by Kelly Rimmer
“A baby?”
“Yes. Eva gave birth a few weeks ago, just after we arrived back here. Tikva can’t eat anything but her mother’s milk, and Eva can’t make milk unless I bring her food. Am I to let the newborn starve, Alina?” He held my gaze, the bite of sheer frustration shortening his words. “Saul is a good man, a far better man than me. But he’s Jewish, so the invaders would have him starve like an animal, or worse, lock him up in a camp and work him to death. And that baby is the most beautiful little doll you have ever seen. Oh, but she was born to Jewish parents, so I suppose she deserves to die too? Would you pull the trigger at her temple, then?”
“Don’t say these things,” I protested fiercely. I was crying, overwhelmed and scared, but Tomasz was undeterred by my tears.
“But that is what you are saying when you tell me I should have left them behind.” A crippling sadness crossed his face, and his gaze pleaded with me for understanding. “This is why I wasn’t going to let you know I was here. I was going to stay in hiding and find ways to help you, but I was never going to show my face to you. I know that would have been cruel, but it would have been safer for you. I would choose our love over anything else—but I won’t choose you over what is right, not this time. I wouldn’t be the man you deserve if I didn’t help these people.” He stopped abruptly, and ran his hand through his hair, frustration etched on his face. “Monsters shouldn’t feel a great love like we have, should they? I have to prove that I’m not a monster. Please don’t ask me to stop. Please.”
The risks Tomasz was taking were unacceptable—but everything about life in those days was unacceptable, because every time we accepted our lot, things always became even worse. I had a sudden, startling burst of clarity. We had to fight—even if not with guns and weapons, with the sheer strength of our spirit, and for every single one of us, resistance meant something different. For me, resistance would mean doing whatever it was Tomasz needed me to do, even if it meant certain death for us both. I stared that thought down bravely, confused by my own courage. If anything, Tomasz’s revelation made me wonder, not if he was the person I thought he was, but if I was the person I thought I was. Even knowing for sure that my relationship with him was in essence a death sentence, I wasn’t deterred at all.
I had come to see myself over the years exactly as others expected me to be; tiny in stature, pretty and delicate, too feminine to be of much use around the farm—spoiled and lazy and immature and maybe even just a little foolish.
Certainly not brave. Certainly not heroic or noble myself.
If I really was that girl, the thought of risking my life for Tomasz would have petrified me. I’d have run a million miles in the other direction. But in that moment all I wanted to do was to find a way to make him safe, a way to give him peace, a way to help his friends. The love I felt for him was so big that it eclipsed my fears and it shouldered his burdens as my own. Our love was now a mirror, and within it I could see myself clearly for the very first time. I didn’t see a spoiled, foolish girl with a crush on her school friend. I saw a woman who was feeling a very selfless, very adult kind of love.
“I won’t ask you to stop,” I said, and he raised his eyes to me. “In fact, I am going to find a way to help you.”
He shook his head immediately.
“Not a chance, Alina—”
“Don’t,” I said, firmly but softly. “Don’t you dare tell me it’s too dangerous. Loving you is dangerous now, and I couldn’t stop that even if I tried. Your calling is my calling. We do this together, because what do you always say to me?”
“We are meant to be together,” he whispered, but his gaze was serious. “Even so, I can’t let you take any more risk than you already are, Alina.”
“You don’t let me do anything, Tomasz,” I said gently, and he gave me a sad, reluctant smile. “I don’t know how much help I can be, but I have to try. Even if I can just get a little more food for this mother and her precious newborn. But now...” I drew in a deep breath and glanced back toward the fields. I hadn’t heard Mama calling, but surely she had been, and she was probably about to come looking for me. “I’ve been gone far too long, and I have to go.”
I brushed my lips against his. Tomasz Slaski was exhausted—physically and emotionally wrecked. But there was a new depth of honesty between us—an intimacy unlike anything we’d experienced before, born in the deepest kind of vulnerability.
He’d let me see him, every part of him—even his shame. And in return, I could offer only understanding and acceptance. It would be years before I’d appreciate how profound that moment was; what a relief it must have been to him. At the time, I was doing only what the love I had for him compelled me to do. I was acting purely on instinct.
“I love you,” he said. I kissed him one last time and closed my eyes to breathe him in.
“I love you too, Tomasz. And you are no monster, not to me,” I said, then I looked up at him and the tears surged again. “You are a hero, my love. I know you don’t feel like one yet. But one day, you’ll see.”
When I came down from the hill that day, Mama looked at me, frowning.
“You have been crying,” she said.
“What?” I feigned ignorance. “No, perhaps I am getting a cold.”
“A cold,” she repeated, sighing, then, almost to herself, “Alina thinks she’s getting a cold.”
I knew she didn’t believe me, but I didn’t have time to worry about that.
I was already thinking about dinner, and how much of it I could hide for Tomasz and his friends.
CHAPTER 16
Alina
The summer of 1941 was fading toward fall, and by then that sporadic tower of smoke that I’d so feared in the earlier days of the war was becoming a permanent landmark. The acrid scent that had so disturbed me when it first appeared became as familiar as the scent of chicken dung in the fields. Flecks of odd gray ash appeared on my clothing and in my hair and settled on the fields like a fine snow when there was no wind. I learned to ignore it. I had to ignore it, because there was simply no escaping it.
Tomasz was still living in the woods without shelter, and he had very little bulk to his clothing—so much so that I was trying to figure out if I could covertly sneak some of my brothers’ clothes to him before the weather cooled further.
I knew he was already cold—some mornings I’d go to greet him only to find he was dozing in a hollow trunk because he needed to curl up in the night now, and his lips would be blue and his whole body trembling.
“You are friends with Nadia Nowak, right?” I asked him one day. He stiffened.
“I know Nadia, yes.”
“Can you not stay with her now that it’s a bit cooler? Or even hide with some of your Jewish friends?”
“No, I can’t stay with Nadia...it is far too risky to even attempt it. And as for my friends, it is too hard to get in and out of their hiding places. I need to be able to leave each night so I can get more food for us all.”
I believed him when he said he would find a way, but I worried about how far he was going to take this quest to help his friends. I now understood that the guilt he bore from his decisions in Warsaw drove his every thought, and I was scared how far that would take him. He’d already taken on one suicide mission and survived; how long would it be before he did so again?
I was thinking about that one morning as I walked to meet with him, so lost in thought that I was carelessly unaware of my surroundings. I heard movement ahead of me and raised my gaze. I was looking straight into the eyes of a soldier who was standing just a few feet away. I was so startled, I screamed without a single thought. The high-pitched, piercing sound echoed all through the woods and the soldier swung his rifle from his shoulder to raise it toward my face.
“Please,” I croaked, shaking my head. “Please, no.”
He flung rapid-fire German at me, but I couldn’t make
sense of it, and I stared at him blankly. I raised my hands over my head in case that’s what he’d asked, but he gave me an impatient look and, to my surprise, said in Polish, “What are you doing here?”
“Alina,” Mama called from behind me, sounding oddly exasperated. “Would you slow down, child?”
“Mama...” I croaked. I tried to turn to face her to warn her not to approach but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the soldier, and in the end it didn’t matter—it was far too late to warn her anyway. I felt her draw near to me and she greeted the soldier.
“Good morning,” she said. Her tone was casual and warm, as if there was nothing at all out of the ordinary about the scene she’d just come across. I shot her an incredulous glance.
“What are you doing in these woods, old lady?” the soldier demanded, swinging the rifle from me, to Mama, then back.
“We are walking the path, going to visit my daughter’s home in the town,” Mama said easily, then she added with convincing concern, “Are you looking for someone?”
From farther up the hill, I saw another soldier approaching, and behind him, another. As I scanned the hill around me, I saw six of them, arranged in formation, all eyes fixed on me and Mama in that moment. My stomach dropped into my toes, and it took everything within me to stop myself from looking up. What if Tomasz was right above us? What if he’d fallen asleep in the open again? I had to assume he was without identification, and besides, they would take one look at him and know he was hiding from something. He was nothing more than a bag of skin and bones, held together by rags.
“There are Jews hiding in this district,” the soldier announced. “We are sweeping the woods looking for fugitives.”
“Here?” Mama said, sounding slightly incredulous. She laughed, freely and quite loudly. “Who would hide in this tiny patch of woods? You’ll find them in a heartbeat if there’s anyone here.” She pointed back, vaguely toward our house. “We live just a few hundred feet away. Trust me when I say there is no one in these woods. I would know if there was.”
“Documents?” the soldier demanded, and just when I thought I’d die from the fear, Mama calmly reached into her shirt, then stepped forward and handed him our identity papers. He scanned these, then nodded curtly, tossed the papers vaguely back in Mama’s direction and motioned with his rifle that we should continue along the path.
Mama returned the paperwork to her undershirt, slipped her hand through my elbow, and led me past the soldiers toward the top of the hill. I tried to turn my head back toward them to see what was happening, but she shook me, hard, and muttered a fierce, “Eyes forward, Alina.”
Several Nazi trucks were parked at the bottom of the hill on the Trzebinia side, in the space where the grass grew long but the trees had been cleared to make way for houses. Mama and I walked right past those empty trucks, my arm still caught in the death grip of her elbow. We walked the remaining blocks to Truda’s house in a stiff and horrible silence. When Truda swung the door open, I finally burst into tears.
“Get her some tea,” Mama sighed, then she pinned me with a stare. “Alina, my girl, I have been more than patient with you but it’s high time you told me the truth.”
Emilia came bounding down the hallway, delight in her voice as she called, “Alina! You have come to my house for a change—” Her little face fell as she saw my tears. “Oh no...what is it?”
“Everything is fine,” I told her. I tried to fix a smile on my face but I couldn’t hold back the sobs, and Truda glared at me and hastily sent Emilia outside to play.
Mama and I sat side by side at Truda’s kitchen table. Truda made us tea, then went outside to Emilia and, all the while, I sobbed and avoided my Mama’s gaze. I was in such a panic I couldn’t untangle my thoughts. If I’d gone to the hill two minutes earlier, we might have been sitting together when the soldiers came, and I knew we could never risk such encounters again, even if the soldiers hadn’t found Tomasz in their sweep. After a minute or two, when my sobs weren’t even beginning to slow down, Mama sighed heavily.
“Stop fussing, Alina. There is no need for such drama.”
“It was the fright...” I said, unconvincingly. Mama rolled her eyes at me.
“I have figured out your secret,” she said.
Her announcement made an already-awful situation unexpectedly complicated. Because did she really know my secret, or did she just think she knew? What if she thought my “secret” was something else? I also didn’t want to anger her, because my mother was a formidable woman, and not someone I wanted to cross. I pondered all of this as quickly as I could, and then I looked back to my tea.
“I don’t know what you mean, Mama,” I whispered, as innocently as I could manage given adrenaline had once again flooded my system and my heart was thundering all over again, but then she smacked me on the back of the head and muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like I’m not an idiot.
“When did he come back?” she asked flatly.
My heart was thumping so hard against my chest that I was sure she could hear it.
“I—”
“Alina, Tomasz is back, and he’s in hiding. Am I right? Prayer for the country at war,” she scoffed. I stared at her in shock, but then she chuckled. “Even if we hadn’t already suspected, we’d have soon figured it out when you insisted on going to the hill when it was raining.” Her gaze softened just a little, and she murmured, “I was eighteen and in love too, once upon a time.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew?”
“Well, to be honest, I was scared to. I wasn’t sure why you or he would ever think it was a good idea to hide him from us, so I was waiting for you to tell me what was going on. In the meantime, I decided I would stay close by in the field in case I heard signs of trouble...and it is fortunate for you that I did, given what happened today.”
I felt nauseous then, and as I lifted the tea to my mouth, my hands shook a little. Mama and I waited in silence for a while, then she asked me, “You must tell me now, Alina. Why is he hiding?”
I looked at her in alarm.
“I don’t know,” I lied. She raised her eyebrows at me, and saw all the way through me with one of her stares. I felt my face flush, and I started to sweat. “I don’t!”
“Is it the resistance?” she asked, and she leaned back in her chair and added casually, “Or has he tried to help some of those in hiding?”
I didn’t say a word, but she must have read the truth on my face. She grunted, and it sounded a lot like approval. I looked at her in surprise.
“Mama?”
“What?”
“If... I’m not saying he is, but...if he was hiding some Jewish friends...”
“I would still be confused as to why you didn’t tell me this earlier.”
“But maybe he was trying to protect me...”
“Then he is not nearly as smart as I thought he was, because if he was, he would know that any contact with you means danger for us all, but that Father and I would understand.”
Hope, warm and surprising, blossomed in my chest.
“You understand?” I choked.
“Do you remember when Filipe wanted to join the resistance?” Mama asked me. She so rarely talked about her lost sons, and I was a little taken aback.
“I do...”
“And we all discouraged him. We all thought it was safer for him to just put his head down. Remember?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Well, we were wrong, Alina. He is dead anyway, and maybe if we had stood up and fought—” Her voice broke, and she cleared her throat, then exhaled. “We have tried so hard to keep you all safe. We have done everything we could to protect you. But that wasn’t nearly enough, and now I am so sorry we didn’t instead find some way to resist. Perhaps we could have made a difference—if not for Filipe, then for someone else. Our passivity mak
es us guilty, Alina. Father and I have been talking for some time about how we might rectify that, but the right opportunity had not presented itself. Do his friends have shelter?”
“His friends do...but he doesn’t...”
“Then what will he do when the winter comes?” I looked at her, and she raised her eyebrows at me. “It is not far off, Alina. He cannot live in the woods once the snow comes. Tell me you have a plan.”
“He hides in the trees, sometimes he hides behind logs. But he’s been falling asleep during the day and...” I choked on another sob. “He says he will cope, but I’m so scared.”
“Do you understand how much trouble he is in?”
“I do.”
“I need to know that you understand how much trouble you are in, Alina. You are helping him. By half measures, perhaps, if all you are doing is kissing in the woods and sneaking him some crumbs, but it’s still helping him. If he is aiding Jews in hiding, then so are you, and that is punishable by your death.” Her gaze was sharp and focused right on my face. I grabbed her forearm and squeezed—hard. She had to understand. She just had to know how much I loved him. She just had to know that I would take any risk to help him.
“Mama. It’s Tomasz. He’s all alone in the world except for me. Even if it’s dangerous, I could never abandon him.” I wiped at my eyes with my spare hand, and then I said firmly, “Besides, Mama, he is helping a family—a new baby will die if we don’t help. How can I choose my life over that infant?”
Mama stared at me. She surveyed my face and the tears on my cheeks, then she nodded, as if she was satisfied.
“You can’t,” Mama said. “And neither can I. Let me help.”
* * *
There was no sign of the soldiers’ trucks when we returned to climb the hill, and the woods were still and quiet again. I scanned the treetops desperately but found no sign of Tomasz, either. I tried to convince myself that he’d stayed in the trees or hidden in a hollow log and survived the sweep, but I had no way of knowing what had happened.