Death in Twilight by Jason Fields Read Free Book Online Page B

It was the kind of thing found in second-hand stores, sold or donated by parents whose children had grown.
    “Our youngest died last week of typhus. She no longer needs it,” the man told the prospective buyers, some of whom had a cynical look. It was impossible to know if the story was true or was meant to drive up the price through pity. It occurred to Aaron that the man may have stolen the dress and never had a child at all. No one in the ragged crowd was willing to part with even a groczy for the gown, so the seller moved on in search of a more biddable congregation.
    Aaron pushed his way past the beggars’ impromptu auctions, kept his chin tucked into the collar of his coat, his black hat tilted forward against the wind.
    Other, less pitiful, wares were also for sale on Gdansk Street, which had once been a promenade of shops and cafés where people went to display their wealth. Signs of that recent past poked through the shabbiness of Nazi occupation. Little flecks of gilt remained in the names carved above storefronts. Flickers of light occasionally escaped the clouds, causing the gold to glitter gaily. Those flecks were stubborn. No one had yet been able to peel them and sell them for a bowl of soup or a thin piece of cheese.
    A very few men and women who could be glimpsed inside café windows, something warm or warming to drink in their hands and, occasionally, laughter could be seen if not heard. The ghetto was not yet entirely a world of have-nots, though the divide had never been so sharp. Just a few doors down from a certain Café Bourdain was a bakery that had been turned into a soup kitchen. The line was long, the people pinched, their eyes either empty or filled with avarice for the steam they could see rising from the huge pots inside.
    Many of the men and women, some with children clutched tightly by the hand, would be sickened by what they ate. Common ingredients included the dregs and spoiled leftovers of better meals enjoyed by others.
    Those afflicted would quickly give back whatever nutrients they’d been able to take in. The truly unlucky would end up in a doctor’s care, or worse, in a hospital like Breslaw.
    Aaron had been lucky, so far, and stayed healthy. But he’d seen inside, either visiting people he knew or selling supplies. It was a desperate situation.
    Since the entry points to the Jewish quarter had been cauterized from the body of Miasto and its inherently superior inhabitants, medical care had deteriorated to a nearly medieval level, though even leeches were inaccessible to the doctors. There was no flowing water to fetch them from.
    Medical centers were set up in former storefronts, and doctors’ surgeries were converted to small hospitals by the Judenrat for the common good. There was no lack of doctors or nurses; though nearly everything else, from medicine to bandages, was in short supply.
    Before the war, Breslaw Hospital for Mental Defects and Diseases — where Aaron was headed — had functioned as an asylum for all of Miasto. Polish sufferers of retardation and schizophrenia resided cheek by jowl with Jews with similar diagnoses. The Poles interned had not been separated out when the Germans came because they were no more welcome in the New Order than Jews were. Similar patients who had been housed at other facilities were consolidated into Breslaw, if they hadn’t simply been shot.
    Now, a wretched place that had always been crowded was reduced to a mass of stinks and screams. With no soothing medications, little food and no hope of ever being rid of lice or dysentery, it was hard to know who had less hope, the inmates or their watchers.
    Added to Breslaw’s burdens was the need to care for the physically ill. There had always been a small emergency clinic for residents of the area. Now many people had nowhere else to go and Breslaw refused to turn anyone away.
    As Aaron turned the corner past what had once been another bakery and onto Breslaw Street, named for the