She doesn’t deserve this orphaned life without knowing who she is or where she came from. There’s no greater cause of loneliness. No one should have to go through that.
I think fast, wondering how I can spin this to my advantage. Wondering if this is my chance to get what I so desperately need. Freedom…
“I won’t tell Heinrich your secrets, but in return you owe me. You’re going to need to find a way to let me go. Not just me, but the man who has been dying of starvation and exhaustion while building your attic expansion—that is, if he isn’t the one your husband just murdered outside tonight,” I say, my final words sticking like molasses to my tongue. Another image of Gavriel being shot passes through my mind, his body falling to the ground, lifeless.Please tell me it wasn’t him.
“I don’t know who was—” she says with a break in her voice. “All right, I agree to your terms. But I need time. Nothing can change too fast. If I do anything rash, he’ll suspect something.”
“I don’t have long, Ada,” I say. It might be too late for Gavriel. Too late to learn I’ve secured something of a promise for our freedom. He may never find out. How can I live with that?
THIRTY-SEVEN
HALINA
I didn’t sleep, not even for a second. My mind is numb yet racing with disjointed thoughts of the gunshot and finding Ada adjusting a fake pregnant belly beneath her dress. It felt deliberate, as if she wanted to be discovered. But why? Everything that happens in this house seems premeditated and poorly planned, too much to be a reality. Or perhaps I’m just realizing the world I’ve truly been living within—how much worse it is than I even thought, if possible.
I’ve been a nobody since the day I was born, not the best at anything, but not the worst. Smart, but not brilliant. Agile, but never graceful. A façade of strength with a fragile core. And now I’m here—accused of begging on the street, threatened with an arrest or become a slave here in this house. I’m being forced to stand in the grim shadows of the most inhuman beings on the face of this earth, tending to children who don’t know they’re being poisoned by lies. Acting like I don’t feel the tension snaking through the walls of this house.
How did I get here? And why is my mind and soul in ruins just thinking about Gavriel? Plenty of boys came and went from the orphanage but not one of them caught my eye or sparked my interest because I suppose I looked at each of them as brothers.In school, I was avoided, stared at, forgotten. Because I came from a place without a name, not a home like most of the others.
Gavriel is the first person who ever looked at me and saw more than just a stray thread clinging to the first thing I could latch onto. I’ve never had anything to keep me grounded until he offered me a peephole of hope that maybe my entire life doesn’t have to be centered around loneliness. I could be a part of something with another person, fit into someone’s life as if I’m supposed to be there. It happened fast, but naturally, as if our connection is some unworldly plan, written in the stars. Our fate, though, we’ll be kept from it as if we’re undeserving, unworthy, and untitled. Even if that bullet took someone else last night, it’s hard to avoid the thought that it’s only a matter of time before it will take one of us.
There is no escape here, despite the bargain I’ve made with Ada. She might let me go, find a way to make it happen, but how far will I get before I’m caught again—as a Polish woman without proper identification on my person.
That isn’t who I am though. If I were to give up hope, I’m not sure I would have made it this far in life. Every day of my life has been filled with pain and questions, wondering who I am and why I was left on a doorstep. Now, I have an inkling of an answer, but still no further information on if and why I was abandoned. It’s as if there isn’t a possibility of being whole in any capacity.
It will be the same with Gavriel. If he was… murdered last night it’ll be the second time in my short life that I’ve had a chance to feel whole with someone, only for it to be taken away before it had a chance to become something more. It would feel worse than mere rejection and exist as a reminder why I should never let my guard down for anyone, ever, because I should learn to depend on myself, and only myself. Maybe that’s God’splan for me—to live a life of solitude, protected by some inner strength I’ve yet to find.
Part of me wants to stay in bed, fake an illness, and tell Ada to handle her own children today. My imagination can be quite a tease sometimes. Though, I question what would happen if I stayed up here and never went downstairs today. Will she give her husband an excuse as to why I’m not downstairs, hurry him off to work then let me do as I please, just to keep me quiet?
I glance up toward the window, finding the moon still high in the sky. There won’t be a hint of sunlight for at least another hour. I flick on the gas lamp on the nightstand and roll forward to reach into my suitcase beneath the bed, pulling out the folktale book that holds the truth of my life within its seams.
I flip through the pages, wondering if anyone ever read me these stories and why I don’t remember any of them. I wonder if my mother had planned to read them all to me, maybe one before bed each night, teaching me about the world in the form of surrealism. I would have liked that.
At the very center of the book, the pages stop wavering, one sits slightly bowed on each side and I trace my finger along the water-color illustration of a dog, cat, and mouse all staring at each other.
A long time ago…
A dog sought out the king, asking for written permission to protect dogs from being mistreated by humans. The king agreed, granted the dog his request with a signature and handed back the paper. The dog knew he would need to keep this paper safe, so he turned to a clever cat he knew for assistance.
The cat quickly agreed to help, perhaps too quickly, and found a spot, hiding it in the eaves of its owner’s house.
But it wasn’t long before the dog catchers were on the prowl again.
The dog returned to the cat for the important paper. The cat went into the eaves of its owner’s house, finding the decree nibbled to shreds by the mouse.
Angered, the dog began to chase the cat. The cat, in turn, chased the mouse.
Ever since that day, dogs chase cats, and cats chase mice.
And the king’s signed paper was never to be seen again.
This was the story Gavriel told the girls the first day I was here. It seemed like an innocent way to distract them for a moment. But reading it now, I can’t stop thinking about what it truly means.
We’re the dogs, desperate for protection, hoping something as feeble as a promise can save us. The cat, like Ada…who isn’t helping anyone due to loyalty, but instead, guilt or fear of being exposed. And Heinrich? He’s the mouse, quietly destroying, chewing through the remains of decency. The king is just an illusion of justice offering a promise never meant to last. Even a king would be powerless in the face of the Reich’s false promises.
Is that what Gavriel was thinking too? It can’t be. I refuse to believe it. There must be something deeper I’m not understanding. Why would he have told the girls this tale?
None of the prisoners arrived this morning.
