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

pipe. I missed and fell, sending the boards scattering. I looked up. There was simply no way for me to reach the pipe on my own. But if I didn’t get up there, I would not see Ella, nor be able to get the food we needed. I restacked the boards and tried to heave myself up the wall with sheer force and determination. My limbs were weak from hunger and it seemed impossible. I took a deep breath and summoned every last ounce of strength I had as I leapt for the top. My hands grasped the edge of the pipe and I pulled myself up, scraping my knees against the rough metal edge.

I crawled through the pipe and, a few seconds later, reached the end. I peered through the grate here that was rectangular and bigger than the one had been on the street in Dębniki. I did not see Ella. I wondered if she had been unable to get out. Perhaps she might not show at all. My anxiety rose. When we had planned to meet here, I had simply hoped to see her. But now, with Pawel and our food supply gone, I needed her help. I could not get out of the sewer pipe without her. Without the food stores Saul had mentioned, we would all starve.

At last, I heard footsteps above the grate, growing louder. I slipped back into the shadows, in case it was someone else. But a minute later, Ella appeared.

Through the grate, I could see Ella’s face, her expression expectant and grave as she searched for me. “I’m here,” I whispered.

Ella smiled. “You managed it!” I moved closer. The space beneath the grate was shallow and I had to half sit, half lie down just to fit in it. “It worked,” I said.

My satisfaction faded as I looked in her hands to see if she had any food, but saw none. “I had to sneak out quickly,” she said, reading my thoughts. “So I couldn’t go to the kitchen. I’m sorry.”

“It’s no matter,” I replied, though my empty stomach burned.

“How are you?” she asked.

I paused uncertainly. I often worried that if I told Ella of my troubles, she would find me boring and not want to come see me anymore. But my hunger loomed, too large and menacing to deny. “Honestly, not well. We have nothing left to eat. The sewer worker who had been helping us was arrested.” I saw concern flash over her face, as if realizing fully for the first time the dangers she might face as a consequence of helping me. “I need to find more food.” I hated to even ask. She had done so much for us.

“I’ll see what I can do to get more,” Ella replied quickly.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. You’ve given me so much and I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. But there are five of us in the sewer. We need to find a larger store of food to hold us over until...” I faltered, not sure what we were holding on for: Pawel to come back to us? The war to end? Neither seemed terribly likely at the moment. “Until things change,” I finished weakly.

“I don’t have anything,” she said. “If you can give me a few days, I’ll try some of the markets outside the city.”

In my mind I saw Mama, who had been so weak with hunger that she had nearly fainted earlier. “I’m sorry, but that won’t be soon enough,” I said bluntly. “That is, I really appreciate all that you have done, but if we wait longer to find food, it might be too late. We’re out of time.”

“What is it that you want me to do?”

“I know of some food left in the ghetto. I need to get to it.”

“If you tell me where, I’ll go look,” she said without hesitation. Despite the danger of what I was proposing, she was willing to try.

“I can’t just tell you. It will be hard to find and dangerous for you to go on your own.” I took a deep breath, bracing for the audacity of what I was about to say. “I need to find it myself and I need your help getting out of here so I can do it.”

“When?”

I swallowed. “Now.”

She paused. “When we first met, you said it was too dangerous for you to be on the street.”

“It is. Still, we need food and if there is a chance that I can get it, I must try. There’s no other choice.” The risk of being arrested was real. But the threat of starvation felt so much worse right now. “Please, help me get out and do this.”

I expected her to say no. But she nodded solemnly, willing to do what I asked. A second later, she began tugging at the sewer grate. It stuck, seemingly rusted shut. My heart sank. I would not be able to get out this way. I began pushing as she pulled. At last, the grate released. Ella lifted it with effort and heaved it back. Then she reached for me, her hand floundering in the dark space between us. Our fingers locked, touching for the first time, and she tugged on me with more strength than I would have thought she possessed. I unfolded myself and straightened, freed from my hiding spot.

Just like that, I was out of the sewer.

I inhaled deeply, drinking in the air in great gulps and it was so fresh and cold it burned my lungs on the way down. We were standing on a gentle slope of grass that led down to the embankment by the river. My eyes traveled immediately to the night sky, a carpet of stars above Wawel Cathedral. It was the first time in months that I had seen the view I had shared dozens of times with my father as a child on our walks, which let us see so much more than we could from the