At the next home, Sophia’s friend greets us with a smile that grows when she learns we are in search of a poem. “Finally, someone seeks me out to discuss literature. It seems the only books anyone reads these days are ration booklets.” She’s determined to help me find the poem. “Say it again, girl.”
I recite the words:
“A bright flame of truth grows strong
As secrets are uncovered.
Your soul is brave and expanding.”
I look away from her happy face because it feels like I’m showing off. My voice doesn’t shape the poem the way Papa’s voice did that night by the window. “I’m not sure those are the correct words.”
“Maybe Norwid,” the teacher says. “Or Asnyk. They’re from the same time period.”
Sophia complains of her aching back and the two ladies finally leave the room. I flip each book cover and run the knife along the blank pages, slipping them quickly into my bag. I know the pages are blank. And I’m not harming the book. Still, it feels like I am stealing.
I stack the books to the side after I cut the pages out. When I have only three books left, I sense someone watching me. I lift my head and stare into the face of a small boy.
“Henry,” he says.
“Anna,” I answer.
His eyes are on my knife. He’s about four or five years old. I offer him a blank page. “This fell out of my book, would you like it?”
He shakes his head, his eyes still on the knife. I consider crunching the paper into a ball and tossing it out of the room, but chances are he’d stay here or run right back. Finally I say, “My mother is here. I’m sure she has a surprise for you.”
Without giving me another glance he hurries out of the room. I remove the second page and set the book aside. Before leaving the room, I make sure all the blank pages are tucked down deep into my bag, and reach for the two books I haven’t cut.
I find Sophia searching her pockets for a surprise. “I must have left it at home and will certainly bring it next time.”
“May I please borrow these two books?” I ask. “I think I would enjoy reading them, even if I can’t find the poem.”
“You’ll find it, Anna.” Sophia’s friend smiles. “You have determination, I can tell.”
When we turn the corner, Sophia takes a deep breath.
“He saw the knife,” I say. “He saw the knife and he wouldn’t leave the room.”
Sophia chews her lip. “Don’t worry, Anna. We have the paper. No more about this until we are home.”
At home she boils water. I wonder if there are any vegetables for soup.
Sophia surprises me by bringing a steaming cup to the table. “Only one to share between us, but I found some tea I’d been saving.” She pushes it in my direction and I take a tiny sip.
“There are two reasons the newspaper is so important. First of all, it brings hope. Everyone needs hope, especially now.” She takes a sip of the tea and then another. “But more importantly, it saves lives.” She pushes the teacup toward me and I drink. I watch her face change as she speaks, from concern to determination to excitement. “There are so many people, good Polish people who are desperate. They see a future with Germans in charge, so they switch sides. They want to join the winning team.” Sophia’s eyes meet mine and I believe every word she says. “They need to know Poland can win.”
Chapter 40
One morning when the air is crisp, but not too cool, I find two large baskets by the door. “Walk with me today, Anna,” Sophia says.
I pick up a basket and join her. We’re off to see her friend Mrs. Tombola. “She’s been too ill to come to church. I’d like to check on her.” Sophia and I scoop up walnuts along the way. When we arrive at Mrs. Tombola’s house, our baskets are full.
Her daughter, Verla, answers the door. She looks surprised, but not happy to see us. Sophia doesn’t seem to notice. She barges in, bragging about the walnuts. I follow Sophia into the kitchen and stop in my tracks. Two soldiers are sitting at the table eating eggs and some sort of meat. They talk with each other, ignoring us.
Sophia clutches her basket tighter as if the soldiers might try to confiscate the walnuts. I can’t move. Sophia turns to Verla and raises her eyebrows.
“They moved in last week,” she says. Her words sound like an apology.
“Is your mother ill?” Sophia asks.
“Yes, this is her fifth day in bed.”
Sophia instructs us to shell the walnuts and leaves to see Mrs. Tombola. Verla must pour coffee for the soldiers; one bangs his cup on the table repeatedly.
She pulls a chair to the corner of the room for me. After waiting on the soldiers, she brings me a pile of newspapers, a kitchen knife and a big bowl. I start peeling the husks away from the walnuts.
I can understand a little of what the soldiers are talking about. They discuss their breakfast and the weather. One of the soldiers says he really likes the coffee and plans to hide it in his room so Mrs. Tombola and Verla don’t drink it. The other soldier laughs and says, “A lot of good it will do you without a pot.” At this the first soldier pounds his cup on the table. Their talk turns to numbers. Hundreds, thousands. Adding. Subtracting. I’m not sure if they are talking about their pay or taking over the world. I keep my ears on the conversation, in case they become curious about me.
Verla clears the table and brings a chair next to me. She reaches into the basket to pull out a walnut. Our heads are so close, the top of her head nearly touches my forehead. “One of them speaks Polish,” she whispers. I don’t say a word, but Verla chats. “Your hands have already turned brown. If I had some lemon juice I could clean them for you. It’s been over three years since I’ve seen a lemon.”
I have never heard of a lemon but I imagine it’s some type of berry with lots of juice. Verla’s nearly an adult so she knows a lot about life before the war. I fish another walnut from its husk and drop the husk on the paper.
Verla leans forward again. “I haven’t had a soul to talk to and I must tell you something.”
“What?” I finally speak, but it’s only a whisper.
She whispers too. “When Mother fell ill, she fainted to the floor. I thought she was dead. The lanky soldier there, the one who speaks Polish, he lifted Mother and carried her to bed.”
I glance at the soldier; he’s tall and very thin.
“Then he ran straight for the doctor, all the way to town.” Verla’s forgotten about the walnuts. I reach for another. “He’d only moved in the day before. He didn’t even know us.”
The other soldier bangs his cup again and Verla rushes to serve him. The soldiers begin discussing their day’s work. The tall soldier tells his friend, “I’m assigned to do a house-to-house search again with a few others.”
“What this time?” The coffee drinker sounds bored.
“There’s talk of a hidden printing press. Someone mailed another newspaper to headquarters. It’s probably nothing.”
Verla sits across from me again. I force myself to stay in my seat and work though I want to run to Sophia or home to Stephan. Verla is silent. I must be a perfect, unnoticeable child. I listen to every word, but the soldiers say no more about printing presses or house searches. Just as we shuck the last of the walnuts, Sophia finishes her visit.
When she walks into the room, I cover up my worry by smiling. “Perfect timing,” I tell her. “We’ve finished all the work.” I hold up my brown, sticky hands.
She actually laughs. The noise interrupts the soldiers and they look over at us. Sophia stands taller. “Gentlemen,” she says, and nods like she is a proper lady. “Anna, run to the washroom and clean up. Time to go.”
Verla excuses herself. I wash my hands quickly; I want to pull Sophia outside and tell her about the search. Verla and I step into the room at the same time. She offers me a red coat. I’m speechless.
“It will be cold soon,” she says. “I’ve outgrown it.”
I put it on. It fits perfectly.
Sophia thanks Verla and offers her a bit of advice. “You should make your home a little less inviting. Maybe the doctor can diagnosis your mother with something contagious?”
Verla looks alarmed.
Sophia shakes her head. “Not really, just enough to post a sign.” She glances at the Germans. “Keep some people away.”
Verla nods, speechless, and hurries us to the door. Sophia says under her breath as soon as we are out the door, “What makes them think they can live where they like? With a widow and her unmarried daughter, it’s not proper!”
“She was nervous because one of them speaks Polish. He heard you.”
Sophia smiles a bit. “I hope he did.”
I motion for her to bend forward, and whisper in her ear. “I can understand German.” I tell her about the printing press and the house-to-house search.
We run home, crossing the field to the back of the house. Sophia and I pause by the back door to catch our breath. The door is open and the voice of the tall German solider reaches us from inside.
“Sophia?” I’m nearly crying, I’m so afraid. I look up at her. Sophia’s jaw is clenched and her stare is fixed straight ahead. I know what she’s doing. The long pause isn’t just to catch our breath. It is time to pretend, to act. I set my spine straight and give my mind a moment to settle into being the new Anna. But I can’t be calm. On the streets, in Mrs. Tombola’s house, in our very own home, everywhere we turn we see German soldiers.
Sophia takes a breath and reaches for my hand. She’s ready. “Not a word, Anna. Remember, you know nothing.” She steps through the open door. Sophia barely offers a greeting and begins sorting through the walnuts.
The Nazi soldier steps into the kitchen. He smiles when he sees me and wishes me a good day in German. I smile and answer him. I try to make my eyes unafraid and my face blank. I try to tell myself I know nothing. I hold my breath and count his footsteps on the wooden floor as he walks to the front door.
As soon as Stephan closes the door behind the soldier, Sophia pulls him aside and whispers in his ear.
He pulls on his boots and calls to Jerzy.
“No.” Sophia shakes her head. “You can’t take Jerzy with you this time. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m not afraid,” Jerzy insists.
“I know,” says Sophia. “That’s the problem.”
“I need him. I’ll be lucky to have three men on this short notice. We have to take apart that whole machine and hide it.”
“I’ll go,” says Sophia. “I’ll help.”
Chapter 41
Stephan and Sophia are gone all day. The sky turns dark and they still haven’t returned. I bring my books to Stephan and Sophia’s bed. I want to know the moment they return and my room upstairs feels too far away. Jerzy’s stretched out on his bedroll beside the bed, but I know he’s not sleeping.
“What’s the very first thing you remember?”
He’s quiet for such a long time, I think he hasn’t heard my question. “Horses,” he says. I wait for more. “It’s more of a feeling, I guess. The way the world moves past you when you’re on a horse or in a cart. The height. When you’re a child, there’s only so much you can see until someone or something lifts you up. I think my earliest memory is that feeling of being up high on a horse—or a cart being pulled by a horse—and the world moving by step by step.”
The way Jerzy explains his memory, I can almost hear the clip-clop of hooves and feel the to-and-fro of a cart being pulled.
“Sometimes,” Jerzy says, “I’m not sure if I remember something for real or if I’ve only heard a story so many times that it feels like a true memory.” He sits up and I can make out his form in the growing darkness. “My mother tells the story of the first time she left me in the cart in town. I was about four. When someone approached and asked about my parents I pointed to the two horses, calling one of them Mama and the other Papa.”
I didn’t think it was possible, but Jerzy has made me smile.
“What’s yours?” he asks.
I think of Mama playing piano. The smell of wood in Papa’s shop. Walking down the busy streets of Warsaw with my parents. Then I remember Jakub and the first game we ever played together. Another memory flashes in my mind, news about Jakub in Grandma’s last letter. Jakub has had a high fever for ten days and refuses to eat. I swallow around the lump in my throat and push Grandma’s letters out of my mind to answer Jerzy’s question.
“Spitting apples,” I say. “My cousin Jakub was—is—a year older than me. We used to fight about everything. When we were very young we even took each other’s food. Our mothers said we’d pull the spoons out of the other’s mouths. I don’t remember that, but I remember the apples.” I shake my head. “We’d chew up bites of apple until they were sticky and gooey and—” It’s so disgusting; I can’t believe I’m admitting this. “We used to spit the apple gunk at each other.”
Jerzy laughs. “I was never that mean to my little sister.”
Silence falls quickly around us and grows. I want to say something about Lidia, but I can’t manage to make a sound.
“Let’s rest now, Anna,” he says.
“Yes, let’s rest.” I close my eyes and think of Lidia far away in Germany. I wonder if she’s living with another family. This war is moving children around like toys on a game board. Maybe I’m only here because Lidia is gone. Stephan and Sophia must miss her so much. Perhaps that is the only reason they agreed to take a girl from the orphanage. Maybe Mama and Papa miss me so much that they found another girl too. Nothing in this war, nothing makes sense.
I wake between Stephan and Sophia sometime before the sun comes up. They’re both sound asleep and reek of oil. Sophia’s hair is sticking up. Stephan is sleeping in his clothes. There’s something different about their faces when they sleep. Stephan’s mouth is open a bit, he doesn’t look worried at all, and Sophia’s face has fewer wrinkles.
Jerzy and I let them sleep for much of the morning. He checks the chickens and I tidy the house. When Stephan and Sophia finally wake, it feels like a celebration. I help Sophia scrub the clothes they wore last night. “Destroying the evidence,” she says as we wring Stephan’s shirt and hang it to dry.
For almost the whole day, I believe that we’re safe, that everything is normal. But as Sophia and I peg the last of the wet clothes to the line, we see big clouds of gray-white smoke climbing steadily above the trees. “Stephan,” Sophia yells.
He and Jerzy run outside.
We take turns keeping watch for hours, until the last of the smoke behind the trees disappears around dinnertime. Sophia insists we stay home. “We’ll learn soon enough.”
Stephan makes the rounds of our property every half hour, even after the sight and the smell of smoke have faded. At sunset he returns from watch holding a baby in his arms, with two small children trailing behind him. I recognize the children from the printer’s house. The oldest says, “They got Papa and Mama.” Stephan hands the baby to Sophia. He bends over the little boy who spoke, picks him up and sits him on the table. “Tell me everything,” he says.
In a rush of words and tears the boy tells of how his house was searched. “They screamed about some papers in the cellar. They shot Papa. Mama pushed us out the door. She told us to take our baby sister and run. We hid in the woods. They shot again and left. Our house burned a long time. We waited for Mama but she didn’t come out. Then we walked here.”
Sophia gives the three children food and insists on taking them to town to their aunt and uncle. “We can’t be associated. It’s as simple as that.”
They follow her without question. When the door closes behind them, I crumple onto the sofa and burst into tears.
Stephan sits beside me. “Anna, Anna.” The tears won’t stop. “Try to be calm.”
“It’s horrible. That man is shot. His wife is shot. Those children, the children.” My words are lost behind my tears.
“In case someone comes, Anna,” Jerzy says. “You really must be ca
lm.”
I stop crying long enough to look at each of them. They are dry-eyed and stone-faced as if orphaned children and murdered parents are nothing out of the ordinary. I want to ask them how they can pretend so well.
Stephan clears his throat. “I had fifteen people on that operation. Now two are dead. We all knew what we were doing, what we were risking. This is war, Anna.”
Suddenly a flash of red burns in my chest and climbs up to my brain. “I know this is war. I know it! No one has to remind me about war! I—I never know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to act with so many German soldiers around.”
Stephan pulls me into a gentle hug. “That’s the truth. No one knows what they are doing, not really. This blasted stupid war. You tell the truth, Anna.”
Chapter 42
There’s no need to look for paper. It’s impossible to print the underground newspaper. The printing machine is in four pieces, kept in four different locations. Sophia insists it’s too dangerous to try to put out a newspaper, and for once Stephan agrees with her.
For weeks after the fire, everything is quiet. Jerzy and Stephan leave in the morning as though they have real jobs. Sophia stands in the long lines for food. I check on the hens, clean the house and search for the poem.
The tall German doesn’t visit, but Stephan and Sophia’s friends come by each evening before curfew. I jump at first when people plow through the door without knocking and instead call out a greeting. After a few days I’m used to it, even expecting it. Instead of underground newspapers, people are spreading the news.
And the news is that the Germans are losing. They are retreating from the Soviets on the eastern front, being pushed out of France by the Americans, under attack by British bombers in Germany. Stephan actually lifts me in the air, as if I’m a small child. “The Home Army is pushing Germany out of Warsaw. They are really doing it.”
The Safest Lie Page 12