entered her room she would worry about how she looked; if only he would knock and give her a chance to apply her coral lipstick and her Rouge Fin de Theatre, which was sitting on the table in its red tin the size of a cookie just beyond her reach. She must be quite a sight, she’d think as the professor, so handsome in his crisp lab coat, scanned down the paperwork on his clipboard.
“Tomorrow we should try to get you to walk,” the professor would say.
“Well, if I’m not ready tomorrow, then I’ll surely be ready the day after,” Lili would say. “Most likely the day after tomorrow I’ll be up to it.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“You’ve already done so much,” Lili would say.
Professor Bolk would turn to leave, but then Lili would force herself to ask what she most wanted to know: “Henrik is waiting for me in New York. Do you think I’ll make it to New York by September?”
“Without a doubt.”
The professor’s voice, when he reassured her this way, was like a hand on her shoulder. She would then nod off to sleep, dreaming of nothing in particular but knowing, vaguely, that all would work out.
Sometimes she’d hear the professor and Carlisle talking outside her door. “What can you tell me?” Carlisle would say.
“Not much. She seems pretty much the same today. I’m trying to get her more and more stable.”
“Is there anything we should be doing for her?”
“Just let her sleep. She needs her rest.”
Lili would turn on her side and nod off, wanting more than anything to obey the professor’s orders. If she knew anything at all, she knew he was always right.
One day a voice in the hall woke her up. It was familiar, a woman’s voice from long ago, coppery and large. “What’s he doing for her?” Lili heard Anna ask. “Hasn’t he got any other ideas?”
“Only in the last couple of days did he begin to worry,” Carlisle said. “Only yesterday did he admit that the infection should have cleared up by now.”
“What can we do?”
“I’ve been asking that myself. Bolk says there’s nothing to do.”
“Is she taking anything?”
Then in the hall there was a crash of two carts, and Lili couldn’t hear the voices, just Frau Krebs telling a nurse to be more careful.
“The transplant isn’t working,” Carlisle said. “He’s going to have to remove the uterus.” And then, “How long are you here for?”
“A week. I have two Carmens at the Opernhaus.”
“Yes, I know. Before the operation, Lili and I were out and she saw the poster. She knew you would be coming at the end of the summer. She’s had that to look forward to.”
“And her marriage.”
“You heard from Greta?” Carlisle said.
“She wrote me. She’s probably in Pasadena by now. Settled. You know about her and Hans?”
“I was supposed to be returning now myself,” Carlisle said.
Lili couldn’t hear what Anna said next. She wondered why Anna hadn’t come into the room yet. She could picture Anna bursting through the door and throwing back the yellow curtain. She’d be wearing a green silk tunic beaded in the collar, a matching turban swirling up from her head. Her lips would be as bright as blood, and Lili could imagine the mark they’d leave on her cheek. Lili thought about calling out, “Anna!” Crying, “Anna, are you going to come in and say hello?” But Lili’s throat was dry, and she felt incapable of prying her mouth open to say anything at all. It was all she could do to turn her head to look to the door.
“Is it grave?” Anna said in the hall.
“I’m afraid Bolk hasn’t really let on about what’s likely to come next.” Then they said nothing, and Lili was left to lie in her bed, motionless, except for the slow dull thump of her heart. Where had Carlisle and Anna gone?
“Is she sleeping now?” Anna finally said.
“Yes. She’s in between morphia shots in the early afternoons. Can you come by tomorrow after lunch?” Carlisle said. “But poke your head in now and have a look. So I can tell her you’ve been here.”
Lili heard the door crack open. She could feel another person enter the room-that subtle reshifting of air, the nearly imperceptible change in temperature. Anna’s perfume drifted to Lili’s bed. She recognized it from the counter at Fonnesbech’s. It came in a short little bottle with a gold-mesh tassel, but Lili couldn’t think of the name. Eau- de-Provence, or something like that. Or was it La Fille du Provence? She didn’t know, and she couldn’t open her eyes to greet Anna. She couldn’t speak, and she couldn’t see anything, and she couldn’t raise her hand to wave hello. And Lili then knew that Carlisle and Anna were standing at the side of her bed and there was nothing she could do to tell them that she knew they were there.
The next day, after lunch, Carlisle and Anna bundled Lili into her wicker wheelchair. “It’s too beautiful not to be outside,” he was saying as he tucked the blanket around her. Anna wrapped Lili’s head in a long magenta scarf, building a turban on her head that matched her own. Then they pushed Lili into the clinic’s back-park, settling her against a gooseberry shrub. “Do you like the sun, Lili?” Anna asked. “Do you like it out here?”
Other girls were on the lawn. It was Sunday, and some had visitors who brought them magazines and boxes of chocolate. There was a woman in a pleated polka-dot dress who gave a girl chocolates wrapped in the gold foil from the shop on Unter den Linden.
Lili could see Frau Krebs in the
“Should we go for a walk?” Carlisle said, releasing the hand brake and pushing Lili across the rocky grass. There were rabbit holes in which the wheels bounced, and although the rocking rattled her with pain, Lili couldn’t help thinking how glad she was to be outside the clinic with Carlisle and Anna. “Are we going down to the Elbe?” Lili asked when she saw that Carlisle was steering her away from the dirt path that led to the river.
“We’ll get there,” Anna said, and they pushed Lili through a curtain of willows. They were moving fast, and Lili held the chair’s arms as it hit tree roots and rocks. “I thought I’d take you out for a bit,” Carlisle said.
“But I’m not allowed,” Lili said. “It’s against the rules. What would Frau Krebs say?”
“No one will know,” Anna said. “Besides, you’re a grown woman. Why shouldn’t you leave if you want to?” Soon they were beyond the clinic’s gate and out into the street. Carlisle and Anna pushed her through the neighborhood, past the villas set back behind brick walls spiked with iron cupolas. The sun was warm but a breeze was running up the street, revealing the underside of the elm leaves. In the distance Lili heard the bell of a tram.
“Do you think they’ll miss me?” she said.
“So what if they do,” and Carlisle-the way his face was tight with focus, the way he swatted his hand through the air-again reminded Lili of Greta. It was almost as if Lili could hear the tinkle of silver jewelry. She had a memory-as if it were a story once told to her-of Greta sneaking down Kronprinsessegade with Einar in tow. Lili could remember the heat of Greta’s hand in her own, the brush of a silver bangle against her fingers.
Soon Lili and Carlisle and Anna were crossing the Augustusbrucke. In front of Lili lay all of Dresden: the Opernhaus, the Catholic Hof kirche, the Italian-styled Academy of Art, and the seemingly floating dome of the Frauenkirche. They came to Schlossplatz and the foot of the Bruhlsche Terrace. A man with a cart was selling bratwurst in a bun and pouring glasses of apple wine. Business was good for him, a line of eight or ten people waiting, their faces pinking in the sun. “Doesn’t that smell good, Lili?” Carlisle said, as he pushed her to the stairs.
Forty-one steps led to the terrace, where Sunday strollers were out, leaning against the rail. The steps were adorned by the Schilling bronzes of Morning, Noon, Evening, and Night. There was a fine grit on the steps, and from the base Lili watched the long yellow skirt of a woman and the disc of her straw hat climb the stairs, her arm looped through a man’s. “But how will we get up?” Lili asked.
“Not to worry,” Carlisle said, turning her chair around. He gave it a pull up the first step.
“But your leg,” Lili said.
“I’ll be all right,” Carlisle said.
“And what about your back?”
