Burning Cold by Lisa Lieberman

Author:Lisa Lieberman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublishDrive
Published: 2017-05-18T20:32:58+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

Lights burned within the children’s home but all was quiet outside. The early morning mist had turned to midmorning drizzle as we made our way into Pesterzsébet, and the few passersby we glimpsed were either huddled under umbrellas or else they had their heads down and were in too much of a hurry to notice us stationed out front in the Škoda.

“I could go into that shop on the corner and see if anyone there speaks another language,” said Jakub. He and I were weighing our options. We didn’t have a plan for approaching Dr. Szabó, but sending Gray to the door in his inebriated state, even if one of us accompanied him, seemed like a very bad idea. He may have gotten along fine with the workers, but after the imbroglio with the garage mechanic, we didn’t dare trust him with the sensitive matter of warning Zoltán’s wife that she and her daughter were in danger.

“We don’t want to involve a stranger in this, do we?”

“No, I suppose not,” he conceded. “They might make things worse for the family later on. If only there were someone we could rely on.”

My brother gave a shout from the back seat. “Cara! Jakub! Look over there, at the church.”

“Not now.” I was thinking about priests. How close were Italian and Latin? Could a priest, who presumably knew Latin, understand Jakub’s Italian well enough to serve as a go-between with the doctor? Surely we could trust a priest not to betray her.

“Isn’t that the girl?” interrupted Gray. “The one we saw the other day?”

“Shhh!” I turned around to quiet him down.

Gray was pointing at a small figure who was making her way toward us. “I’m sure it’s her. She’s on crutches.”

He was right; I recognized the girl. A satchel containing two loaves of bread was slung across her chest, leaving her hands free to maneuver the crutches. She was quite proficient on the wooden sticks, her pace steady as she swung one arm forward and then the other, dragging her left leg, which was considerably shorter than the right one, her small feet encased in clunky black shoes that must have taken considerable effort to lift.

“Come on,” said Jakub, getting out of the car. Gray and I followed, crossing the street to meet her.

The girl beamed when she saw me. Talking a mile a minute, she allowed me to relieve her of the satchel, which was heavier than I expected because it contained not only bread, I realized, but also a cabbage along with some unlabeled canned goods.

“What’s she saying?” I asked my brother.

“Her name is Juicy. No, that can’t be right, can it? Juicy?”

The girl laughed. “Zsuzsi (jiu-gie),” she corrected, pronouncing the z’s like half-swallowed g’s.

“Hello, Zsuzsi. I’m Cara,” I said, tapping my chest and repeating my name for good measure. “Cara.”

“Carrra,” she repeated, rolling the r in a pleasant way, like a cat’s purr.

Gray was struggling to make sense of what she said next. “She’s our niece?” He turned to face her and repeated the word she’d just used.

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