He shrugs. “Well, yes, just the same as everyone else.”
I shake my head in refusal. “I didn’t realize how much more I had until now. I’m going to help. May I help? I wouldn’t want to offend you or your mother. I—I realize I shouldn’t be taking from what little my family’s store has, but I can’t just stand by…” Tears fill my eyes and I’m ashamed of my irrational emotions when it isn’t me who’s going hungry to this extent. He wouldn’t want me to feel sorry for him. It would make him uncomfortable, embarrassed.
Luka places his hands on my shoulders. “We’ll be fine. I promise you don’t have to worry about us. Don’t take any more food from your family’s store. Every store owner is being watched by the Germans with an eagle eye. You could get into more trouble than I want to think about.”
I’ve been living in denial or lost in my head. Maybe I’m numb to the reality around me. My chest tightens as I stare into Luka’s eyes, realizing how many conversations we’ve avoided—or perhaps he’s avoided. “I’ve been so ignorant.”
“Mother, I’m going to walk Ella to the edge of the district before it gets too late. I’ll be home shortly.”
“Are you sure you can’t stay a little longer, dear?”
“My parents will worry,” I tell her.
“Well, of course. I wouldn’t want that. Send them my best. Maybe we can all meet at some point.”
My parents still don’t know about Luka because they would be beside themselves with worry if they knew I was spending so much time in the Jewish district, a place where non-Jews should no longer be. Their concern would cause me guilt and take away the joy I’ve been lucky enough to experience in a time when it should be nearly impossible to find happiness. Though, it’s been a while and it’s time to be honest with them about where I’ve been spending so much of my time. I want them to meet Luka, somehow.
“It was so lovely to meet you both.”
Luka hurries me out the door, down the stairs, and outside before he says another word.
“Don’t ever talk about yourself like that again. You’re far from ignorant,” he says, pressing his hands to my shoulders to bring himself eye level with me.
“I just want to be with you, and sitting in that tree every day is giving me a false sense of reality. You’re starving, Luka. You are far hungrier than me, and it tears me apart inside. I wanted to believe you weren’t much worse off than people like me, but it’s not the truth. How can you even stand to be near me?”
“Stop talking that way,” he says before swallowing hard.
“I’m bringing you food. Don’t tell me not to. My tata and brother are members of the—” I edge my lips to his ear towhisper what I must say—“underground resistance. There’s an army of Polish fighters in the tunnels beneath the city. They take food to help others. Likely more than I can even imagine. I’m desperate for them to meet you. They will adore you. You are also the perfect reminder of what they are fighting for alongside our freedom.”
“You never mentioned…” he says, his breath tapering into the wind.
“I’m not supposed to… I overhear snippets.”
The squeals and clomps from a horse and wagon serve as a caveat—incoming Germans. Other than a few rickshaws for Jews to transport Germans from place to place, there are no other modes of transportation in this district.
We both stare beyond the end of the road, but waiting won’t do either of us much good. “I’m going to go. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Please, Ella, please… I don’t want you to do anything dangerous. I beg of you.”
“I will be fine,” I tell him, enunciating each word.
His hands cup my face, and he presses his forehead to mine before reaching in to kiss me with a sharp inhale. My chest is pressing against his, two hearts pound at each other with an ache, fear, and endless desire as if we’re fighting for something we can never truly win. Yet, it’s a fight I’m willing to endure even knowing there may not be an end for us.
Just this beginning.
I burst into my apartment like I’ve been blown in by a heavy gust of wind, startling my parents and Miko. Mama is setting the dinner table, humming a soft tune as the loose strands fromthe knot in her hair wisp over her forehead as she spins around the kitchen, hurrying to set everything in place. Tata and Miko are huddled around the coffee table in what must have been a serious discussion based on the amount of cigarette smoke pluming above their heads.
“Is everything all right, Ella?” Mama asks, her emerald eyes piercing through me. I have a knack for running or speeding on my bicycle to wherever I’m going. Mama says I’m always in a race to get somewhere and never take the time to smell the tulips. It’s true now, I suppose, since flowers are rare to find around the city.
“Yes, why?” I ask, stopping alongside the coffee table between Miko and Papa.
Mama shakes her head and returns to the kitchen.
In a whisper, I state: “I want to help you.” I hold my stare on Tata, realizing my statement might not have been firm enough. “I’m going with you and Miko tonight.”
“Quiet, Ella,” Tata argues in a mirroring whisper. “You want your mother to hear you speaking like this?”
“You think she doesn’t know where you two go every night?”
