by Kelly Rimmer
“But—” I started to protest, and he gave me a pointed look and motioned with his head for us to follow him.
Saul and I scampered after him—all the way to the gates. The other guards let us in without so much as a second look, and then the soldier pointed toward a ragged tent.
“That’s where you register—get your papers ready. And if he’s really a doctor, make sure you tell them. They sure could use the help.” After he turned to walk away, the soldier glanced back at me and gave me a wink. “Hope I see you round.”
Saul slid his arm around my shoulders and turned me toward the registration tent.
“Alina,” he said quietly. “That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Tomasz told me to look after you,” I said stiffly, but what I was thinking was, One of these days saving people for Tomasz Slaski is going to get me killed.
“Where did you get the ring?”
“My mama,” I mumbled, and then it hit me what I’d done, and I had to blink hard to fight back the tears. “I had saved it. I was keeping it. For my wedding to Tomasz.”
Saul’s arm across my shoulders tensed a little.
“I’ll find a way, Alina. I’ll find a way to repay you for this. All of it.”
“You already saved us. He wouldn’t have survived if he hadn’t left Warsaw with you, I’m not sure I would have survived if he hadn’t come back to me.” I wanted to weep, but we were in the short line waiting to register, and I knew I had to stay calm. I tried to inject some lightness into my tone. “I think we are even now.”
“Not by a long shot, Alina. But I will find a way.”
The line moved forward then, and we shuffled up together, and when we got to the front, with shaking hands, I showed the administrator the falsified paperwork Henry had given me.
“Hanna Wis´niewski,” he murmured, as he scrawled the name down, but he barely even looked at my paperwork, because his focus was immediately on Saul. He looked closely at Tomasz’s passport, then peered up at Saul, then back to the aged passport. For a moment, I expected him to comment on Saul’s age—he was five years older than Tomasz, and he looked much older still. But war had aged us all beyond our years, and instead, the guard’s gaze narrowed on Saul’s hair.
“You’re not Jewish, are you?” he asked. For a split second, Saul hesitated, so I interjected, “Of course he’s not. Why do you ask that?”
“Dark hair, miss. It’s a standard question. We enrolled too many Jews in the early days so we can’t let any more in. They aren’t really cut out for war—they’re just too cowardly.”
In an instant, I was speechless with rage, but Saul reached down and he took my hand, and he squeezed it—hard. Then he smiled at the officer, as he scooped the passport up quite casually.
“Is that all you need from us?” he asked with a smile.
“All done. Welcome.”
“Where do we go next?”
“Head over to the next tent. They’ll assign you jobs and sleeping quarters.”
We walked toward the second tent, and I glanced at Saul.
“I don’t know how you can bear it,” I whispered shakily beneath my breath.
“It’s just for a few weeks,” he whispered back. “We can figure it all out when Tomasz gets here. Besides, if they let me work as a doctor, perhaps they will be more concerned with my skill and less with my heritage by the time I tell them the truth.” He exhaled, then he admitted weakly, “Honestly, Alina, I am not yet strong enough to suffer for my faith again. Not yet. God forgive me, but it will be a relief to stay undercover for just a while.”
CHAPTER 36
Alice
Zofia texts me and suggests we meet for an earlier breakfast and try to come up with a plan, so by 8:00 a.m., we’re seated in the hotel restaurant. I order a double espresso, because I’ve had almost no sleep—and for the second day in a row, I order smalec. Maybe it’s written into my genes, because apparently, I love the stuff.
I kept thinking I had no expectations of this trip, but it turns out I did. I have a day left here to answer Babcia’s unspoken question, but I have no way of finding out how it all fits together. All I really know for sure is that there’s an elderly woman named Emilia somewhere here in Poland who regularly visits what might just be an empty grave with my grandfather’s name on it.
Back home, Babcia is only getting sicker. It sounds like Eddie is in freefall. Wade is juggling a million balls at once, and some are inevitably falling. Callie is drowning under more responsibility than any ten-year-old should ever have to face.
And I’m five thousand miles away, in Poland. Achieving nothing for any of them.
“So...” Zofia says lightly. “What should we do with this day, then?”
I’d almost forgotten she was there. I grimace as I meet her gaze.
“I’m sorry, Zofia. I’m going to rearrange my flight and head home today if I can.”
She tilts her head, staring at me thoughtfully.
“You’re disappointed. I understand that.”
“There just doesn’t seem much point in staying. Whatever it was Babcia wanted me to find out...we seem to be at a dead end, and back home, she’s getting sicker so...”
“I do a lot of this family history stuff.”
“I know.”
“Sometimes, I have customers who travel from all over the world trying to track down their ancestors, and they get here, and they can’t find anything. The whole country was messed up after the war. Birth records, death records, bodies...stories...all kinds of things were lost and can’t ever be found. But there’s one thing that can always be found.” She raises her gaze to me, then smiles gently. “That’s the experience of having tried. You’ve never been here before, Alice. You’re probably not coming back, right?”
“Probably not,” I admit. My throat is suddenly tight at the thought of the missed opportunities that fly right by me with every second I’m here.
“Your flight is when...tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“You have a hotel room. Me. A car. And a full day. Let’s use them?”
“But...my grandmother...and...my family...” My voice grows husky, and I pause to clear my throat. “My kids. Eddie is...they aren’t coping without me, that’s all.”
“Alice, I don’t have kids yet, so you go right ahead and ignore me if I’m way off base here but...I just have this feeling that whether you go home today or tomorrow, the outcome is probably the same. You’re going to slot right back into your life and carry them all, and a week or two from now, everything will be back the way it was. And when you look back at this amazing trip, all you’ll have to remember are the failures. Okay, we can’t figure out what your grandmother wanted you to find—I know that’s upsetting and disappointing but...maybe instead you can just experience a little more of the country that produced her.” She slides the napkin off her lap and dumps it on her plate, then stands and shrugs. “My two cents, as the saying goes. I’m going to go put gas in my car, and you take some time to think about it? If you decide to stay, I have some ideas how we can kill the time. Or I can take you to the airport if you want. I’ll be back soon and you can let me know what you decide to do.”
She gives me one last little smile, then leaves the table. I sink back into my chair and look around the hotel dining room. People sit in small groups, eating, laughing, smiling. All of those accents and languages blending together into one generally excited din. Aside from a group of men in the corner in suits, everyone else is wearing casual clothes today—mostly active clothes too. I wonder if everyone else here is on holiday. I wonder if I’m the only person in this room who is here, but not really here.
It suddenly seems completely, brutally unfair. I’m doing something I dreamed of for years. Yes, this trip hasn’t gone as I’d hoped it would. I wanted to go home with answers—instead, it seems i
nevitable that I will walk away having only uncovered more questions.
I let myself face the full depth of my failure. It seems that I have to accept that Babcia is going to pass away sooner or later with threads left loose that she hoped I would tie for her.
It feels so unfair that after all of the love she’s given me, this one thing she’s asked of me is something I just can’t give her. I want to sulk. I want to run home and spend her last days with her begging her forgiveness. I don’t want to give up, but it feels like I have no choice. What else is there left to try? What more would she want me to do?
The answer comes in an instant.
She’d have me stay.
Babcia would never want me to feel so guilty. She’d never want me to sulk, or to throw away this opportunity. I know if she was here advising me right now, she’d give me a haughty look and she’d point to the door. I can hear her voice in my head.
Go see some of my country, Alice. You’re probably not going to get another chance.
She’d have me look around this country she once loved so much and soak it all in. She’d have me take the downtime and resist guilt for doing so. She’d cheer me on and celebrate my courage at having tried. She’d tell me that my family would be okay without me for another day. She’d tell me that my rushing back won’t make her better, in fact, it would probably be the only way I could disappoint her.
When Zofia returns to the lobby twenty minutes later, I greet her with a smile.
“Okay. So we have today. What do you suggest we do first?”
“Mountains or salt mines,” she says, without missing a beat.
“Which is better?” I ask her.
“Depends. What do you fear more, heights or enclosed spaces?”
“How far underground are we talking?” I ask her.
“One hundred and thirty-five meters?”
I can’t quite figure out the math on the fly to convert that to feet, but I know it’s a long way and I hate confined spaces. I shudder and shake my head.
“No thanks. Mountains it is.”
Ten minutes later, we’re back in the car and headed through the dense traffic and out of the city. Zofia again slips into tour guide mode, pointing out landmarks and historical sights, but this time I make myself focus on her words because whenever I let myself zone out, I think about the situation back home and I feel myself tensing up. Fortunately, Zofia is good at this tour guide gig—and by the time we’re out of the city and starting the climb into mountain country, my mind is full of information about the region, like she’s conducted a rapid-fire brain dump.
“You must try ociepek,” Zofia exclaims suddenly, and she pulls the car abruptly into the parking lot of a tiny wooden hut by the side of the road. The structure is tiny—about the size of one of the small bedrooms in my house. There’s smoke pouring from the chimney, and five cars already in the car park.
“What is...”
“Ociepek,” she repeats, correctly guessing that I’ve already forgotten the word. “Smoked cheese. Out of this world.” Zofia reaches across into her handbag and withdraws her mobile phone, which she switches off.
“Service is all but nonexistent out here,” she warns me. “Best to turn it off now or your battery will be drained from all of the roaming.”
“Oh,” I say, and I hesitate, because I ended all of my conversations late last night on a terse note. “But my family might need me...”
“We will be back here by about 6:00 p.m. You can talk with them this afternoon their time?” she suggests. I look down at the phone, then sigh and send a group text. I flush with embarrassment when I realize I can send exactly the same thing to Mom, to Wade and to Callie.
I won’t have much coverage today. If you need me I’ll be back in range by about 1pm your time. We can talk tonight. I’m really sorry about yesterday, and I love you.
And then I follow Zofia into the hut, where I indeed am impressed by the squeaky, smooth taste of smoked ociepek. The vendor winks at me and insists I also try his homemade lemon liqueur—which tastes exactly like lemonade when it first hits my tongue, but scorches the back of my throat like vodka. Zofia and the vendor laugh at the way my eyes widen, and then they laugh harder when I thump my chest as the liquid burns its way down.
We are straight back in the car and Zofia is zooming through the traffic again, stopping only to show me some impressively styled wooden huts and a breathtaking vista from a lookout, and then we keep moving on all the way to the town of Zakopane. It’s high in the mountains—so high that, despite the summer heat, I can see snow on some of the peaks of the mountains behind it.
We stop for lunch and I pick up some souvenirs from the stores in the town center: necklaces fashioned with Polish amber for Callie and Mom, a sippy cup that says Zakopane for Eddie, some authentic Polish vodka as requested by my Dad—and a second bottle for Wade, who surely deserves a drink after what I’ve put him through this week. When I think we’re finished, Zofia steers me back toward her car.
“The town is cute, sure,” she says with a grin. “But what I really brought you here to do is the cable car.”
It’s midafternoon by the time we reach the cable car station, and I’m taken aback by the insanely long line waiting to ride it. But Zofia asks me to wait at the end, then disappears into the crowd. Ten minutes later she returns.
“Good news,” she says, motioning for me to follow her. We walk all the way to the front of the line. “You get to skip the line! Just one thing you have to promise me.”
“Sure?”
“When you get to the top, go for a walk—enjoy the view—take your time. But do not come back down until you’ve stopped at the restaurant for a glass of wine. It’s pretty much the law,” she says, then she winks at me, and farewells me to take the journey to the top alone, because she’s convinced a Japanese tour guide to let me slip into a spare slot with his group. That’s how I find myself standing in a cable car, hundreds of feet above the earth, squeezed into the little space with a dozen Japanese tourists and their guide.
It’s a two-stage journey to the peak, but ten minutes after we board, we are almost to the top of an immense mountain. The English announcement in the cable car tells me it is two thousand meters above sea level.
“That’s 6,500 feet,” the Japanese tour guide offers me helpfully, and I give him a grateful smile. I leave the group at the cable car and begin the walk up the last little part of the mountain to the summit. There’s dozens of people making the journey in each direction past me as I walk, but the tourist traffic ebbs and flows. Just as I reach the very peak, there’s a break in the hikers, and for a few magnificent moments, I’m actually totally alone.
A sign tells me that the valley on one side is in Slovakia—and the valley below where Zofia awaits is in Poland. The mountains are so high, the valleys below so low—and the shades of vibrant green against the white snow-topped peaks and the milky blue sky is so breathtaking it actually leaves me feeling a little emotional. I rotate slowly—taking in a 360 degree view of one of the most stunning vistas I’ve ever seen.
Three days into this trip, it hits me that despite the disappointments, this has been a wonderful experience, and I’m actually lucky to have lived it. Maybe I won’t be going home with any distinct answers, but somehow, the chance to connect with the roots of my grandmother’s life has been satisfying in a way I’d never anticipated. And having survived this trip—failures and all—has bolstered a confidence I didn’t actually know was shaken.
Wade has given me a real gift this week, despite the struggle of it back home and my own struggles here. I can’t wait to tell him how much of a revelation it has been to do something like this—standing on a mountaintop for no reason other than the sake of the experience. This moment is an investment in myself. I’m giving myself permission to make a memory that benefits no one but me. I love being a mother, and I love
being a wife. I even love being a daughter and a granddaughter. But as I stand here on the mountaintop, I’m not any of those things.
I am simply Alice, and for one breathtaking moment, I’m completely present.
I don’t just drink a glass of wine at the restaurant. I linger over it, then I drink a second, and when I get back down to Zofia—I tell her one glass was for me, and one was for her. She laughs, and then she hugs me.
“You’re finally getting the hang of this ‘travel’ thing, Alice.”
* * *
As we pass the cheese huts on the way back into Krakow, I realize that I still haven’t turned my phone back on, so I fish it out of my bag and hit the power button. It takes a few minutes to locate the tower, but when it does, a flurry of text messages hits the phone. There are the inevitably chilly thanks for letting us know messages from my husband, daughter and mother in response to my warning that I’d be off-line. Then, a series of completely unexpected texts arrives.
Alice, this is Lia—Emilia’s granddaughter. Please call me back on this number as soon as you can.
Alice, it’s Lia again. I have been trying to call you all day. Please tell me you are still in Poland. Call me urgently.
Hello Alice, I am very scared I have offended you and I am really sorry if I did. The policeman was my husband—I just wanted to scare you, I wasn’t really going to have you arrested. Please call me back.
Then finally:
Alice, this is Agnieszka Truchen. I am so sorry about the mix-up at the clinic yesterday. I hope it’s not too late for you to speak with us—please call me on this number immediately if you are still in Poland.
“Lia and Agnieszka have been trying to call me,” I tell Zofia, through my shock. Zofia looks at me in surprise, but there’s no time to discuss it, because I’ve already lifted the phone to my ear to call Lia back.
“Alice?” She greets me breathlessly on the first ring.
“Lia, yes, sorry—it’s me. I’ve been out of cell range today.”