She blew in from the kitchen, flustered. Sometimes, I felt nothing at all; other times, I felt everything at once. In that moment, I felt an irritation so strong it could have knocked me over. It occurred to me that in the twelve weeks since the attack, I hadn’t had a moment alone. Strength surged through me.
If Warsaw could recover, so could I.
“I’m going to get fresh air.”
“Fresh air?” she repeated skeptically, and her gaze skipped to the gaping hole I had just been sitting in.
“I want to go see what’s left of the courtyard,” I admitted. Her gaze softened, and she wiped her hands on her apron, then began to remove it.
“Okay, let’s—”
“Truda,” I interrupted her gently. She looked at me hesitantly. “I want to go by myself.”
“Oh,” she said.
“It’s safe. I’m just walking down the stairs.”
“But...it’s a mess down there. The rubble...” She gave me a bewildered look. “What do you even want to do down there?”
“I don’t know. I just feel like going for a walk.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea, Emilia.”
“If you’re really concerned about me, you can stick your head out into the hallway and look down at me through the gap where Sara’s apartment used to be,” I said wryly. Truda sighed.
“Go on, then. But don’t be too long.”
Downstairs, I pushed at the back door carefully and, when it didn’t budge, pressed my shoulder into it and applied more force.
“What are you doing there, Elz·bieta?” Mr. Wójcik called from above.
“I’m trying to get into the courtyard, Mr. Wójcik,” I called back. “The door is stuck.”
“Give me a few minutes, and I’ll come help you.”
After a while, he limped slowly down the stairs with a toolbox in one hand. He set it on the floor beside the door and rummaged around until he found a chisel. I watched him tinker with the lock for several minutes, cursing and muttering. Just as I was about to give up, he gave a shout of triumph, and the door sprang open.
“There,” he said, nodding in satisfaction. He peered out into the courtyard, then winced. “That mess isn’t going to be as easy to fix, is it?”
“Thanks, Mr. Wójcik.” I drew in a deep breath, then climbed over the rubble that partly blocked the doorway. Just as I reached the other side, the clouds parted, and the courtyard was suddenly flooded with golden spring light. I surveyed it all, seeing both the way it used to be and the way it was now. My gaze fell upon the apple tree. One half of it was healthy branches covered in fresh, new growth and pretty white blossoms. The other half was singed, but even so, green buds were emerging here and there.
The courtyard had never been an elaborate garden, but it had been ours. As I looked around the wasteland, I felt a pang of grief in my chest, then a surge of determination.
If every citizen of Warsaw had a part to play in our rebuilding, then I surely had a part to play, too, and I could start with this. Smashed glass, china, twisted metal and singed bits of wood, furniture and clothing, and torn scraps of fabric littered the courtyard. Maybe I couldn’t move it all, but if I shifted a little every day, I could eventually make this space usable.
I made my way over the rubble and toward the apple tree. I sat with my back against it and looked up at our broken building and the glorious blue sky beyond it. I closed my eyes and I breathed in the sweetness of the blossoms. I was glad to be alive, and it was the first time since the attack I’d felt that way.
After a while, I rested my hands on the dirt to push myself up, and my palm collided with an unexpectedly smooth, cold object, partially uncovered in the soil beneath the tree. I rolled onto my knees and scraped the dirt around it until I could lift it.
The glass jar was filthy, but as I rubbed it to remove the dirt, I recognized scraps of cigarette papers inside. Hundreds or maybe even thousands of pieces, each neatly folded into squares.
I unscrewed the lid of the glass jar, wiped my hands on my shirt, then withdrew and unfolded a piece of paper. In Matylda’s distinctive script, it read:
Ala Skibin´ska
Rescued 7 July, 1942
Taken to Franciskan Orphanage, Hoz˙a Street
Placed with Walter and Zenobia Bulin´ski, Szydłowiec
I carefully refolded the paper, then opened several more. Each piece was a trail of bread crumbs, designed to lead a Jewish child home. I remembered that final night before we were captured, when Sara had come to say goodbye and I’d been so fixated on her dirty fingernails. Now, it made perfect sense. She’d been burying Matylda’s records in case the apartment was damaged.
The city had been destroyed—almost every building ruined, most of them beyond repair. But the apple tree had survived, and this fragile glass jar was completely undamaged. It was a miracle.
I considered taking the jar back up to our apartment, but my intense distrust of the Red Army dissuaded me. Instead, I deepened the hole beneath the apple tree. I buried the jar again and carefully covered it with soft black dirt, then covered that with rubble. I knew I would find it again—when I could find Sara, she would pass these records on to the Jewish authorities. The nuns at the convent could help, too. Some of the children we rescued might even still be there—
And that’s when it hit me. If Sara had been captured, she probably would have been released by now, and she would inevitably have made her way back to Warsaw. And if she had nowhere else to stay, I knew a group of women who would not have thought twice before taking her in.
* * *
The next day, Truda and Mateusz insisted on walking with me to find the orphanage on Hoz˙a Street.
“The convent might not be there anymore,” Truda warned. “And even if it is, Sara might not be there.”
“I know,” I said. “I just want to see for myself.”
“What will we do with the jar if we can’t find her?” Mateusz asked.
“Leave it where it is,” I said firmly. “Until we know who we can trust.”
I knew that churches all across the city had been destroyed, but somehow in my heart I felt certain that if God had saved that glass jar, he would have saved the women who helped Matylda and Sara fill it. We finally turned the corner onto Hoz˙a Street, and my knees went weak with relief. The facade and roof of the orphanage were still standing.
“I knew it,” I cried, then ran ahead, feeling something like excitement for the first time in months. There were Sisters out front, handing out bread to passersby. I didn’t recognize any of them, but when they saw me, they offered me a loaf of bread anyway. I waved it away. “Is Sara here? Sara Wieczorek?”