The Things We Cannot Say(16)

“Yes, little sister?”

“My father,” she said, then her teeth started to chatter. “My father is gone. The man put the gun on his head and—”

“He is gone, but you, my darling girl, you are still here,” I interrupted her. “But you mustn’t be afraid, Emilia. Because I am going to find a way to keep you safe until Tomasz returns.”



CHAPTER 5

Alina


As Emilia and I walked from the square, I realized with a heavy heart that if Mama wasn’t willing to take the little girl on, there was only one other option. There were other families in the town who might accommodate her—but none I trusted enough to care for her the way she deserved.

Truda was much like Mama—kind if somewhat abrupt at times—but Mateusz was gentler, quite jolly and jovial, and he had inherited a textiles factory from his father, so he provided my sister a very comfortable life in the town. They lived in a large house on the best street in town and even had electric lights in their home, something I was very jealous of because we still managed with oil lamps at home. I knew Truda and Mateusz wanted to have children, but even after years of marriage, she was yet to fall pregnant.

They had the resources and space to provide Emilia with a ready-made family, but I was nervous to ask it of them. Truda was eight years older than me, and we were hardly close.

There was just no alternative no matter how hard I racked my brain, so I walked the handful of blocks from the square to Truda’s house with a weeping Emilia in tow. We turned into her beautiful street—a narrow cobblestoned laneway lined with mature sweet chestnut trees. This neighborhood was flush with two-story homes, and flower patches were in bloom all along the sidewalk. Many of the homes in her street had cars—still a novelty to me then—and it had been the very first street in the town to get electricity. Perhaps, with such big homes and such a small roadway, that street might have felt cramped, except that the narrow street spilled into a huge parkland at the end. The park was a paradise of soft green grass and still more chestnut trees, a space centered by an immense square pond where ducks swam and children played in the summer.

I thought my sister would come quickly from the town square, but time began to pass and I started to worry that she’d returned to my parents’ home after all. Emilia and I sat on the steps at Truda’s house and watched as a crowd began to file into a house across the road. That’s when I realized why Truda and Mateusz were standing with the mayor’s wife at the square—they were neighbors. My sister would surely be there at that house—comforting the grieving widow and her large brood of children. I wouldn’t dare to go there myself—so all I could do was to sit with Emilia and wait. She cried endlessly, and sometimes she shook so hard I had to press her against my chest to hold her still.

“Be brave, Emilia,” I said at first, because that’s what I imagined my Mama or Truda would have said if they were there, but it felt like such a cruel request. After that, I didn’t say anything; instead, I cried with her until the sleeves of my dress were soaked with both of our tears.

When Truda finally came along the sidewalk, she stopped dead in her tracks and surveyed the spectacle before her. I drew in a deep breath and prepared to blurt out the sales pitch I had been planning in my mind, but Truda quickly resumed her path toward the stoop. Her steps were falling faster now and her chin was high, her gaze determined. For a moment, I feared she was going to turn us away, especially when she stepped all the way around us and opened the front door.

“Come on then, little one,” she said from the doorway. “Let’s get your bed organized.”

“You’ll take her?” I choked.

“Of course we will take her,” Truda said stiffly. “Emilia is our daughter now. Is she not, Mateusz?”

Mateusz simply bent down, scooped Emilia up and cradled her in his arms like she was a baby, just as he’d done when he rescued her from the town two days earlier. She was far too old and too large to be carried in that way, but she nestled into his large frame anyway.

“Do you need me to take you home, Alina?” he asked. “I can, but you’ll need to wait until we get Emilia settled. Or you can leave now, and you will be home before dark.”

Emilia pressed her face into Mateusz’s shoulder now and wrapped her arms around his neck, and suddenly I felt like an intruder in the early moments of this brand-new family I had somehow helped to create. I shook my head and looked once more to my sister.

“Thank you,” I whispered, but I was completely overcome with gratitude and relief. A sob broke from my lips and I said it again. “Thank you.”

Truda was, typically, embarrassed by my overt display of emotion. She waved my thanks away impatiently, but her eyes greedily soaked in the sight of Emilia in her husband’s arms.

“Go home,” Truda said quietly. “And be careful, please, Alina. This is the last time I want to see you wandering around the township on your own. It’s not safe anymore.”

I ran the entire way home, up the path through the woods to the hill and straight back down to the house. By the time I arrived dusk was falling and I was completely exhausted. My brothers were bringing the animals into the barn, and we shared a glance as I came through the gate. Filipe’s eyes were red, as if he’d been crying all afternoon.

When I threw open the door to our home, Mama and Father were both standing at the dining room table, their hands looped beneath it as if they had been shifting it. That made no sense at all—our furniture had always been in the exact same place for as long as I could remember. I shook myself, as if I was hallucinating one more nonsensical happening in a day that had been the very worst kind of surreal, but the image didn’t fade.