, screaming, flailing rabidly.
Jumping back in shock, Grace cast Brenna a bewildered look.
She shrugged. Who knew how this child got here, or what trauma he had experienced? All she knew was what she saw, a feral tot.
Easing forward again, speaking with a steady calmness that Brenna found remarkable under the circumstances, Grace said: “My name’s Grace. What’s yours—Mr. Fierce?”
Apparently, it was. The tot stood up again, gripped the railings and viciously rocked his little body. The crib crept toward the wall.
Grace closed her fist around a bar, and halted it—earning herself an irate glare.
Mr. Fierce lurched suddenly, aiming at the headboard.
“Stop!” Grace caught his forehead in a cupped palm before it struck.
The child raved, growling, and bit Grace.
“Oww!” Grace yanked her hand away, banging her elbow on the corner of the crib.
The tot howled louder, his distress as palpable as the fetid air. But what to do? If she left the boy alone, he would continue head-banging. If she restrained him, the child would become progressively more deranged.
Grace looked at Brenna. “Ideas?”
A feeble cry erupted from a corner crib—a rusty counterpoint to the raging toddler. Mr. Fierce looked across the room and silenced abruptly, as if all he needed was the familiar reassurance of that tiny voice.
“There’s two of them!” Grace said, her face alight.
Alive, she meant.
She released Mr. Fierce slowly, hoping the tot would remain calm. By some miracle, he did.
Brenna panned the camera, following Grace toward the squeaky little cry repeating itself in the corner crib.
A smidgen of a girl wearing only a cotton top was propped on her side against a rolled-up towel.
Her hip was stuck to the sheet with dried excrement.
At least, Brenna thought, it wasn’t diarrhea.
That depleted the babies in no time, and was a main cause of death among very young children in Kav?ak.
Grace ran a finger gently down the baby’s bare calf.
She mewled like a kitten eager for her overdue mother.
“You’re not going to bite me are you, Squeak? Mr. Fierce over there took me by surprise.” She worked quickly, prying gently at the mucky towel. “You put him in his place, though, didn’t you? I’m going to need your advice when I get back to that little ruffian.”
Through the viewfinder, Brenna watched in fascination, mesmerized by her tenderness. This footage would provide brilliant contrast to all her other images. Here was kindness, from which good came.
Lifting Squeak out of the crib, Grace carefully supported her head. Not caring about the filth, she cradled her, gazed into her face, and cooed foolishness. Anyone would think she was a princess.
Squeak looked finished—not translucent like a preemie—but she couldn’t have weighed more than five or six pounds.
Her face was gaunt, her thatch of dark hair patchy and dry, her skin baggy.
She turned her head sideways and rooted in the folds of Grace’s jacket.
“Oh, Bren,” she said, voice thick with emotion. “She’s starving.”
Brenna pulled her face away from the viewfinder. “I brought formula. It’s in the backpack with the diapers and stuff,” she said.
“A house gift??” Grace chuckled. “You do have manners.”
“Let’s see how many more we’re feeding,” she said, putting her face to the eyepiece again.
The next crib held two black-haired boys who were so emaciated it made their heads look abnormally large.
Still holding Squeak against her shoulder, Grace rubbed the boys’ backs to stimulate them.
“They look like Heckle and Jeckle,” she said, smiling with delight at finding more responsive children. “Four for dinner, so far.”
At the next crib, a little girl was burrowed so deeply in muck she looked like a badly-frosted chocolate cake. “Hey, Grub.” Grace rocked her with one hand on her back. Her dark eyes popped open, she contorted her face, and gave a raspy cry.
“You hungry, too, Grub? Don’t you worry. Auntie Bren brought lunch.”
Auntie Bren?
Even as Brenna crouched to record the tot in the final crib, she knew the news was bad. He was skeletal, lying on his side, eyes crusted shut, hands and feet a dusky blue. His body was shutting down.
Grace rubbed the baby’s back with increasing briskness. The boy did not stir. “Hey, Quiet Boy.”
Dying Boy, more like. She doubted he’d survive the day. Already, his respirations were irregular.
Grace cupped her hand around the baby’s head and stroked his patchy hair with her thumb.
She let the recorder run, then zoomed in slowly on Grace’s face, then down to her hand on the baby’s head. After a few seconds, she turned the camera off and set it on the floor. “I’ll get the formula.” She grabbed the backpack on her way to the kitchen.
The kitchen was small, its plank counters scorched from years of wear.
A wash basin was turned upside down in the dish drainer, beside two aluminum pots and three baby bottles illustrated with cartoon-characters.
Two small tins of solid fuel sat atop the stove beside a box of wooden matches and two bricks.
She plunked the backpack on the counter, unbuckled it, and dug through the baby supplies.
She took out five pre-prepared bottles of baby formula and a jar of pear puree for Mr. Fierce.
The bottles were chilly. With a clatter, she extricated a medium saucepan from the dishes in the drainer, and looked around for water.
If there wasn’t a jug here, she’d retrieve the one from the staircase.
She spied a white plastic container beside the fridge. It was almost empty.
She twisted off the cap, poured an inch of water into the pot and perched it atop the two bricks on the stove. With the scratch of a wooden match, she lit a tin of solid fuel and eased it under the pan. One by one, she set the baby bottles into the water. Five bottles for six babies.
Tiny bubbles simmered around the bottles.
She gingerly plucked out a bottle and swirled the tan-colored formula around to distribute the heat.
Setting it back into the pot, she picked up the next bottle and did the same, wondering which of the children they should feed first.
The strongest, she supposed. That was the rule of triage.
Rescue the patient with the greatest chance of survival.
Survival?? Pshh! Malnutrition, exposure, tainted water, diarrhea, lack of sanitation and medical care. Never mind snipers and shelling, the children were as good as dead already. Kav?ak knew no mercy.
And Grace, dear woman, had gone ahead and named them all.