The Choice

Marianne has fallen back into a ĕtful sleep. I must keep her
hydrated, but she won’t accept water or milk. “Get me the cash,” I say,
“and tell me where to go.”
Black market dealers run business alongside the legal sellers at the
market in the center of town. Béla will be recognized, but I can
preserve my anonymity. I am to visit the butcher and say a coded
message, and then go to the baker and say another code, and then
someone will seek me out. e dealer intercepts me near the Ęower
vendor.
“Penicillin,” I say. “Enough for a sick child.”
He laughs at the impossibility of my request. “ere’s no penicillin
here,” he says. “I’ll have to Ęy to London. I can leave today. Return
tomorrow. It’ll cost.” e price he names is twice the amount Béla has
wrapped in newspaper and put in my purse.
I don’t waver. I say what I will pay him. I say the exact amount I
carry. “It must be done. If you don’t go, I’ll ĕnd someone else.” I think
of the guard the day we le Auschwitz, my cartwheel, his wink. I have
to speak to the part of this man that will cooperate with me. “You see
this bracelet?” I pull up my sleeve to reveal the gold bracelet that I
have worn every day since Marianne’s birth.
He nods. Maybe he imagines how it will look on his wife or
girlfriend’s wrist. Maybe he is mentally calculating the price he can get
for it.
“My husband gave this to me when our daughter was born. Now I
am giving you the opportunity to save our daughter’s life.”
I see his eyes Ęicker with something bigger than greed. “Give me
the money,” he says. “Keep the bracelet.”
e doctor comes again the next night to help administer the ĕrst
dose of penicillin. He stays until Marianne’s fever breaks and she
accepts my breast.
“I knew you’d find a way,” he says.