Girl at War Read Online Free Page B

square stamps we’d gotten when we’d driven to Austria once, but the man just scribbled something in pen in each of our passports and motioned us through.
    Unsure of what to expect from a whole new country, I was disappointed to see that Slovenia looked the same as I remembered it, looked the same as Croatia did in the rural parts outside of Zagreb—flat and blank and grassy against a backdrop of mountains that never seemed to get any closer.
    “You know I don’t care about the money,” my father said, cracking the silence he’d been keeping since we’d left the house.
    “I know.”
    “I’m just worried.”
    “I know.”
    My father took my mother’s hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. “I know,” she said.
    As we approached the capital, the population thickened, a dense buildup of houses clustered around the city. At its core, Ljubljana looked like a smaller, squatter version of Zagreb, except the river ran right through the town center rather than along the edge. The difference between Croatian and Slovenian was exasperatingly mild, the storefronts and street signs filled with words that looked familiar but not quite right, rendering comprehension just out of reach.
    “This is not a doctor’s office,” my father said when my mother instructed him to turn down an unmarked alley. He was overarticulating the way he did when he was frustrated.
    “That’s it.” My mother pointed to a second-floor flat with a red cross taped to the front door. My father parked the car in front of a fire hydrant.
    —
    “Good afternoon,” a woman said in English, ushering us inside. “I’m Dr. Carson.” I’d studied English since the first grade but considered it a murky language, one whose grammar seemed to have been made up on the fly. Still, I resolved to concentrate and pick up as much as I could. Dr. Carson shook my parents’ hands, hard. The door of her flat opened directly into the living room, and she led us to her sofa, a fixture too big for the room and covered in pilling floral throw pillows. Black-and-white photos of sickly children being hugged by toothy American doctors hung poster-size on all walls. MEDIMISSION , said the posters in block lettering beneath the photos, followed by an assortment of uplifting slogans about children and miracles and the future.
    Dr. Carson was thin and blond and had the same teeth as the people in the posters, and I resolved to dislike her based on these things, the perkiness in her face that reminded me of the way teachers spoke to students who they thought were stupid. But I knew she was Rahela’s best chance at getting better; though Dr. Carson’s uniform consisted of blue jeans, rubber gloves, and a stethoscope, she still had better equipment than all the real doctors’ offices back home.
    She drew blood in her kitchen. “It’s sterile,” she said over and over, as if we had other options. I didn’t like seeing Rahela’s tiny arm pinned against the woman’s countertop, though Rahela wasn’t crying, hadn’t cried since we arrived.She looked tired. I looked away, stared at an image of an Asian girl, half her face burned, contorted like gnarled tree bark. A doctor held her on his knee and applied a bandage.
    Dr. Carson ran more tests. She and my parents conversed in broken languages, my mother translating for my father in semicoherent chunks. Rahela’s kidneys weren’t functioning properly, the ultrasound showed. It looked as if she might have only one, though the images were inconclusive even with the newer equipment.
    “There are better machines for these tests, in other cities,” Dr. Carson said. “But for now we can try medication. To stabilize.” My mother barraged her with questions. The two switched completely to English, and my father and I stood back fidgeting. Dr. Carson disappeared into her kitchen, then returned with a stack of papers and a small glass bottle of red and blue capsules.
    “Twice a day. We’ll be in touch.”
    At border