The Woman with the Blue Star, Pam Jenoff [highly recommended books txt] 📗

minutes later, after glancing around cautiously, Ella looked down once more, searching for me. I stepped closer to the grate and into the light so that she could see me.

She smiled. “There you are. I thought maybe you had gone.” She might have walked away, too, I realized, once she had finished her conversation with the man on the street. It would have been safer for her to leave and pretend she had never seen me. But she had not.

“I’m Sadie,” I offered. Some part of me knew it was better not to give my name, but I couldn’t help it.

“Ella.” Her voice was lyrical, reminding me of a sparrow’s song. Her pronunciation was different than mine, the way she closed the end of each word more refined. But it was more than just speech—her accent spoke of good schooling, a grand house, perhaps holidays abroad and other wonders I could not begin to imagine. This, more so than the fancy dress or the cross, confirmed that she was not like me and set us apart.

“I know. I heard that man say your name. Who was he?” I berated myself for the question, which was too nosy and personal for someone I barely knew.

She swallowed. “Just a boy I used to know.” There was a note of pain in her voice. Clearly, he had been something more to her. “What’s it like down there?” she asked, changing the subject.

How could I explain the strange, dark world below ground, now the only one that I knew? I tried to find the words to describe it, but could not. “It’s awful,” I said finally.

“How do you survive down there? Is there food?” Her questions came rapid-fire, in a way that reminded me of myself.

I paused, again struggling to find an answer. There was no way I could mention Pawel without risking his safety. He would face much trouble if the Germans found out he was hiding Jews. “We get by.”

“But how can you stand it?” she burst out, and I saw for the first time a tiny crack in her elegant demeanor.

I had never considered the question. “Because I have no choice,” I said slowly. “At first I did not think I could bear it a minute. Then a minute passed and I did not think I would last an hour. Then a day and a week and so on. It’s amazing what you can get used to. And I’m not alone. I’ve got my mother and soon I will have a little brother or sister.” For a second, I considered mentioning Saul as well, but I felt silly doing so.

“Your mother is pregnant?”

“Yes, she’s due in a few months’ time.”

Her face registered disbelief. “How can she possibly have a baby in the sewer?”

“Anything is manageable if you can stay with the ones you love,” I replied, trying to convince myself as well as her. Ella’s expression saddened. “What is it?” I asked, hoping I had not said anything to offend her.

“Nothing,” she replied quickly.

“Where do you live?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Kanonicza Street,” she said, a tinge of embarrassment in her voice at giving the grand address. “It’s off Grodzka.”

“I know where it is,” I replied, a bit irked that she thought I would be unfamiliar with the ancient streets of the city center. I had walked the posh neighborhood many times. Even before the war, the well-appointed street, with its large, well-manicured row houses close to the market square, was like a foreign country, worlds away from my own modest upbringing. Now that I was in the sewer, such a place seemed like the stuff of storybooks, nearly unfathomable. A picture appeared in my mind of a study with shelves overflowing with books, a sparkling kitchen filled with the finest food. “It must be lovely.” I could not keep the note of longing from my voice.

“It isn’t really,” Ella said, surprising me. “My parents are both dead and my brother and sisters gone. The only one left is my stepmother, Ana Lucia. She’s truly awful. And then there’s my former fiancé, Krys.”

“The man you just saw on the street?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yes. My former boyfriend, really, since we were never formally engaged. He broke things off with me before leaving for the war. I was certain we would get back together, but then he returned without telling me. And I’ve got no friends anymore either.” I understood then her pained look a few minutes earlier when I spoke of being able to survive anything with loved ones. Despite her fine living conditions, Ella was completely alone.

“It could be worse. You could be living in a sewer.” For a second, I feared that my joke was distasteful. But her face broke into a smile and we laughed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was petty of me to complain with everything you are going through. I’ve got no one to talk to.”

“It’s all right.” The sewer was filthy and horrible. But at least I had my mother to love me, and Saul for company. Ella had no one. She was trapped, I could see, in a kind of prison of her own. “You can always come talk to me,” I offered. “I know it isn’t much, visiting a dirty girl in a sewer.”

“It’s plenty.” Ella reached her hand down through the sewer grate. I stood on my tiptoes, trying to touch her fingers. But the space between was too much, the inches an ocean, and our hands floundered separately in the air.

“I can help you,” she said, and for a second my heart lifted. “Perhaps I can try to find some way to get you out, ask someone...”

“No!” I exclaimed, petrified by the notion that she might reveal that we were here. “You must never speak of me,” I added sternly, trying to sound much older and more authoritative than I was. “Or you will never see me again.” The threat felt like a hollow one. Surely it didn’t matter to her.

Ella