The Things We Cannot Say(55)

The risks Tomasz was taking were unacceptable—but everything about life in those days was unacceptable, because every time we accepted our lot, things always became even worse. I had a sudden, startling burst of clarity. We had to fight—even if not with guns and weapons, with the sheer strength of our spirit, and for every single one of us, resistance meant something different. For me, resistance would mean doing whatever it was Tomasz needed me to do, even if it meant certain death for us both. I stared that thought down bravely, confused by my own courage. If anything, Tomasz’s revelation made me wonder, not if he was the person I thought he was, but if I was the person I thought I was. Even knowing for sure that my relationship with him was in essence a death sentence, I wasn’t deterred at all.

I had come to see myself over the years exactly as others expected me to be; tiny in stature, pretty and delicate, too feminine to be of much use around the farm—spoiled and lazy and immature and maybe even just a little foolish.

Certainly not brave. Certainly not heroic or noble myself.

If I really was that girl, the thought of risking my life for Tomasz would have petrified me. I’d have run a million miles in the other direction. But in that moment all I wanted to do was to find a way to make him safe, a way to give him peace, a way to help his friends. The love I felt for him was so big that it eclipsed my fears and it shouldered his burdens as my own. Our love was now a mirror, and within it I could see myself clearly for the very first time. I didn’t see a spoiled, foolish girl with a crush on her school friend. I saw a woman who was feeling a very selfless, very adult kind of love.

“I won’t ask you to stop,” I said, and he raised his eyes to me. “In fact, I am going to find a way to help you.”

He shook his head immediately.

“Not a chance, Alina—”

“Don’t,” I said, firmly but softly. “Don’t you dare tell me it’s too dangerous. Loving you is dangerous now, and I couldn’t stop that even if I tried. Your calling is my calling. We do this together, because what do you always say to me?”

“We are meant to be together,” he whispered, but his gaze was serious. “Even so, I can’t let you take any more risk than you already are, Alina.”

“You don’t let me do anything, Tomasz,” I said gently, and he gave me a sad, reluctant smile. “I don’t know how much help I can be, but I have to try. Even if I can just get a little more food for this mother and her precious newborn. But now...” I drew in a deep breath and glanced back toward the fields. I hadn’t heard Mama calling, but surely she had been, and she was probably about to come looking for me. “I’ve been gone far too long, and I have to go.”

I brushed my lips against his. Tomasz Slaski was exhausted—physically and emotionally wrecked. But there was a new depth of honesty between us—an intimacy unlike anything we’d experienced before, born in the deepest kind of vulnerability.

He’d let me see him, every part of him—even his shame. And in return, I could offer only understanding and acceptance. It would be years before I’d appreciate how profound that moment was; what a relief it must have been to him. At the time, I was doing only what the love I had for him compelled me to do. I was acting purely on instinct.

“I love you,” he said. I kissed him one last time and closed my eyes to breathe him in.

“I love you too, Tomasz. And you are no monster, not to me,” I said, then I looked up at him and the tears surged again. “You are a hero, my love. I know you don’t feel like one yet. But one day, you’ll see.”

When I came down from the hill that day, Mama looked at me, frowning.

“You have been crying,” she said.

“What?” I feigned ignorance. “No, perhaps I am getting a cold.”

“A cold,” she repeated, sighing, then, almost to herself, “Alina thinks she’s getting a cold.”

I knew she didn’t believe me, but I didn’t have time to worry about that.

I was already thinking about dinner, and how much of it I could hide for Tomasz and his friends.



CHAPTER 16

Alina


The summer of 1941 was fading toward fall, and by then that sporadic tower of smoke that I’d so feared in the earlier days of the war was becoming a permanent landmark. The acrid scent that had so disturbed me when it first appeared became as familiar as the scent of chicken dung in the fields. Flecks of odd gray ash appeared on my clothing and in my hair and settled on the fields like a fine snow when there was no wind. I learned to ignore it. I had to ignore it, because there was simply no escaping it.

Tomasz was still living in the woods without shelter, and he had very little bulk to his clothing—so much so that I was trying to figure out if I could covertly sneak some of my brothers’ clothes to him before the weather cooled further.

I knew he was already cold—some mornings I’d go to greet him only to find he was dozing in a hollow trunk because he needed to curl up in the night now, and his lips would be blue and his whole body trembling.

“You are friends with Nadia Nowak, right?” I asked him one day. He stiffened.

“I know Nadia, yes.”

“Can you not stay with her now that it’s a bit cooler? Or even hide with some of your Jewish friends?”

“No, I can’t stay with Nadia...it is far too risky to even attempt it. And as for my friends, it is too hard to get in and out of their hiding places. I need to be able to leave each night so I can get more food for us all.”