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, and 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?