Page 9

EIGHT

ELLA

September 1940

Warsaw, Poland

The city is being chipped away, little by little every day.

It’s been six weeks since Luka and I sat in that single most perfect tree, relishing the moments of joy between measures of fear as a Nazi demonstration unfolded in the street.

Since then, there have been larger and more frequent demonstrations, escalating the destruction of our city.

The empty shelves in my family’s store amplify the truth of how many people are going hungry.

Amid every person who circles around our small grocery store, disappointment weighs on me.

There must be something more I could be doing for them, but it would likely be against the law.

We ran out of full loaves of bread hours ago, much earlier than we usually do, but some still come inside to see what’s left.

“Do you think you’ll have more flour tomorrow?” Madame Adamski asks.

She’s one of our most loyal customers who has been shopping in our store since before I stepped foot in this world.

Her question bears weight on my heart and her forlorn eyes and hollow cheeks plead for a good answer when I can’t give one.

Sprigs of gray curls dangle by her ears beneath her maroon scarf that she clings to beneath her chin with a white-knuckled fist.

“I should hope so, but?—”

“I understand, dear. No promises expected.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, reaching across the narrow wooden counter for her free hand.

All I can offer is comfort.

“This isn’t your fault,” she says, taking my hand and giving it a quick squeeze.

“Has your tata returned with tomorrow’s inventory?”

I give a small shake of my head.

“Not yet. I’ll tell him you stopped by.”

“Take care, dear,” she says, her hand slipping out of mine.

“Oh, and Ella…” her words become a whisper.

“I saw you in the Jewish quarter just the other day. You were walking around with a young man—a Jewish man.” She swallows hard and lifts her hand to her throat.

“Dear, you should be more careful where you go and with whom you’re seen.”

“Thank you for your concern, madame.”

I hold back the frustration rippling through my veins and take the clipboard from beneath the counter and a pencil from the tin can beside the register, then walk across the creaking wooden floor to the nearest shelves.

I straighten the last of the jars of jam and pickled vegetables, counting the remnants to mark down on the inventory list. The baskets by the front counter have only a few potatoes, stalks of carrots, turnips, and beets.

Most of them are already turning brown.

The store rarely smells like fresh bread or fresh produce anymore.

A commotion from the storage room pulls me toward the back door, curious to see what Tata and my brother, Miko were able to collect while restocking supplies.

I rest my ear against the door before walking into the back room, hearing them mid conversation about setting aside a stack of paper for their underground meeting tonight.

Whenever I ask where they’re going after supper, the answer is “nowhere.” Except, I know where they’re going.

They just don’t want me there because it’s dangerous to be in the Polish resistance.

It also feels dangerous to not be among the Polish resistance.

I’d rather be a component of the solution than waiting for someone else to save us all.

I push the door open into the dimly-lit small space, finding Tata and Miko ushering in crates from the truck parked out back.

The two of them are tall, broad-shouldered, with hands rougher than sandpaper from all the heavy lifting of daily inventory.

The only difference between them is the stark bald circle on the center of Tata’s head that he makes up for with his thick, wide, strawberry-blonde mustache, and Miko, no mustache, still has all his light hair, but keeps it short and cropped.

I share the same eye color and hair color with them, but I look more like Mama.

“Do you need help?” I ask Miko after he drops the load in his arms.

“No, of course not. I wouldn’t want you to break a sweat,” he says mocking my higher-pitched voice.

I’ve never said such a thing about sweating.

He just needs to entertain himself by being a pest to me.

Miko wipes his arm against his sweat-covered forehead, then his arm against my sleeve.

I jerk away from him, disgusted by his behavior.

“You’re vile,” I say, holding myself back from shoving him.

“Sweetheart, could you tally up the items left on the shelves for me?” Tata asks as he carries in a load of crates.

“I already have,” I say, removing my apron.

“I have some books to return to the library, so I was hoping I could leave when you returned.”

“The library?” he repeats.

He doesn’t believe me.

I can’t say I blame him as my excuses for disappearing somewhere between here and home every day are becoming repetitive.

However, since he and Miko aren’t honest with me about where they go at night, I won’t let the guilt get to me.

“Yes.”

“Very well. Your brother and I will restock the shelves. Be home before curfew.”

“Will you be home before curfew?” I reply with a raised brow.

“Ella, please. You’re beginning to sound like your mother.”

I take my satchel from the corner between the metal storage shelves and give Tata a kiss on the cheek before leaving.

Traveling the same route every day for the last few months has left me with nothing but questions as I witness the deterioration of our community grow at a rate that should be impossible.

The Germans have plans and secrets for Warsaw, and none of them are public knowledge.

We’re left to make assumptions and hope that we’re wrong.

It was easier to do when Jewish families weren’t being evicted from their homes by other Jews.

Luka said there’s been a formation of a Jewish council, the Judenrat, leading the Jewish communities through the hardships, but lately their objectives have seemed amiss as more and more people are being forced to move closer to the center of the city.

The square where he used to sing is crowded with people trying to barter and sell belongings or trades.

Even children are set up on the ground, displaying gemstones they’re hoping to collect some coins for.

There’s no food, though.

No one is selling food.

Their grocery store has a line wrapped around the building and the door never seems to open.

A brick building three blocks away from the square has been closed, windows boarded up the sides.

But on the side of the building where an alleyway no longer than the length of my body exists in the dark, is a door that leads down into a stone cellar.

I’ve stopped riding my bicycle down here after learning that Jewish people aren’t allowed to have them anymore.

It would be rude to ride through their quarter on mine.

I knock gently on the wooden door, buried in the shadow of the building.

The door opens a sliver, enough for someone to catch sight of my eyes.

Then the door opens.

I’m ushered in and closed inside just as quickly.

At the bottom of the stone stairs, round tables and chairs fill the space and, in the center, Luka stands like a centerpiece on an empty table, singing his heart out.

His voice, honeyed and warm, fills the air.

The people watching him are all smiling, something never seen on the streets now.

His eyes are closed as they always are when he’s composing lyrics that often formulate mid-song.

I’ve never known anyone to think in rhymes woven with beautiful prose.

Although, I’ve never known anyone who can sing like he can either.

I sit in the back, hoping not to disturb his focus, but between songs he scans the space until he spots me, knowing I show up every afternoon.

Then, his eyes remain open as he stares directly at me through each song he has left to sing.

“It’s time,” a gentleman by the door announces.

“Wrap it up.”

Everyone scatters from their seats and hustles up the stairs to leave the building.

Luka reaches out for my hand, and I follow him up and onto the street.

“There’s a place…with a good tree,” I tell him, nudging my elbow into his.

It’s become one of our favorite places to go, and one of the only places we can go.

If only we didn’t have to climb down to get home before curfew, I could easily spend every night in the crook of his arm, telling him stories, listening to his, laughing, kissing, feeling my heart swell with an unfamiliar type of love.

It’s just us in our tree, avoiding the world around us.

Luka loops his arms around my waist and kisses my cheek.

“Actually, I want to bring you home to meet my mother and grandmother. If you think you’re up to it, of course.”

The skin on my arm prickles despite the summer heat still floating through the air.

I wasn’t expecting him to suggest this.

“I’m afraid they won’t like me, and where would that leave us?” We’ve had this conversation a few times before in the last month or so, which we’ve spent fervently making use of every free moment together.

He wants to meet my family, too, but it’s too dangerous.

Jewish people are not allowed to have a relationship with non-Jewish people, and we knew that before we met and did nothing to stop what was happening between us.

I still don’t regret our decision, but I worry about disrespecting our parents.

“They will love you,” he assures me.

He’s never said otherwise but has been worried about causing them more concern than they already have with everyone being kicked out of their homes or sent to forced labor.

“And if they don’t?” I ask, folding my arms over my chest.

“It doesn’t matter, Ella. I’m twenty. I’m a man of my own and I love you. No one can change that, not even the two women who try to control my life with their stabbing glares.” He chuckles.

“Of course, I’d love to meet them.”

“Do you remember everything I’ve told you about them?” he asks.

“Sure, I do.”

We travel down the slim side streets until we reach his apartment building, all windows dark with curtains, no flowerbeds, and no children playing out front.

It looks empty from the outside.

I clench my hand around my satchel as we make our way up the steps.

He pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks one of the three doors on the fourth floor.

The aroma of lavender and vanilla wafts out into the hallway, pulling me in as if I was smelling a freshly baked pastry.

The apartment is spotless and minimally furnished with what looks to be the bare necessities.

Luka curls his arm around my back and guides me around a shallow corner where we find two women sitting on a sofa, knitting.

They both glance up at us in silence, wide-eyed, and their mouths identically parted.

They look alike, but with a twenty-something age difference.

“Mother, Grandmother, I would like you to meet?—”

“I was right. I told you, Ma, he has a girlfriend,” the younger of the two women says, standing from the sofa.

“When a boy smiles in a certain way, you can just see it, and I saw it, didn’t I?”

“Mother,” Luka interrupts her.

“This is Ella.”

“Oy, what a beauty you are,” she says, coming toward me with her arms open wide.

“Welcome, darling. Welcome to our home.”

“Thank you so much. You’re so kind, and I see where Luka gets his lovely smile from.”

She pulls me in for a hug, squeezing quite tightly before she wraps her hands around my arms to take a step back.

“Where’s your armband, dear? It’s against the law to leave the house without it on.”

“Mother,” Luka says, taking his mother by the arm and breathing deeply, “Ella isn’t Jewish.”

There’s a pause, and then, “This is why you haven’t brought her to meet me in all this time, is it?” she scolds Luka.

“Well, yes,” he says, holding his hands behind his back, his posture stiff.

Luka’s mother places her hands on her heart, peering between the two of us.

“Why would you do this to yourselves? It’s impossible to marry if that were to be your desire at some point.”

The thought has crossed my mind but in a time of so much ambiguity, it’s hard to think ahead and worry about what might or might not happen.

There’s little happiness left for anyone and if there’s an opportunity to escape the misery we’re all living in, why wouldn’t we grasp at what we can?

“I love her,” Luka says, his face lined with despair as he stares at his mother.

His response is so simple but defines the reason we’re here together.

We don’t want to be apart.

“If you’re caught—” She lifts her hand to her mouth.

“Lie,” Luka’s grandmother utters.

“Just lie to the bastards, lie like they do about that godforsaken wall they’re building downtown. They’ve already taken so much from us and they’re about to take a whole lot more. But I’ll tell you one thing they can’t take away, is love. Marriage is nothing more than a binding piece of paper, and nowhere on it do the words speak to the true meaning of love.”

I’m not sure if it’s shock or enlightenment that has my pulse racing, but his grandmother has said what I haven’t been able to put into words.

Luka’s mother drops her head, quiet with the thoughts going through her head.

After a moment, she shakes her head and straightens her shoulders then turns to face me.

“Do you love my son?” she asks.

“Very much so,” I answer.

My simple words aren’t proof, but I hope she realizes I wouldn’t be here in her home if I didn’t.

She opens her arms back up and steps toward me for another embrace.

“I’m sorry for my reaction. If you love my son and he loves you, then I love you, as well. It’s lovely to finally meet the person who has put a smile on my boy’s face.”

“I have something for you. I was going to give it to Luka before he told me he wanted to bring me here to meet you, but he mentioned you have a passion for horticulture.”

“Oh, I do, very much. Though it’s been close to impossible to grow much of anything with our windows covered and so few resources.”

I lower my satchel from my shoulder and reach inside for the brown-paper wrapped package I prepared at the store earlier.

“This is for you,” I say.

“They’ll flourish without much light.”

Luka’s mother’s eyes are wide, unblinking, as her trembling hands reach out to take the package from my hand and she unwraps the paper.

“Chamomile, mint, and calendula bulbs.”

Her hands tremble as she stares at the roots.

“How—how were you able to find?—”

“Her family owns a grocery store,” Luka says.

“No one would notice these were missing.” Because I keep track of the inventory.

“How can I repay you?” she asks, holding the package back out to me.

“I already have more than I could ask for,” I tell her.

“I only wish I could do more.”

“I’m going to plant this right away. Come,” she says, placing her arm around my back.

She guides me through their apartment into the narrow kitchen where she has empty ceramic pots of soil lined up on the darkened windowsill.

Above the stovetop, she has a variety of decorative tea tins.

She gently digs through the soil to create space for the bulbs.

The smile on her face wavers and I find myself wondering what she’s thinking about.

I would be terrified, living on the edge of not knowing what will happen next to this quarter.

People keep leaving and not returning, and we can only wonder why.

As I continue to look around, I notice two small, rotting potatoes on an old cutting board next to two meager slices of bread.

“I should get home. I don’t want to keep you from supper,” I say.

“Oh, my dear, please, stay.”

I look at the potatoes again, fearing that is all they have for dinner.

Luka never complains about hunger, though I’ve noticed he’s lost weight during the time we’ve known each other.

Jewish people are given much less than non-Jewish when it comes to rations.

Luka steps into the kitchen, making it crowded with three of us.

He peers over at the potatoes and slices of bread and his cheeks burn pink.

“I was just telling your mother I should get home. I’m sure you’re hungry for supper.” I shouldn’t have said that.

I hope he’s not hungry.

There doesn’t look to be enough to fill one person.

“I—I didn’t?—”

“She should stay,” Luka’s mother says, still fumbling with the bulbs and soil.

Luka weaves his fingers through mine and leads me between the living room and kitchen.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“Is that all you have for supper?”

He shrugs.

“Well, yes, just the same as everyone else.”

I shake my head in refusal.

“I didn’t realize how much more I had until now. I’m going to help. May I help? I wouldn’t want to offend you or your mother. I—I realize I shouldn’t be taking from what little my family’s store has, but I can’t just stand by…” Tears fill my eyes and I’m ashamed of my irrational emotions when it isn’t me who’s going hungry to this extent.

He wouldn’t want me to feel sorry for him.

It would make him uncomfortable, embarrassed.

Luka places his hands on my shoulders.

“We’ll be fine. I promise you don’t have to worry about us. Don’t take any more food from your family’s store. Every store owner is being watched by the Germans with an eagle eye. You could get into more trouble than I want to think about.”

I’ve been living in denial or lost in my head.

Maybe I’m numb to the reality around me.

My chest tightens as I stare into Luka’s eyes, realizing how many conversations we’ve avoided—or perhaps he’s avoided.

“I’ve been so ignorant.”

“Mother, I’m going to walk Ella to the edge of the district before it gets too late. I’ll be home shortly.”

“Are you sure you can’t stay a little longer, dear?”

“My parents will worry,” I tell her.

“Well, of course. I wouldn’t want that. Send them my best. Maybe we can all meet at some point.”

My parents still don’t know about Luka because they would be beside themselves with worry if they knew I was spending so much time in the Jewish district, a place where non-Jews should no longer be.

Their concern would cause me guilt and take away the joy I’ve been lucky enough to experience in a time when it should be nearly impossible to find happiness.

Though, it’s been a while and it’s time to be honest with them about where I’ve been spending so much of my time.

I want them to meet Luka, somehow.

“It was so lovely to meet you both.”

Luka hurries me out the door, down the stairs, and outside before he says another word.

“Don’t ever talk about yourself like that again. You’re far from ignorant,” he says, pressing his hands to my shoulders to bring himself eye level with me.

“I just want to be with you, and sitting in that tree every day is giving me a false sense of reality. You’re starving, Luka. You are far hungrier than me, and it tears me apart inside. I wanted to believe you weren’t much worse off than people like me, but it’s not the truth. How can you even stand to be near me?”

“Stop talking that way,” he says before swallowing hard.

“I’m bringing you food. Don’t tell me not to. My tata and brother are members of the—” I edge my lips to his ear to whisper what I must say—“underground resistance. There’s an army of Polish fighters in the tunnels beneath the city. They take food to help others. Likely more than I can even imagine. I’m desperate for them to meet you. They will adore you. You are also the perfect reminder of what they are fighting for alongside our freedom.”

“You never mentioned…” he says, his breath tapering into the wind.

“I’m not supposed to… I overhear snippets.”

The squeals and clomps from a horse and wagon serve as a caveat—incoming Germans.

Other than a few rickshaws for Jews to transport Germans from place to place, there are no other modes of transportation in this district.

We both stare beyond the end of the road, but waiting won’t do either of us much good.

“I’m going to go. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Please, Ella, please… I don’t want you to do anything dangerous. I beg of you.”

“I will be fine,” I tell him, enunciating each word.

His hands cup my face, and he presses his forehead to mine before reaching in to kiss me with a sharp inhale.

My chest is pressing against his, two hearts pound at each other with an ache, fear, and endless desire as if we’re fighting for something we can never truly win.

Yet, it’s a fight I’m willing to endure even knowing there may not be an end for us.

Just this beginning.

I burst into my apartment like I’ve been blown in by a heavy gust of wind, startling my parents and Miko.

Mama is setting the dinner table, humming a soft tune as the loose strands from the knot in her hair wisp over her forehead as she spins around the kitchen, hurrying to set everything in place.

Tata and Miko are huddled around the coffee table in what must have been a serious discussion based on the amount of cigarette smoke pluming above their heads.

“Is everything all right, Ella?” Mama asks, her emerald eyes piercing through me.

I have a knack for running or speeding on my bicycle to wherever I’m going.

Mama says I’m always in a race to get somewhere and never take the time to smell the tulips.

It’s true now, I suppose, since flowers are rare to find around the city.

“Yes, why?” I ask, stopping alongside the coffee table between Miko and Papa.

Mama shakes her head and returns to the kitchen.

In a whisper, I state: “I want to help you.” I hold my stare on Tata, realizing my statement might not have been firm enough.

“I’m going with you and Miko tonight.”

“Quiet, Ella,” Tata argues in a mirroring whisper.

“You want your mother to hear you speaking like this?”

“You think she doesn’t know where you two go every night?”

Tata pinches at his mustache and narrows his eyes at me.

“A better question is, how are you so sure about where we go every night?” Miko adds, taking a long drag of his cigarette, asking the obvious question Tata was debating whether to ask.

I hold my arms out to the side.

The answer should be somewhat obvious.

“I’ve followed you. How else?”

“Ella, you can’t—this isn’t a place for you, sweetheart,” Tata says, reaching out for my hand.

His warm hugs and gentle explanations for everything could easily persuade me out of everything I want to do, but the thoughts that follow when he releases me are too loud to ignore.

I pull away from him so I can speak my mind before I allow myself to become weak as Tata’s little girl—the way he still sees me, even as a grown woman.

“Why, because I’m a girl? Plenty of women are part of the resistance. I’ve seen them walking around with rifles.”

“So, you want to walk around town with a rifle under your arm now? You think that’ll end well for you?” Tata says, frustration evident.

“I want to help the Jewish people who are starving to death in our own city, in front of our foggy vision. It may take years to push the Wehrmacht out of here, but the Jewish will all be dead by then.”

“Where is this all coming from? How are you so sure?” Miko adds with a raised brow.

“I had to deliver bread to Madame Kaminsky, remember?” I remind them.

Tata stares up at the ceiling and closes his eyes.

“Right, of course.”

He can’t act as if we don’t know what the Jewish ration cards look like.

We don’t need to see the quarter they live in to realize the truth.

Those who live nearby shop in our store, too, and we can only give them what they’re allowed to collect, which is far less than what non-Jewish people receive.

What if everyone in this city who isn’t Jewish is just avoiding the truth—because we’re all scared?

Where will that leave us in the end?

I pause, and take a deep breath, steeling myself.

“I’ve been seeing a man. He’s Jewish. His name is Luka Dulski. He’s twenty years old, brilliant, incredibly talented, and simply wonderful. In fact, I love him. And I’m watching him starve to death along with his mother and grandmother. His father and grandfather were already sent away for forced labor to some German factory. They haven’t returned home since. And that wall in the center of Warsaw…the one no one talks about—we all see it. We all feel something brewing in the air.”

Tata shoves the heels of his hands against his temples so hard it looks as if his head might explode.

“How long has this been going on? Why haven’t you told me? You love this man and we’re just now finding out? You’ve never even had a boyfriend for more than a few weeks.”

“Shall I get a mirror so you can see the reason I’ve kept this to myself?”

“Ella, calm down. You’re angry at the wrong person,” Tata says.

“So are you.”

“Luka Dulski, huh?” Miko says, leaning forward inquisitively.

“If I thought you’d remember his name five minutes from now, I’d be worried,” I snap at him.

“Stay out of this.”

“What is going on out here?” Mama asks.

She steps into the living room with a dish rag pinched between her hands.

“I need to tell you something,” I say, holding my chin up with a show of strength.

“There’s a young man I’ve been seeing… He’s Jewish.”

Mama’s bottom lip falls and her brows rise toward her hairline.

“Why haven’t you told us?” she echoes Tata.

“He’s Jewish,” Miko repeats.

“I think that might be why.”

“Do not speak like that in my home, son. We will not disrespect any Polish person, no matter what their faith,” Mama snaps.

Miko drops back into his chair and rolls his eyes.

“It wasn’t an offensive statement, just a fact. We aren’t supposed to be mingling with them.”

“Them?” I demand.

“Everyone, calm down,” Tata says.

“Bring him here for us to meet,” Mama says before returning to the kitchen.

Papa drops his head to his tented fingers.

“Yes, I agree with your mother. I want to meet this man you’re willing to sacrifice your safety for.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“And while I agree that the Jewish people need our help, I do not want you joining the resistance. I’m sorry. I can’t let you. You’re my little girl.”

“I’m nineteen. I’m not a little girl, I’m a woman. And I will help those affected most by the invasion of our city.”