“Are you sure you want to stay here?” she asked when it was finally time for her to go. She looked anxiously around the lobby of the convent, a fretful mother scanning the environs for danger. “I feel awful leaving you here all on your own.”
“It’s for the best,” I told her numbly. “I want to stay here,” I admitted, dropping my gaze. I didn’t know how to explain that part of my determination to avoid that apartment was rooted in my desperation to avoid Roman. I missed him desperately, and I knew that he would be missing me. I trusted completely that he was doing whatever it took to get back to find me. If I remained at that apartment, I might open the door to Roman, and I’d have to see the hurt and anger in his eyes. I wasn’t ready for that. Even the thought of Mr. Wójcik on the second floor seeing my swollen belly filled me with shame. Besides, how could I ever rebuild my life if anyone in the homes around us knew about the pregnancy? The only way I could get through the next phase of this ordeal was to suffer through it in hiding.
The convent operated on a regimented schedule that seldom varied. I would wake at seven, tidy my room and bathe, then take morning exercise with the Sisters, usually walking around the yards. After that we would share breakfast and then pray the matins.
The nuns would study the scriptures after that, but because my circumstances were unusual, I was encouraged to continue my general academic studies. Sister Agnieszka Gracja had worked as a teacher in her younger days, and the very first time I met her, she offered to help me catch up on my schooling.
“If you work hard, then by the time this is all over, you’ll be a step closer to matriculation. And who knows? If Poland is rebuilt, the Soviets may allow us to operate universities again.”
After that, mornings became about books and words, about math and science. I liked to play a game with myself, to pretend that I was at the convent purely so I could complete my schooling. As my clothes became tight, I liked to pretend that I had been overindulging in the bland convent food.
The Sisters were constantly looking for ways to contribute to the local community, and most had taken up knitting hats for children in the village. I joined in at first, unraveling damaged clothing the way I’d once done for Sara, but after Sister Renata learned I liked to draw and paint, she found a notepad and pencils and some old house paint and wooden boards. After that, while the circle of nuns knit in prayerful silence, I painted.
I found such comfort in capturing details of the convent. I painted the arches along the church hallways, marveling at the way the light and shadows marked their own story onto the two-hundred-year-old stone walls, a different story at each hour of the day. I sketched Sister Walentyna’s hand as she held a knitting needle, trying to capture the sunspots and the freckles and the wrinkles. I painted a blue china bowl left empty on a table when the apples were gone, and then I sketched it again when the apples were replenished.
While I still wasn’t ready to accept the reality of my situation, my art allowed me to ponder it from the side. I had always loved creating—drawing and painting were the voice of my soul. But in those months, three things saved me: the care of a group of nuns who loved me simply because I was a child of God; art, which allowed me to view the world through the lens of a child again; and Roman. In my darkest days, it was thoughts of Roman that kept me going.
I had no idea when or even if we would be reunited. Sometimes, I tried to force myself to consider the reality that he might not even have survived, but I never let myself dwell for long. He was too vibrant—too determined. I had to believe he would have found a way to survive after the Uprising, too.
There were now many complications and confusions to a relationship that had once felt pure, but the strength of my feelings was undeniable. He was always on my mind, and even there in the convent, I could daydream for hours about those wonderful weeks and months he and I had spent together. Something of my soul was bound to something of his, and until we built a life together, I would yearn for his return.
But even as I missed him, and even as I fretted for him, I sometimes found myself feeling anxious about our reunion. I tried to imagine telling him about that day in Lodz or him seeing my swollen belly.
Anxiety soon turned to dread when I realized that every single time I pictured those moments, I saw one inevitable outcome: Roman losing himself to anger, wanting to tear the world apart for me.
I began to realize that as deep as my love for him was, the attack had left me a long way from being able to face his unbridled rage.
* * *
Getting to the convent was not an easy journey from Warsaw. Sometimes, it took two or three hours each way. Truda, Mateusz and Sara usually walked to the edge of the city where the roads were clear, then tried to hitchhike with any cart or car that passed. Even so, they each visited as often as they could. The Sisters never looked at or acknowledged my growing belly, which helped me to ignore it, too. But once it began to swell in earnest in June, my parents struggled to look anywhere else.
The periods between their visits were the longest we had been apart since they had adopted me, and I missed them viscerally. I’d count down the minutes until they were due to arrive, but within minutes of their arrival, I resented the thick awkwardness of our interaction.
“Did you really just come here to look at it?” I snapped at Truda one day.
She startled guiltily, as if she’d been caught committing a mortal sin.
Sara, on the other hand, maintained her light touch even when it came to my pregnancy. She asked me narrow questions about my health—How are you feeling? Are you eating enough? Are you still tired? Do you need any larger clothes? Do you have any questions?—without ever once drawing attention to the fact that I was, in fact, pregnant.
I didn’t use that word when I thought about my current status. I certainly didn’t think about what the endgame was. I was tired and uncomfortable, and I was in a strange place, but I was safe, and I knew one day I would get to return to Warsaw.
By all accounts, the city was beginning to recover, repairing itself bit by bit, even though the Red Army was a constant presence on the streets in Warsaw, just as it had been in Lodz. My visitors told me that the uncertainty of the early days of the Soviet occupation was beginning to fade into a more predictable reality and that the immense number of Red Army soldiers on the streets was slowly dwindling, too—as if there was an unspoken acceptance from both sides that the Communists were now in charge. It seemed that the entire country was coming to grips with the reality that those soldiers were going to be a part of our lives for a long time. That thought left me sick to my stomach, even as I recognized that, sooner or later, I would have to learn to accept it, too.
Mateusz found work on a street crew, clearing the streets so machinery and vehicles could again travel freely. Truda redecorated the apartment as much as she could, given there was still no glass in the windowpanes.
“But don’t worry,” she assured me carefully, her gaze dropping to my belly, then shooting back to my face before settling on the wall behind me. “By the time you come home, it will be winter. One way or another, we will have fixed the window situation by then.”