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

Of course, that was the problem. Sadie was grateful and she would be only too willing to help. But she was barely surviving down there. I couldn’t ask her to do something that would jeopardize her even further.

I looked at Krys, half lying beside me, and suddenly what had taken place between us seemed altogether something else. “Is that why you asked me to come here, because you needed help?” I reached for my dress.

“No, it isn’t like that. I wanted to be with you, Ella, just like I always have. But this is a critical moment in our fight against the Germans and we must strike with everything we have. The hiding place you have in the sewer, it’s too perfect.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry.” Even for Krys and the important work he was doing, there were some things that were too much to ask.

“Why does Sadie mean so much to you?” Krys asked.

I hesitated. Krys had a point. I had met Sadie only a little while ago. She was no one to me. I should not care about her so much. But somehow in the short time since I had known her, we had become friends and I wanted to help and protect her. I felt certain that she would do the same for me.

But Krys understood none of this. All he saw was some strange girl in the sewer whom I barely knew—and that I was putting her before him.

“I can’t explain it,” I said at last. “There’s just a connection between us. I care for her. She’s my friend.”

“And what does that make me?”

“You know what you mean to me,” I replied quickly, unwilling to let him make my feelings for him a point in his favor. “But you have other options for hiding the munitions.”

“No,” he said sharply. “I don’t.” I had no idea if that was true. “If I did, I wouldn’t be asking.”

“The sewer is Sadie’s last hope,” I explained, desperate to make him understand. “If she’s caught, she’ll be arrested or killed.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Krys exploded. His voice was so loud that I was sure that whoever was in the apartment below could hear. “That’s why we are doing all of this.”

“That’s not true,” I countered. “The Home Army is fighting to liberate Poland. Most Poles care nothing for the Jews.” I understood that for Krys, it was about the bigger fight, not a lone Jewish girl and her family. But to me, Sadie mattered.

“So you won’t help?” he asked.

“Not in this way. I’m sorry.” I looked away, unable to meet his eyes. The one thing he asked of me was the very thing I could not give.

“Me, too.” He slid away from me and stood up. “I thought you understood,” he said.

“I could say the same thing.”

“This is war,” he said tersely as he tucked in his shirt. “Every one of us has to make compromises.” I realized then that Krys had come back from the war changed. He belonged to the cause now, to his work. Not to me.

I wanted to tell him I would help him hide the munitions. But I couldn’t betray Sadie’s safety. “I want to help you,” I said. “I’ll carry packages or whatever you need me to do. We can place the munitions in Ana Lucia’s house, if need be.” I knew even as I said it how ridiculous the suggestion was. “But don’t ask me to compromise Sadie’s safety again,” I said, pleading now. “I can help you find another place.”

He shook his head stubbornly. “There’s no time and there’s nowhere better. You know, I don’t need your permission, Ella. I could ask her directly, or even just go into the sewer myself.” It was a calculated bluff, designed to make me acquiesce.

We sat in silence, neither speaking. “You should go,” he said a moment later. I stood, stung by his coldness. I searched for the right words to fix our quarrel. I did not want to part in anger. But the gulf remained between us, too wide to breach.

“I need to do this,” Krys pressed, trying one more time to persuade me. He was headstrong, unaccustomed to being told no.

But so was I. “If you go near the sewer, I will never speak with you again.” I turned and walked from the room.

Back on the street, I started for home, shaken. It was a bright and sunny morning now, the sidewalks crowded with people who had already begun their day. It felt as if everything was crashing down upon me and my head swirled with confusion. Krys and I had come back together, so perfectly that it might have been a dream. Now with the moment between us faded and the distance between us returned, it seemed as if it had never happened. I had trusted Krys, told him the truth about Sadie and the others hiding in the sewer. Now he was threatening to risk their safety for his own ends. I wondered with regret whether the price of getting the food Sadie needed had been too high a price to pay.

When I reached Kanonicza Street, it was after nine o’clock and there was no hope of sneaking into the house. Smoothing my hair, I started through the front door. Ana Lucia was seated at the far end of the breakfast table. As she took in the soiled, wrinkled dress I still wore from the previous day, I braced for her interrogation. But she asked me nothing. “There’s kiełbasa,” she said mildly. Hanna brought me a plate, and though I was not that hungry, I took a sausage. Of course, Ana Lucia made no mention of my birthday. She never remembered it at all.

“So, Ella,” she said a moment later. I looked up from my breakfast to find her staring at me, eyes narrowed like a cat’s. My breath caught. Did she know about Sadie being in the house last night? “You’ll be glad to know that