I hang up on Wade without a farewell, then I bury my face in my pillow, and I give myself over to sobs—but only then does it occur to me that I’ve yet to call Mom to check in on Babcia. So I drink some water, then I make a cup of coffee and I watch TV for a while until I feel like my voice might be back to normal and my emotions have cooled.

I place a voice call to Mom, because I don’t want her to see my face. She answers on the first ring.

“I can’t talk for long, Alice.”

“What’s happening?”

“Babcia had some kind of turn a few hours ago and she’s been moved to the ICU,” Mom says. I hear the frustration in her voice as she mutters, “I’m waiting for the neurologist but he’s been next door with another patient for half a damned hour. But the nurse said it was another minor stroke. She said it’s not uncommon in someone her age but that it’s a concern that it keeps happening...”

“Is Babcia okay?”

“She’s not okay, Alice,” Mom says abruptly. “I think it’s time we accepted that her days of being okay have passed.”

I know her time with us is winding down. Why else would I be in Poland on this wild-goose chase? But hearing Mom say those words makes me want to weep.

“Can you text me when you know what’s happening?” I croak.

“Alice—” I can hear the apology in Mom’s voice, but knowing Mom as I do, there’s a good chance it’s going to be followed up by some kind of sharpness anyway and I just can’t deal with that tonight.

“I have to go,” I say unevenly. “Just text me, okay?”

And for the second time today, I hang up on someone I love.

Twenty minutes later, I’m still sobbing when a text comes from Mom.

The good news is it was a small bleed today and there’s no new damage, but Babcia’s condition is no longer considered stable. Dr. Chang is finally organizing that translator for me. She wants to talk to Babcia about whether she’s ready to sign a Do Not

Resuscitate order.

Then a few minutes later, when I’m trying to craft a reply, another text arrives.

By the way, your father arrived a few minutes ago. I don’t suppose you had anything to do with that? Perhaps he’s not the only one who should think about coming home early.

“I am thinking about it, Mom,” I whisper to my empty hotel room. “In fact, that’s pretty much all I can think about.”

CHAPTER 35

Alina

I thought I’d be terrified while the rest of the truck was loaded. It was surely the most dangerous moment in a series of dangerous moments. But listening to the laughter and jokes of the Nazi soldiers loading the truck made me furious instead of terrified. I knew we must be at Auschwitz, and that meant my parents were possibly nearby.

Were these the men who took my parents? Were these the men who killed Saul’s family?

I was suddenly, overwhelmingly incensed. I had been worn down by the years of occupation—so much so that I’d almost forgotten how to be outraged. But listening to the carefree tinkle of that laughter, a furious, murderous rage surged through me—especially when it occurred to me then that Saul was right behind me, hearing that very same soundtrack, probably wondering the very same things. I reached up behind myself and squeezed Saul’s shoulder, hard. After a moment, he set his shaking hand over mine.

Sometime later, we heard the door to the cabin close, and the engine started again.

Time lost all meaning after that. For the most part Saul and I sat in total silence, moving only when numbness or necessity commanded. The suitcase contained preserves jars full of water—and once each was empty, they were awkwardly repurposed for our waste. I’d packed the last of our rations biscuits and some jam, along with the very last of Mama’s bread—a veritable bounty by Saul’s standards if it only had to last us for a few days. I waited for hunger, but instead, I had to force myself to eat every now and again, and when Saul ignored my offers of food and water, I had to awkwardly shuffle until I could lift the jars and the bread to his mouth. He was a walking skeleton. I knew he simply could not afford to go too long without sustenance, and so, I fed him like a baby.

I was endlessly aware of the fear and the suffocation and grief for my parents and longing for Tomasz and the itch of the cast and of the sting of splinters that came upon any part of my skin that happened to rest against the wooden crate—it was as if the entire world had paused except for my suffering. Sometimes the truck would slow or stop and I’d hear voices and I’d be completely resigned to what felt like an inevitability. This was so surely the end. We’d been discovered, we were done for, death had arrived, I had failed. But despite the sheer terror, each and every time the truck then started up again and we’d amble on, until the next stop and the next scare.

When the noise of the truck was loud enough, I’d try to strike up a whispered conversation with Saul—anything to ease the boredom, anything to distract myself from the way my mind raced with all of the horrible possibilities of what lay ahead of us. Sometimes he answered me in grunts, but mostly, he didn’t answer me at all.

I got the impression that he was sleeping a lot, or perhaps that he’d lost himself altogether in the memories of that night—in the first tender stages of a lifetime of grief, amplified by the terror of our current situation and the sensory deprivation of the entirely dark cavity we were trapped in. Eventually, I accepted that he didn’t want to talk, or perhaps he was exhausted to the point that he simply couldn’t. Sometimes, he’d cry very quietly, and at first, I hated that, but I soon realized there was something even worse, because other times he’d fall silent and I’d feel a suffocating anxiety that he’d died and I was trapped in what amounted to my coffin, still breathing beside an emaciated corpse. I’d hold my own breath for a moment so I could concentrate on feeling the movement of his chest behind me, just to be sure he was breathing, but sometimes it took me hours to work up the courage to do so, because I knew the reality of my situation. Even if Saul had died, I was stuck in that cavity with him until we stopped, and there was nothing at all I could do about it. By then, the smell in the cavity of the truck was so thick I felt like I could taste our sweat and waste in the air—a different kind of death, a living prison of our life.

I’d lost track of the stops and starts of the truck’s journey, so I was startled when it came to a stop, and then I heard footsteps in the tray and cartons shifting around, but no conversation. Saul and I both tensed as the steps came near to us, neither one of us relaxing even as Jakub called quietly, “Are you two okay in there? We are at the Don River, but we have to hurry—I am running late to the command center to deliver the last of the supplies.”

He helped us out onto unsteady feet, then lifted us both onto the ground because our limbs were too stiff to climb down. Finally, Jakub passed us the suitcase, and then he started shifting boxes around. It took me a moment to realize that he was trying to get the crate we’d traveled in out from behind the load of supplies.