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

I looked up. “You were ill?” Her complexion was ruddy, eyes clear. She did not appear unwell to me. “I had no idea.”

“That’s not what you told the Germans in Dębniki.” I froze, remembering the soldiers I had encountered when I had tried to go see Sadie the previous week and the excuse I had given them for my basket of food. “You said that your mother was sick and that you were bringing me food. They told Colonel Maust.” Of course they had. “You used my name, Ella. You lied about me and made me look a fool. For what?”

I searched my mind for an explanation, but found none. “The Germans stopped me and I couldn’t find my Kennkarte,” I lied. “They wanted to know what I was doing. I was scared and I made up the excuse, I’m sorry.”

“What were you doing there?” she pressed. I had unwittingly walked right into her trap. “You had no business going to Dębniki again. And Fritz said the officers told him you were with a young man.” She paused, thinking. “It’s that awful boy again, isn’t it?” Ana Lucia’s lip curled with distaste. She had never liked Krys, considered his family far below us. It had always infuriated me.

But now I accepted the excuse she provided willingly. “Yes.”

“You need to stop chasing him around that filthy neighborhood. You’re not to go there again.”

“Yes, Ana Lucia,” I said, trying to sound duly chastened.

By agreeing with her too readily, though, I had overplayed my hand. Her eyes widened. “You’re up to something,” she said slowly, predator circling her prey.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I lied, willing my voice not to shake.

“Careful, little girl. You are playing a dangerous game and you are going to lose. This is my house now and you are only in it by my good graces. You know that, don’t you?” I did not answer, but finished my sausage in silence, then got up from the table. Feeling her eyes still on me, I tried to walk normally and forced my breathing to be calm as I left the room. Ana Lucia was suspicious, but she did not know about Sadie—at least not yet. I would have to be more careful.

As I started up the stairs, I noticed an envelope on the table in the foyer. It was addressed to me and I wondered when it had come, whether Ana Lucia had forgotten or deliberately neglected to give it to me. A letter from Paris, I realized, taking in the French stamps. Perhaps a birthday greeting from my brother. But the handwriting was not Maciej’s long, familiar looping script. I tore it open.

Dear Ella,

We have not met, but I’ve heard so much about you from your brother that I feel we have. I am your brother’s friend, Phillipe.

Friend, I reread the word. It was a euphemism, carefully censored code for so much more. I knew from Maciej’s earlier letters that he and Phillipe cared for one another deeply and it seemed a great pity that society did not permit them to acknowledge their feelings and call their relationship what it was. Quickly, I read on.

I’m afraid I write with the terrible news that Maciej was taken by the police during a raid of a cabaret we sometimes frequent.

My heart stopped. My beloved brother had been arrested.

There were rumors that the police might raid the cabaret and I begged him not to go out, but he would not be dissuaded.

Of course not. Maciej had always been stubborn and defiant—it was partly what had destroyed his relationship with my father and sent him fleeing to Paris in the first place.

I have worked my every contact in an attempt to get information about his well-being and secure his release. I am told that he is fine and will soon be freed.

I exhaled slightly. Still my heart screamed for my gentle brother, forced to endure such circumstances.

I finished reading the letter.

Before he was arrested, Maciej applied for a visa for you, which recently came. I am enclosing it here. Please come when you are able and we would very much like to have you live with us.

Yours,

Phillipe

I looked in the envelope and pulled out a second piece of paper. It was a visa for me to travel to France.

I held the visa in my hand, contemplating it. It was a pass to freedom. So many people would kill to have it. Once it was all that I had wanted. But that dream, which I had held so dearly just a short while earlier, felt like a relic from another life now. Still, I should take it, go to Paris and make sure Maciej was all right.

Then Sadie appeared in my mind. She needed me in a way few people ever had, was counting on me for food to survive. I thought of the times I had stood by helplessly, first with Miriam and later when the woman jumped from the bridge with her children. Then, whether by circumstance or choice, I had done nothing. Here, I could make a difference. The easy thing would be to leave, but the brave thing to do was stay. I could not go, at least not now. I folded the envelope and tucked it in my pocket.

17

Sadie

Mama huddled in the corner of the chamber, trying to nurse the baby. Some days, I knew, her milk didn’t come, but thankfully today her breasts were swollen and full. As I moved to shield her from the view of the others in the chamber, I could see how thin and drained she was. A nursing mother should have good, rich food. All we had were the potatoes Ella had helped me find, and even those would not last forever. What would we eat then?

Pushing my concerns aside, I looked at the baby, whom we still had not named three days after she was born. She turned her head away from Mama’s breast and stared