Each day over the next few weeks, Tomasz and I would sit in the woods holdings hands or embracing—happy enough just to be together. On the very best days, he’d spin a tale for me—usually a tale about us escaping, moving far away from the war and the occupation and the sadness and the hunger. One day, I was sitting on a log, leaning up against a tree trunk, and he was resting on the ground, his head on my lap as I played idly with his hair. I’d trimmed his hair and beard a few times since his return—sneaking scissors under my coat to help tidy him up. I did a woefully bad job of it, but I took an immense amount of pleasure from being able to do that one small thing for him.
“Where should we go today?” he asked me. I pondered this for a moment, running through the very limited list of countries I knew about, but I settled on his favorite fantasy.
“America,” I said.
“Ah, America is a very rich country, you know. We would surely live in a mansion,” Tomasz said, and a big grin covered his face as he glanced up at me.
“I’d settle for a house,” I sighed, because at least that day, I wanted the fantasy to be a little realistic. But then I paused, thinking of my parents’ tiny place and how much larger the home Tomasz and Aleksy and Emilia had once shared. “House” could mean so many different things, even in Poland. I couldn’t fathom what homes would look like in a wealthy country like America. “A big house, mind you.”
“Well, we’d need a big house,” he agreed, and when I looked down at him, his eyes crinkled. “For our eleven children, of course.”
“Eleven!” I gasped, then I laughed. “This is my fantasy, Tomasz, so I get to pick the number of children we have. We’ll have a small family—just four.” I paused, then added, “Okay, maybe five, but certainly no more than six.”
“And I’ll be a doctor, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Can I be a specialist doctor in this fantasy?”
“A specialist?” I said, then I looked at him in surprise. “What kind of specialist?”
“A children’s doctor,” he smiled.
“Do children have their own doctors?” That seemed as unlikely as the idea of us living in a mansion.
“In Warsaw they do,” Tomasz told me. “I am sure it would be the same in wealthy countries like America. Pediatricians, they are called.”
“I didn’t know you wanted to do that kind of medicine.” I gave him a confused smile, and he drew in a sharp breath, then exhaled it slowly.
“At college in Warsaw, I studied under all kinds of specialists in the hospitals. For example, at the Jewish hospital, I met a surgeon.” A look of sadness and regret crossed his face. “His name is Saul. He inspired me so much—he made me think that maybe there’s something to that more focused path. But surgery is not for me. I like talking to people...putting them at ease. I like the idea that if we ever find a way out of Poland and I can study again, I’d dedicate my life to children.”
“We don’t need to leave Poland for you to study again,” I laughed softly. Tomasz turned his gaze back to me and sadness sparked in his gaze.
“Perhaps we do.”
“But...when the Nazis leave, the universities will reopen. You can go back to Warsaw. And trust me, Tomasz, no one is going stop me from coming with you this time.”
“Alina,” Tomasz said abruptly, and he shifted on the ground, then sat up so that he was facing me. He reached up for my hands and held both of them between his, resting them on my lap. I could tell from the intense expression on his face that he was about to say something I didn’t want to hear. I resisted an odd urge to cover my ears like a child. “Even when the war ends, we can’t stay here. It will be years before the universities run as they should, and I will never be able to rebuild a life in Warsaw or even in Krakow. We will need a fresh beginning.”
“But... I can’t leave Poland,” I said uneasily. I flicked my gaze toward him. “My parents...even... Truda and Emilia are here. We need to stay here for Emilia.”
A sudden tension had arisen between us, and I didn’t like it one bit—especially when Tomasz tried to deflect away from that statement with another of his silly fairy tales.
“Maybe I’ll build you a gingerbread house,” he told me suddenly, his tone too light. “Then, if you’re ever hungry again, you can eat the house.”
“Maybe I’ll build you a church,” I told him, and he raised his eyebrows at the flatness of my tone.
“I thought the morning prayer was just a cover for us to meet. Don’t tell me you’re thinking of taking vows?”
He was still teasing me, but I was deadly serious now. I pulled my hands away from his and stood as I muttered, “You can’t lie in a church, Tomasz. If I build you a church, you’ll have to tell me the truth about all of the things that I don’t understand.”
He fell silent then, reaching only to pick up a twig from the dirt and twirling it through his fingers. His expression was somber, his gaze distant.
“I’m scared to tell you,” he admitted unevenly, then he looked right at me, and there was such breathtaking pain in his gaze that I forgot I was angry with him and took my place on the log again, just so I could reach down and take his hand. I saw shadows in his gaze, like he was staring off into a nightmare. But then he shook himself, looked at our hands and admitted, “I made terrible mistakes. I’m trying to undo them, so I can be a man of honor. All I want in this world is to be a man worthy of a woman like you. I’ll tell you in time, I promise. But now? You do know what’s at stake in this war, even though I am sure your parents still shelter you and treat you like a child sometimes.”
“They do!” I exclaimed in frustration. “They really do. And that’s why I can’t bear it when you do the same.”
“That is not what I’m doing,” he pleaded with me.
“That is exactly what you are doing,” I said flatly.
I could hear Mama calling me from the field, exasperation in her tone, so I disentangled myself from Tomasz, but I was reluctant to leave him after the surprisingly tense conversation we’d just had. I brushed my lips against his once more.
“Tomasz,” I said softly. “Tell me again. About us.”
A smile released the tension in his features.
“We are meant to be together,” he whispered, trailing his finger down the side of my face. “We were made for each other, and everything else in the world will just have to figure itself out, because we are going to be together. I love you.”
“I love you too.” I pressed one last kiss against his lips, then forced myself to stand. “Good night, Tomasz. I’ll see you in the morning?”
He stayed on the ground then, but he gave me a sad smile as he reluctantly released my fingers.
“Every minute till then, I’ll be thinking of you.”
I turned to walk away from him, but then I paused and glanced back over my shoulder.
“Tomasz?”
“Yes, Alina?”
“It is time, my love. It is time you told me the truth about your situation.” He swallowed, hard, but then he nodded. “I am strong, and our love is strong. Whatever it is you have to tell me, it will change nothing.”
“You can’t promise me that, moje wszystko,” he whispered.
“I can,” I said, raising my chin. “And I do. Tomorrow?”
He closed his eyes as he inhaled, but then when he opened them again, he nodded, and I knew that the next time I saw him, he would tell me the truth.
I just hoped I really was ready to hear it.
I found Tomasz sitting in the clearing the next day, out in the open for the first time since our reunion. When he saw me coming, he looked away, regret and guilt written on his face.
I walked silently to sit beside him, but he didn’t move to touch me.
“I watch Emilia come with her new family on Sundays,” he murmured absentmindedly. We sat for a little while, listening to the quiet sounds of the woods. “I sit in a tree near the path on Sundays just so I can watch her. She is always holding Truda’s hand.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Mateusz is always right behind them. He scans for danger as he walks. I can tell he is a good father to her too.”
“He is.”
“I have watched you also, sitting on the steps with her after your lunch,” he said, then he smiled softly. “I see that my sister still talks a lot.”
“She does.”
“What is the paper she always carries with her when she visits?”
“Drawings,” I murmured. “She draws for me and for Mama. Flowers, mostly.” I didn’t tell him how dark those pictures had become. He seemed to have plenty to worry about without that knowledge. “They are very good—she is quite the artist.”
“Clever girl. She is sad, and she is scared, but she is loved,” he added, then he looked right at me. “Most of the Jewish children in Trzebinia are gone now, Alina.”
I frowned at the abrupt shift in the direction of our conversation.
“Well, yes... I know.”
“Most have starved to death or been taken to a camp or worked to death or executed.”
I squinted at him, confused.
“I do know this, Tomasz. It is awful and it’s sad but I know.”
“Perhaps, but do you know what the difference is between Emilia and those Jewish children?”
I struggled to find an answer to that, and in the end, could only offer a somewhat helpless, “I... I don’t know?”
“They are both children of God, but also children of our great country. They are both our hope and our future as a nation and as a species...and...that is all that should matter.” He shifted on the rock, then rose and took my hand. “Let’s walk as we talk today. I know you can’t go far from the field, but I can’t bring myself to look at you while I tell you this.”
And so we walked in silence, off the path, along the rocky outcrops where the slope was steep. After a moment or two, he squeezed my hand and he said softly, “If Emilia was a Jewish child in Warsaw, she would be in a ghetto today. I know food is scarce here, but the children in the ghetto have been eating sawdust and rocks to fill their empty little stomachs because after a while, hunger and pain feel the same and they just need relief. And I know people have been getting sick here, but the children in the ghetto have been dying at such a rate that the authorities can’t keep up with all of the bodies. And I know that Emilia is scared here, but she still smiles. The children in the ghetto do not smile, because there are no longer any glimpses of joy in that life. There is only fear and pain and hunger. And...” He drew in a shuddering breath, then he said miserably, “Alina, if Emilia was a Jewish child in Warsaw, she would be in that ghetto. And maybe she would be there because of me.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. I had tried to prepare myself for something shameful, but I was so horrified at that statement that I couldn’t hide my reaction to it.
“What?” I croaked. I could feel the blood draining from my face. Tomasz too looked much paler even than usual. He exhaled a heavy breath and began to rub the back of his neck. He kept glancing at me, like he was trying to figure out if there was a way to avoid honesty with me even in that moment, or perhaps he was sizing me up to see if I could handle the truth after all. The silence was stretching too long, and I couldn’t stand another second of it. I hardened my gaze and crossed my arms over my chest.
“Explain yourself,” I whispered fiercely. He closed his eyes and I raised my voice. “Explain yourself, Tomasz!”
His eyes dulled, and then his shoulders slumped forward.
“Do you remember when I told you that I want to become a pediatrician?” he whispered.
“Of course,” I said, stiffly.
“I...there was...the surgeon. Remember I told you about the surgeon?”
I softened then—just a little, because I recognized the struggle in Tomasz’s voice and I realized that I was about to hear a new kind of story from him—a story he didn’t know how to tell. I stared at him, and in that moment, I had to force myself to focus on the knowledge that I had known this man for our entire lives. He was a good man. This might not be a good story, but the man telling it to me was essentially good. If what he had said just now was true, there would be a rationale for it, even if in that moment, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was.
But I did trust him, at least enough to give him the chance to explain. I reached for his hand and he looked at me in surprise.
“It’s okay, Tomasz,” I said gently. “Just tell me. I’m not going anywhere.”
I started to walk again, his hand tightly in mine. He fell into step beside me, drew in a deep breath, and then he released it in a rush with a tumble of words.
“I fought with the Polish army in Warsaw until they had overpowered us. We put up a Hell of a fight but we were no match for them, not in the end. The Nazis captured me and a group of my friends from the college, and we were given a choice—join the Wehrmacht, or they’d kill our families and put us into prison. They said they had intelligence on us all and they knew where our families were—and I thought if I did what they asked, I could save my father and Emilia and maybe even you, darling Alina, because what if they already knew we were engaged? I felt I had no choice. I didn’t know what else to do, so I joined the Wehrmacht.” He spat the word out bitterly. “I wore the filthy uniform and I did everything I was instructed to.”
I remembered my brothers telling me that students from Warsaw had been conscripted to the Wehrmacht, and how I’d scoffed at them—because I’d been so certain that Tomasz would never comply with such an order. But one thing I knew all too well about Tomasz was how deep the love he had for his family was—how deep his love for me was. They had found the only leverage that would have convinced him to betray his country.
“Did you kill people?” I asked unevenly.
“There are worse things than murder, Alina,” he whispered. “I betrayed our countrymen, and one day...one day when Poland is whole, you can bet there will be an accounting for cowards like me. Especially me. I went to Warsaw to learn to heal, and instead, I enforced their ideology. They liked me because I spoke some German from summers on vacation. They liked me because I was strong and fast—and because...” He broke off altogether now, and I heard the sob he tried to muffle. “The commander said I had a way about me that put people at ease. They assigned my unit to moving families to the Jewish area. The little children were so scared, and their mothers were so frightened, but I told them it was going to be okay. They just had to do what we told them to do and they’d be okay. But it wasn’t okay, not even in the early days, because there wasn’t enough room or food and it was just a way to corral them all into one place to make it easier to hurt them. They built a wall around that ghetto. It is Hell on earth and there is no escaping it, and I marched those children in there and I promised them that they’d be okay.”
He could no longer muffle the sobs, and I could no longer stand to hear this story without holding him. I stopped, turned to him and threw my arms around his waist. I pressed my face against his chest and I listened to the beat of his heart, the thumps coming faster and harder as the memories and his shame surfaced. I struggled in that moment—horror and revulsion at his actions, but also, growing understanding.
Because it finally made sense—the darkness I glimpsed in him from time to time. It was rooted in mortification and regret of the deepest kind; he had made decisions that betrayed the very values that made Tomasz Slaski the man he was.
He sank to the ground at one point, but I followed him, and then pushed him until he was resting against a tree trunk. Tomasz still couldn’t look at me, so I straddled his lap and I cupped his face in my hands.
“Tell me everything, my love,” I whispered. The tears rolled down his face into his beard, and he raised his eyes to the forest canopy above us.
“Your father would kill me if he knew what I’d done.”
“Perhaps not if he knew why, Tomasz.”
“Your father is a good man. He would have resisted.”
“He won’t judge you, Tomasz, and neither do I.”
“The Poles will kill me one day, if the Nazis don’t get me first. Good men like your father will find me and kill me for what I’ve done.”
I shook my head fiercely, then I kissed him, hard—the best thing I could think to do to stop such talk. He swallowed, then met my gaze again.
“Tomasz,” I said firmly. “Tell me the rest.”
He drew in a shuddering breath, then sighed.
“One day, I was patrolling the ghetto, and I saw him. Saul Weiss.”
“Your surgeon friend?”
“Yes. He and his wife, Eva, had been taken there too. They’d been dragged from a nice apartment near the hospital to a pathetic room in the ghetto they had to share with two other families. I pretended I didn’t recognize him at first, because I was so ashamed to be a part of what was happening to him. I looked away from him, and I walked some more, and then I glanced back, and do you know what he did? He smiled at me. Kindly, Alina. He smiled at me.” I could barely understand the words leaving Tomasz’s mouth because he was weeping again. I started to cry too, and I bent and kissed the tears away from his cheeks, then nuzzled my nose against his.
“I’m still here, my love,” I whispered. “Keep talking to me.”
“But he should have hated me, only he refused to debase himself with hatred. We had a shared history—a friendship—and even in those circumstances he extended warmth to me. Saul Weiss had lost everything because of people like me; people who didn’t have the courage to take a stand, and still? He chose to smile. That was the day that I broke inside and I knew I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“How did you get out of Warsaw?”
“The sewers,” he said, then he pressed his forehead against mine and paused for a moment, collecting himself. “We waded through the sewer. Me, Saul and his wife, Eva.”
“You let them escape with you?”
“No,” he laughed bitterly, then sadness crept over him. “You still think I am the hero of this story, Alina, but I am trying to tell you that I’m the villain. They let me escape with them. I went back to apologize to Saul. I dragged him into an empty shop front because I had to play the part, but once we were alone—it was me who wept, and a few days later when it was time to go, he trusted me enough to invite me to come with them. They had used the last of their money to pay a guide to lead them through the sewers. Honestly, I thought it was a suicide mission—that’s actually why I agreed to go. I had no thoughts of what I’d do if we made it, because it didn’t even seem a possibility, and death seemed far better than staying there in that uniform and dying of the rot inside. No one was more surprised than me when we climbed into daylight in the outskirts of Warsaw. Saul and Eva had no plan from there, so we started on foot—we lived under bridges and in barns for months on the way back here.”
“But...how? Did you come the whole way on foot? It is hundreds of miles, Tomasz. It’s...”
“Close to impossible, right?” he said sadly. “You see my point, then. We had so many close calls I kept thinking that anytime soon it would all be over...but luck or God or fate was on our side, because we eventually encountered a sympathetic farmer who connected us to the Zegota network—it is an underground council to help the Jews, supported by the government in exile. We would never have been able to cross over from the General Government area without their help.”
We fell into a bruised silence for a while. Eventually, I shifted onto the ground beside him, and wrapped my arms around his waist, then rested my head against his chest. I let my mind conjure images of all that he’d told me—even the parts that I didn’t want to imagine, because they were a part of Tomasz now, and I wanted to know and understand all of him.
After a while, he cleared his throat.
“You need to understand, Alina. Saul and Eva saved my life, and I have made it my mission to help them. They are hidden nearby and until I can repay them, I will do whatever I can to help them hide.”
“You steal food for them?”
“Yes, if I can find it. I capture birds sometimes, sometimes squirrels. I steal from farmers when I can—only because I know the Nazis take it all anyway so I’m really stealing from them. I’ve taken eggs from your own hen yard, but only because you have so many chickens I thought they wouldn’t be missed...only when I was truly desperate.”
I felt like I had to say the words aloud—just to put a name to it all. It took me another few minutes to find the courage to say the words, and even then, I whispered them.
“You are aiding Jews in hiding. Yes?”
“I have three groups of friends in hiding in the miles around your farm, including Saul and Eva. Many others are hidden in houses in the township and from time to time I help them too—but others working with Zegota usually bring them food. Sneaking round in the town is incredibly dangerous.”
“Everything you have just said is incredibly dangerous!” I exclaimed, drawing away from him. “Don’t you understand? The Nazis have made a decree that if you assist a Jewish person with so much as a glass of water, they will kill you and your whole family! How could you not even tell me about this? I am your family, Tomasz—but so is Emilia. You could have just gone into hiding alone without them and that would have been so much less dangerous—”
“Saul and Eva have a newborn,” Tomasz interrupted me, his expression suddenly hard. I blinked at him.
“A baby?”
“Yes. Eva gave birth a few weeks ago, just after we arrived back here. Tikva can’t eat anything but her mother’s milk, and Eva can’t make milk unless I bring her food. Am I to let the newborn starve, Alina?” He held my gaze, the bite of sheer frustration shortening his words. “Saul is a good man, a far better man than me. But he’s Jewish, so the invaders would have him starve like an animal, or worse, lock him up in a camp and work him to death. And that baby is the most beautiful little doll you have ever seen. Oh, but she was born to Jewish parents, so I suppose she deserves to die too? Would you pull the trigger at her temple, then?”
“Don’t say these things,” I protested fiercely. I was crying, overwhelmed and scared, but Tomasz was undeterred by my tears.
“But that is what you are saying when you tell me I should have left them behind.” A crippling sadness crossed his face, and his gaze pleaded with me for understanding. “This is why I wasn’t going to let you know I was here. I was going to stay in hiding and find ways to help you, but I was never going to show my face to you. I know that would have been cruel, but it would have been safer for you. I would choose our love over anything else—but I won’t choose you over what is right, not this time. I wouldn’t be the man you deserve if I didn’t help these people.” He stopped abruptly, and ran his hand through his hair, frustration etched on his face. “Monsters shouldn’t feel a great love like we have, should they? I have to prove that I’m not a monster. Please don’t ask me to stop. Please.”
The risks Tomasz was taking were unacceptable—but everything about life in those days was unacceptable, because every time we accepted our lot, things always became even worse. I had a sudden, startling burst of clarity. We had to fight—even if not with guns and weapons, with the sheer strength of our spirit, and for every single one of us, resistance meant something different. For me, resistance would mean doing whatever it was Tomasz needed me to do, even if it meant certain death for us both. I stared that thought down bravely, confused by my own courage. If anything, Tomasz’s revelation made me wonder, not if he was the person I thought he was, but if I was the person I thought I was. Even knowing for sure that my relationship with him was in essence a death sentence, I wasn’t deterred at all.
I had come to see myself over the years exactly as others expected me to be; tiny in stature, pretty and delicate, too feminine to be of much use around the farm—spoiled and lazy and immature and maybe even just a little foolish.
Certainly not brave. Certainly not heroic or noble myself.
If I really was that girl, the thought of risking my life for Tomasz would have petrified me. I’d have run a million miles in the other direction. But in that moment all I wanted to do was to find a way to make him safe, a way to give him peace, a way to help his friends. The love I felt for him was so big that it eclipsed my fears and it shouldered his burdens as my own. Our love was now a mirror, and within it I could see myself clearly for the very first time. I didn’t see a spoiled, foolish girl with a crush on her school friend. I saw a woman who was feeling a very selfless, very adult kind of love.
“I won’t ask you to stop,” I said, and he raised his eyes to me. “In fact, I am going to find a way to help you.”
He shook his head immediately.
“Not a chance, Alina—”
“Don’t,” I said, firmly but softly. “Don’t you dare tell me it’s too dangerous. Loving you is dangerous now, and I couldn’t stop that even if I tried. Your calling is my calling. We do this together, because what do you always say to me?”
“We are meant to be together,” he whispered, but his gaze was serious. “Even so, I can’t let you take any more risk than you already are, Alina.”
“You don’t let me do anything, Tomasz,” I said gently, and he gave me a sad, reluctant smile. “I don’t know how much help I can be, but I have to try. Even if I can just get a little more food for this mother and her precious newborn. But now...” I drew in a deep breath and glanced back toward the fields. I hadn’t heard Mama calling, but surely she had been, and she was probably about to come looking for me. “I’ve been gone far too long, and I have to go.”
I brushed my lips against his. Tomasz Slaski was exhausted—physically and emotionally wrecked. But there was a new depth of honesty between us—an intimacy unlike anything we’d experienced before, born in the deepest kind of vulnerability.
He’d let me see him, every part of him—even his shame. And in return, I could offer only understanding and acceptance. It would be years before I’d appreciate how profound that moment was; what a relief it must have been to him. At the time, I was doing only what the love I had for him compelled me to do. I was acting purely on instinct.
“I love you,” he said. I kissed him one last time and closed my eyes to breathe him in.
“I love you too, Tomasz. And you are no monster, not to me,” I said, then I looked up at him and the tears surged again. “You are a hero, my love. I know you don’t feel like one yet. But one day, you’ll see.”
When I came down from the hill that day, Mama looked at me, frowning.
“You have been crying,” she said.
“What?” I feigned ignorance. “No, perhaps I am getting a cold.”
“A cold,” she repeated, sighing, then, almost to herself, “Alina thinks she’s getting a cold.”
I knew she didn’t believe me, but I didn’t have time to worry about that.
I was already thinking about dinner, and how much of it I could hide for Tomasz and his friends.