He nods, agreeing, then reaches over to Flora, placing his hand gently on her back. “You don’t know where your real Mama is, do you, sweetheart?” he utters to her, his head tilting to the side with a pained look of regret.
I rest my hand on his knee. “I’ve been thinking about this relentlessly since you left, and even before I knew for sure that Flora didn’t belong here, this need to protect her…” I press my fist into the ache in my chest. “I can’t ignore it.”
“Flora needs to be part of our plan. Without a doubt,” Gavriel says without a moment’s hesitation.
“We must try to find her mother. Flora doesn’t belong here. If we can’t find her mother, I’ll take care of her. I’ll make sure she always has a home. I won’t let anything happen to her.”
A glimmer of shock warps along Gavriel’s dreary expression. He swallows against his dry throat and nods. “The poor thing. Her mother—from Auschwitz, she must be?—”
“What?” I press. “Must be what?”
Gavriel’s bottom lip quivers and he closes his eyes for a short second before shaking whatever thought is clawing through him. “Nothing—she—she just must be worried sick. That’s all. But I won’t let anything happen to her, or you. And as for a home—if a home is what you want, what you need, I promise to make sure you have one. I’ll build it with my own two hands. You deserve that. I’ll make sure you have a home.”
“You’d build me a home?” I lose track of the urgency in our moments, baffled by a promise that no one should ever promise another person. He’s hardly able to stand upright. He’s starving and weak, and on the verge of—No, I can’t think that way. We have to make it through this. It’s a chance.
“A perfect home with a barn and a swing, a front porch. Whatever your heart desires,” he says, making it sound as if it’s no harder than handing me a freshly plucked dandelion.
A chance is all we need.
And a home is the one thing I’ve always dreamed of.
“I think I have a plan to go along with Ada’s…” I say.
FORTY-THREE
HALINA
I’m already out of breath from my racing pulse and I haven’t made it to the weeping willow tree where Rosalie and Celina are waiting for me to go pick up the children from school. The wheels of the carriage crackle over the gravel as I approach the others, and they’re watching me as if waiting for me to tell them something. Maybe it’s my guilt, knowing I have a chance to leave, and they don’t.
“You’re paler than a bedsheet,” Celina says. “Are you all right?”
I shake my head and swallow hard. Neither of them pushes me for an answer, knowing we’re too close to the SS houses and need to move away from the street before I say any more.
“What’s happening?” Rosalie asks as we turn onto the road lined by just trees.
“I’m not sure where to start,” I say, my words phlegmy and sticking to my throat. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”
“Well, you’re making me nervous now,” Rosalie says.
“What is it? You can trust us,” Celina adds.
What if they don’t trust me after I tell them what’s about to happen? I’m leaving them behind. We all know it’s each person for themselves in a time of war, but it doesn’t diminish the factthat I’ve always been a person who helps others. Without certain life connections, like a family, it’s easier to put other people first and worry less about myself—or so I’ve come to realize.
“I found myself in an impossible predicament with Frau Schäfer. Before I go on, you should know her life choices and current situation is not one I believe she planned for but rather ended up within. And while I won’t defend or forgive her actions, I do believe the woman is scared for her life and the life of her children.”
Celina stops walking, stops pushing the carriage. “What predicament? What happened?” Rosalie stops as well and turns to face me, waiting for me to go on.
“Frau Schäfer is not actually pregnant. It’s an act, for everyone around her, including her husband and children. I walked in on her adjusting the fake belly she’s had tied around her mid-section.”
By the look of their paling faces, I assume the three of us must look similar now. “Dear God. For what reason would she do something like that?” Celina asks.
“I don’t know much about the officers you live with or the relationships between them and their wives, but Officer Schäfer is brutal, aggressive, irate, and cruel to his family. From what I gather, he wants as many children as possible to support the Aryan ideology, specifically a boy now, but Frau Schäfer suffered from secondary infertility after Marlene’s birth due to complications post-delivery. I think—no, I know—Flora was taken from a Jewish mother at Auschwitz.”
Both Rosalie and Celina slowly drop their gazes to Flora, despondence settling into their expressions. Rosalie lifts her hand to her mouth and Celina presses her palm to her chest. “What—I’m afraid to know what you’re planning to do…” Celina utters.
“I made an agreement with Frau Schäfer,” I say, peering over my shoulder to make sure no one is coming up behind us. “With Gavriel returning in his dire state today, I’m not sure he’ll make it another night in the prison.” His trembling hands, the bruises. He’s so weak and frail from starving and torture—the grim look in his eyes is etched in my mind like bleeding ink on paper. “I must act swiftly. I told her that she needs to find a way for us to escape tonight. If not, I threatened to inform her husband of all the lies she’s hiding. It would ruin her life.”
“Are you mad?” Rosalie asks. “You can’t make a threat like that to the wife of an SS officer. She’ll find a way to have you killed before you could even open your mouth to Officer Schäfer. What were you thinking? And the officers’ dinner party is tonight, being hosted in the Schäfers’ backyard. We’re all supposed to be there, working.”
