“No,” Mateusz said flatly. “Whatever you are thinking, no. We must respect her wishes. I won’t tell you where she is.”
Mateusz had scolded me for my anger, and so I pushed it down, but I was horrified to realize that something even worse was rising up instead. Grief. I was going to weep for her, and I couldn’t do it in front of Mateusz.
I glanced at him hesitantly, and his eyes were full of understanding.
“Stay with us. You can take her room for as long as you need it.”
“I’m tired,” I said. My voice was thick with tears, barely even audible. Mateusz looked away, and I was grateful. “I just need to rest. It’s been a long journey.”
“Of course.”
I walked up the stairs, choking on a sob as I reached the top. But when I came to the doorway, I saw the mural of the city across the length of the wall, and my eyes were drawn to the bottom-right corner, to a scene full of love and hope. The figures she’d drawn were clearly, undeniably us—sharing the future I had chosen to live for.
I closed the door behind me, sat on the floor near the mural and wept like a child.
* * *
“You have no idea what that girl has been through,” Truda told me that night as she made up the bed under the mural in Emilia’s room. Her movements were brisk, and she brushed at the sheet fiercely. “You’re welcome to stay with us for as long as you wish, but I won’t have you harping on about her. She has made her feelings clear, and she has enough to deal with without you bothering her. And I have enough to deal with without you bothering me about her. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Truda,” I said. But I couldn’t sleep that night, and once she and Mateusz had gone to bed, I walked the halls of the apartment with the lamp Mateusz had given me. In Uncle Piotr’s old room, I found a scrap of paper and a pen.
Dear Emilia,
I’m sorry. I am just so sorry for everything that you have been through and for everything you are going through.
I am staying with your parents, but they have made it abundantly clear that you are not ready to see me and, of course, I will honor that. But I want you to know that I still dream of a future with you, and when you are ready to dream again, too, I will be here waiting.
They have given me your room for the time being. I could stare at the mural on your wall all day and night and never tire of it. The city is gone, but it lives on in your art. The power and beauty of it takes my breath away. I love the way you drew us. I love the way I can see the love in your eyes as you stare up at me on that wall.
Take all the time you need, Emilia. Do you remember the picture you painted for me with your words that day at the convent hospital? A family of our own, a home. I’ll find a way to study—become a lawyer like my father. And you’ll raise the children and keep the house, and you’ll paint. God, how you’ll paint!
Our future is worth waiting for, and it is also worth fighting for.
For now, it is my plan to find work to support myself while I reconnect with the Resistance. You know better than most that this war is not over for us, and it will not be over until we are free. I hope that you know I am committed to the fight. I hope that when you are ready, you will join me.
All my love,
Roman
On Saturday, when Mateusz and Truda began to prepare for the long journey to wherever Emilia was hiding, I asked them to take the letter.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Mateusz said, staring at the note in my hand.
“You can read it,” I said. “There is nothing in there that is secret. I just want her to know that I’m back and that I care about her. It even says that I understand why she won’t see me.”
Truda snatched the letter from me and gave me a sharp look.
“I’ll read it on the way. If I think it is suitable, I’ll give it to her.”
When they returned later that afternoon, Truda found me in Emilia’s bedroom.
“She took your letter,” she said curtly. “She didn’t want to reply.”
38
Emilia
Every time they visited, Truda and Mateusz brought me a letter from Roman. I always read them, even if it sometimes took me a few days to find the courage to do so.
Dear Emilia, I am staying in your room, and morning and night I stare at your mural. Have I ever told you how breathtaking I find your talent? Every day I find new details to marvel at. Every day I try to find the dance of the light and the shadow, and when I think I feel it, I feel you with me...
Dear Emilia, I have exciting news—I’ve found a job. I’m working on the same road crew as Mateusz. I can’t wait until I can tell you all about it. Warsaw is coming back to life, Emilia. We are sorting through the rubble and rebuilding what we can. There is work to be done, and the fight isn’t over, but it feels good to be helping people find homes again...
Dear Emilia, Mateusz is applying for a grant to start a new textiles factory. I’m sure he will tell you all about it, but I’m helping him with the paperwork. Remember when you asked me if I wanted to be the kind of lawyer who does boring contracts? Maybe I should reconsider: it seems I’m pretty good at this. I miss you, and I can’t wait to see you again. I hope you are growing stronger. Poland needs you, and I need you, too.
“We could stop bringing them,” Truda offered uncertainly. She visited me alone in mid-October, on a weekday when Mateusz was working. “I don’t think we could convince him to stop writing them, but there’s no reason we should bring them if you don’t want them.”
I didn’t know how to explain that I looked forward to those letters as much as I looked forward to her visits. I poured over the words again and again, trying to absorb his love for me right off the page.
“He can write,” I said carefully. “I’m just not ready to see him or to reply.”
I knew the sharpness of his pen and the pattern to his words. They always spoke of longing and affection and of feelings for me that had not changed, despite what I had been through. I often cried as I read them, wondering if he’d feel the same if I let him visit or if he’d be repulsed by my monstrous belly and the sadness and exhaustion I just couldn’t shake.
But the letters always ended on a war cry. Every single time.
...while they are on our streets, we are not yet free. The fight has only just begun.
...so many seem resigned to a further occupation of Poland, but I cannot and I will not accept it.
...I am meeting people, making connections, just trying to figure out the best way to mobilize.
And every time I read that war cry, I was reminded of the violence in him—of the bloodlust and the desperation for revenge and freedom. It was completely understandable after everything he had seen and everything he had lost. Maybe I even loved that part of Roman, just as I loved the rest of him. His passion for justice and for a liberated Poland knew no bounds.