Free Translator by Nina Schuyler Page A

is ravenous for life. Keep talking, tell me anything, anything at all, and I’ll follow along gladly, willingly, forever grateful. Penguins and penguins mating, mommy told her, making babies, and a blue poisonous frog. Sasha pulls from her pocket a long necklace of colorful glass beads, and raises it to show Hanne, but the knot must be nonexistent because the beads slide off and bounce across the floor. Sasha scrambles, chasing them all over the room. Hanne would give anything to get down on her knees and help her gather them up. She closes her eyes, listening to Sasha move around the room, murmuring, “Here’s one. Here’s one.” This search takes a long while, but finally she returns to the chair beside Hanne’s bed, and in a small, fragile voice, says, “Can you read me a story?”
    Hanne shakes her head. I’m sorry, my love. More than anything, I wish I could.
    Sasha nods gravely, then with a sharp twinkle in her eye, without any prompting, says “Ich liebe dich,” I love you.
    Hanne’s eyes water. She taught Sasha that German sentence a year ago. Hanne realizes that for days she’s thought of herself only in disassembled pieces—a brain, frontal lobe, nose broken, arms paralyzed, gashed forehead—but now something below the fragments congeals.
    When Tomas walks in and pulls up a chair, Sasha quickly climbs from her chair and into his lap, hugging and kissing him. “Daddy.” She leans up to his ear, cups it in her hands and tries to whisper. “Is Grandma going to die?”
    â€œNo,” he says quickly, studying Hanne’s face. “No, sweetie. She had an accident, but she’ll be fine.”
    Through watery light, she looks at her son and his daughter, watches them snuggle into each other’s warmth. A throb of joy fills her, and she feels, for a moment, full of grace.
    Several days later, the first sign of improvement arrives. A nurse with big front teeth has removed Hanne’s sweaty hospital gown of dull blue and is now administering a sponge bath.
    â€œStill having hot flashes?” says the nurse. “No fun, are they? My mother had them until she was fifty-nine. Can you believe it? Hated them, absolutely hated them. Think what I have to look forward to.”
    The nurse wipes down her arms, her neck. “Until you’re up and about, this is the way a bath is given. My mother used to call this a spit bath. Ha! A spit bath, can you imagine the germs? How’s your head feeling? More painkillers? You can have a certain amount each day, you know, and you could have more if you liked. In fact,” the nurse studies the bag of clear liquid hanging from an IV pole, “you’ve barely used any.” She laughs. “Usually patients gobble it up. Oh, your nose looks better. They’ve set it perfectly. Less black and blue around the eyes.”
    A torrent of words, this nurse. Hanne knows she should feel indebted to her, the care, the concern for clean feet, it goes far beyond what she’s ever done for anyone, except her children.
    â€œYour big big toe.”
    Hanne wouldn’t be surprised if as she cleaned it, she wiggled it, the big piggy toe. And she does! Hanne tries to think about something else. To drift from this, the talking to her toe. She conjures up Jiro, but he has nothing to say. Hanne can’t seem to escape this moment. Tomas is not here, Anne and the girls have gone home. She is stuck in this room with a nattering nurse and her head is pounding. She pushes the button and gives herself a dose of morphine.
    On and on about her toes, how this nurse likes to paint her toenails, doesn’t mind the smell, any color, changes it once a week, and the time she tried black, a horrid color on her—
    â€œPlease be quiet,” says Hanne, with some effort.
    The nurse stops talking and her face opens. “I don’t know what you just said, but it’s a good sign.” She says