blue. The instant she saw Sarah’s horror, she tried to close the door again, frantic to hide herself, but Sarah threw up her arm and pushed her way inside.
“Agnes, what happened?” Sarah demanded, closing the door behind her now that she was safely inside. No use airing Agnes’s problems for the entire building to hear.
“Nothing, nothing,” Agnes insisted frantically, holding up her hands to shield her face backing away from Sarah as if afraid she might strike her, too. “I am very clumsy. I fall down the stairs and-”
“You didn’t get those bruises from falling down the stairs,” Sarah said. “Someone hit you. Was it your husband?”
“No, no one hits me!” she insisted even more frantically, then clutched at her side and nearly doubled over from the pain.
Sarah rushed over and helped her to one of the kitchen chairs. “Is it your ribs? Show me where it hurts,” she asked as she seated Agnes.
Agnes might have denied the pain if she’d been able to get her breath, but Sarah had no more patience with such denials. Gently moving Agnes’s hand away, she felt along her midriff until she located the source of the pain.
“I think you may have a cracked rib. I don’t think it’s broken, because if it was, you wouldn’t be able to move around the way you were. I can bind it for you so it won’t hurt so much, though.”
“No!” Agnes gasped. “He will know you came here.”
“You can tell him you bound it yourself, because it was hurting so much,” Sarah suggested.
But Agnes shook her head. “He will know!”
Sarah signed in frustration. “Where else are you hurt?”
But Agnes only shook her head again. She didn’t want Sarah’s help. She was too afraid of what it would cost her.
“Agnes, let me at least make sure you aren’t more seriously hurt. If you die, who will take care of your children?” Sarah tried.
Sarah would have thought the other woman couldn’t be more terrified, but she would have been mistaken. Every last vestige of color drained from Agnes’s face, leaving the bruises standing out in stark relief. “My children,” she whispered.
“You must think of them. Where are they now?” Sarah asked, almost afraid to find out.
Agnes pointed an unsteady finger at the bedroom door. Sarah hurried over and opened it. She found the two older children huddled on the bed, staring at her with wide, terrified eyes. The baby was lying in a cradle in the comer. Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t making a sound. She wore only a diaper, and her little body was covered with a rash. Sarah hoped it was only prickly heat. The room was like an oven, without a breath of air, but the children didn’t seem to be sweating. Most likely they were dehydrated, even the baby. How long had they been cooped up like this? Sarah didn’t even want to think about that.
The next hour passed in a blur as Sarah got the children to drink large amounts of water and bathed them to help them cool off and dusted them with cornstarch and examined Agnes to make sure she had no more serious injuries than the ones she already knew about.
When she was satisfied that everyone was physically as comfortable as possible, she turned her attention to the rest of it.
“Agnes, you can’t go on like this. You’re going to have to do something to protect yourself and your children.”
“I do,” Agnes insisted. “I work very hard. I try to have Lars’s supper on the table when he comes home, and I keep the children as quiet as I can, and I clean until my hands are raw. But I am not a good enough wife. Lars is so nervous. He must have peace and quiet in his home. I try, but I cannot do things the way he likes them. But I will try harder. I promise!”
“No, Agnes, I’m sure you already try as hard as you can. I’ve seen men like Lars before. No matter how hard you try to please him, you’ll never be able to. He’ll always find a reason to beat you. There’s nothing you can do to stop him.”
“Yes, there is!” she insisted. “I will be a better wife. That is what he says he wants. I will work harder and take better care of the children. Then he will be happy, and he will not have to hit me anymore.”
Sarah wanted to scream. She knew all the logical arguments, but rarely did they work on women like Agnes. Not only did their husbands injure their bodies, they also injured their minds, twisting them until they actually believed they deserved the beatings they received. This time, however, Sarah had an argument she’d never been able to use before.
“Agnes, do you want to end up like Gerda?”
Her eyes grew wide with renewed terror. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, do you want to end up beaten to death?”
Agnes reached out and grabbed Sarah’s arm, squeezing with surprising strength for one so frail. “What do you know? Tell me the truth? Do you know who killed my Gerda?”
Sarah couldn’t identify the emotions burning in Agnes’s bloodshot eyes, but they frightened her. “No, we haven’t found her killer yet,” she admitted reluctantly.
“But you told me… You promised! You said you would soon know!” Agnes reminded her brokenly.
Sarah swallowed down the lump that rose in her throat. “You know that other girls were killed the same way as Gerda, don’t you?” Agnes nodded. “Well, we found out who murdered them, but… but he didn’t kill Gerda. He couldn’t have. He was somewhere else that night. So we still don’t know who killed Gerda.”
Sarah watched Agnes’s eyes fill with tears that spilled over and ran down her battered cheeks, but still she didn’t release Sarah’s arm or her gaze. She wanted to tell Sarah something. Sarah was sure of it, although she couldn’t imagine what it might be. So she waited, willing Agnes to unburden herself as she prayed for the wisdom to know how to reach her.
After what seemed an eternity, Agnes said, “He did not hurt her.”
“I know,” Sarah assured her. “I told you, that man wasn’t the one who hurt Gerda.”
Agnes shook her head. “No, not that. Lars. Lars did not hurt Gerda.”
Once again every nerve in Sarah’s body leaped to attention, but she willed herself to calmness. “What do you mean?”
“Gerda was a wicked girl,” Agnes said, almost as if she were trying to convince herself. “She stayed out late and went with strange men. She was always flaunting herself in front of Lars. She made him so angry, but he did not hurt her!”
“No, of course, he didn’t,” Sarah said, her mind racing with possibilities. “Why would anyone think he did?”
She swallowed, as if trying to get some moisture in her mouth. “He… he was so angry because she did not come home that night. He went out to look for her. We know where she goes because she tells us. He came home very late. He was very nervous. He said he did not find her, but… but his hands are… are… like my face.”
“Bruised?” Sarah guessed.
“Yes, bruised,” Agnes confirmed. “And cut. He is bleeding. I try to take care of him, but he will not let me. He said some men tried to rob him, and he had to fight them. That is how he got hurt.”
Sarah remembered noticing Lars’s hands when she saw him at Gerda’s funeral. She had thought he’d injured himself at work.
“But you didn’t believe him?” Sarah asked.
Agnes’s eyes widened with renewed terror. “Yes, I believe him! He would not hurt Gerda. He is not that kind of man.”
Sarah was looking at living proof that Lars Otto was exactly that kind of man, but she didn’t say so. “But you said Gerda made him very angry,” she reminded her gently.
“He told her she was disgracing us. He told her she would come to no good, but still she goes out every night. She would not listen to anyone. I knew something bad would happen to her, but she would not listen!”
“Agnes, is it possible that Lars did find her that night and-”
“No! He would not hurt her! But if the police know he was out that night, they might think he did! The police, sometimes they punish the wrong man. I know this is true. If a man is poor, they will put him in the jail even if he is not guilty. You must tell them Lars did not do it. Please, Mrs. Brandt, you must tell them! If they take Lars away to the jail, what will become of us? We will starve!”
