I had no power to change my lot. All I had was the breath in my lungs and a tiny fragment of hope that if I kept moving forward, I could survive until someone else changed my world.

* * *

The quotas for our produce increased and increased. Eventually Father had to load the cart with all of our produce, and he’d take it all into town to hand over to the soldiers. In return, they would give him our allotment of ration stamps. The first time he returned with food, I thought I’d somehow misunderstood the arrangement.

“You have to go collect the food every day?”

“No, Alina,” Father said impatiently. “This must last us the week.”

The rations were not simply scant, they were untenable. Father had returned with a bag of flour, small blocks of butter and cheese, a half dozen eggs and some tinned meat.

“How will we live off this?” I asked my parents. “We have so much work to do—how can we run the farm with just the three of us when they are only feeding us scraps?”

“There are plenty who have it worse than us,” Mama said.

“Worse?” It seemed unfathomable. Mama’s gaze grew impatient, but this time, it was Father who spoke.

“This is nearly seven hundred calories per day, for each of us. The Jews are only allotted two hundred calories each per day. And, child, you think our farmwork is hard? Come into the town with me next time and see the way the Jewish work crews are being treated.”

“I want to go into the town,” I said, lifting my chin. “You won’t let me.”

“It is not safe for you there, Alina! Do you know what kinds of things those monsters have done to some of the girls in the township? Do you know what might—”

“We will get by,” Mama interrupted him suddenly, and we all fell quiet. It seemed to me that we had a choice: break the rules and survive, or follow the rules and starve, and I was terrified my parents were going to choose the second option. I cleared my throat, and I suggested, “We could just keep some of our food...just a little? We can just take a few eggs or some of the vegetables—”

“The invaders say that our farms belong to the Reich now,” Father said. “Withholding our produce would see us imprisoned, or worse. Do not suggest such a thing again, Alina.”

“But—”

“Leave it, Alina,” Mama said flatly. I looked at her in frustration, but then I noticed her determined stance. Her body language told me what her words did not: Mama had a plan, but she had no intention of sharing it with me. “Just do your jobs and stop asking so many questions. When you need to worry, Father and I will tell you to worry.”

“I am not a baby, Mama,” I cried in frustration. “You treat me like a child!”

“You are a child!” Father said. His voice shook with passion and frustration. We stared at each other, and I saw the shine of tears in my father’s eyes. I was so shocked by this that I didn’t quite know what to do—the urge to push and argue with them drained in an instant. Father blinked rapidly, then he drew in a deep breath, and he said unevenly, “You are our child, and you are the only thing we have left to fight for. We will do what we must to protect you, Alina, and you should think twice before you question us.” His nostrils flared suddenly, and he pointed to the door as the tears in his eyes began to swell. “Go and do your damned jobs!”

I wanted to push, and I would have, except for those shocking tears in Father’s eyes.

After that day, I put my head down, and I continued in the rhythm where work consumed my life.

* * *

On an unseasonably warm day in late fall I was working the berry patch, which was just beside the house at the place where the slope first steepened. An early wind had settled and the sun was now out in full force, so I was tanning myself. At lunchtime, I’d changed into my favorite dress—a lightweight, floral sundress I’d inherited from Truda. It certainly wasn’t an immodest outfit—I didn’t own any immodest outfits—but I had chosen that dress because the cut of the neckline meant I could enjoy the warmth of the sun on my arms and upper chest. I was crouched on the ground harvesting ripe berries and resting them in a wicker basket, periodically plucking weeds as I found them and throwing them into a pile beside the patch. Father was having an unusually bad day—he was in such pain from his hips that Mama had opted to stay inside with him to care for him.

I heard the truck approach, then slow. I held my breath as I always did when I heard vehicles rumbling past our house, but then released it in a rush when I saw the truck pull into our drive. Just as the roar of the truck engine stopped, there came the sound of the front door opening.

That’s when I remembered my ID card. I’d remembered to put it in the pocket of the heavier skirt I’d been wearing that morning, and when I’d changed at lunchtime, I’d left that skirt on my bed and my papers were still inside.

I prayed that they’d leave without approaching me, but I stood even as I did so because I had little expectation that my prayer would be answered, and I didn’t want to be crouching in the dirt alone when they came. There were only two of them this time. One was middle-aged, balding and so fat that it made me angry to think about how much food he must eat to maintain his build. His companion was startlingly young—probably the same age as my brothers. I wondered about that young soldier—whether he was scared to be away from his family, as my brothers surely were. For a moment, I felt a pang of empathy—but it disappeared almost immediately when I saw the look on the boy’s face. Like his older companion, his expression was set in a scornful mask as he surveyed our small home. Even given the slight distance between us, there was no mistaking the disdainful curl of his lip and the flare in his nostrils. With the locked set of his shoulders and the way his hand hovered over the leather holster at his hip housing his gun, it was clear that this boy was simply looking for an excuse to release his aggression.

And I was standing in a field in a sundress without my ID card, a red flag waving in the wind before an angry bull.

The older man approached the house, but that young man just stood and stared all around. His gaze traced the tree line at the woods on the hill above and behind me, then shifted ever closer to the place where I stood. I wished and wished and wished that I had some way to make myself invisible, as the young man shifted back to face Mama and Father, his gaze skimming past me.

I thought for a second he hadn’t noticed me or didn’t care to pay me even a hint of attention, but just as the relief started to rise and I exhaled the breath I was holding, the young soldier frowned, and then tilted his head almost curiously. It was as if he’d missed me at first and had only belatedly registered that I was there. He once again raised his eyes, only this time, his gaze locked onto mine. There was palpable disgust in his eyes, but it was mixed with an intense, unsettling greed. My stomach lurched and I looked away from him as fast as I could, but I still felt his eyes on me, searing me somehow, until I fought to suppress an overwhelming urge to cross my arms over my body.