Author's Note: "(...)" means dialog is in Yiddish. -- The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. -Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize- -- Captain David Rogers reached into his hip pocket and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. Armed forces radio played music from a small radio in the corner behind the nurse who was quickly wiping down a counter top. He heard the spastic coughing again, and frowned in disgust as he turned to see the rail thin old woman sitting on the examination table shaking all over as she continued her coughing fit. He could remember originally being stationed as a frontline medic with one of the negro regiments in Italy, and how long it had taken to get any of his superiors to acknowledge any of the many transfer requests he'd sent in to HQ. It wasn't the frontline he was afraid of, and he didn't consider himself a bigot, but he did question why he'd been sent to the frontline with a colored regiment. The coloreds were looked down upon and segregated, and so he saw his being sent to them as some sort of punishment duty (for what he never could guess). Finally, he was reassigned to a MASH unit. Which was how he ended up in Dachau. He'd been here since the initial liberation, and had come to resent it. Sure, he'd felt as sorry for these poor bastards as everyone else had at first, but after a while one skeletal frame blended and faded into another until they all had a monotonous sameness to them. And the smell; everyone and everything in the camp seemed to exude it. And it followed you around like a cartoon storm cloud even after you left camp. A knock on the door alerted him that a translator had been found. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a flask of whisky, took a quick swig, and turned around to see Nurse Sarah with another nameless, faceless, grey looking stick with legs. "Lieutenant Shore is it?" he asked, his voice raised so he could be heard over the big band on the radio and the hacking of his patient, "Are you ready?" "Yes doctor," Sarah answered a bit surprised. "Where's Captain Stevens?" "Colonel Wilson sent for him. Something about a statistical analysis," the doctor explained, "I've been sent from the men's camp as a replacement." "You've replaced Captain Stevens?" Sarah asked. "But I only left to find someone who speaks Polish not even ten minutes ago." "Welcome to the army," the other nurse quipped as she continued cleaning. "Oh, I see, yes. Well, this is Gilda Groz..." "Lieutenant Shore," Rogers sighed as he put his flask back in his pocket, "Let's get one thing straight, okay? I don't care what her name is. She'll probably be dead by tomorrow anyways, as will she," he said, motioning with his thumb over to the patient sitting up on the examination table. "So let's cut pretenses and just get on with this." Gilda noticed the sudden stiffening of Sarah's body, as well as the angry stare she was giving the doctor. "Anoil," she asked, "(What's wrong?)" Sarah wanted to scream at the doctor in front of her, giving the creep a piece of her mind. Unfortunately, he was a Captain and she was only a 2nd Lieutenant. She'd already had a demerit for insubordination once after slapping a superior (the fact that he'd pinched her rear somehow never came up during the inquest). "(Nothing,)" Sarah finally responded through clenched teeth. Meeting the Captain's gaze, she took a deep breath. "Very well Doctor, whenever you're ready." Gilda turned away from Sarah to study the old woman coughing on the examination table. Pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose with her index finger once more, she slowly made her way over to her and began talking to the woman in Polish. "Ask her to tell her we need her name and age, and that we need to weigh her and get her height." "Very well," Sarah answered crisply. Turning to Gilda, she tapped the taller woman on the shoulder to get her attention. "(Gilda, can you tell her we...)" "(Her throat is in pain,)" Gilda said, turning away from the woman to face the nurse. "(She says it itches from the inside.)" Sarah grimaced. "Typhus..." "Huh?" The doctor asked. Turning towards the other nurse who was still cleaning, he snapped his fingers to get her attention. "Lieutenant Buckingham, turn that damned radio off. Between her cough and that junk I can't even hear myself think." "That's not junk," the younger nurse said defensively, "It's Benny Goodman." "Off!" With a pout, the nurse turned off the offending radio. The music stopped, but strangely enough so did the coughing. Sarah strode past Gilda, checked the patient for a pulse, and silently hung her head. "Well?" Captain Rogers demanded. "She's dead," Sarah answered. "God damn it," Rodgers grumbled. "Just what I need on my record. Buckingham, go tell Sergeant Moynahan to send in two of his men to get rid of the body, then..." the doctor was interrupted by a corporal who just then burst through the door to the examination room. "What, doesn't the army teach anyone to knock anymore?" "S-sorry captain," the corporal nervously said as he quickly saluted. "Master Sergeant Reynolds reports we've not received the scheduled penicillin." "Damned army," Rogers cursed. "Buckingham, get two of Sergeant Moynahan's men. Shore, baby sit the Polish translater for me. Corporal, bring me to talk to the Master Sergeant." In a huff Captain Rogers and the corporal left the room, followed by Lt. Buckingham. Sarah suddenly found herself alone with Gilda for the first time since their meeting behind barrack number five (well, alone except for the corpse on the examination table). "G... Gilda, I want to apologize." Gilda looked neither surprised nor taken aback. Her facial expression didn't alter at all in fact, which unsettled Sarah. "I want to apologize for the doctor's behavior." Gilda wobbled closer to her. "He's been here too long," she said, as if that explained everything. "This place, it does that. It eats away at you, at your soul, until you can't feel anything for yourself or anyone else anymore." Meeting Sarah's gaze, she now looked sad. "Leave soon, anoil, or it'll get to you as well." Sarah came over and placed a hand on Gilda's shoulder. "Did it get to you?" Gilda didn't answer. Instead, unable to meet Sarah's eyes any longer she sadly looked away. Both women felt awkward and out of place at that point, and neither were quite sure what to say or do next. Finally, Sarah broke the silence. "I looked for you." Gilda looked back at Sarah, genuine surprise evident in her eyes. "You looked for me? Why?" Before Sarah could formulate an answer, a knock was heard at the door to the exam room. Both women watched as two privates came in carrying a stretcher and wearing scarves over their mouths and noses to fight off the stench. They quickly picked up the dead body, put it rather roughly on the stretcher, and left the room. "Your eyes." Gilda looked quizzically back over to the nurse. "What?" Sarah suddenly felt self-conscious under the other woman's stare. "Your eyes. I looked for you because they were pretty. They were the only thing of beauty I saw since arriving here." Gilda stared wide-eyed at Sarah, unable to process the compliment. It had been so long since anyone had flattered her that she wasn't sure how to take it. "I don't understand. Do... Do you want something?" Sarah shook her head. "No, I don't, I..." just then, a knock on the door signaled that Captain Rodgers had returned. As the doctor looked through a pile of paperwork he was carrying while grumbling to himself, Sarah quickly came up to Gilda. Tracing the pink triangle she whispered "I'm one too." "Lieutenant Shore." "Yes sir," the nurse replied, turning away from the now visibly shocked Gilda Grozheim to deal once more with her superior, "What do you want, sir?" "A transfer stateside." Looking up with a yawn, he motioned to the door. "But until I get one, you can send the next Pole in." Sarah nodded and turned towards the door, waiting until her back was turned before making a face. The next few hours seemed to crawl by, as one woman inmate after another came into the examination room. The doctor would ask a question, Sarah would then translate it as closely as possible into Yiddish for Gilda, and Gilda would then attempt to translate the Yiddish into Polish for the woman being examined. When the patient answered, the process was repeated in reverse. It was lengthy and ponderous, but it worked, and by the end of the shift they'd only had one other patient inconveniently die on them. The doctor left the room as Sarah was cleaning the examination table. Gilda looked from the attractive young nurse back down to her star of David with its pink triangle. "You're one too." Sarah looked up, and smiled. "I know what you're thinking, and no, I'm not thinking of taking advantage of you." Gilda was not, however, thinking of that, but decided to keep still while her angel continued. "I... I don't know. I've been in the Army Medical Corps for close to three years now, and in all that time you're the first person like me that I've met. I'd like to be your friend, if you'd let me. I'd like to get to know you, but more than anything I want to try to help you. I don't think I could take the first person like myself that I've met in three years dying in a place like this. Does that make sense?" Gilda looked intently at Sarah for a few moments before the corners of her lips slowly curled up into a smile. "Friends," she said, holding out her hand. "Friends," Sarah replied happily as she took Gilda's hand in hers and warmly shook it. She then went over to a nearby cupboard and, opening it, pulled out a small apple. "For you," she said, handing it over. "Thank you, anoil." Sarah looked amused. "What does that word mean? You know, the one you keep calling me. Ani... ana..." "Anoil," Gilda gently corrected, "It means 'angel'." Sarah blushed at the compliment. "Well," she said, "Go ahead, eat it." "Oh, I will," Gilda said. "But I want to wait until I can share it with Anja." "Anja?" Sarah asked, suddenly feeling an unwanted tinge of jealousy, "Who's she?" "An old woman who sort of adopted me when I first arrived," she explained, earning an unexpected sigh of relief from Sarah. "She's one of the political prisoners, a communist." "I see," Sarah said. Looking up at the wall clock, she noticed the time. "Nix!" "Sarah? What's wrong?" "We're going to be leaving soon," Sarah whispered. The thought of leaving Gilda behind, after searching for her for so long, now seemed quite unbearable. Her mind racing, she did a quick mental inventory of the supply closet in the other room. "Gilda," she said, turning to her new friend with a determined look, "How fast do you think you can get to your friend Anja and back?" Gilda tilted her head a bit and pondered. "I'm not sure. Why?" "There's a few surplus nurses uniforms, as well as some army fatigues, stored in a nearby room. If you get back in time, how would you like to leave this place and spend the night at camp with me?" "Leave Dachau?" Gilda asked, not quite believing she'd heard right. "With you?" Sarah smiled giddily as she nodded her head. "I have a bunkmate," she said excitedly, "But she's on furlough. Normally I take the lower bunk, but something tells me it'll be easier if you sleep down there tonight, and I can take the top. We can talk and share some cookies my mom sent me and..." "It sounds wonderful," Gilda conceded, "But what if we get caught?" "Leave everything to me," Sarah answered. "So, what do you say?" she asked, giving Gilda a pleading look. Gilda smiled. "Very well. I'll be back as soon as I can." She placed the apple in a pocket of her prison uniform and walked out as quickly as her thin legs would allow her. Sarah followed, turning once out in the hallway to head to the supply closet. As she went in and began rummaging through the clothing, she chuckled to herself as she remembered the last time she'd done something this foolhardy. It had been in autumn of '41, and as the sun set Sarah snuck out into the night dressed for a night out. Still a nursing student back then, she'd heard through a third or fourth party about an underground nightclub in Greenwich Village. So, one taxi cab ride and two subway rides later she found herself out in the unfamiliar surroundings. Summing up her courage, she made her way towards the address. She finally found it, and got close enough to hear the music coming out of the jukebox, before the police sirens began to blare. Fear seized Sarah, her heart felt like it was going to leap out of her chest. She turned and ran for her life, heading into a nearby alley as the lights of the police cars filled the night sky. Diving behind a garbage can, she timidly looked up to see the police raiding the lesbian nightclub, dragging out women who tried to hide their faces as the press photographer who was with the cops clicked away. The women screamed and shouted obscenities, the cops laughed, and the cameraman continued away, no doubt thinking of the big headlines that would go with his photos in tomorrow's newspaper. It was all too horrible for Sarah, and she had to look away. That's when she realized she wasn't alone. In the shadows she made out the outline of a woman who was crouched down in hiding like her. Her fellow fugitive held a finger up to her mouth signaling for Sarah to keep quiet (like she needed instruction on the matter). Finally, as the final "criminal" was loaded into the paddy wagon (a butch who'd been knocked out by a billy club), the police and press photographer left. The other woman in the alley slowly made her way over. "Are you alright? They didn't hurt you did they?" "No, I... Jess Sullivan?" Sarah asked, shocked to see one of her fellow nursing students. "Sarah? Sarah Shore?" the other woman asked in amusement. "Fancy meeting you here." "Humph, this isn't funny," Sarah grumbled, standing up and cautiously making her way out of the alley into the street. "My skirt is ruined, I've now got a run in my stockings, and look at my broken heel." Jess just chuckled. "Come on," she said. "Let's grab the subway down to 83. We'll go to my apartment, and get you cleaned up. 'K?" Sarah sighed. "Very well." And so, what had begun as an attempt to enter her first lesbian nightclub had ended instead with her spending the first of many evenings at Jess' flat. Back in the present, Sarah had gathered a pair of worn women's army boots that looked to be about the right size, as well as fatigues and a white labcoat. She was stuck as to how to hide Gilda's shaved head, when she suddenly heard pattering on the roof of the building. "Anoil." Sarah turned to see Gilda watching her, the taller woman's shoulders wet from the rain shower that had just started outside. A large grin slowly formed on the nurse's face. A few minutes later, two women wearing heavy hooded rain ponchos made their way to one of the transport trucks with the red cross painted on the side. The smaller one led the taller woman to the back of the vehicle. "Sit on the inside next to the window," Sarah whispered as nurses and other medical personnel filed into the vehicle all around them. "Just keep quiet, and let me do all the talking." Gilda nodded silently. As the engine started up, Sarah reached over and took Gilda's hand in hers, the two women's fingers intertwining as the vehicle left the death camp and headed out.
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