The Things We Cannot Say Read online

  Could I ask Truda to visit Nadia for me? I dismissed the idea immediately. She would never court danger, not in a million years, but even if I could convince her to do it, I’d never forgive myself if Nadia was tangled up in something dangerous and there were consequences for my sister and her family. Whatever news Nadia had of my Tomasz, I doubted she’d come across it without some risk.

  “What are you going to do?” Justyna asked me.

  I raised my chin, just a little.

  “The only thing I can do.”

  * * *

  It was an unseasonably cool night, and I’d left my window open so my parents wouldn’t hear the squeal of the wooden frame moving when it came time for me to climb outside. I sat on my bed, fully dressed but hiding in a nest of blankets, dreading the coming moment when I’d have to leave the warmth. There was a full moon, but patches of clouds were floating past. As I stared out the window and waited, I watched the moonlight come and go.

  How many stories had I heard over the months since the war began where someone had left home and simply never returned? Sometimes their families learned their fates, but often they were just lost. I couldn’t ask Mama for my ID papers, and my parents would surely catch me if I tried to find them myself, so I’d have to make this run without my documentation, and it was well past curfew. If a soldier so much as saw me, I was done for.

  How would this story end for my family? Would my parents wake up tomorrow and find me missing, and never know what became of me? They simply wouldn’t survive without me, not now that the boys were gone. The farm would fall to ruin, and the soldiers would take them away too.

  Or would I climb out the window, run quickly up the hill and down the other side, knock on Nadia’s door without incident, and beg her to tell me what she knew. If it was bad news, at least I would know. I pictured myself making the return journey sobbing and felt my muscles tense. It was a real possibility that this trip was going to be an ending, not a beginning.

  I had long since convinced myself that no news was better than bad news, but that was when I had no chance of accessing any. Now that I knew there was potentially an update about Tomasz waiting just on the other side of the hill, there was no way I could remain passive. I’d have walked through gunfire for that news. I just hoped and prayed I wouldn’t have to.

  I had to take the chance, because this risk I was taking could change everything for me. If I knew where Tomasz was, I could try to figure out how to get to him.

  And on that thought, I climbed carefully out through my window. The air was so cool my breath escaped as mist. I swallowed my fear, looked toward the hill, and then I forced myself to run.

  I was slow and quite clumsy on any ordinary day, but adrenaline was on my side and I moved as quickly as I could. I wouldn’t take the path everyone else took—because it wasn’t the fastest route and I suspected that if I was going to be caught by some unexpected Nazi patrol crew, it would be on the established path. I’d never seen soldiers in the woods, but if they were going to be there, they’d never know that territory like I did. I’d climbed the hill a hundred times at every point it could be climbed. The very best moments of my life had been spent at its summit, and I knew that space like I knew my own body.

  So I climbed the steepest part of the slope, the most direct route to town but also the toughest ascent. I found myself completely out of breath before I’d even reached the top, but I forced myself to keep going, even as my lungs felt like they might burst and my heart was pounding so hard against my chest that I was scared people some miles away would heart it.

  It was as I neared the summit that a prickling feeling rose across the back of my neck and just as I identified it as the sensation of being watched, there came the sound of a twig snapping somewhere behind me. I told myself it was my imagination, but the sense that I wasn’t alone did not abate even as I moved faster, and soon I was certain I could hear soft footsteps on the ground behind me. But was it imagination or paranoia, or was someone really there? I couldn’t risk stopping to check. I told myself it was probably Justyna—perhaps she was coming to join me? Then I told myself it was Mama or Father, hot on my heels. For just an instant that seemed like the worst-case scenario. Being caught by them would be terrible—their disappointment and anger would be difficult to face.

  Rationality quickly corrected that notion, because of course, being caught sneaking out by my parents was far from the worst outcome in that moment, and with those footfalls drawing nearer, I actually started to pray that my parents were indeed about to catch me, because I was sure now that someone was. Someone was most definitely chasing me through the forest. Someone who wasn’t willing to call out to identify themselves. Mama or Father would call out. So would Justyna.

  I no longer cared if I made it to Nadia’s house—in fact, now I wasn’t even sure I should go to Nadia’s house, even if, by some miracle, I made it to the top of the hill then down the other side in one piece. Because if it was a soldier pursuing me, what possible innocent explanation could I give for my midnight run through the woods to her house?

  Suddenly, I wasn’t running to a place—instead, I was running for my life. I had been afraid so many times over the course of the war, but in that moment what I felt was deeper than mere fear. It was some instinctual, whole-body flight away from the danger—I was operating on the certainty that death was about to catch me, and I felt the terror of that knowledge in every cell in my body.

  When I neared the clearing, I heard my name. It wasn’t a shout or even a call, it was quite a desperate whisper and when the sound registered in my brain, panic, disbelief and relief merged so suddenly that all of my thoughts went a little haywire. I was running too fast to stop suddenly, but I tried to do so anyway, at the same time as I tried to turn to see if I’d correctly identified the owner of the voice. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I ended up on my backside in the dirt, my head spinning as I watched my pursuer finally catch up to me and sink to the ground near me.

  “When I catch my breath, and when you catch yours, you’re going to explain yourself, Alina Dziak,” Tomasz panted. He sounded exhausted but there was a vein of good-natured humor in his whisper. “How did you even know I was out here? I’ve been so careful. It was the eggs, wasn’t it? I knew I’d taken too many. Are you angry that I stole from your family? I only did so because you have so many chickens... I didn’t think they’d be missed.”

  I rubbed my head, feeling for the shape of a bump. Had I knocked myself out? I must have dreamed the last long minutes of being chased, and now I was hallucinating my deepest desire. But my fingers could find no bump—my bottom was throbbing, but the rest of me seemed unharmed. Except if I wasn’t hurt, why was I suddenly seeing Tomasz? Had I lost my mind?

  “I...” I tried to talk, but the words stuck in my mouth. I was too confused to be hopeful. A shaft of filtered moonlight suddenly fell across his face and I squinted at him, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. It was Tomasz’s hair, overgrown but familiar, and Tomasz’s beautiful eyes, shadowed because of the darkness, and Tomasz’s face, even if it was hidden under an unruly beard. Even before hope could dawn, I was inexorably drawn to him. I found myself crawling automatically across the ground, tears streaming from my eyes. I was still scared, but now I was simply scared to believe my own eyes. “I...”

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, and he scrambled the remaining distance to meet me. I reached up to touch his face incredulously, tentatively, just with the pads of my fingers in case I made contact too sharply and he disappeared. But Tomasz was not so hesitant—he cradled my face in his hands and he peered down at me, urgently scanning my expression in the semidarkness. “Alina, God, Alina, please tell me you aren’t hurt. I couldn’t bear it. I’m sorry I chased you—I was trying to get your attention without shouting, but I didn’t know what else to do. They can’t find me here.” I continued to stare at him in disbelief, and he suddenly dropped his hands to my s
houlders and he shook me gently. “Alina, my love, you’re scaring me. Please tell me you’re okay.”

  I did the only rational thing, given the circumstances—I thumped him. My hands were still in fists, and I beat the sides of them against his chest again and again as I sobbed.

  “Tomasz! I’m scaring you? You scared me half to death!”

  He pushed my fists aside, but rather than pushing me away, he scooped me onto his lap and pressed my face into his shoulder as he whispered, “Shhh... I’m sorry, my love, I’m so sorry.”

  I pulled away from him to clasp the collar of his coat in both of my fists, then I shook him, hard. In the recesses of my mind, it registered how dirty he was. Beneath my fingers, I felt the roughness of dried mud in the wool of his collar.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Hiding?” he offered, giving me a slightly wry grin. I shook him furiously.

  “Tomasz! How long have you been hiding in the woods!”

  “Shh!” His hushing was a little more urgent now, because I was shouting in my bewilderment and my shock. “Just a few weeks... I...” He peered at me, confused. “Wait—you didn’t know I was here? How did you find me?”

  “Weeks?” I gasped, then I glared at him. “You have been here for weeks and you didn’t come to let me know you were okay? Do you have any idea how scared I’ve been?”

  “Alina,” he whispered, gently scolding me. “Surely you knew I’d come back for you.”

  “I did know that!” I protested, but then I started to cry all over again. “But I was scared. I was so worried that you were hurt...or maybe that you’d found another life somewhere.”

  He brushed my hair back from my face. “I told you that last night before I left. We are meant to be together. I was always coming back for you, and I always, always will.”

  We both paused at that, and we just stared at each other, soft smiles on our faces. I wiped the tears from my face and made a resolution to myself to stop crying immediately, because there was plenty to cry about in those days—but from where I found myself that night, things instantly looked much brighter. I decided there would be enough time for recriminations later, so I cupped his scruff-covered cheeks in my hands and I brought his face hard against mine so that I could kiss him. Oh, it was heaven to be with him again—heaven to press my lips against his and to breathe him in, all of him, the scent of the woods in his wildly overgrown hair and his clothes and even the scent of his sweat—just because it was all Tomasz, and it all made his return so much more real. By the time we parted, both of our faces were wet with tears.

  There are some moments in life that are distorted by anticipation. It has a way of warping our expectations—inflating them somehow. This was not one of those moments. Every single thing about the minute Tomasz and I were reunited was just as delicious as I’d hoped, and sinking back into his arms was just as wonderful as all of the hours I’d spent dreaming had promised it would be.

  “Where have you been?” I breathed.

  “In Warsaw at first,” he said, then he sighed and said it again as he shook his head. “Then these last few months, I’ve been making my way back here to you. It wasn’t easy to get back.”

  He was only twenty-one, but his entire demeanor suddenly shifted. His shoulders were slumped, and now that I was sitting on his lap and close enough to see his face in the darkness, I could see that his cheeks were gaunt beneath his beard, and the sparkle had faded somewhat in those beautiful green eyes. Still, I loved him with a ferocity that almost frightened me. Dirty, starved, miserable and weary—none of that even registered beyond a passing acknowledgment. I loved him so deeply that all I really saw was that he was mine again. Everything else in the world might have gone to Hell, but that one fact was incontrovertible.

  “It will be okay,” I promised him. “We’re together again now—that’s all that matters.”

  “I know, my love. But you must understand, no one can know that I’m here, not even your parents. I’m in some trouble,” he admitted. But before I could even think about what that might mean, it only occurred to me then that he probably had no idea about Aleksy’s fate, or how difficult life in the region had become for us all.

  “I have to tell you some things,” I whispered, staring right into his eyes. For just a moment, I could barely recognize the boy I loved. He suddenly seemed like an old man—weary and worn down by war and sadness.

  “If it is about my father, I have already heard,” he whispered.

  I exhaled, relieved that I didn’t need to break the news to him, but the sadness in his gaze was so heavy that I had to look away. Tomasz would have none of that. He slid his hands up over my shoulders and into my hair, then he cupped my cheek and he turned me to face him again. Our eyes met, and butterflies began to dance in my belly at the intensity of the love in his gaze.

  “I know what your family has done for my sister, Alina, and how you saved her that day. I loved you before...you know I’ve always loved you, since before I even knew what that meant. But the way you have cared for her...” His voice broke a little, and he stopped, inhaled sharply, then continued unevenly, “If we weren’t already engaged, I’d propose to you right this moment.”

  “And I’d say ‘yes’ again,” I whispered. I brushed my lips against his, but as he moved to kiss me properly again, I sat back a little. “Wait, Tomasz. Tell me about this ‘trouble.’ Who is after you? Is it the invaders?”

  He sighed, but wouldn’t allow distance to grow between us—in fact, he leaned forward and rested his forehead against mine, then he closed his eyes. I closed mine too, and for a moment, we sat together in the silence.

  “Everyone, Alina. I wish I didn’t have to tell you this, but I am in trouble with everyone,” he whispered hesitantly. “The Poles...the Nazis...it feels like I have managed to anger the whole world.”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck, wanting to hold him closer, but I opened my eyes to stare at him.

  “What on earth did you do?” I asked him hesitantly.

  “I made some mistakes in Warsaw,” he admitted. “I’ve been trying to make up for them ever since. I’m still trying.” I waited for him to tell me, but after a moment, he opened his eyes and turned away, exhaled shakily, then glanced back to me, his gaze pleading. “I don’t want to talk about that now, Alina—please don’t ask me to. There will be time for those discussions later. I just want to hold you, and for five minutes in this godforsaken war, feel like life is worth living again.”

  I could see the desperation in his gaze, and it broke my heart a little.

  “Why stare when you could kiss me?” I asked him. He brought his lips back to mine then, and it was everything I’d missed and everything I’d needed over his absence. Home, I kept thinking, I’m home, which made no sense at all since I’d been stuck within my home for what felt like forever by that stage. But Tomasz’s arms were a different kind of home—and I’d been homesick for that embrace for so long. When we broke apart some minutes later, he cupped my face in his hands again to stare into my eyes.

  “Alina, you know I’ll always find you? Promise me you know that. I don’t know what’s ahead of us—but when we’re apart, there’s only one thing on my mind, and that’s getting back to my girl.”

  “I know. I feel the same,” I promised him, and he kissed me once more.

  “Now, you really need to tell me how you found me. Have I been careless?”

  “I didn’t find you. I was going to Nadia Nowak’s house,” I said. He stiffened immediately and pulled away from me just a little.

  “Why were you going there?”

  “Justyna heard her parents arguing, and they said something about Nadia...something about you...” I said, warily. Tomasz exhaled, then shifted away from me just a little. He was obviously troubled by this news, and I touched the back of my hand to his cheek gently.

  “Alina,” he
said, glancing at me warily. “What do you know of Nadia Nowak?”

  “What do you mean? Of course I know her. She’s Ola’s sister and... I know her husband has died and her children are mostly taken...” He was still staring at me, warily, but I shook my head. “Tomasz, I don’t understand? What do you mean?”

  “That is all you know?” he pressed, and I frowned.

  “What else is there?”

  “I have to ask you to stay away from Nadia’s place, please. And you must stay well away from Jan Golaszewski.”

  “I was only going to Nadia’s to ask after you, Tomasz. I have been so desperate for news, and this was the first hint of any I’d had in all of this time, so I had to try. And Father has long forbidden me from visiting Justyna at home and he keeps me so busy I barely even talk to her in the fields, so you have no concerns there, either,” I told him softly. He nodded, then he pulled me close again and he pressed his face into my hair. “Tell me...tell me everything. Please, Tomasz. Where are you hiding?”

  He hesitated only a moment before he admitted, “Just in the woods for now. I wanted so much to let you know I was okay and that I was here, but... I was scared doing so would endanger you. I thought if I waited here, I could keep an eye on your family and do what I could to be sure you were safe. And I have seen Emilia walking past on Sundays, so this...it is a very good spot for me. I am close and safe, but not endangering any of you by my presence.”

  “Tomasz, it’s the woods!” I said, shocked. “There is nowhere to hide here, no protection from the weather. You can’t possibly stay here!”

  “I have a few spots where I can make myself invisible. The woods are too small for anyone else to bother hiding here, so it’s not like the Nazis are sweeping the place every day. For the time being, it’s fine.”

  “How do you sleep?”

  He offered me a fond look at the concern in my tone.

  “I manage, Alina.”