Stephan and Jerzy come home soaking wet and there hasn’t been a drop of rain all day. Sophia doesn’t even ask about it, but I do. Stephan just slides into his room and closes the door. Jerzy gives me a quick glance and says, “Work.”
“At the tailor’s? You got wet making clothes?”
Jerzy looks to his mother for help.
“Anna, listen. Jerzy and Stephan, their work is . . . complicated. They help a lot of people. It is best if we don’t ask any questions, do you understand?”
I don’t understand, but I say, “Yes.”
“Come, Anna,” says Sophia. “There’s something I must show you.”
I follow her up the stairs to my room. Sophia pulls my dresser away from the wall. There’s a small door behind it. Sophia crawls in on her hands and knees and pulls out a few books. They are all the same, thin schoolbooks with a light brown cover. Sophia stands and dusts off the top book. I kneel down and look in the little room. It is packed full of books. There must be over a hundred, maybe over two hundred.
“I saved them from the fire.” Sophia says. “The night before they closed the school, we snuck the books out, every single one. I can’t tell you how many houses in town have hiding places like this stuffed with books.”
“Fire?”
“The Germans made a law that schoolbooks could not be written in Polish. They burned every schoolbook they could find.” Sophia shakes her head. “As soon as this war is over, we’ll be ready to open the school doors again.” Sophia hands me a thick book with a light green cover. “I’m not sure, but this one might have the poem you are looking for.”
Papa’s poem. It has been so long since I’ve held a book in my hands; I hug it to my chest. There were so many books at my old house. Jakub would stack them high enough to make a fort. Hannah and I played school every day. Before I could read, I used to open books and tell stories aloud. Once Mama caught me turning the pages of her expensive music scores. I had insisted I was reading a fairy tale to the cat.
Before bed, I pull open my top drawer, reach down into the pocket of my skirt and find the strip of cloth Mama used to tie my braid so long ago. I run it though my fingers and rub the silky cloth against my check. I close my eyes and imagine my parents standing beside me. After a moment, I tuck the cloth away and close the drawer.
I bring the book to bed. It is a type of schoolbook for older students, with pages of explanation and poems scattered through every chapter. I turn to the list of poems in the back and try to read the titles. But I don’t know the title of the poem Papa recited. Just that it had stars and flowers and a rainbow and it was about—what was it about? Hope? Time?
It is impossible for me to read the titles. I can’t keep the words in my mind. I keep thinking of two frightened faces hiding in a tool shed. I can still feel the girl’s large, worried eyes on me and hear her little brother’s hopeful words. I shouldn’t have spoken to them, not in Polish and certainly not in Yiddish.
Chapter 34
I’ve turned every page in the book Sophia gave me, but it’s no use. I need help with some of the words. Sophia and Stephan are outside. I find Jerzy sketching and ask him to help me. We climb the stairs and I show him the book Sophia gave me yesterday.
“I learned to read early,” I tell him. “My cousin was a year older. Each day when he came home from school, I wanted to do homework too.” I worry that it sounds like I’m bragging. “But I really only went to school a few days. Then the war started.”
“And everything else was more important,” Jerzy says.
“Yes.” Everything else for me, for my family, was bombs and moving to the ghetto. I wonder if things were ever that bad here. Did this small town get bombed? But I can tell by the way Jerzy said everything else that he doesn’t want to talk about the war. “This book of poems is for older students and some of the poetry words are old-fashioned. My first readers had lists of words in the back with definitions, but this book doesn’t.”
Jerzy nods. He pushes aside the dresser and crawls into the small storage room. He backs out with three books and hands them to me. Before he closes the door, I see a familiar book and reach out to grab it. “Elementarz!”
“That one is too easy.”
“It was . . . my cousin had one and I did too. This book taught me to read.” I hug it to my chest as Jerzy covers up the storage room.
Stephan calls from the bottom of the stairs. “Jerzy, you’re needed down here.”
He turns to me before he leaves. “Good luck finding the poem.”
I smile. I want to hug him. Sophia’s hugged me hundreds of times, and Stephan a few times too. But not Jerzy. Not yet. I smile instead. “Thank you.”
Stephan calls for Jerzy again. “You’re welcome,” he says, and hurries down the stairs.
Though it’s early, I take the Elementarz to bed with me. I can’t take my eyes off the paper cover, the bold black letters. I feel as if I’m holding a part of my home, my real home, in my hands. When I open the book, a small photograph slides out. A girl about six sitting next to an older boy. Their faces are nearly identical. The girl has round eyes, a full smile and dimples. The boy is Jerzy. I tuck the little photo up my sleeve and head downstairs. He’s not in the kitchen or the living room. “Jerzy?”
Sophia comes up behind me and startles me. “They’re . . . out. Off to work.”
“At night?”
Sophia shrugs. “Can I help?”
I shake my head and uncross my arms. The photo falls to the floor. She bends down and studies it. Sophia sinks into her chair. Her face has turned white. It makes her lips stand out on her face, they’re blood red and her eyes are dark and far away. “Lidia, my sweet Lidia.”
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I found it in a book. I was going to ask Jerzy . . .” I step closer.
Sophia points to the photo. “That’s Jerzy, see? He was about eight—no, nine. This was the first week Lidia started school. She was so proud to finally be going to school, like her brother.”
I lean in and study the photo. Wispy hair surrounds Lidia’s face and reaches down past her shoulders. “She was light,” says Sophia. “Hair, skin, everything. Eyes gray and round like Stephan’s.” She runs her finger along the edge of the photo. “If I had known”—Sophia is close to tears—“I would have dyed her hair black. Or kept her home from school. I would have done anything to save her.”
“Save her from the bombs?”
Sophia stands up and glares down at me. “Lidia’s not dead. She’s not dead!”
I look away, shaking. Every bone in my body is rattling against the next.
“I’m sorry, Anna. Folks around here say we have to forget about the little ones. After so much time. But I won’t forget about Lidia. And I know she’s alive. I know she is.”
Sophia sinks down into her chair again.
I nod, afraid to ask any more questions. Terrified of making Sophia even more upset.
“They took Lidia, took our children,” Sophia continues. She swears about the Germans again and again. I count five swear words. “All the children who looked like their master race, they put them on a bus to Germany.” Sophia sets the photo down on the arm of the chair and covers her eyes. “They won’t get away with this. They won’t get away with anything.”
I throw my arms around Sophia’s neck and press my face into her shoulder. My chest feels like it is full of river water, cold and swirling. Sophia’s arms are around me, but she must be wishing it were Lidia in her lap. The same way I long for Mama and Papa to hold me.
The storm swirling in my head stills for a moment and I have a clear, bright thought. Stephan and Sophia aren’t working with the Germans. If they learn I’m Anna Bauman, they may not like me as much as they like Anna Karwolska, but they’d never turn me in to the Germans, not in a hundred million years.
Chapter 35
I thought I was the first one awake, but as I climb high in the pine tree, I notice Stephan walking between the sheds with a tall girl
. She hands him an envelope and walks down the road alone. I reach Stephan before he goes back inside. He jumps when he sees me. “Anna, I thought you were asleep. I wish I had known. There was someone here, a friend. I know she would have liked to meet you.”
“A friend?”
“She visits about once a month, if possible. I will introduce you next time.” I wait for him to tell me more, but instead he tucks the envelope into his pocket and walks inside.
Old Ella doesn’t move when I step into the shed. I talk softly to her as I start to milk. I try to push and squeeze and pull just like Sophia showed me, but without her hands over mine, I’m out of sync. It’s not working. I try for several minutes before I give up. I sit back and brush my hair away from my face. A few drops of milk spill into the bucket. I milk again, pulling harder now, but after twice as much time, Old Ella doesn’t even give half the milk she did yesterday.
The chickens are excited to see me. I unfold the heavy cloth, dump the bucket Sophia keeps by the door, pouring out crumbs and food scraps. They peck around my feet happily. I bend to stroke the silky feathers of a golden-orange hen.
We have six eggs today, which is good fortune. Sophia has instructed me to try to trade if we have more than four eggs. I thank the chickens and secure their coop. At home, I put the basket of eggs on the table. I remove two eggs, tucking them into my pockets.
In town, as I approach the soldiers sitting at the café, I let my arms swing loose, fingers open, so they can see I have nothing to hide, nothing worth taking.
Sophia said I should try to trade eggs for vinegar or beets—beets! And to do my best to hear if anyone has meat. She gave directions to today’s trading place, the third house past the administration building. Instead, I walk through the cemetery, straight to the shed, and open the door. The girl is sitting in the corner with her knees pulled to her chest. Her gray coat is over her shoulders like a cape. She lifts her head to look at me, but doesn’t make a sound.
Like before, the little boy enters behind me and closes the door. He crosses the room and sits in front of the girl, setting the dirty spade beside him.
I take an egg out of my pocket and put it on the floor close to them. “Ay,” I say. “Egg.”
The boy pounces on it and closes both of his hands around it. The girl sits up straighter.
I hold up the other egg. “Egg,” I say.
The little boy stands and reaches for it. “Egg,” I repeat, pulling it back.
“Ay,” he says.
“Yes, that’s right. Egg.”
He looks at the girl. She nods. “Egg,” he says.
I place the second egg in his hands and he gives it to the girl. I watch them crack and drink the raw eggs, spilling not a drop. When they finish, they look up at me. I point to myself and say, “Anna.”
The boy points to his sister and says, “Zina,” then to himself and says, “Jozef.” They both start speaking rapid fire. I can’t understand and I don’t know how to say that in Yiddish.
So I say what I know. I repeat Grandma’s sayings. “Better an egg today than an ox tomorrow.” They nod. Still waiting. “Don’t rub your belly when the fish is still in the lake.” They look at each other. I offer another saying. “If you lie on the ground you cannot fall.”
Then I remember one about a grandmother. “If my grandmother had a beard, she’d be my grandfather.” I shrug my shoulders and say grandmother a few times.
The girl brings her fingers to her mouth. She looks at me with questioning eyes.
I shake my head. “No, I have no more food.” I say it in Polish, but her eyes tell me that she understands.
Jozef reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out some dirt and hands it to his sister. Zina looks closely at it and passes something—a long string—back to him.
I scoot closer and see plump worms, one in each of their hands. They pop them into their mouths. I should look away, but I stare fascinated as they chew. For the first time I wonder if they are alone here, eating only insects and worms.
At home I tell Sophia that I arrived at the trading house too late. “No one was there,” I say.
She puts a hand on my shoulder. “Well, that’s two more eggs for us.”
I lift my head to meet Sophia’s eyes and then look down. “I—I—I . . . I dropped the eggs,” I say quickly. “I dropped the eggs and . . .” I’m out of words. My heart is punching me in the chest. I’m crying. My hands feel heavy as I lift them to my face. I can’t catch my breath.
“Anna, Anna,” Sophia murmurs. “Anna, calm down. It’s a challenge but we always find enough food to eat and the energy to fight on another day.”
Why did I tell her there were two extra eggs? I should have said we had only four eggs today. Still crying, I rush out of the room.
Run from tall tales and secrets as you would run from ghosts.
I run outside and see Stephan and Jerzy making their way home, so I stop sniffling and circle back to help Sophia with the soup. They enter as we are setting the table. We each have a bowl of soup and a slice of bread. The family slice sits on a small plate in the middle of the table, waiting for Stephan to divide it after the meal.
“We have trouble,” Stephan says.
I place four spoons on the table. “Better trouble with soup than trouble without soup,” I say without thinking. I freeze a moment, wondering if I’ve spoken in Polish or Yiddish. Grandma’s sayings are pouring out of me faster than the wind.
Stephan continues as if I haven’t spoken and Jerzy sits down beside him.
“Paper,” Stephan says. “They got our paper man. Today we had to move the whole operation.”
Chapter 36
I listen quietly as Stephan and Sophia talk about the person captured, moving equipment and a desperate need for paper. Jerzy’s hand is wrapped in blue cloth. When he sets his spoon down, I notice blood seeping through the bandage.
Sophia stands and begins pacing. “We don’t have anything left to trade.” She looks around the room. “We have nothing.”
Stephan shakes his head. “I wouldn’t risk it now, even if we had cash. It’s not safe to be bartering for paper when they’ve caught our supplier.”
Just then there’s a knock on the door. Before anyone can answer, the door opens and the tall German soldier lets himself in. He smiles at us all and takes Sophia’s vacant seat at the table.
Jerzy quickly hides his injured hand under the table and sits still as stone.
Stephan stands and pours a drink. The soldier stares at our empty bowls. He helps himself to our last piece of bread, the family slice, and starts a conversation with Stephan about Resistance fighters. “They’re hanging like flags in Warsaw. Twelve of them just this morning. It’s a public display, a warning. It seems these people in the Resistance don’t value their lives.”
I keep my eye on the piece of bread in his hand. It’s gray and hard, bread earned by Sophia standing in line and trading ration tickets. The slice of bread we always share. The man turns the bread in his hand, crumbling it slowly.
“Well, good thing you’re out in the country,” says Stephan. “Never any excitement here.”
The soldier pours his drink down his throat. “Still, they’re sending me thirty more men. Must find billeting.” He stands and Stephan does too.
They walk through every room of the house. “I’m sorry my home is so small,” Stephan says, his voice regretful.
“No matter,” says the German soldier. “You help in other ways.”
Stephan stands tall. He takes in a small breath and holds it, waiting. I can imagine him in uniform, like Papa. He looks like a soldier waiting for battle.
“Do you know anyone capable of printing?” The soldier bends forward to Stephan.
“No.” Stephan shakes his head. “Do you need help printing?”
The man taps his glass and Stephan rushes to fill it.
“Just the opposite.” The soldier puts his hat on his head. “Trying to catch another traitor.”
When the door closes behind him, we are silent for several long minutes. Then Sophia scoops up the bread crumbs the soldier crushed and drops them into the pail by the door.
Stephan begins pacing.
“How much paper do you need?” I ask.
Stephan holds up his finger and thumb to indicate the size of the stack. I rush upstairs. In a few moments, I come down with a piece of blank white paper in my hand. I hold it up for Stephan. Sophia and Jerzy look our way. “I could get you 220 of this size and about 80 more a little smaller.”
Stephan’s silent a moment, turning the paper over, sniffing it. “Where did you get this? And how do you have so many?”
“From the books.” I turn to Sophia. “The schoolbooks. There is a blank page at each end of every book.”
Sophia gathers sharp knives for each of us and we climb the stairs to my bedroom. Sophia slides the stacks of books out from behind my dresser and the four of us open the books and remove the blank pages. After a few minutes I ask, “What’s the paper for?” Sophia and Stephan exchange a long glance. I’m afraid they won’t answer and a bit afraid to find out, but I ask again. “What are you printing?”
Jerzy simply says, “The truth.” He shrugs. “The Germans have their newspapers, full of lies. The Polish people need newspapers too. Ones that tell the truth.”
“A Polish newspaper?” I remember before the war my father bought a paper every morning. Mama would complain that he left the pages everywhere, on the dining table, on the sofa, even in the bathroom.
“An underground newspaper,” Stephan confirms. He cuts a back paper out of a textbook. “Not a word about this to anyone,” he says.
I nod. I wish I could tell Stephan he need not worry. I’m an expert at keeping secrets. It’s difficult to swallow around the lump in my throat. I blink to focus on the page in front of me. My biggest secret, I’m keeping even from them.
“I almost forgot, this came for you today,” says Sophia, handing Stephan an envelope. It’s a letter from his sister, who lives in another small town sixty kilometers away. He reads it aloud. It begins like any normal letter. She complains that it has been too long since she’s received a letter or a visit. “If my own nephew, Jerzy, were to walk through my door I might not recognize him after all this time.” She reports that everyone is healthy. What comes next isn’t ordinary. She tells about a family on the other side of town. Stephan’s voice slows.
The Safest Lie Page 10