The Things We Cannot Say(71)

When I finally started to feel sleepy, he helped me upstairs and he fetched some fresh water from the well while I used the outhouse. We weren’t able to start the fire or turn on the light, just in case someone was keeping watch on the house from afar, so instead, we stumbled around in the dark. When the time came to climb down the ladder, it occurred to me how difficult it was going to be to replace the table and rug over ourselves without outside assistance, but Tomasz had already made a plan with my parents for a situation like this. He pulled the table over just a little, so that two of the legs no longer rested atop the rug, but the table still covered the hatch. Hopefully, to anyone visiting who had not been before, it would look only like our little table was off center on its rug. It was awkward for him to climb back inside with the table over top, but now, when he pulled the hatch closed, the rug sat flat atop it.

He climbed back under the blankets with me and he held me until I slept for a while, but when the clock upstairs chimed 2:00 a.m., he roused me with a kiss to my forehead.

“I have to go,” he told me. I was frantic at the thought of it—and I tried to convince him to stay, but he was insistent. “I need to find out if anyone knows where your parents have been taken, and to take some food for Eva. I’ll be gone a few hours because I will need to go into Trzebinia to see Nadia.”

“Tell me,” I murmured. “Is Nadia your Zegota contact? Is that why you were so determined that I should stay away from her house?”

He nodded silently. “Yes. She is coordinating the efforts for this region.”

“And Jan was angry because she was helping Jews?” I guessed. Tomasz shook his head.

“Do you remember the farmer I didn’t trust?”

I gaped at him.

“Jan is hiding Jewish people in his house?” I said incredulously. “This...that makes no sense, Tomasz.”

“He has sealed himself off into the front half of the house because he is too stupid to see through the Nazi propaganda, so he is convinced my friends carry disease,” Tomasz said, his disgust evident. “And he allows Saul and Eva to use only the tiniest space at the back of the house, so there is a buffer between them. Make no mistake, Alina. He does this only for the gold. Nadia only approached him because we were desperate. We had to find somewhere safe for Eva to give birth.”

“This is why Justyna and Ola left.”

“Ola didn’t want any part of this. She was furious with Jan and Nadia for risking Justyna’s life.” Tomasz brushed his hand against my cheek.

“Let me come with you tonight,” I pleaded.

“No, Alina. Not when I must go into the township. If I was caught breaking the curfew it would be bad, but I would at least have a chance of talking my way out of danger. But you are too memorable, my love. You must stay here hidden for now.”

“But what if you don’t come back?” I whispered. I pressed his hand to my jaw, trying to stop my teeth from chattering.

“Do you think they could stop me coming back, Alina? After all we have survived? After all I have been through to get back here to you?” Tomasz whispered, then he brushed his lips against mine. “Not a chance, moje wszystko. But if I don’t come back as quickly as I plan to, just hide in here. You have food and water that will last for weeks, and I will make sure Nadia knows to come find you.”

He packed his little rucksack with potatoes and a handful of eggs, then he climbed up out of the cellar, replaced the rug and the table, and then went on his way.



CHAPTER 23

Alina


I heard the clock chime one hour, then two, then three. And all the while, I waited, and I rode the waves of panic and fear as they came. I wanted to howl at the injustice of it all—I wanted to be angry with Tomasz for leaving me in the cellar alone on the worst day of my life—I wanted to go back in time and bury my head under the pillow on my bed upstairs and pretend that none of this was happening at all.

It was just past 5:00 a.m. when I heard a sound upstairs. I heard muffled movement above me, then the hatch lifted, and when I recognized Tomasz in the opening, I burst into tears. He waited until he’d set the hatch back in place before he comforted me. He was shaking too, from adrenaline and the cold, I guessed.

“Did you find anything out?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Where have they been taken?”

“To Os′wie?cim,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, then I exhaled with relief. “Okay. To the town, then?” That didn’t sound so bad at all. Os′wie?cim was a nice enough place, a place much like Trzebinia with many factories and homes. I imagined for a moment them both taking a job on a factory line for the Nazis—it wasn’t ideal, but I felt confident that they could survive it.

“No, Alina. Not in the town. They’ve been taken to the work camp,” Tomasz said, then he drew in a deep breath. “Although there are two there now, and I couldn’t find out which one.”

The daydream of my parents on a factory line shattered, and now instead I saw them crammed in like sardines with the tens of thousands of farm workers Tomasz had warned me about. My heart sank all over again.

“It does not matter which camp, does it?” I surmised, suddenly feeling very heavy. “We can’t rescue them anyway. Or does Nadia Nowak have the ability to circumvent the entire Nazi army?”