The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein

Author:Lisa Goldstein
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781497673595
Publisher: Open Road Media

7

The tall red-haired man came into the camp in the late afternoon, stepping carefully over the bodies lying by the side of the road. A woman came up to meet him. As she drew nearer, he saw that she was a nurse.

“Is there something I can do for you?” she said.

“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” he said. His English was strangely accented, but not unpleasant. “Can I do anything to help?”

“Can you?” said the nurse. “You’re the answer to my prayers. Come with me.”

She led him past a temporary shelter toward what had been the barracks. “Now what we’ve done here—Do you know anything about medicine?”

“A little.”

“Good. What we’ve done is to divide the sick into three groups. The first group is well enough to be up and about—if they want anything they’ll ask you for it. We’ve had a bit of a language problem, but we’ve found that a lot of them speak German or have learned enough to get by in the camps. Can you speak German?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” said the nurse, looking at him this time with frank curiosity. “Then in what used to be the barracks we have the second group. These are the ones that will need medical attention—changing bandages, feeding, and so forth. Our worst problems seem to be typhus and malnutrition. And in the third group are those you saw by the road. We feel they’re beyond help, and anyway we don’t have enough medicine to see to everyone. It’s a bad deal all round, but at least this way we’re able to save some lives.”

She led him back past the road toward the shelter. “Here’s where we keep our supplies. Any medicine you check out has to be authorized by me or another of the head nurses. Right now that’s not a problem as we don’t have any. We’re expecting a shipment sometime tomorrow.”

The tall man stumbled and looked down. He had tripped against a young woman’s arm. She moaned and turned over, and as she did so her hand fell open. Etched upon her palm, like a warning in some unknown calligraphy, was a six-pointed star.

“Oh, my God,” said the man. He knelt by her and felt her forehead. Then he said to the nurse, “Have you got any aspirin?”

She looked at him in amazement. “You’re joking. This woman is in group three—she’s not expected to survive the night.”

The man did not answer her. He held his hand to the young woman’s cheek and whispered words in her ear. He sat back. “Kicsi,” he said. “Kicsi, look up.”

Kicsi opened her eyes. “I know you,” she said in Hungarian. Her voice was so soft she could barely be heard. She shivered with fever. “But I can’t know you, can I? You’re the stranger.”

“What did she say?” said the nurse.

“She said that she recognizes me.”

“Are you a relative, then?”

“No, a—a friend. Her family gave me help and comfort when I needed it most. Come on—we have to carry her to the barracks.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.