“Over there.” He motioned with his arm, then glanced back over his shoulder. “You see it?”
She stopped and tried to spot what he was looking at. There was a gap in the trees, but all she could make out was a tangle of bushes. She took a few steps forward.
“There is the gate,” he said.
She followed where his finger pointed. Suddenly her brain made sense of the pattern of shadows. She saw the gate, green with moss, hanging askew from one hinge. The low walls on either side of it had been engulfed by brambles.
“Come.” Stefan led her through the rotting gate. She saw that among the waist-high thorns there were wild roses, creamy white and pale pink, tumbling over the wall. More of them grew around the door to the stone cottage. It reminded her of the place where she and Kitty had stopped to ask directions when they’d gotten lost on the way to the camp. But this house was no longer a home: the windows had fallen out, and the corner of one wall had crumbled away. A pile of stones lay beneath the scarred facade.
Stefan nudged the front door with his foot. It creaked open, letting out a smell of damp and decay. She followed him in. To her surprise, the interior was pierced with shafts of sunlight. The ceiling had caved in, leaving a clear view of the roof. The light was coming in through the gaps where tiles had come away.
“You see?” He shaded his eyes as he looked up. “Same as the roof of the stable.”
“But how would we get them back?”
“The road is there.” He swept a hand toward the back of the house. “It would be easy. We have the car. I can bring men with a ladder.”
She nodded. It was the perfect solution—and one she could never have achieved without his help. “Thank you, Stefan.” She stepped sideways, in the direction of the door. But her shoe caught on a nail sticking out of one of the fallen ceiling beams. With a cry of alarm, she lost her balance. Suddenly his arm was under her, catching her before she hit the ground. For an instant she was unable to move. He was cradling her in the crook of his elbow. She could smell the earthy scent of his skin through his shirt. She felt him exhale as he raised her up.
“I . . . I’m so sorry.” She bent down, brushing dust off her leg. The nail had laddered her stocking. She glanced up, embarrassed at her clumsiness.
“Last time I came here, a bird’s nest fell on my head.” He gave a wry smile. “I looked like a crazy man.” The warmth in his eyes set something off inside her. It felt as though their bodies were still touching. The sensation frightened her. It reminded her of the way Arnie used to look at her, what seemed like a hundred years ago.
“We’d better be getting back.” She turned away from him, stepping carefully across the floor and through the door. “You go ahead of me,” she said, as he came out behind her. “I don’t think I’ll remember the way.”
He said nothing as he made for the gate. She waited until there was a safe distance between them before following. Safe? Was it him she didn’t trust—or herself?
Delphine had to get out of the ward. She didn’t want Dr. Jankaukas nor Wolf nor Father Josef nor anyone else in the hospital seeing her crying. She managed to hold it inside long enough to tell the doctor that the patient with the head injury was comfortable now. Then she made an excuse about needing to check on the stock of milk in the warehouse.
As soon as she got outside, the tears came flooding out. She jabbed at her face with her handkerchief, muttering to herself as she walked up the path that skirted the forest. It had taken just one word to make her crumble: How could she have allowed it to affect her like that? She, who had nursed hundreds of patients over the years and had held the hands of dozens of men who had cried out for their mothers. What was different about this man? How had she lost control so utterly and completely?
The answer came in the faces that hovered, never far away, in her mind’s eye. Claude. Philippe. They were with her in everything she said and did. Washing a patient too ill to wash himself, she would think, This is for you, Philippe; stitching up a wound she would whisper, “This is what you would have done, Claude.” She had believed that they would protect her, would be her armor and her shield in the battleground of emotions she must face each day at the hospital. But she should have realized how illusory that protection was.
Mama. It could have been Philippe’s voice. Calling for her when his life was taken. And she hadn’t been there. That would haunt her forever.
She stopped walking, stood for a moment, took in a lungful of air. She had to get hold of herself, put on a smiling face and get back inside. As she stood there, eyes shut tight to dam up the tears, she heard the crunch of footsteps. Opening her eyes, she saw two figures coming through the trees. Stefan Dombrowski and Martha following behind him. Ordinarily, she would have called out to her, waved a greeting. But she didn’t want either of them to see her like this.