The Things We Cannot Say(58)

“Could I call out for him, do you think?” I asked Mama. She shook her head.

“I have something to show you. Come back to the house for a few hours and you can search for him later.”

Father greeted us at the door to the house, concern in his gaze.

“Where have you been all of this time?”

Mama pushed past him, then she announced, “Alina needs that help we discussed. Watch the road and the woods—there have been soldiers about.”

Father nodded curtly, then positioned himself at the window in the kitchen. Mama walked across the room and pushed our table back, off the heavy rug it rested upon. She lifted the rug and I gasped, because attached to the bottom of the rug was a hatch. As Mama folded the rug over itself, she opened a roughshod doorway in our floor and revealed the entrance to a space below our house.

“Mama!” I choked.

“Hush,” she said impatiently. “It is what it is.”

It was a second cellar, apparently a smaller storage space than the large one we had beneath the barn. This was a cellar that I’d never known about, in all my years living in that very house. I suppose I’d have noticed some unevenness in the floor if I’d walked over the rug—but I never had, because for as long as I could remember, the table had been in that very spot, right atop it. I walked to the edge to stare down into the space.

There was a ladder, and while I was curious about what could be down there, the darkness seemed utterly suffocating and I had no intention of climbing down to find out. Mama turned back to the kitchen and started the little oil lantern that was kept on the bench there, which she passed to me. I held it silently as she climbed down the ladder, then she reached up, indicating for me to pass it to her.

“Come,” she said.

“But...”

She waved the light around herself, to show me the space was larger than it first appeared, and her gaze grew impatient.

“Alina, the darkness still frightens you? Death at the hands of Nazis for helping your outlaw boyfriend barely makes you blink, but climbing down a ladder makes you tremble? What nonsense, child.”

So I followed her down the ladder, descending into the darkness. The air down there seemed thick, even with the latch open, even with the lantern on. I wasn’t sure I could survive two minutes in that place, but as soon as my feet touched the floor, I saw the food. There were dozens of jars of preserves, and a stockpile of potatoes, plus several sacks of flour and sugar. A basket of eggs rested on the floor.

It was more food than the three of us would eat in months at the rate we’d been dipping into it. Dozens and dozens of morsels hidden for our use—every single one of which would guarantee death to my parents if the Nazis found this space.

“How did you hide this from us?” I asked her breathlessly.

“We started stockpiling long before the war, at the first hint of trouble in the papers. We moved everything we had into this space the day the invaders killed the mayor and Aleksy, and ever since we’ve been adding to it when we could—just in case things got worse. We only ever come down here in the middle of the night when we’re sure you’re asleep,” she said, then she laughed a little. “This is how we caught you ‘praying’ through your window all of those months ago. Father was waiting to put some eggs down and to bring up a little more jam. That’s when he heard you talking.” She tilted her head at me. “You were talking to Tomasz that night, yes?”

I nodded, sighing.

“He had only just returned then.” I digested this, then looked around again. I glanced at Mama again uncertainly. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?”

“It is the responsibility of parents to provide for their children, and we happened to have a way to do that,” she said simply. “You didn’t need to know. It wasn’t as though we hid the cellar on purpose—in the early years, we didn’t tell you this space was here because we knew you children would make mischief if you knew of it. And we never intended it to be used this way. It was luck, not strategy—simply a hangover from back before your grandfather built the bigger cellar with the new barn.” Mama rested her hand on my shoulder very gently. “Perhaps this can be of use to Tomasz. There is no heat, but it never gets as cold down here. We can furnish him with this lantern—we can’t spare much oil, mind, but perhaps enough for when it’s necessary. And I have been saving the food strictly until it must be used, but with the boys gone and it being so hard to get supplies over to Truda and Emilia now, I just don’t think we can use it all in time. To see food waste in such hard times is the real crime.” She paused, then she said with a shrug, “It will please Father and I greatly if Tomasz can distribute this food to his Jewish friends. We have been looking for a way to help.”

“Mama,” I whispered. “They would kill you if they found this.”

“Well, Alina,” she said matter-of-factly, “there is a good chance that if they find Tomasz and learn that you have supported him, they will kill you too. We all take the risks we can handle in war.”

“What does Father know?” I asked, glancing nervously toward the hatch.

“He knows the same as I do.”

“Tomasz served with the Wehrmacht,” I blurted. “In Warsaw. Does that make any difference to you?”

Mama blinked at me, then she sighed.