The Diplomat's Wife(34)

“Resistance?” he suggests.

“Yes. Have you heard of it?”

Paul shakes his head. “I’ve heard of the one in Warsaw, not Kraków.”

All of the struggling, so many had died. And we were still not even a footnote in history. “The resistance used to try to do things against the Nazis. One time, we exploded a bomb in a café full of S.S. officers.”

“We?” Paul asks. I nod and he whistles low under his breath. “I had no idea you were a partisan. No wonder you’re so fearless.” Fearless. A warm feeling grows inside me. “That’s why the Nazis had you in the special prison cell, isn’t it?”

I nod. “They wanted me to give up information about the others. I didn’t.”

“So were you shot during the café bombing, or did that happen later, when they tried to arrest you?”

“Neither, actually. There was another girl in the resistance, Emma. She was my best friend.” And the wife of the man I loved, I think. But I cannot bring myself to speak of Jacob to Paul, not now. “Emma was Jewish too, but she was living under another name as a non-Jew.” I speak slowly, trying to find the right English words to explain. “She worked for a Nazi, a very big one, and was able to get things for us—security passes, information. She became involved with him. In order to get information,” I add quickly. I do not want Paul thinking ill of Emma, wondering as I sometimes had, why she had really become involved with Kommandant Richwalder. “She became pregnant.” Paul’s eyes widen. “The Kommandant wanted to take her away from Kraków and marry her, so we had to get her out of the city. I was in charge of helping her to get out and meet up with her husband.”

“She was already married?”

“Yes, to another resistance member. He had been injured in the café bombing and was being hidden outside of town.” Suddenly, I am back in Kraków, waiting for Emma in the bushes outside her aunt’s house. I was supposed to pick her up at dawn, but I knew she would never leave Kraków without saying goodbye to her father. Shortly after I arrived, the door to the house opened and Emma slipped out, a shawl over her head. As I followed her silently through the dark, still streets toward the ghetto, anger rose in me. So much was being risked to help her escape and now she was selfishly putting all of us in further danger.

“Marta, are you all right?” Paul is still watching me, a concerned look on his face.

I blink several times, clearing the vision from my mind. “Fine, sorry. Before we could escape, the Kommandant found Emma and discovered that she was Jewish.” I recount hiding in the shadows, watching the Kommandant confront Emma. “I had hoped she might be able to somehow talk her way out of it. He seemed to have genuine feelings for her so I thought he might understand. But when he pulled out his gun, I had to do something. I shot him.”

“Oh, Marta.” Paul touches my cheek.

“I killed him. But he managed this first.” I touch my side. “Then the Gestapo came and arrested me and, well, you know the rest.”

“And Emma?”

“She escaped. When I realized I was shot, I told her to go on without me.”

“She left you?”

I nod. “I made her go. She didn’t want to, but there was no other choice. I told her where Jacob—that’s her husband—was hiding. The plan was for them to meet up, cross the border into Slovakia. I don’t know if they made it. Anyway, that’s how I wound up in prison where you found me.”

He stares at me, his expression one of amazement. “I had no idea…”

I swallow over the lump that has formed in my throat. “If you don’t want to, I mean, if this changes your mind about me, I understand,” I say, trying to keep my voice from cracking.

“What? Oh God, Marta, that’s not it at all.”

“I mean, it’s a lot to deal with, I know. I killed a man.”

“You killed a Nazi,” he corrects me. “To save your best friend.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t feel like that.” I burst into tears.

He draws me close and I bury my head in his chest. “It’s okay,” he whispers, stroking my hair.

A few minutes later, I pull back, wiping my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I say between gulps of air.

“Don’t be. I still see the faces of the Germans I killed, too. There was this one soldier, a boy, really. He couldn’t have been older than twenty. There were others, of course, but this one…I was only about five feet away.” Though he speaks quickly, I am able to follow his clear, familiar cadence. “After I hit him he looked so surprised. I think he expected me to take him prisoner instead. Maybe I should have. But his unit had just killed my best friend, David. Grenade in our foxhole. It would have been me, too, if I hadn’t gotten up to relieve myself three minutes before. I came back and there was blood everywhere, on our packs, on the cards we’d been playing gin with minutes earlier. I held David while he died.”

“I’m so sorry.” I squeeze my arms tighter around him.

“Me, too. I’m sorry for everything we both had to go through. But it’s over now. Just two more weeks.” He smiles. “I can’t wait for you to meet my mom. She’s just going to love you. And the ranch! There’s a corner of the property, where the stream leads into the woods. I think we should build our house there.”