“I suppose we may as well tell her what she wants to hear,” Mom says stiffly.

I can understand why Mom said that, but that’s not what I’m doing at all. This is no false promise of assistance to my grandmother to bring her comfort.

This was the woman who picked me up from school most days and who always had a batch of fresh cookies waiting for me at home. This was the woman who made it to all of my school assemblies and recitals because Mom never could. This woman taught me to deal with heartbreak as a teen and helped me to do my college applications and get my driver’s license.

But somehow, most importantly, this woman taught me how to be my own kind of woman and wife and mother. I’m the person I am today because of Hanna Slaski, and now that she needs me, I will not let her down. I fully intend to do whatever I can to help her find whatever it is she’s looking for.

CHAPTER 8

Alina

Even in the worst of times, life takes on a rhythm and the days blur into one another. The first year of the occupation was no exception to that rule. Every day ran on routine, and that routine began and ended with thoughts of Tomasz. Most of the time, I didn’t even let myself consider the possibility that I was pining for a dead man.

There was just so much more to worry about.

From the day my brothers left, my existence was caged. My parents told me I wasn’t to leave the farm, although they would permit the occasional visit with Justyna at the boundary between our properties. I argued against this, and at first, I was sure I’d find a way to change their minds. I had friends in the town—Emilia and Truda and Mateusz were in the town, and besides, the farm was surely no safer than the township. We often saw Nazi trucks rumbling past on the road at the front of our home. Since the occupation began, even the newspapers had ceased to operate, other than Nazi propaganda publications, which Father refused to read. Wireless too was now banned—Father destroyed his precious radio unit after the decree that any Pole found owning such a device would be executed.

If I couldn’t leave the farm, I’d be cut off from the world altogether.

I was desperate for any news at all, but I particularly hoped for news of the work farms or of Warsaw, where I could only assume Tomasz remained. When Father made his trips into the town, I’d beg him to let me join him, but nothing I said would sway him. He promised me he was asking after the twins and Tomasz, but for the longest time there was no news at all, and with my adolescent arrogance, I was certain that I could do better.

“You have heard about the lapanka, of course,” Father told me casually one day.

“The game?” I asked, frowning. “Yes, of course, we played it as children...” Lapanka was much like the English game “tag.” Father shrugged.

“The Nazis play lapanka too, Alina. They block off the ends of a street in the township and they round up everyone inside and cart them off to a camp or prison for even the slightest reason.”

“I wouldn’t give them a reason,” I said stiffly.

“Can I see your identity card?”

I blinked at him, confused by what I thought was an abrupt change of subject. We’d recently been ordered to carry our identity cards with us at all times, but I was still getting into the habit of carrying mine, and besides, we were in the dining room so I knew I was safe enough.

“It’s in my room, Father.”

“Well, there is your reason, Alina,” Father said flatly. “If a soldier happened by you and caught you without your identity card, they would take you or maybe shoot you on the spot. Do you understand that? You tell me you want to go into the township, but even here at home, you cannot remember the basic requirements to keep yourself safe.”

After that, Mama sewed pockets into all of my skirts for my identity paperwork, and I stewed in my anger toward Father. I was certain that he was being unfair, that I was perfectly capable of remembering the rules if he gave me the chance to prove myself. The problem with rage is that it takes a lot of energy to maintain, and the very nature of our situation with the twins gone was that all of my energy had to be reserved for farmwork.

Whether or not I was allowed to leave the farm to visit with people in the township became a moot point because most days, I didn’t even have the energy to walk to the field boundary for a chat with Justyna. And whether or not I had a pocket in my skirt remained equally irrelevant, because most mornings I still forgot to put the identity card inside. We hadn’t yet had any spot checks from soldiers checking our ID cards on the farm, and while Father’s story of the lapanka roundups in town had frightened me a little, I didn’t yet appreciate how close the danger was.

Monday to Saturday I toiled with Mama on the land, sometimes working in the fields from before the sun rose until after it had set again. I’d take the animals to graze before the sun rose, let the chickens out to roam the house yard, and then I’d join my parents in the fields. Almost everything that needed to be done had to be done by hand, an endlessly laborious cycle of plowing and planting and weeding and harvesting, then ploughing again. Mama, Father and my two strapping brothers had struggled to keep up even with my halfhearted help, but now the twins were gone, and with Father’s rheumatism worsening whenever the cold came in, Mama and I had to struggle to maintain the usual workload, effectively on our own. The blisters on my hands grew until they joined and then popped, and the raw skin gradually morphed into a thick, dirt-stained callus that covered each palm. I spent so much of the daytime bending over in the fields that by nighttime, I’d have to lie in a fetal position because my back would spasm if I tried to lie straight.

I fretted for my brothers and for Tomasz, but during the daytime, the mere act of surviving took so much energy that thoughts of those missing were just background noise beneath the constant terror. We had to make the land work harder because our very survival depended on it. I had no capacity during the long days to think about anything other than work and the dread that would leave me frozen every time we saw a Nazi vehicle anywhere near our gate.

It was only when the frantic activity stopped at bedtime that I’d let myself focus on Filipe, Stanislaw and Tomasz. I’d pray for my brothers with whatever energy I had left, and then I’d open my drawer, fumble for Mama’s ring and fix my mind for one pure moment on Tomasz.

Sometimes I relived a memory, sometimes I imagined a reunion, often I thought about our wedding day, planning that victorious moment in irrational detail, right down to the number of ruby-red poppies I’d carry in my bouquet. I could still see him so clearly in my mind—the laughing green eyes, the lopsided smile, the way his hair flopped forward onto his forehead and he’d push it back out of habit, only for it to fall forward again immediately.

The problem was that once thoughts of Tomasz filled my mind, desperate longing was never far behind. In the quiet seconds before sleep overtook me, I was sometimes overcome with despair at my helplessness, and I’d wake with gritty eyes from having sobbed myself to sleep.