“And you should. But is all this…” Jana pointed to Magda’s bag. “Is it really worth risking for one family?”
“They aren’t just one family,” Magda snapped. “They’re my family.”
Jana looked repentant. “He’s still after you, you know. He hasn’t stopped looking for you, and he hasn’t stopped looking for the midwife.”
“Do you know anything? Any word?”
Jana shook her head warily. “Why are you still in the district? Why haven’t Aleš and Renata gotten you out?”
“How? With this?” Magda put her hand on her left cheek.
“You could get rid of it. You can make it worse. What happened to you, son?” Jana reached out to touch the right side of Magda’s face.
“A wound.”
“Huh,” Jana breathed. She gazed at Magda’s other side. “As if you didn’t have enough wounds already. A burn. A rather terrible face burn. That might set you free, don’t you think?”
The touch on Magda’s shoulder made her leap.
“It’s just me.” Karol smiled and brushed some hair out of his face.
“Sorry.” She waved a hand over the items on the ground before her. “I’m just looking at all this.”
“I like the idea.” Karol looked over his shoulder.
Renata leaned against the wall, arms folded, whispering with Aleš. Magda looked at them too. Renata and Aleš were fighting a war, yet still there was an energy between them that was always intimate, almost sexual, but not at the moment. Right now Magda was reminded of how they had been on the beach that summer. Something terrible was happening again.
Magda looked away.
Karol pointed at the box that Jana had given her. “Can I have a look? It’s a fantastic resource to have.”
She indicated for him to sit. “I had no idea that Jana knew so much. But she was around long before me, and she had a lot more contact to Anna Dvorákova.”
Karol nodded and lifted a packet. “Gelatin. Interesting.”
Renata strode over and squatted next to Magda. She lifted the silk strips, the glue, and the rouge. “This could work. Aleš says it’s not important about getting it perfect but to just make it real enough if they take a quick look at your face.”
Magda imagined Jana at the party she’d told Magda about. The Dvoráks had brought along a makeup artist. That evening the Taubers made a bet with the Dvoráks about illusions and stage makeup, and they had asked Jana to come into the drawing room. Would she volunteer to have her face done? Jana said yes. Jana asked questions, as was her nature. The result was a grotesque face burn.
“Jana said something similar,” Magda said. “People will see what they want to see. And with something hideous, they look away. Anyway, Jana remembered the basics. Frau Koenig’s makeup is the only problem. If she discovers it’s missing, there will be questions.”
Renata nodded. “It’s interesting, either way.”
Was that all? Interesting?
Aleš called Karol over. It was their turn to go on patrol.
Magda watched them depart, then leaned back on her hands. “First things first. How are we going to get the medicines into Theresienstadt?”
Renata sat down and crossed her legs, her expression grave. “There’s been a change in plans.”
“What? Why?”
Renata licked her lips. “Listen, we’re nobodies here. We can’t get ourselves organized enough to actually do anything. We’re in a hotspot, you know that. Aleš’s brother has been brought in for questioning.”
Aleš brother was now a priest. “Is Father Gabriel, all right?”
Renata shook her head. “He was released, but they were asking him about Eva.”
Magda’s eyes widened. “And me?”
Renata closed her eyes briefly. “Yes. Look, there’s something else. Aleš has received word through the network that the resistance has organized itself into something more official. It’s called the R3, and we’re trying to join forces with them.”
“What about the Taubers?”
Renata took in a breath. “There is nothing we can do for them except to fight the Germans and liberate them when the time comes. Right now everything we try is going to be too great of a risk. Magda, listen, we need you. We need every person we can get.”
Magda began to throw the items back into the box. “I went there to get the medicines—”
“Medicines that we very well might need ourselves.”
Magda jerked her hand away from the box. She sprang up. “Is that what you sent me in there for? To get these for you? Not for the Taubers?”
“No, Magda. We wanted to help, but orders are—”
“Orders? Whose orders? We’re alone here!”
Jakob and Yanko appeared in the bunker. “Are we interrupting?”
Ignoring them, Renata rose and grabbed Magda by the shoulders. “Listen to me. What good are you if you are dead? Huh, Magda? What good?”
Magda wrenched herself away. “You’re killing me already, Renata.”
12
December 1942
With the cold winter, Aleš cut the length of the patrols and had more frequent rotations, which meant that Magda’s sleep was more interrupted than ever. After a week, her body automatically awoke after four hours.
One night, she could barely sleep. The air was thick in the bunker. Not even leaving the trapdoor ajar helped to circulate it. She often wondered whether—should they all fall asleep and not be awoken for a shift—they would just die down here for lack of oxygen.
Magda climbed up the ladder and welcomed the blast of cold air. It was so icy it seemed to freeze her nostrils closed. She blew into her wrapped hands. Renata had finally managed to scrounge up a pair of boots for her. She wrapped the shawl tightly around her face, not to cover herself but to protect herself against the cold. She thought of the nun’s habit that Father Gabriel had managed to get her. The coif and wimple would serve to hide her mark. Father Gabriel spent several hours with her, reviewing a nun’s behavior, how she would react to authority, and so on. Magda had felt utterly comfortable with the entire operation and the idea of the disguise. And if she really did have to go outside and into public, they could always create the
