“Alive. For now. But not for long if I don’t help him.”
“Rosalie,” she says, her voice trembling.
“That’s why I’m here. He’s why I’m here. He needs me.”
Celina places her hand on my shoulder and tilts her head to the side. “What about you?”
“This isn’t about me.”
She takes me by the arm, leading me into the sitting room. “Wait here,” she says, her eyes stained in red webs from grief.
Celina returns with a damp rag, takes my chin in her hand and blots away the blood stains on my face. “Thank you,” I offer.
“You’re shaking. You poor thing.”
“I’m all right,” I lie. I’m all too good at putting on a brave face in front of others. It’s what I’ve always done, never wanting to become someone else’s concern. My stomach growls from hunger, a noise I can’t hide among the silence between us.
“Did they feed you?” she asks.
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. I have more important things to be concerned with.”
“Nonsense. How can you concern yourself with anything else if you’re starving? And you’re on your feet all day in that horrific prison.”
I want to tell her I have it easy compared to every innocent prisoner within those gates. Without seeing the inside of Auschwitz, it’s hard to fathom how horrific it is there. Words can’t possibly do enough to explain that reality.
“I have extra food,” she whispers, as if the walls are taking notes.
“How?”
“We all have our ways—” She glances around, still convincing herself we’re alone, it seems. “Just something my husband once taught me.”
“Your husband?” The words just spill out. Celina doesn’t have a husband—she’s never mentioned a husband. Only that she came here from a convent.
She shakes her head. “I shouldn’t have—never mind. Give me a moment. I’ll get you something to eat.”
As she scurries away, all I can think to myself is that no matter how long we know a person—within these binding borders around Auschwitz, no one can speak the truth of whothey are. Not anymore. Trusting another person can mean the difference between life and death.
EIGHT
ROSALIE
SANOK, POLAND
December 28, 1940
I’ve been living at the Silberg estate for just over two months now, and I still can’t believe this place is real. Gilded trim lines the corridors, leading to bedrooms draped in velvet canopies, a dining room grand enough to host dozens, and a library with more books than I could ever hope to read in a lifetime. Outside, horses graze beside chickens along the red-brick barn, acres of land and trees with endless views of the frost-covered beauty.
It’s like another world, untouched, for now.
I fold the blanket down over Miriam’s swollen waist and slide her cup of tea a bit closer to the edge of her nightstand. She still has about four or five weeks left of her pregnancy, but she’s doing well so far. Better than Mister Silberg made her out to be when he first approached me.
It’s clear to me that everything he’s done and said is out of pure love and concern, which I understand and can appreciate more than most. She’s lost several pregnancies so it’s easy to feel like this one will end the same way. Though I’m confident everything will go according to plan this time.
“The swelling is less,” I tell Miriam. She insisted on tidying up the new nursery earlier while I was preparing dinner for everyone. I didn’t know she was out of bed until she backed into a small tower of wooden blocks she didn’t see behind her. The clatter gave her whereabouts away.
“Well, of course. It’s because you’ve restricted me to this bed for the last few weeks,” she complains. “I can’t even tidy up. Or prepare meals for my family. Hang clothes to dry. Or dust?—”
“But your ankles—you can see them, or…at least I can see them, and they’re not swollen. That’s what matters.”
