“We have doctors,” he said, then he tilted his chin at me. “What else do you have, beautiful?”

“Food?”

“Try again.”

I was getting a pretty clear idea what the soldier might want from me, and it was making me physically ill—my empty stomach threatening to try to empty itself even more. We’d used most of our rubles by then, so all I really had to offer the soldier was some coins, and I’d figured out they weren’t actually worth very much. I had to think of something, because I wasn’t going anywhere but through those gates.

“I have some coins,” I offered, and I rummaged around in my pocket and withdrew what was left.

“Please,” he scoffed. “Don’t insult me. That’s crumbs.”

“Gold,” I said heavily. I sighed, then said it again. “I have gold.”

“Gold?” he said incredulously, and beside me, I saw Saul raise his eyebrows. I fumbled in the bottom of my coat for the lump, then raised the hem. The soldier continued to stare at me blankly, so I reached for his hand and held it against the lump. “See? It’s a ring. Solid gold. If you lend me your pocketknife, I’ll give it to you. Surely that’s enough to encourage you to let my friend come in with me.”

“Let me cut it,” the soldier said abruptly, and then the next thing I knew, he’d taken a knife from his pocket and had sliced the length of the seam. The ring fell out into my waiting hands, and I was trembling as I offered it to him. The soldier snatched it up into his hand and hid it quickly in his pocket. “Do you have Polish identity papers? No one gets in without them, you know. I can’t do anything about that.”

“We do,” I said. “Both of us.”

“Real ones?”

“Of course,” I said, as if he’d offended me. Then I held my breath, but it escaped as a hiccup when he turned to walk away from us.

“But—” I started to protest, and he gave me a pointed look and motioned with his head for us to follow him.

Saul and I scampered after him—all the way to the gates. The other guards let us in without so much as a second look, and then the soldier pointed toward a ragged tent.

“That’s where you register—get your papers ready. And if he’s really a doctor, make sure you tell them. They sure could use the help.” After he turned to walk away, the soldier glanced back at me and gave me a wink. “Hope I see you round.”

Saul slid his arm around my shoulders and turned me toward the registration tent.

“Alina,” he said quietly. “That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Tomasz told me to look after you,” I said stiffly, but what I was thinking was, One of these days saving people for Tomasz Slaski is going to get me killed.

“Where did you get the ring?”

“My mama,” I mumbled, and then it hit me what I’d done, and I had to blink hard to fight back the tears. “I had saved it. I was keeping it. For my wedding to Tomasz.”

Saul’s arm across my shoulders tensed a little.

“I’ll find a way, Alina. I’ll find a way to repay you for this. All of it.”

“You already saved us. He wouldn’t have survived if he hadn’t left Warsaw with you, I’m not sure I would have survived if he hadn’t come back to me.” I wanted to weep, but we were in the short line waiting to register, and I knew I had to stay calm. I tried to inject some lightness into my tone. “I think we are even now.”

“Not by a long shot, Alina. But I will find a way.”

The line moved forward then, and we shuffled up together, and when we got to the front, with shaking hands, I showed the administrator the falsified paperwork Henry had given me.

“Hanna Wis´niewski,” he murmured, as he scrawled the name down, but he barely even looked at my paperwork, because his focus was immediately on Saul. He looked closely at Tomasz’s passport, then peered up at Saul, then back to the aged passport. For a moment, I expected him to comment on Saul’s age—he was five years older than Tomasz, and he looked much older still. But war had aged us all beyond our years, and instead, the guard’s gaze narrowed on Saul’s hair.

“You’re not Jewish, are you?” he asked. For a split second, Saul hesitated, so I interjected, “Of course he’s not. Why do you ask that?”

“Dark hair, miss. It’s a standard question. We enrolled too many Jews in the early days so we can’t let any more in. They aren’t really cut out for war—they’re just too cowardly.”

In an instant, I was speechless with rage, but Saul reached down and he took my hand, and he squeezed it—hard. Then he smiled at the officer, as he scooped the passport up quite casually.

“Is that all you need from us?” he asked with a smile.

“All done. Welcome.”

“Where do we go next?”

“Head over to the next tent. They’ll assign you jobs and sleeping quarters.”

We walked toward the second tent, and I glanced at Saul.

“I don’t know how you can bear it,” I whispered shakily beneath my breath.

“It’s just for a few weeks,” he whispered back. “We can figure it all out when Tomasz gets here. Besides, if they let me work as a doctor, perhaps they will be more concerned with my skill and less with my heritage by the time I tell them the truth.” He exhaled, then he admitted weakly, “Honestly, Alina, I am not yet strong enough to suffer for my faith again. Not yet. God forgive me, but it will be a relief to stay undercover for just a while.”

CHAPTER 36

Alice

Zofia texts me and suggests we meet for an earlier breakfast and try to come up with a plan, so by 8:00 a.m., we’re seated in the hotel restaurant. I order a double espresso, because I’ve had almost no sleep—and for the second day in a row, I order smalec. Maybe it’s written into my genes, because apparently, I love the stuff.

I kept thinking I had no expectations of this trip, but it turns out I did. I have a day left here to answer Babcia’s unspoken question, but I have no way of finding out how it all fits together. All I really know for sure is that there’s an elderly woman named Emilia somewhere here in Poland who regularly visits what might just be an empty grave with my grandfather’s name on it.

Back home, Babcia is only getting sicker. It sounds like Eddie is in freefall. Wade is juggling a million balls at once, and some are inevitably falling. Callie is drowning under more responsibility than any ten-year-old should ever have to face.