“Can you even count that high?” Tank mocked him playfully.
“I will take off my socks so that I can count on my toes, just to be sure.”
“You think it is going to feel good to kill them, don’t you?” I said mildly. I had just finished lifting a wooden crate full of ammunition into place, and their lighthearted chatter irritated me to the point that I was writhing inside. The boys all turned to me, probably startled to hear me speak. I had made a determined effort to avoid friendship with any one of them. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake I’d made with Chaim.
“It will,” Tank said flatly. “My mother bled to death in front of me, Pigeon. It’s going to feel damned good to get revenge.”
“I have news for you: it won’t feel good. You won’t feel vindicated. There is no justice in this war, only more pain. And if I have to listen to you idiots laughing about this for one more minute this afternoon, I don’t know how I will stop myself from shooting you myself,” I snapped.
“Pigeon,” our commander, Needle, called to me, his tone flat. He pointed to a spot by his feet. “Over here. Now.” I glared at the young men, then walked to the commander.
“Sir.”
“They are idiots, and they are naive, but they are excited. When the shooting starts, that excitement is going to disappear in a heartbeat, and they are going to realize how out of their depth they are. You don’t need to hasten that, Pigeon. When the time comes, you and I will need to be there to refocus them. Until then, let them enjoy their last hours of innocence. They will never get to feel like this again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“At ease, Pigeon.”
He had a point, but it was still almost more than I could take to listen to the boys as they laughed away the last few hours before the worst afternoon of their life.
* * *
We didn’t make it to five o’clock. One of the other squads in our battalion was transporting weaponry in the back of a cart on Nowomiejska Street, just a block away from our headquarters, when they were stopped by a German patrol. Just after one o’clock, a volley of gunshots from the street left the headquarters in stunned and panicked silence.
“Armbands on!” our commander shouted, and we all reached into our pockets for the red-and-white armbands that signified we were fighting with the Polish side. As I ran from the doorway, training my rifle at the surrounding buildings, I thought about Elz·bieta.
I’m doing this for you. For our country, so that you can be free.
As my feet hit the cobblestones on Długa Street, I cast my gaze back toward our building on Miodowa Street and whispered a prayer for Elz·bieta and her family. I could only hope that they had left the city early.
27
Emilia
Uncle Piotr prepared detailed, careful plans for our escape to Lodz. Truda, Mateusz and I were to stay home to pack while he attended one last business meeting.
“Do we really need to do this?” I asked, as he stood in the hallway, donning his hat. He checked himself in the mirror, then shot me a wink.
“It’s an important meeting, Elz·bieta.”
“I wasn’t talking about your meeting, Uncle Piotr. I was talking about Lodz.”
I’d gradually come to terms with the news that kindly, jovial Uncle Piotr was also something of a wartime vulture, snapping up precious black-market commodities and reselling them for as much money as the market would allow. I tried, on more than one occasion, to challenge the ethics of this, but he saw me as a little girl with no important opinions of her own.
“We could stay and see if we can contribute. Roman knows people in the AK, and Sara knows doctors and nurses. I’m sure if we were to stay we could—”
“Elz·bieta,” Truda said sharply. I turned to look at her, and she pursed her lips. “We are most definitely leaving, and, Piotr, we should leave as soon as we can. Do you really need to do this deal first? Why must we cut it so close?”
“I will be back at three o’clock with a driver and a car. The insurgents will rise at five. That is eight hours away! There is plenty of time for us to clear the city,” he said firmly, then he winked and tapped me on the nose. “You’re going to love Lodz. My apartment is twice the size of this place, and the restaurants are fantastic.”
I wasn’t interested in a palatial apartment or restaurants. My heart was heavy, and I was so conflicted about leaving both the city and Roman.
Over our year as neighbors, our relationship had never evolved beyond friendship, although at times, I had the sense that we were skating on the edge of something more. Our eyes would lock in a way that was fascinating and delicious. On more than one occasion, I found myself just staring at him, thinking about his hazel eyes or the way his hair fell into neat curls around his head. I was drawn to him—not just emotionally but also physically. I wondered how it would feel to rest my head on his chest, to listen to his heartbeat, to breathe in his scent. Sometimes at night, I’d lie in bed, and I’d lift my hand to touch the wall between us, comforted that he was on the other side.
But for all of the ways I was drawn to him, something held me back. It was a glimpse of darkness that I understood, even as I feared it. He was relentlessly driven, barely out of bed after his recovery before he was out looking for a contact in the Gray Ranks.
“Maybe you should give it more time,” I’d said to Roman, and he’d shaken his head, as if I was crazy to suggest such a thing.
“There is an uprising coming! I need to contribute. I can’t waste this second chance.”
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t fight. It’s just that if you are stronger, you can contribute more.”
“Or I can rest in bed until I die of old age, and if everyone else opts to do the same, Poland will never be free. No one is coming to save us, Elz·bieta.”
Other times, he would speak about his martyrdom with a glint in his eye that I came to understand was longing. It seemed Roman wasn’t just willing to sacrifice his life for our country, he was determined to.
“Aren’t you afraid to die?” I asked him hesitantly one day.
“I already know death,” he said, shrugging. “I’ve been so close to it, I could feel it. I know how it smells, I know the rhythm of it. Whatever lies on the other side, almost everyone I’ve ever loved is already there waiting for me. Why would I be afraid?”
I once described his anger as righteous anger, and I still understood that to be true. But I wondered where this darkness would lead, and I was nervous to link myself to someone who seemed so determined to destroy himself. I had closely watched Sara’s relationship with Piotr over that year, and I knew she refused to make a commitment because there was an obvious disconnect in what mattered most to each of them.