Zofia woke from her restless slumber in the hot, close, windowless pantry where Reka and her German friend had locked them, and reached for Ernő, who slept beside her, snoring. The months she’d been in hiding, she’d missed that so much. Missed him next to her in bed, his body warm against hers.
She kissed him on the cheek, but though he stirred, he didn’t wake. He needed the sleep. All the time since the train bombing, he’d been the one to keep the night watch. At last he could rest.
She sat up and rubbed her stomach. Where there had once been a little mound, there was now a large bump. From somewhere came the steady ticking of a clock.
On the other side of Ernő, Patrik stirred and sat. “The house is quiet.” He kept his voice to a whisper.
“Did you get some rest?”
“Igen. You?”
“Some. I had a difficult time turning off my mind. What are we going to do?”
“Get out of here before they take us away to someplace much worse. All I want is a future with the woman I love more than anything.”
“Does Éva want the same thing?”
Patrik rubbed his chin. “I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?” Yawning, Éva stretched and sat up.
Patrik cleared his throat and turned his attention to the dressing wrapped around his calf. “How we’re going to get out of here. It’s only a matter of time before we’re formally arrested.”
Ernő stirred and sat up next to Zofia. How she adored him. Their child moved within her. They had to fight. Had to do whatever it took to become a true family. To survive this madness and regain their lives.
They would raise their little one in Palestine. The promised land, flowing with milk and honey. They could be a beacon for her fellow Jews, shining a light on the Christ who had trod that very soil.
What a thrill it would be to walk the ground He had walked. To see what He must have seen. The hills must echo with His words. Sing with His presence.
“Darling?” Ernő broke her musings.
“Hmm? I’m sorry. Lost in my own thoughts. But I agree. We need a plan. A way out of here. There are two of them and four of us. We have the advantage.”
“Not with Patrik injured,” Éva said.
“I can hold my own.”
Ernő got up, fumbled for the light switch by the door, flipped it on, and a dim glow lit the pantry. Then he tried the door handle. Locked.
“Whether we outnumber them or not doesn’t matter.” Ernő shook his head. “The man is armed, I’m sure. If we could break down the door and make a run for it—”
“Again, Patrik can’t sprint.”
Zofia rubbed the back of Ernő’s leg, just to have contact with him. “An opportunity will present itself. We have to be patient and wait.”
Éva pulled up her knees and covered her face. “I’m scared.”
Patrik hugged her from one side and Zofia from the other. “I know, I know. We all are.”
“Right before we left, Apu reminded me that God, our salvation, is our only comfort in this life and the next. But it’s what happens between here and there that frightens me.” Éva, the woman who almost never cried, wiped away a single tear that trickled down her cheek. Then she clung to both Zofia and Patrik and wept.
Zofia’s hormones kicked in, and she cried sympathetic tears. How had things gotten turned upside down?
Patrik pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Éva. “None of this has been easy. Did I make the right decision by withholding information from you and Ernő? Who knows? What I did, I did out of love for each of you. You have to believe that.”
Zofia borrowed Éva’s handkerchief and wiped her own eyes. “Patrik meant well.”
“If I had to do it over again just the same way, I would.”
Éva turned toward him, her eyes still watery. “Why do you say that?”
“Sometimes we have to lie to protect those we love. These aren’t normal circumstances. Life is precious and worth preserving, and there are times when misguiding people is how we have to go about it.”
Zofia’s stomach twinged, and she inhaled and released the air a little at a time, the pain easing. “Can you understand that?” She rubbed her belly.
“Apu and Anya always taught us never to tell a falsehood. Lies spoil what is good and beautiful.” Ernő stared into her eyes, his expression intense.
She shifted her own gaze to the shelves groaning under the weight of foodstores they hadn’t seen the likes of since the war began. “In a normal world, I would agree. But you have to understand that right here, right now, this isn’t normal. People like Patrik and I are fighting every minute of every day just to survive.”
Fighting for survival. To see each new dawn. That’s what life had come down to for them. Please, Lord, protect us. May we be among the remnant that survives.
Patrik touched Éva’s cheek, soft, like the whisper of the wind. She smiled at him. “I remember a time not too long ago when I couldn’t fathom that humans could be so cruel. Now that we know the truth, now that I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I understand. They have no heart, no soul. Why can’t everything go back to the way it was just a few months ago?”
“Life is always moving, changing, like a kaleidoscope.” Patrik sighed. “We have to learn to change with it.”
“What will it look like a month from now? A year from now?”
He chuckled. “That’s my girl. Always wanting to skip to the end of the story. God will unfold it for us in His perfect timing.”
“And you have hope in that?”
“He’s the only one who can offer hope. As much as I’d love to say I will never disappoint you again, will never lie to you again, it’s a promise I can’t make. I can promise never to keep such a big part of my life from you, but I can’t vow that I will never lie to you about your cooking.”
A fleeting light pierced the darkness of her soul. “That might be a good thing.” Her heart thumped. Could she see a future with him? Envision them married?
He had told her falsehoods from the purest of motives. Here was a man willing to risk everything he loved, even their future together, to keep her safe. She would be fibbing to say that didn’t touch her. Though her love for him had wavered, it never came close to going out.
She was his múzsám. He was her refrain. And those weeks without him had been the most miserable of her life. Now she was trusting him with her physical well-being. If she could do that, couldn’t she trust him with her heart?
“We misjudged Reka. Me more than anyone.” Éva pressed her chest, as if that would ease the pain.
“She didn’t mention her child when she was in Budapest.” Patrik’s voice was gentle. “She’s made no mention of the father.”
“You don’t think …”
“Think what?”
Éva shook her head. “Nothing. I’m letting my imagination run away with me.”
“The child clearly belongs to the German. Reka has gotten in good with them to provide herself with the life she never had before. But I feel sorry for her.”
Éva stared at Patrik. “Sorry?” She furrowed her brow. “How can you be?”
“Soon this war will be over. She will end up on the wrong side of it. In the long run, she isn’t getting what she always wanted. She’s going to wind up in a worse position than where she started.”
Éva pushed Patrik’s dark waves from his forehead. “How can you have such compassion for her?”
“She is a lost soul.”
In that instant, every bit of the love she once harbored for Patrik flooded back, and then some. She kissed the back of his hand. “I love you.”
His eyes widened. “And I love you, a múzsám.”
Time crawled by. No noise came from the rest of the house. Were they sleeping? Were they even here? Éva was about to go mad. There wasn’t even room to pace.
Music. She needed her clarinet. If she couldn’t have it in her hands, she could have it in her heart and head. She relaxed and imagined playing it—a happy tune that recalled her carefree childhood days, summer trips to the countryside, splashing in the lake, wandering in the woods with Ernő, both returning home hot, sweaty, and beyond content.
Another melody sprang into her imagination, this one in a minor key. The clarinet cried along with her spirit for everything they had lost. Peace. Home. Love. All of it ripped away in the space of a few months. So much gone, never again to be.
By the end of the piece, she was mentally exhausted, but she allowed herself to imagine one more tune. This one was upbeat, though not like the first—a more sedate joy. The kind she would experience when she returned to Budapest and her parents and picked up the pieces of her life.
Éva rested against Patrik’s firm chest and closed her eyes.
A while later, she was awakened by voices coming from the living room.
“That’s enough, Reka. You’ve had your fun with them. I want them out of my house tonight.”
“I know there is more information I can get out of them. Patrik and Zofia are higher-ups in the Zionist Youth. They can tell us details about the organization. They’re a gold mine.”
“The Gestapo has much more persuasive techniques for garnering information.”
The voices faded away. There was the faint sound of a door opening and closing, and then silence.
Patrik swallowed hard. “There’s no time to waste. We must run now. Once we get to our contact’s house, we’ll let him know we have to get across the border tonight.”
Zofia shook her head. “The moon is supposed to be full.”
How well he knew. “We’ll have to take our chances. There’s less danger crossing the border in the moonlight than there is in staying here. We can’t hesitate.” He blew out a breath and struggled to keep calm. Having Éva alarmed wouldn’t help matters. Already she was trembling beside him.
“I can try to kick the door and break it open.” Ernő stood. “The splintering noise is sure to bring them running, but we might be able to get a jump on them.”
Patrik surveyed the group. “Keep your heads down and sprint like you’ve never sprinted before. Don’t stop, not for anything.” He pinned his stare on Éva. “I mean not for anything. Even if only one of us makes it out alive, it’s worth it. Do you understand?”
She gave a shaky nod. Then she stood on her tiptoes and brushed a light kiss across his lips. Fire raced through him. In that one gesture, she’d spoken so much. If he didn’t survive, he would die a happy man.
I’m trusting You, Lord. I commit myself and those I love to You.
He drew in a deep breath and nodded to Ernő. With one swift kick, Ernő broke a hole in the door. Two more kicks, and he’d created a gap wide enough for even Zofia to crawl through.
“Go, Ernő.” He could stop Reka or her boyfriend when they came to investigate. Then he shoved Éva and Zofia through. Finally, he surged through the opening himself, fresh air rushing to fill his lungs.
Could Reka hear Patrik’s blood pounding in his ears? To have come this far, Romania within sight, and not make it. God, nem.
“Hurry, hurry.” In a heartbeat, they reached the front door. Surely they’d been heard—but no one came behind them. Amazing. A miracle, really. He all but pushed Ernő, Zofia, and Éva out the door.
“Run!”
As he took off, a canvas-covered truck turned onto the street two blocks down, headlights glaring, and tore in their direction.