The Things We Cannot Say(38)

That seemed a dream too unlikely for me to waste energy hoping for it. I slumped even as she said it, and tears filled my eyes. I blinked them away, then whispered, “Do you really believe that?”

She sighed sadly.

“Alina, if I didn’t believe that, I couldn’t drag myself out of bed in the morning.”

Spring came again, but it was difficult to find any joy in the blooming of the wildflowers in the grasses around our fields. Mama and I again resumed our frantic schedule to prepare the new season’s crops, but one day when we were working in the field together, I saw Justyna approaching the boundary of her property. She waved to me hesitantly.

“I think your friend would like a chat,” Mama murmured.

“Can I go?” I asked. Mama nodded, and I scrambled to my feet and ran to greet her.

“Hello!” I said, excited at the prospect of a conversation with someone other than my family. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you in months.”

“I know,” she said, dropping her gaze. “Father has kept me busy. I am sure it is the same for you.”

“It is,” I sighed, but then I noticed the purse of her lips. “Justyna, are you okay?”

“My aunt...my mother...” she started to say, then she inhaled and said in a rush, “I don’t exactly know what’s going on, but I think my aunt Nadia might know something about your Tomasz.”

My stomach dropped to my toes because I immediately assumed the worst.

“Oh no, Justyna...is it bad news?”

Justyna shook her head hastily, but then she shrugged.

“I don’t actually know. I just heard Father and Mama whispering. They were arguing—Father wants us to stay, but Mama wants to take me to go to her other sisters in Krakow. She said it’s too dangerous in the country these days. Father said something about Nadia, and then Mama definitely said ‘Tomasz Slaski.’ I didn’t hear much, but I heard that bit clear as a bell.”

“Did you ask them what they were talking about?” I whispered, through suddenly numb lips. Justyna nodded, then her gaze saddened.

“They wouldn’t tell me. Father got so angry when I asked, and Mama is very upset about something—she was crying so much last night. But you know my aunt Nadia, Alina. She is so kind...and she has suffered so much loss herself, I am sure she would be sympathetic to your situation. If you found a way to see her, I know she would tell you what she knows.”

Nadia’s house was just a few streets into Trzebinia, right on our side of town. I could run there, talk to her and still be home in under half an hour.

I turned back to look at the house and saw Mama’s eyes inevitably fixed on me.

“I wasn’t sure if I should tell you. I know your parents will never let you go to her,” Justyna said, her eyes following mine. I swallowed as I nodded. “I couldn’t not tell you, though. If Filipe...back before...well, if someone had news. Any news. I would want to know.”

Could I ask Truda to visit Nadia for me? I dismissed the idea immediately. She would never court danger, not in a million years, but even if I could convince her to do it, I’d never forgive myself if Nadia was tangled up in something dangerous and there were consequences for my sister and her family. Whatever news Nadia had of my Tomasz, I doubted she’d come across it without some risk.

“What are you going to do?” Justyna asked me.

I raised my chin, just a little.

“The only thing I can do.”

It was an unseasonably cool night, and I’d left my window open so my parents wouldn’t hear the squeal of the wooden frame moving when it came time for me to climb outside. I sat on my bed, fully dressed but hiding in a nest of blankets, dreading the coming moment when I’d have to leave the warmth. There was a full moon, but patches of clouds were floating past. As I stared out the window and waited, I watched the moonlight come and go.

How many stories had I heard over the months since the war began where someone had left home and simply never returned? Sometimes their families learned their fates, but often they were just lost. I couldn’t ask Mama for my ID papers, and my parents would surely catch me if I tried to find them myself, so I’d have to make this run without my documentation, and it was well past curfew. If a soldier so much as saw me, I was done for.

How would this story end for my family? Would my parents wake up tomorrow and find me missing, and never know what became of me? They simply wouldn’t survive without me, not now that the boys were gone. The farm would fall to ruin, and the soldiers would take them away too.

Or would I climb out the window, run quickly up the hill and down the other side, knock on Nadia’s door without incident, and beg her to tell me what she knew. If it was bad news, at least I would know. I pictured myself making the return journey sobbing and felt my muscles tense. It was a real possibility that this trip was going to be an ending, not a beginning.

I had long since convinced myself that no news was better than bad news, but that was when I had no chance of accessing any. Now that I knew there was potentially an update about Tomasz waiting just on the other side of the hill, there was no way I could remain passive. I’d have walked through gunfire for that news. I just hoped and prayed I wouldn’t have to.

I had to take the chance, because this risk I was taking could change everything for me. If I knew where Tomasz was, I could try to figure out how to get to him.