“Tomasz. Tell me about this photographer friend.”
It was very late, but I couldn’t sleep. I kept picturing that baby’s thin face every time I closed my eyes. Tomasz yawned loudly, then cleared his throat. His voice was rough with sleep when he said, “His name is Henry Adamcwiz. He’s an American.”
“American?” I repeated. “What is he doing here?”
“His parents are Polish, but they emigrated to America and he was born there. He works for a big newspaper in America and now he is covering the occupation. He told me his home is in Florida,” Tomasz said. “It’s tropical there—there’s almost no winter. And from his house, you can walk to the beach. Can you imagine it?”
I closed my eyes and let myself dream for a minute. I’d never been to the beach, but I had some idea what it looked like. I imagined sand and water and warmth, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“If he can help us, we will have to smuggle some photographs?”
“Film. It’s not developed.”
“What are the photographs of?”
“Last time it was photos of the camps, some photos of Jews in ghettos, even a photo of me on your hill, believe it or not. He took one when he came to visit with me and asked me to do the courier run.”
“I’d like to see that.”
“I’m sure I looked devastatingly handsome.”
I laughed softly.
“I’m sure you did.”
“Henry told me last time that he is forever looking for couriers, and he thought I was resourceful enough that I would make a good one. Last time he was quite desperate—I am just hoping that is still the case. You do happen to be engaged to a brilliant medical student who excelled at his plaster cast studies. I told him I’d plaster the film onto my arm to keep it safe, and he was excited by that idea.”
“That’s...”
“Genius?” Tomasz proposed. I could hear the grin in his voice, but I only sighed.
“Tell me honestly, Tomasz. How risky is this?”
“Well, the greatest risk at this point is that Henry doesn’t need us or doesn’t have a route out of the country.”
“The last time, when you decided not to go, what was the plan then?”
“Nadia told me that they put the man who went in my place into the back of a supplies truck to smuggle him close to the front, then he went on foot. She knows he made it into Soviet territory, but I don’t know if the film made it to its destination.”
I’d heard plenty of stories about the Soviets over the years—they had occupied half of Poland at one stage, while the Nazis occupied the other half. The stories that had come across from the Soviet-held territory were no less horrific than those on our side. If that was our plan too, I suspected we were about to jump from the frying pan into the fire, and the fragile hope that had budded in my chest started to fade.
“And you decided not to go because of me?”
“I thought perhaps I could talk Henry into letting you come with me...but...” He sighed, brushing his hand up and down my arm. “Well, I would have appeared at your window out of the blue one night and told you I was a wanted man, then asked you to run away with me from relative safety, into extreme danger. It didn’t seem fair, and I thought if you had any sense you’d have said no anyway.”
“I probably would have,” I admit. “But not because I didn’t want to be with you, just that Mama and Father were relying on me then...” Just the thought of Mama and Father and my throat started to tighten up again. “I can’t think about this anymore,” I whispered, holding him a little closer. “Tell me a story. Tell me about us.” Then, because I knew he’d love it, I added, “Tell me about us living in America like Henry. Near the beach, where there is no winter.”
“Okay.” He smiled, then he laughed softly. “We’ll get ourselves a big house in Florida. We’ll have a car, of course.”
“Of course.”
“And I’ll be a pediatrician. And do you want a job?”
“Why yes, thank you,” I said, then I pondered this for a moment before I decided, “I think I’ll work in a library.”
“And our children? What are their names?”
“Hmm. Perhaps our son can be Aleksy, after your father.”
“A lovely choice,” Tomasz whispered, then he kissed my hair.
“But can we call our daughter Julita? After your Mama?”
“Should we not honor your parents too?”
“Oh, there will be more children, remember? At least three more. We can honor them later.”
He laughed softly, and that was how we talked ourselves around from pessimism and fear to a strange kind of happiness that buoyed our spirits. I had been so determined earlier that night to cast off my childish thinking, but a few hours of daydreaming with Tomasz, and I gave myself wholly into the fantasy of a happy ending for us. Even after all I’d seen, when I was with him, I could still believe that life might be a fairy tale.
We slept then, and the next day, we woke in the darkness to endless hours of privacy and peacefulness while we waited for Henry. There seemed nothing left to do but to enjoy those precious hours, and to enjoy each other in all of the ways that we’d never had the time or privacy to really enjoy. We gorged on intimacy in the same way that we gorged on food, sharing a blissful honeymoon of sorts, as if the war wasn’t carrying on above us, as if we really were going to live out that happy ending.
And in those too-brief days in the cellar I had once been so terrified of, I proved to myself once and for all—happiness really could be found anywhere, just as long as Tomasz was with me.