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

and washed and dressed, kept the chamber neat and read or studied on a regular schedule. The days passed slowly, though, and the lonely nights were even longer, filled with strange, fitful dreams. One night I dreamed I was floating in the sewer river, and that as I was carried along by the current, I was met by my mother and father. I looked for the baby in Mama’s arms.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Who?” Mama replied, seemingly not understanding. But because we had not given my sister a name, words failed me. My parents pulled me close, forming a kind of raft, and we sailed on together, missing one.

Of course, having Saul helped. We had grown closer since acknowledging our feelings. Our moments together, walking and some reading time in the annex, were still stolen ones, not much more than they previously had been. But knowing that he was close by and that he felt the same way about me as I did him made the days without my mother and sister a little easier to bear.

I looked up through the grate now, where the rain had slowed, still hoping to see Ella. She had come every single day as she had promised since the day she had searched for my mother, no matter the weather or how hard it was for her to get away. Each morning I would wait in the shadows until I saw her approaching and then move into view. We didn’t dare talk too much and she would stay for only a few minutes each visit. She had still been unable to find Mama or my sister. Her visits had become a lifeline, though, the thing that kept me going from one day to the next, now more so than ever.

Ella was late today. Not just by a few minutes, but a whole hour. I wondered if she might not come at all. As the minutes passed, drawing further from our appointed meeting time, I had to accept that it might be another day until I saw my friend. If at all. Life was getting much harder for the ordinary citizens, too, on the street above as the war dragged on. I heard it all from beneath ground, the checkpoints and patrols and arrests. Although Ella did not complain or talk much about it, I saw the stress and worry that seemed to crease her beautiful face with every visit. More than once, I considered telling her not to come again. My worry rose now: what if something had happened to her?

Or maybe she was just busy, I thought, her visits with me secondary and unimportant. She had a whole life above ground full of people and hours of the day that I knew nothing about.

But a few minutes later, I saw her hurrying along the embankment, walking more quickly than usual as if to make up for lost time. Her red hair, usually so neat, was unmoored and fanned wildly about her, framed by the clearing clouds above.

“I’m glad to see you,” I said. “I was afraid that something happened and you might not be coming at all.”

She shrugged. “The police had the bridge blocked. I had to go back and find another way.” Before we could speak further, there came noise from the road that ran along the riverbank behind her, the screeching of tires and the sound of police barking orders. Ella’s head snapped in the direction of the commotion. She ducked away hurriedly. I stepped back into the shadows, wondering if she would have to go home.

A few minutes later, when the sirens and noise had faded, Ella reappeared and stood over the grate defiantly. “Things are getting worse,” I said. There were no Jews left on the street, yet the arrests and reprisals against ordinary Poles seemed to grow every day.

“Yes.” Her voice was blunt. “The war is not going well for the Germans.” I wondered if it was true, or if she was just trying to give me hope. “The Russians are progressing on the Eastern Front and the Allies to the south.” Part of me was skeptical. We had heard such rumors before and still the city remained firmly under German control. “The Germans are trying to take it out on ordinary Poles as much as possible now while they can.”

“Because there aren’t any Jews left to take it out on,” I added bitterly. The Poles suffered, to be sure, but at least most of them were still in their homes and had not been imprisoned or forced into hiding. “You don’t have to come, if it’s too hard,” I offered reluctantly. Seeing Ella was one of the few bright spots I had left and I would hate it if she couldn’t come anymore.

Her face turned steely. “I’ll be here.” I thought that she was the bravest person I had ever seen. “I can’t stay long today, though.” I nodded, trying not to show that I minded. Even a few minutes was something, a sign that someone still remembered me and cared enough to come.

Ella passed a small loaf of sourdough bread through the grate before leaving. “Are you sure you can spare it?” I asked.

“Yes, certainly,” she replied, and I wondered if that was true. She had seemed to grow thinner over the past several weeks and I suspected she was eating less to save food for me. As the war dragged on, food was harder to come by for ordinary Poles. They no longer queued at market because there was nothing to buy anymore. Even Ella and her well-to-do stepmother were feeling the pinch now. I marveled that Ella could still find food for all of us, and I tried not to complain when it was less than it had been. After all, we had fewer mouths to feed than we once had. But it was still nowhere near enough.

The cathedral bells across the river were chiming twelve when Ella left and I started away from