A Bend in the Stars Read online

  “I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t certain. You’ll save him. Tomorrow. On your own.” Yuri smiled. He rarely showed emotion. To gain a patient’s trust, he taught, a doctor must appear impartial, neutral to all news. But when he broke his rule for her, she loved it. She thought he looked lighter, younger. “I’ll be there, if you need me. But you will operate on your own.”

  “How did you convince them?”

  “Dr. Rozen, can’t you hear me?” Babushka called. From the front door, there was a clear view of her on her perch, half teasing, half scolding. How many times had she addressed Yuri? “Dr. Rozen, I asked if you’d care to greet the other women in the house?”

  Yuri turned to face her. “Yes. My apologies.” He removed his coat and hat and started toward her. Baba’s clients made room for him to pass. A few tucked their heads together, likely to gossip about Yuri, or Miri, or both. Their engagement was recent and still had most of them reeling. When Yuri first arrived in Kovno, many of the women had tried to steer him toward their own daughters. He was handsome, respected, and well-off, a bachelor with enviable manners. You want a nice girl, they’d said, a quiet girl to make you a home.

  What he wanted was Miri.

  Yuri was the only surgeon in Kovno willing to train a woman to reach his rank. The only one brave enough to stand against those who tried to shame him for it. In time, he and Miri had become so close they were rarely seen apart. Still, the women staring now had never gotten past their surprise when the doctors paired themselves. Everyone had assumed no man would have Miri, a headstrong girl, they’d said, who had the gall to think she could work alongside men. But Babushka knew. The day Miri accepted Yuri, a weight came off her and she whispered to Miri that it was bashert, meant to be. And she was quick to dispel rumors that she’d had anything to do with the match because, she knew, Miri didn’t want her to interfere—never had, not there.

  By appearances, Miri and Yuri were a natural couple. They were both educated and accomplished, devoted to their patients. She was darker and flushed where he was pale, but there was no doubt they fit well together. Yuri was a gentleman. He was faithful and kind. There was a softness to him, a layer he kept hidden, one that Miri adored. In private, Vanya insisted to Miri it wasn’t a softness, it was something broken, but Miri expected nothing less from Vanya. He was her big brother. He had always been overprotective, and he worried too much because he loved her. He didn’t know Yuri, not like Miri did.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Abramov,” Yuri said. He leaned in to kiss Babushka once, twice, three times before they spoke. Miri couldn’t hear what passed between them and so she watched. At a glance, Yuri looked more Russian than Jewish. He was impeccably dressed and sturdy where so many were tattered and gaunt. He had blond hair that had begun to lose its color and blue eyes that other women admired for their appearance but that Miri treasured because they never missed a detail. Even when patients swore they’d described every ailment, Yuri saw more. Just that week he’d treated a rash that might have been confused with smallpox, but Yuri knew it to be varicella. And while women sometimes remarked that his face was attractive save for his ears, Miri thought those ears that stuck out too far were perfect because they detected the slightest rattle in a child’s chest when early diagnosis was the only hope for a cure.

  When Yuri made his way back to Miri, she pulled him into the shadows under the stairs, where they’d have privacy. “Tell me more about Sukovich, the fishmonger. What happened after I left?”

  “I’ve told you what matters.”

  “You’re keeping something back. How did you persuade them?”

  “I brought your notes to the other surgeons, told them how you’d watched your patient decline throughout the day. It was your persistence that made them reexamine him. Now they agree with your diagnosis.” He paused. “Perhaps it was also the crime itself. The brutality. Does it matter?”

  It didn’t. All that mattered was saving Sukovich. “Let’s go back to the hospital. Prepare for the surgery. I can’t make a mistake. He’ll be even weaker tomorrow.”

  “No.” Yuri held her arms in his soft hands. “You’re ready, more than ready. Trust yourself.” He brushed a black curl from her face, tucked it behind her ear, and smiled. “Tell me.” His voice dropped lower. “Weddings. They’re in every nook of this house. But never ours. Will you marry me now that you’re a surgeon?”

  “You can’t ask me that now, Yuri.” She looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching them. “I have my first surgery tomorrow. And—and think of all the women we lose in childbirth.”

  “I love you, Mirele. I’ll take care of you. See you through it.”

  “What about my training? I have more to learn. And I have to take care of Vanya and Baba.”

  He pulled her to him. “I’ll take care of them. You can continue at the hospital after we’re married. You know that.”

  “Can’t these intimate moments wait until the wedding?” Vanya said. Miri hadn’t heard him coming. He slid between them so Yuri had to step back. Silhouetted in light spilling from the kitchen down the hall, Vanya’s thin frame looked feeble compared to Yuri’s, his clothing threadbare in contrast to the doctor’s tailored suit. In better light, it would have been even more clear that they were opposites. Vanya was green eyes and wild black curls, while Yuri was bleached and straight. Vanya put a possessive arm around his sister’s shoulders. In his other hand he held a plate with cheese and bread—his dinner. Miri knew he’d go back to his room and eat there while he worked on equations for relativity until he fell asleep at his desk.

  Yuri, always nervous around Miri’s brother, fumbled and then held out his hand to shake Vanya’s. “Good evening, Ivan Davydovich.”

  “Relax.” Vanya raised his eyebrows and offered a smile without any warmth. “You think I don’t know you’ve kissed your fiancée?”

  “Be nice,” Miri said. She nudged Vanya. “Yuri, he’s only teasing you.”

  “Of course. You do have a lighter side, don’t you? What brings you to the house?”

  “Sukovich,” Miri said. “He’s my patient. You heard about the beating?”

  Vanya pressed his lips together and nodded. “Our fishmonger. It’s been getting worse since Beilis.” Mendel Beilis was a Jew living in Kiev. When a local teenage boy was found stabbed fourteen times, a lamplighter swore he’d seen Beilis kidnap the boy. Beilis was jailed for blood libel regardless of the fact that a half dozen Jewish witnesses saw him at work when the murder occurred. The lamplighter was a police pawn, a petty thief, beaten into making his statement, and because he wasn’t a Jew his words held weight. It took two years for that truth to come out—two years during which Beilis rotted in a cell and Russians freely attacked Jews on the street in the name of revenge. Once the lamplighter recanted, Beilis’s name was cleared but the shadow of the ordeal lingered. Newspapers reported on retributions still being extracted from Jews caught in the wrong place at the wrong time—Jews like Sukovich, whose only transgression had been catching more fish that morning than his non-Jewish competitors. “I read Russians are blaming us for the war, too,” Vanya said. “There isn’t even a war yet. But they’re blaming us.”

  “There will be war,” Miri said. “Since the archduke’s assassination, it’s inevitable.”

  “In any case,” Yuri said. He cleared his throat. “Miri treated Sukovich. She diagnosed internal bleeding. She’ll remove his spleen in the morning. She’s being elevated to surgeon.”

  “At last!” Vanya kissed his sister and kissed her again.

  “Enough,” she said. “We’ll celebrate when Sukovich lives.”

  “No. I must congratulate you now. Can’t you see? It’s awful and wonderful. Awful for Sukovich. Wonderful for you. And for your other patients. Think of all the others you will save now,” he said, beaming. “So long overdue. Mirele, come, I’ll find vodka.”

  “Yuri will join us,” she said.

  Vanya paused only for a moment. “Of course, brother,” he said, an
d went to the kitchen.

  II

  Miri couldn’t sleep. She was too terrified the fishmonger wouldn’t make it through the night, too ashamed she hadn’t done more to convince the surgeons to operate sooner. And so she lay awake envisioning the surgery, thinking about poor Sukovich and his family. How would they eat if he died? The hate unleashed on him was reprehensible, made worse by the fact that no one intervened. What if it were Vanya or Yuri who had been beaten?

  Night ticked forward, and it occurred to Miri that the surgeons only agreed to the operation after the surgical theaters were closed. That meant if Sukovich pulled through to sunrise, he’d be so weak that no matter how perfectly she dissected and sutured, his chances would be minimal. Had they agreed because they knew she’d fail? No. No matter how much they might resent a woman in their ranks, no surgeon would put Miri’s demise above the life of a patient. Would they? She climbed out of bed, added a log to the fire, told herself all that mattered was that Sukovich had a chance and that she’d be able to save more lives going forward. But, after all the condescension she’d faced, after the indignities Yuri himself had suffered for taking her on, what could Yuri have said not only to convince them to listen to her, but to promote her?

  She’d met him when she was just seventeen. Yes, she was young, but she’d been pushed by Baba’s unusual belief that education brought opportunity even for girls. Since her first day of school, she’d thrown herself into her studies and outpaced everyone around her, like Vanya. She passed all the basic levels permitting females by the time she was thirteen. After that, instead of calling Miri home to marry, Babushka encouraged her to study to become a midwife. “I know you, child. Your heart isn’t full unless you are helping others, and a midwife helps more than most understand,” Baba had said. It was a violent, bloody business, and Miri wasn’t scared by any of the gore she saw. Rather, she excelled. Soon, Baba encouraged her to sit for university entrance exams, where Miri could earn a degree as a lower-level physician. Vanya helped press her case. Miri was accepted and, again, exceeded all expectations. And while nearly a dozen Russian women had earned medical degrees in France and Switzerland and then returned home to practice, Miri was the first to achieve her rank from within her own country. And once she started, she realized how much more she could do for patients as a surgeon. She’d spent every day since searching for someone to train her—someone like Yuri.

  “Have you ever met a female surgeon before?” Yuri asked when they met at her interview. They were standing in the door to his office. The space was small, crammed with a desk, two chairs, and filing cabinets, yet every book, paper, and pen seemed to have its place. His window looked out on the brick factory below, and the room smelled sharp and hot like a furnace. Men’s voices seeped through a cracked window. The foreman had them working at a furious pace.

  “No, I haven’t,” she admitted.

  “I’ve worked with one. In Zhytomyr, where I studied.” Did he hold Miri’s hand for too long or did she imagine that? “Please.” He bowed, asking her to come inside, gesturing toward the seat across from his desk. As she settled, Miri managed to knock over an inkwell somehow. It was large and heavy and had been perched on the edge of the desk closest to her. The black liquid splattered on her skirts and on the floor. At home, she would have hurried to stanch the mess, but there in Dr. Rozen’s office, on the most important day of her life, she froze. To her surprise, he also seemed stuck. Ink ran over the sloped floorboards and made it halfway to the window before either of them reacted.

  She was certain he’d hold it against her, that he’d stalled because he was about to dismiss her. Surgeons couldn’t blunder. “I’m so sorry,” she said, twisting her fingers in her lap, waiting for him to ask her to leave. Instead, Yuri came around the desk and reached for a broom in the corner. He started sweeping and quickly had a pile of dust he used to absorb the liquid. Soon she’d learn this grit was from the brick factory. Their kilns’ soot-filled smoke infected every crevice in the hospital, no matter how hard anyone tried to scrub it away. And Yuri, who valued privacy, rarely let anyone try. “I’ll see to the rest later,” he said, returning the broom.

  She’d prepared for anything but kindness like that, and her surprise at his reaction, combined with the fear that he might not accept her now, brought on anger and the tug of tears. But she couldn’t let herself cry, not there. How many times had she been told emotions were what held her sex back? “Confront what scares you,” Baba always said, and so Miri took a deep breath and asked, “Should I go?”

  “Not if you want to become a surgeon.” He paused. “I know what it is to be a stranger in this hospital. I told you, I haven’t been here long.”

  “Why?” She meant, Why do you want me to stay? He misunderstood.

  “I left home, came here, because it was time. Isn’t that why we all leave, at some point?” He paused. “Dr. Abramov, let us begin again.” He went to his seat behind the desk. His face was neutral somehow, as if nothing had passed between them. “Tell me about your studies.” She followed his lead and fell into the material she’d prepared. She talked about her classes. He quizzed her on anatomy. She knew she was speaking too quickly, but she was nervous. And she sounded rehearsed because she was. “What do you prescribe for a patient with insomnia?”

  “Nothing until I’ve examined him. Presenting symptoms can be misleading.” She regretted what she’d said as soon as it came out of her mouth. He narrowed his eyes and she hurried to fill the silence with what she knew he expected. “Chloral hydrate, opium, perhaps morphine.”

  She wanted to explain, but Yuri interrupted. “Some people are born to be surgeons. I can see that in you.” How? How could he see anything in such a short period of time? And the comment, it was too personal. That made it unnerving, but also gave her courage.

  “Does that mean you’re willing to take me as your student?”

  “Doesn’t Russia deserve every surgeon she can muster?” He smiled. “You know the czar, his men, they don’t believe women should even be physicians. Certainly not Jewish women. It could be dangerous, if you’re ever brought in for questioning.”

  “Why would I be brought in for questioning?”

  “I can’t say. No one can, in Russia.”

  “All I want is to help.”

  “I understand. But keep in mind you’re not choosing an easy path. You and I would both have to make sacrifices. Are you prepared for that?”

  Sacrifices? Miri climbed back into bed and pulled the blankets around her. Who, or what, was being sacrificed by the decision to allow Miri to operate on Sukovich in the morning?

  III

  Miri came down to the kitchen before dawn and found her grandmother already there, lighting the fire. Breakfast was Babushka’s one demand, the time Miri and Vanya were required to join her, together, no matter how early that meant they had to eat. As the women set to preparing the meal, Miri worked in silence, thinking about the fishmonger, picturing the surgery to come as she arranged silverware, cheese, and bread on the massive table. The wooden surface was scarred from chopping. Nothing sat straight. Babushka took one of the pots down from the wall to boil water for eggs and tea. The steam released the smell of lavender from the dried plants hanging around the room, meant to cover the lingering smell of onions.

  A quiet knock on the back door announced the arrival of the baker’s son. The boy, no more than ten years old, held up an envelope. A few years earlier, the Okhrana, the czar’s secret police, had started reading the Abramovs’ mail and reporting what they found to Vanya’s superior, Kir, at the university. In response, Vanya started giving his correspondents their neighbor’s address because he thought so long as there was bread, no one cared what a baker said or did. Miri was amazed the ruse worked, continued to work after all this time, that the seal on this letter was tight. It came from America. From that professor again, the scientist who’d promised to work with Vanya on relativity and to find him, Miri, and Baba a way out of Russia. For all the l
ofty dreams the American had spun for Vanya, he had yet to come through. But this envelope was thicker than most—perhaps thicker than any. Had something changed? Were they equations? Miri paid the boy with a sweet, kissed his cheek, and sent him home. After she closed the door behind him, she held the envelope up to the light to see if she could read any of it, but the paper was too thick. She grinned, thinking no one had any idea what Vanya was up to with the American.

  “Well?” Baba asked.

  “We’ll have to wait,” Miri said, still smiling, now shaking her head. She placed the letter on Vanya’s plate and went back to preparing the meal.

  As Miri and Baba worked, the sound of Vanya pacing above was between them. His footsteps were steady like a metronome in time with the beat of calculations. If that professor did find a way to bring them to America, she’d make Vanya go without her. She’d told him she wouldn’t leave Kovno. That Yuri wouldn’t go, either. But if Vanya had the chance, he had to take it. Brilliant, sweet Vanya would never survive a war. He’d be too caught up in his equations to dodge bullets if they ever came close. And if he were shot away from home, he’d be left for dead until another Jew found him—which is what happened to the fishmonger.

  Sukovich. What if Miri made a mistake while operating? Surely any of her seniors would be quick to criticize Kovno’s first female surgeon, especially one they resisted promoting in the first place. No slip would be excused. But how many would even bother to come and watch? She fumbled the bread knife in her hand, stabbed the black loaf she’d been cutting.

  “Believe in yourself, child,” Baba said.

  “But the other surgeons, they could change their mind. They could decide not to elevate me. And if I do anything wrong, Sukovich could die.”

  “He could also die if you do everything right.” Baba spooned strawberry preserves into each of their mugs. “Stay strong. It’s all you can do. And eat. We’re lucky for the food.”