“Yes, Sister Maria,” I answer.
The room is quiet at last.
Chapter 27
After morning prayer service, I walk directly to Sister Maria’s office. I’m nervous but not afraid. I may be given a lecture, a verse to memorize or even extra chores.
“Anna.” Sister Maria stands and walks out from behind her desk. “Last night you were talking when it was time to be quiet. I don’t blame you for trying to help the new girls. Yet I think it is important for you to think about your actions.”
“Yes, Sister Maria.”
“Stand in front of the statue of Mother Maria. Bow your head and pray to her. Wait as long as it takes for an answer. Then come tell me what it is.”
I walk down the long hall. When I reach the statue of Mother Maria, I talk to her as if she is my real mother. I whisper to her about the girls last night. “They were so tired and afraid.” I make excuses. “I was only trying to help.” I wish Mother Maria could answer my important questions. How long until I see Mama and Papa again? Will this war ever end?
I whisper to Mother Maria for a long time. Sometimes I bow my head and close my eyes, but sometimes I forget and stare at her face. When I have emptied out my troubles, I feel refreshed, as if a cool cloth has washed my face.
I turn to go back to Sister Maria’s office but stop myself. I almost forgot to wait for an answer. Waiting is the hard part. I search Mother Maria’s eyes, the face of her baby, baby Jesus. The statue is calm and comforting, but it doesn’t give me any answers.
I wait as long as I can, until looking at Mother Maria is no longer comforting. My stomach spins and I feel crowded, like I’m not standing in a large hall with a tall ceiling, but waiting under a desk in the dark.
When I knock on Sister Maria’s door, she doesn’t invite me in. Instead, she steps out into the hallway. “Do you have an answer?”
“I’m not sure,” I admit. “Perhaps the answer came from Mother Maria. Or maybe it’s something I thought up myself.”
“Very well,” says Sister Maria. She glances into her office. “What is your answer?”
“I think Mother Maria said that I should not spend my time making up stories. But I shouldn’t spend my entire morning talking to her if I can do some useful work instead.”
“Very well,” says Sister Maria. “Wait here.”
In the time it takes for Sister Maria to walk into her office and turn around, she’s back with a dust cloth. “Clean the windowsills along the hallway and the door frames as high as you can reach.”
“Yes, Sister Maria.”
As I dust the first windowsill, I hear Sister Maria’s conversation through her open door.
“We heard of your capture. We even received news of your death.”
“In these times, one doesn’t know what to believe,” answers a woman. The voice is decisive, but so low. Someone used to talking in whispers. It’s low and rumbly, but strong. I try to slow my breathing and quiet my heart so I can hear properly. I know that voice! Jolanta? My heart drums in my ears. Could it be?
“Perhaps the news you heard was true. Today I am Mrs. Dabrowska. Tomorrow perhaps another name. We try to be safe, though we know safety isn’t always possible.”
Oh, how I wish I could run into Sister Maria’s office. I want to ask Jolanta a million questions. I race to the end of the hall and clean every windowsill as fast as possible. I turn and speed to each door and run the cloth over the frame, as high as I can reach. My heart pounds, my breath is short and fast, faster than my feet. Running back to Sister Maria’s office, my feet almost leave the ground. I feel as if I’m running back home.
Outside the door, I hear Sister Maria say, “Fifteen will help a great deal.”
“Tomorrow, then,” says Mrs. Dabrowska, who sounds just like Jolanta.
I walk into the office and set my cloth on Sister Maria’s desk. I study the woman. Her hair is not like Jolanta’s, and something is different about the face. Could it really be her? The woman smiles at me. I’ve never seen Jolanta smile. “And how are you today?” She places a hand on my arm.
“Very well, thank you,” I say. The hand doesn’t feel familiar, but the woman’s eyes do. Does she know me?
“Anna, please excuse us,” says Sister Maria.
I leave the room and wait at the end of the hall by the statue of Mother Maria. I pray again. Should I speak with her? Should I ask her if she’s Jolanta? I wait until the lady leaves Sister Maria’s office. When I see her walking away, I decide it can’t be Jolanta. The woman drags her left leg. It looks as if every step causes her pain. Not at all like Jolanta, who took short, speedy steps.
After dinner, Sister Maria stands in front of the room. “I will now call out the names of fifteen girls. When I say your name, stand beside me.” Most of the names she calls are the older girls, including Klara. But near the end, Sister Maria says, “Anna Karwolska.” I stand and join the others.
When we’re all gathered around, Sister Maria excuses the other children. After they leave the room, she says to us, “Find Monika and ask her to give you clothes fit to travel in. Tomorrow you’ll be leaving us to stay with families.”
“No, no, no, no,” cries Klara, covering her face with her hands. “No, not again.” We all stare in shock. No one says no to Sister Maria. Klara sinks to the floor, draws up her knees and says, “Not again. Please, don’t make me go. Please, don’t make me go.”
I take a step toward Klara and step back again. She is not the Klara I know, the girl who calls me a liar, who prays the loudest, who makes every effort to prove that she is better than the rest of us. She’s trembling on the floor, nearly in tears, like the young children who arrived yesterday.
“Very well,” says Sister Maria. “You’ll stay here. It’s for the best.” She nods encouragingly to Klara. “I’ll send someone in your place.”
We walk slowly to our rooms. I listen to the girls whisper to each other about living with families. “There’s sure to be more food,” says one girl. But the rest give frightening reports about hiding in basements and inside wardrobes. One girl says she knows of a boy who was hidden under the floorboards for so long that he went blind.
I turn in a circle, staring at these girls I have known for over a year. We’ve eaten together, worked together, attended prayer service together. I thought they were all Catholic.
There is only one reason they would need to hide, one reason for Klara to be afraid to leave. They’re Jewish, just like me.
Chapter 28
Monika declares my school uniform unfit. I know it is nicer than most anything anyone else wears. I can’t speak, but my face must show that I’m upset.
“It’s your outfit, Anna. You can take it with you. But you can’t wear it to travel. The skirt is only to your knee.” She hands me a gray dress that reaches almost to my ankles. “Here,” she says, and passes me a pair of woolen tights. They are thick and soft and I want to pull them on at once. My feet have been in such pain, with my toes bent and pressing against the end of my shoes and no socks to protect my skin. But if I wear the tights, I’ll never get my feet into my shoes.
“Why do you keep so much clothing here when some of the girls . . .” I stop, ready to apologize. How could I question Monika and Sister Maria? They’ve done nothing but help me.
“The clothes came only yesterday. Brought by someone from Warsaw.” Monika bends over and searches through piles of clothes on the floor. “Take these, too,” she says.
New shoes! The shoes aren’t actually new, but they’re big enough for my feet with room to grow. They are gray with strong straps, and worn in just enough to be comfortable but not so much as to have holes.
“Thank you.”
As I turn to leave, Monika hands me a navy ribbon and adds, “Take that cloth off the end of your braid.”
That night I teach Eva the whole alphabet. When she falls asleep, I hold her close. Oh, how I will miss her. The girls, even the newest, littlest girls, settle down quickly wit
hout crying. When all is quiet, my mind stretches out to the next day. Where will I be? Hidden in a wardrobe? Locked in a cellar? I can’t imagine the future, so I close my eyes and focus on what I know is true. I let myself become Anna Bauman.
I remember playing with my cousins in Papa’s shop. Hanna, Jakub and I built roads with the sawdust on the floor, an imaginary town. Jakub had a chunk of wood bigger than his hand, pretending it was a delivery truck. He smashed through the carefully constructed town. I had a small triangle, just a scrap of wood. It was easy to navigate along the curvy roads. Papa sat at his desk sketching, as a customer described a piece of furniture. Whenever customers wanted changes, Papa never became upset. He just flipped the page on his sketchbook and started again.
When I walked through town with Mama, she pointed out Papa’s work everywhere. In the corner market: “Your father made those bins for Mr. Barlomie.” At the bakery: “See the long display with the glass shelves? Your father made that in his shop.” Even when we took Grandma to have her eyeglasses repaired. I studied the wall of small wooden drawers. Mama bent her head and whispered in my ear, “Your father made that cabinet.”
The next morning at breakfast, I tell Eva. “I have to leave today. I’m going to miss you.”
She climbs up on my lap and throws her arms around me. “I love you, Anna. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Just as I finish my last bite, Sister Maria finds me. “It’s time to go,” she says.
Sister Maria holds my hand and we walk outside. A man wearing a blue shirt stands by a horse and a small cart with two benches. There’s no cover to the cart. No blanket to toss over me. I will be riding out in the open.
The man holds my elbow and helps me climb onto the front bench. I take a breath and look around. I’m closer to the trees. I can almost see over the top of the wall beside the church.
Sister Maria gives the man my papers. She reaches for my hand and squeezes it tightly. “Do well, Anna. I hope you do very well.”
“Thank you.”
When we reach the road, the man says, “My name is Tomasz. I’m taking you to live with my sister. So you can call me Uncle Tomasz.”
“Are there a lot of children at your sister’s house?”
A frown crosses Tomasz’s face for a moment. “Only her son, Jerzy. He’s fourteen.” I turn to look back at the church. It’s enormous and full of children. “My sister loves children,” Tomasz continues. “She’s a schoolteacher.”
I close my mind and imagine myself in a classroom again. The gray dress with droopy sleeves seems out of place on me. My legs are warmed by the woolen tights and my toes have room to wiggle in my shoes. It’s not only the clothes, but the odd sensation of the church growing smaller behind us. I don’t feel like myself. Maybe today I’m really becoming Anna Karwolska.
I tell the man the name of Anna Karwolska’s hometown. “That’s where I’m from. Have you ever been there?”
“I’ve passed through it once or twice.”
“What’s it like? Is there a big river with many bridges? Is there just one church or a bunch of them? Is it near the sea?”
He looks at me a long moment and says, “Don’t you know?”
I realize my mistake. I really don’t know what Anna Karwolska’s town is like. I wonder for a moment if Uncle Tomasz can see right through my life, past the life of an orphaned Catholic girl and into the life of a Jewish girl in hiding.
I swallow and say, “Yes, I know. It’s just that I’ve been away so long. My old home is like something that happened a long time ago. Almost like a dream.”
Uncle Tomasz nods. “I can imagine it would feel like that.”
There’s no lock on a mouth, Grandma would say. But I mustn’t think about Grandma now. I am Anna Karwolska. I must know the correct answers.
Chapter 29
“Here we are,” says Uncle Tomasz as we enter a small town. We turn off the main street onto a country road. Three people are standing outside the farmhouse when we pull up. Uncle Tomasz jumps down and kisses his sister on her cheeks three times. He does the same to her husband and his nephew. Excitedly, he whirls around. “And this,” says Tomasz with his arms pointing up at me and a huge smile on his face, “is Anna.”
I stand and say, “Hello.” Tomasz helps me down and his sister holds me in a tight embrace.
“Just look at you,” she says. “Just look at you. You’re just as I expected.” She turns to her husband. “Look at this girl, Stephan.”
“I see her,” Stephan answers. He doesn’t smile but his blue-gray eyes are friendly. “You haven’t even told her your name.”
“I’m Sophia. And this is Stephan.” She points first to her husband and then her son. “And this is Jerzy. You can call me Mama Sophia. Or just Sophia.”
“Thank you,” I say. I can’t imagine calling anyone Mama besides my real mother.
Inside, Sophia serves thin slices of brown bread, carrots and flavored beans. I feel four sets of eyes on me as we eat. I try to eat slowly, but the food, and especially the milk, is so delicious. Just like at the orphanage, there’s no food to spare but there’s enough.
Sophia adds milk to my cup each time I set it down.
“Be careful or she’ll drink so much she’ll float away,” Stephan teases.
I set my cup down without drinking, worried I’ve had more than my fair share.
Sophia smiles. “I can’t help it. I want to fatten her up.” She speaks with such concern, as if she were my very own Mama. I’m glad the meal is nearly over, because a lump is growing in my throat.
When the last bit of food is eaten, Tomasz thanks his sister for the meal.
“What about the family piece of bread?” asks Jerzy.
Sophia steps to the counter and returns with a small plate and a thin slice of bread. Stephan breaks the bread into five even pieces and passes one to each of us. It’s only two extra bites of bread, but Jerzy smiles as he chews and I can’t help thinking that these last two bites taste better than the rest.
After Uncle Tomasz leaves, Sophia says, “Come, Anna. I’ll show you to your room.” She leads the way up some small, dark stairs. The stairs are steep, almost like walking up a ladder. We enter the dark room and my stomach sinks. She’s taking me to a hiding place. I won’t be in the open after all.
Sophia turns on a light. There is a small bed next to the attic window, a chest of drawers with a mirror above and even a small desk. “You can place your things in here.” Sophia slides open the top drawer of the dresser. She notices me looking longingly at the desk. “There’s no school because of the occupation.”
I just nod and place my rolled-up school uniform in the drawer. It’s the only thing I have except the scrap of cloth Mama used to fasten my braid, which is tucked into one of the pockets.
Sophia sits on the small bed and I feel odd standing and staring at her, so I sit down beside her. “Were you with the nuns a long time?”
“Over a year,” I tell her.
“This is all very new for you. Do you have any questions?”
I pull my hands up into the ends of my long droopy sleeves. I have a million questions. Why am I here? How long can I stay? Does anyone in the world know my secret? And most important, when will my parents find me? “Have you had any other orphans stay with you?”
Sophia shakes her head. “Just you, Anna, only you.” And she pulls me into another hug. So many hugs in one day. So many I’ve lost count. When Sophia heads out the door, down the steep, dark stairs, I ask, “How long should I stay here in this room?”
Sophia turns back in surprise. “You may come and go as you please. It’s your room, Anna. Come with me and I’ll show you the rest of the house.”
The rest of the house is small. The kitchen where we had lunch, a small living room, a bathroom with running water, and a bigger room with Stephan and Sophia’s bed and a mat laid out on the floor. Jerzy gave up his room for me.
Best of all is the outside. Fields and tre
es stretch out in every direction; we’re far from any other house. Stephan has three little work sheds. It’s quiet. Except for the birds, everything is quiet and still. I run through the fields to the edge of the trees. How I wish there were apple trees loaded with fruit. I settle for a prickly pine and wiggle my way between the branches. They reach out from the center like a spiral staircase and I climb. Up, up, up. I climb until I see the top of Stephan’s sheds. Until I see the top of the house. When I stop, I’m more than halfway up the great pine tree, standing somewhere between the earth and the clouds. When I wander back to the farmhouse, I bring some of the forest with me. Sap covers my palms, so thick it nearly glues my fingers together.
Stephan stands outside the house talking to a tall man in uniform—a German soldier’s uniform! They are speaking a strange combination of German and Polish. I don’t understand all of the words. There’s nowhere for me to hide. Anna Karwolska doesn’t need to hide. As I approach, I hear the soldier thank Stephan for his help.
“You know you can count on me,” says Stephan.
The soldier turns and steps directly into my path. He’s so tall; I think if Stephan stretched his arms high in the air, he wouldn’t be able to reach the soldier’s cap. I take a step back and immediately wish I hadn’t. So I step forward again.
“Who do we have here?” The giant soldier smiles down at me.
Stephan tells the soldier my name. I try to cover my fear by standing tall. I speak loudly and clearly in German. “Good evening.”
The soldier’s smile grows. “What a smart, polite girl you have here,” he says to Stephan. He bows his head to me and says, “Good evening, miss.”
Stephan holds the door and we make our way inside together. “I didn’t know you could speak German,” he says.
“Who was that man?”
“He’s important in this town.” Stephan waits, as if he knows I have more questions.
“Does he . . . do they come here often?”
“You probably didn’t see many soldiers in the orphanage. But around here, they’re everywhere. They like the countryside. If you can remember one thing whenever you meet a German soldier, everything will be fine.”
The Safest Lie Page 8