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

Sadie and her friends do, too. You should help them because it’s what Krys would want you to do. And because if you don’t, everything he has done would have been for nothing.”

Something seemed to flicker in her eyes then. “All right,” she relented. “Kryspinów, do you know it?” I nodded. I was familiar with the small village about fifteen kilometers from Kraków. “There’s a livery behind the rail station. A truck driver there has been paid to ferry essential packages to the border for the Home Army. He is supposed to take Sadie and her friends through Poprad over the Tatras into the Slovak Republic.”

“But the Slovak Republic is Nazi-occupied as well.”

“Yes, they can’t stay there. It isn’t safe. But there is an overland route that some refugees have taken through Romania to Turkey. Our contacts will guide them and hand them off.”

“That’s so far,” I said, picturing the route. My head swam. “Even if we can get Sadie and her friends out of Poland, their survival is a long shot at best.”

Kara nodded. “I told Krys it was foolish, but he said it was the only way.”

A way that would be even more impossible now without Krys. But I could not abandon Sadie. I would have to try on my own. I started from the piwnica. “Wait,” Kara said. I turned back. “If you can get the Jews out of the sewer, I will meet you at the grate and help you get them from the city.”

“Really?”

Kara shrugged. “You’ll make a mess of things if I leave you to do it alone.” Though her tone was dismissive, I could tell that she had come to care just a bit.

“Thank you.” On the street, I stopped, the full realization of what Kara had said crashing down upon me: Krys was gone, almost certainly for good. I saw his face before me, heard his promise that he would never leave me. Yet somehow he had. We had wasted so much time quarreling since finding one another again. And in the end, none of it really mattered at all.

I pushed down my sorrow. If I was going to rescue Sadie, I had to do it now. I was going to have to go into the sewer alone.

Fifteen minutes later, I stood above the sewer grate in the alleyway once more, looking down. The sky was pitch-dark now, the clouds covering any light that the stars might have given. I could not make out anything below. “Sadie?” I called softly, hoping by some miracle she had come looking for me in the middle of the night, or at least that she was nearby. My voice echoed unanswered down the pipe. Sadie was not there. If I wanted to find her, I was going to have to go into the sewer myself.

I pried back the grate and lifted it with effort. The round opening seemed narrower than before. Even looking down into the ground made it harder to breathe. And dropping into the sewer was not the worst of it. Sadie had told me more than once about the tiny pipes that she had to squeeze herself through to get around. I could not possibly do that. Still, I needed to find Sadie and warn her in time. There was no other choice.

I lowered myself into the sewer, clinging to the sharp, wet edges of the grate. I felt for the ground with my feet. But it was still at least a meter below, I knew, from watching Sadie. I would have to let go and drop, but to me the idea was terrifying, nearly impossible. I took a deep breath and shut my eyes. Then I released my grasp on the lip of the sewer, letting myself fall into the earth.

I hit the ground with a thud and filthy water splashed up all around me, soiling my stockings and dress. I had smelled the sewer many times from above ground. Nothing, though, could prepare me for the choking stench that filled the air here, a thousand times worse. The reality of Sadie’s existence sank in then and I was horrified. How had Sadie lived like this every day for months? I should have done more, insisted on getting her out sooner.

There was no time to wonder. I had to find her. I started down the pipe in the direction from which she always came. It was not such a small pipe, I realized with relief, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I had imagined sewer tunnels to be narrow, like bigger versions of the pipes in bathrooms, almost too small to fit through. But this felt more like a corridor and I could see that the rounded roof was tall enough for me to walk under without bending. I put my hands out on either side for balance, grimacing as I touched the slimy walls.

Farther down the tunnel there was a divide in the path. I tried desperately to guess which way Sadie might have come from. I felt certain that if I took a wrong turn, I might never find my way back. More to the point, I could not afford to waste time getting lost.

At last I heard voices in the distance, one familiar. “Sadie!” I cried aloud. I forgot to speak softly and I was unprepared for the way my voice echoed down the pipe. I hurried toward her.

As I rounded the corner, a figure blocked my path. “Saul...” I said, recognizing him. He was carrying an odd assortment of metal poles and a tarp.

He dropped the things he had been carrying and they fell to the floor of the sewer with a clatter. “How did you find us?” he asked. Last time I had come here, I had brought Krys and the munitions and danger with me. To him, I would always be an outsider, not to be trusted.

“I knew the direction Sadie went to and from the grate,” I replied. “At the end, I followed your