The coins jangle in her pocket as she tip-toes along the stinking streets. The drains gave up long ago, so negotiating an acceptable path is not easy. Apart from the odd whimper, the child is silent as she tries to keep up. After the months of unspeakable chaos following the army’s entry into the city, the children became more durable.

There are crowds along the way this morning, though few seek the same destination as these two as they make their way to their particular market.

She has saved from her meagre income for weeks. A penny here; a shilling there, forming a target for her to aim at this day, to overlay the everyday goal of survival. It gave her a focus amid the desolation. Moments of hope in her monotonous and fearful days amongst the hunger and sickness and the air-raids.

The man turns as she stumbles on the uneven cobbles, his ears fine-tuned to the faint sound of the money she carries. His senses have developed over the years and in these times, they are valuable assets for the opportunities he seeks.

The money she carries in her pocket is everything she values in the world, except for Sophia, of course, and Lisbet brings with her a dream that she wishes to come true this morning—if all of her praying to her god has helped. The dream of achieving the fantastical hopes of her girl. The hopes that have sustained the anxious and sallow child through the winter,

The auction is her first stop, but not her only one today. On the return journey, she will need some money to spend at the food market for the rest of her so-called family. The unaccompanied waifs and strays she has accumulated over the weeks past.

Despite the parlous state of her own affairs, she rattles one thin coin in the tin cup of the beggar huddled on the corner in the desperate cold. She has never known why he sits there because it catches the wind so, but it is his place, and she knows him well.

‘Thank you Lisbet,” he says, as always. She never knows how he makes out it is her, but she walks on, task in mind.

“You’re welcome.”

She does not appreciate the consequences of the clumsy collision with the observant man who has skipped ahead. Nor the deft manner in which he callously robs her of her treasures. It is not until she arrives at the market and forces her way through the crowd to the auction desk that she realizes what has happened.

“How much have you got Madame,” the clerk demands of her. “Be quick now, we’re about to start.”

“My money, it has all gone!” she sobs, looking about her for the sympathy which will not come.

“What am I to do?”

The man ignores her pleas, for he has other frantic customers to process quickly and before long, the room quietens as the auctioneer begins his morning’s work.

“What am I bid?” Is his only question.

The buyers stare as Lisbet wails hysterically when each lot comes up. The boy will be up soon and she now has no money to buy him. She has no money to buy food either and they shall starve. She looks at Sophia and realizes her only solution, with horror. She begins to make her way to the desk again, this time to see if they take last minute entries.

As the auction goes on behind her, the cacophony of the bidding delays her hearing the man who interrupts her progress.

“Lisbet,” he says, “take this money. You need it more than me.”

She looks at the beggar-man from the corner. She sees the milky cloudiness in eyes that cannot see and tries to deny the gift, but he slips away through the crowd. So she grips the little bag of coins very tightly indeed and forces her way back to the high vantage point she left but a few moments ago, catching sight of the thin boy as the hammer is about to fall.

“Fifty,” she shouts across the floor.

The auctioneer looks across at her.

“But the bid is eighty, Madame.”

“One hundred shillings!” she exclaims.

And this time, the hammer does fall.

She looks at Sophia and hates herself for her thoughts, but more, she hates the war that caused her to consider such a dreadful decision.

“Let’s get Alain,” she says to the child. “Your brother needs us.”