Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

blankets to make room for Anna.
    You have brought spring with you, he says. I can smell the wind in your hair.
    The landing is barely big enough for two. Anna wedges herself in beside Max, feeling the bony jut of his hip against her own, and removes her coat with some difficulty. Max buries his face in the cloth.
    The past few days have been warmer, she tells him. The gutters are rushing like waterfalls.
    I know, says Max. I listen to them at night.
    Are you hungry?
    Max laughs. Perpetually. But please, don’t run off to the kitchen just yet. I’m more starved for company than food.
    He puts an arm around her, and Anna imagines that, were he unclothed, she would be able to see his bones through his skin. He eats next to nothing of what she brings him. His stomach, he has apologetically explained, roils with nerves.
    They sit in comfortable silence, Max rubbing a thumb over Anna’s collarbone. It amazes Anna: she spends much of her time in this dim, elongated box, fusty with years of disuse and the unlovely exhalations of Max’s chamber pot, and so, on a physical level, Anna’s life has shrunk to its confined proportions. Yet here, in the dark, she feels herself expanding. For years Anna has trudged through her days like an automaton with only her daydreams to occupy her, paying no mind to what happens around her unless it hinders her routine in some way. Now, as she walks beneath dripping trees and visits shops, she observes her surroundings with as much keen interest as if she were a visitor to a foreign land. She embroiders and rehearses overheard conversations for Max, hoping to be rewarded by his barking laugh; she lays anecdotes at his feet like treasure. Her personal landscape has never been brighter nor her mental horizons wider.
    I went back to the bakery today, Anna tells Max now. Frau Staudt has a terrible hacking cough. You should see the black looks the customers give her as she handles their bread.
    Any news? Max asks, smiling at Anna’s scowling imitation.
    We didn’t have much time alone. Only a few minutes. But new papers are being drawn up for you so you can be moved to Switzerland. Frau Staudt says to be patient; these things take time, she said. And money. They are trying to raise the money.
    Max takes his arm from Anna’s shoulders and stretches, wincing.
    And the film?
    She hasn’t mentioned it since I passed it to her on Thursday. But I’m sure she would have told me if something had gone wrong.
    Max sighs.
    Dear Anna, he says. My sole regret about what I’ve done is having to involve you.
    Anna performs a complicated wriggling maneuver that ends with her sitting behind Max, his back to her chest.
    How many times do I have to tell you I don’t mind? she says in his ear.
    Max doesn’t answer. As best she can in the gloom, Anna studies his profile. She yearns to toy with his hair, which has grown long enough to relax into curls above his collar. Observing the way it wings back from his fine, bony face, Anna imagines Max wearing tails, attending an opera in Vienna, perhaps, or Berlin. She feels a sudden wretched longing for the things they will never know together.
    You need a haircut, she says lightly, yanking a wayward blond tuft.
    I’m sure I do, Max replies. Next time you go to town, why don’t you bring a barber back with you?
    No need for that. Tomorrow, when I sneak you out for your shave, I’ll do it myself.
    Thank you, but no. I’d rather grow it to my knees.
    Anna rears up indignantly.
    I cut my father’s hair every fortnight! she reminds him.
    I know. I’ve seen the results. I’ll wait until I reach Switzerland.
    Anna slaps Max on the shoulder. He turns, cringing exaggeratedly, holding a protective arm up over his face.
    Ouch, he says. That hurt, you little brute.
    Not half so much as you deserve.
    Is that so, Max says.
    Suddenly he grips Anna’s biceps and pulls her forward, kissing her with the same desperate intensity she remembers from the January evening in his house. He