The Things We Cannot Say(28)
“But—”
“Leave it, Alina,” Mama said flatly. I looked at her in frustration, but then I noticed her determined stance. Her body language told me what her words did not: Mama had a plan, but she had no intention of sharing it with me. “Just do your jobs and stop asking so many questions. When you need to worry, Father and I will tell you to worry.”
“I am not a baby, Mama,” I cried in frustration. “You treat me like a child!”
“You are a child!” Father said. His voice shook with passion and frustration. We stared at each other, and I saw the shine of tears in my father’s eyes. I was so shocked by this that I didn’t quite know what to do—the urge to push and argue with them drained in an instant. Father blinked rapidly, then he drew in a deep breath, and he said unevenly, “You are our child, and you are the only thing we have left to fight for. We will do what we must to protect you, Alina, and you should think twice before you question us.” His nostrils flared suddenly, and he pointed to the door as the tears in his eyes began to swell. “Go and do your damned jobs!”
I wanted to push, and I would have, except for those shocking tears in Father’s eyes.
After that day, I put my head down, and I continued in the rhythm where work consumed my life.
On an unseasonably warm day in late fall I was working the berry patch, which was just beside the house at the place where the slope first steepened. An early wind had settled and the sun was now out in full force, so I was tanning myself. At lunchtime, I’d changed into my favorite dress—a lightweight, floral sundress I’d inherited from Truda. It certainly wasn’t an immodest outfit—I didn’t own any immodest outfits—but I had chosen that dress because the cut of the neckline meant I could enjoy the warmth of the sun on my arms and upper chest. I was crouched on the ground harvesting ripe berries and resting them in a wicker basket, periodically plucking weeds as I found them and throwing them into a pile beside the patch. Father was having an unusually bad day—he was in such pain from his hips that Mama had opted to stay inside with him to care for him.
I heard the truck approach, then slow. I held my breath as I always did when I heard vehicles rumbling past our house, but then released it in a rush when I saw the truck pull into our drive. Just as the roar of the truck engine stopped, there came the sound of the front door opening.
That’s when I remembered my ID card. I’d remembered to put it in the pocket of the heavier skirt I’d been wearing that morning, and when I’d changed at lunchtime, I’d left that skirt on my bed and my papers were still inside.
I prayed that they’d leave without approaching me, but I stood even as I did so because I had little expectation that my prayer would be answered, and I didn’t want to be crouching in the dirt alone when they came. There were only two of them this time. One was middle-aged, balding and so fat that it made me angry to think about how much food he must eat to maintain his build. His companion was startlingly young—probably the same age as my brothers. I wondered about that young soldier—whether he was scared to be away from his family, as my brothers surely were. For a moment, I felt a pang of empathy—but it disappeared almost immediately when I saw the look on the boy’s face. Like his older companion, his expression was set in a scornful mask as he surveyed our small home. Even given the slight distance between us, there was no mistaking the disdainful curl of his lip and the flare in his nostrils. With the locked set of his shoulders and the way his hand hovered over the leather holster at his hip housing his gun, it was clear that this boy was simply looking for an excuse to release his aggression.
And I was standing in a field in a sundress without my ID card, a red flag waving in the wind before an angry bull.
The older man approached the house, but that young man just stood and stared all around. His gaze traced the tree line at the woods on the hill above and behind me, then shifted ever closer to the place where I stood. I wished and wished and wished that I had some way to make myself invisible, as the young man shifted back to face Mama and Father, his gaze skimming past me.
I thought for a second he hadn’t noticed me or didn’t care to pay me even a hint of attention, but just as the relief started to rise and I exhaled the breath I was holding, the young soldier frowned, and then tilted his head almost curiously. It was as if he’d missed me at first and had only belatedly registered that I was there. He once again raised his eyes, only this time, his gaze locked onto mine. There was palpable disgust in his eyes, but it was mixed with an intense, unsettling greed. My stomach lurched and I looked away from him as fast as I could, but I still felt his eyes on me, searing me somehow, until I fought to suppress an overwhelming urge to cross my arms over my body.
I knew I couldn’t stand there, frozen. To do so would draw more attention to myself, and that would only increase the chance of them approaching me, and if they did—I was done for. I knew they wouldn’t let me go into the house to get my papers—that would be an act of kindness, and kindness was not something the Nazis felt the Poles deserved. They considered us to be Untermensch, or subhuman—only slightly above the Jews on their perverted racial scale of worth. I had to act busy—I had to be busy—wasn’t that how we were to save ourselves? Be productive, keep the farm working, produce at any cost—this had been our mantra since the invasion. I tried to convince myself that strategy would save me now too, even in the face of such direct intensity from this soldier. The trickle of adrenaline in my system turned to a flood, and I felt sweat running own my spine right along with it. I started to move, but my movements were jerky and my palms were so damp, and when I bent to pick up my wicker basket, it slipped straight back into the dirt. The hundreds of berries I’d picked all tumbled out, and I looked back up in a panic to see the soldier laughing scornfully, mocking me without a single word.