The Things We Cannot Say Read online

  Need help. Find...box...go home. Want home.

  I swallow my sigh, take the iPad and tell her Babcia in hospital now. Then go home later.

  This is the language pattern I have to use with my son, and it’s one that’s automatic for me—now this, then something else—explaining sequences of events and time to him because he has no concept of it without the guidelines of instructions and schedules. Communicating via the AAC is so damned restrictive. With Eddie, I’m used to the limitations because it’s all we’ve ever had—and it is vastly better than nothing. Until he learned to read and use the AAC, our whole life was a series of meltdowns inspired by his overwhelming frustration at being locked inside himself, unable to communicate.

  The problem now is that with Babcia, I’m used to the endless freedom of spoken communication, and having to revert to this AAC app suddenly does seem an impossibly poor substitute.

  Babcia snatches the iPad back and resumes her demands.

  Need help.

  Find Tomasz.

  Home.

  Box.

  Now.

  Help.

  Box.

  Camera.

  Paper.

  Babcia fire Tomasz.

  Mom steps all the way into the room. She hands me a coffee, then returns to stand at the foot of the bed.

  “What’s this about?” she asks me.

  “I don’t know,” I admit. Babcia gives us both an impatient glare now and repeats the commands, and when we still don’t react, she turns the sound all the way up and hits the repeat button again. This is a trick she’s learned from my son, who does the exact same thing when he’s not getting his own way.

  Help.

  Find Tomasz.

  Box.

  Camera. Paper. Box.

  Now. Now. Emergency. Now.

  Find Tomasz. Now.

  Babcia fire Tomasz.

  “Christ. She’s really forgotten Pa passed,” Mom whispers, and I glance at her. Mom is not known for vulnerability, but right now her expression is pinched and I think I see tears in her eyes. I shake my head slowly. Babcia seems quite determined that she doesn’t need me to remind her that Pa has passed, so I just don’t think that’s it.

  Find Tomasz.

  Find box.

  Box. Find. Now. Need help.

  “Oh!” Mom gasps suddenly. “She has that box of mementos. I haven’t seen it in years—not since we moved them into the retirement home after Pa got sick. It’s either in storage or at her unit there. Maybe that’s what she wants, maybe she wants a photo of Pa? That makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “Ah, yes,” I say. A wave of relief relaxes muscles I didn’t even know I’d tensed. “Good thinking, Mom.”

  “I can go try to find it if you’ll stay with her?”

  “Please, yes,” I say, and I take the iPad. I hit the photograph of Mom, and the iPad reads Nanna, so I wince and start to edit the label on the photo—but Babcia waves my hand away impatiently. Our gazes lock, and she gives me a wry smile, as if she’s telling me I’m broken, kiddo, but not stupid. I’m so relieved by that smile that I bend to kiss her forehead, and then I hit some more buttons.

  Nanna find box now.

  Babcia sighs with happiness and hits the yes button, then rests her hand on my forearm and squeezes. She can’t speak at the moment, but she’s been a guiding light for my entire life, so I hear her voice in my head anyway.

  Good girl, Alice. Thank you.

  CHAPTER 4

  Alina

  Information was not so easy to come by in those days, so what I knew of the lead-up to war was scattered at best, but Trzebinia was quite close to the German border, and my town was not immune to the ideology that was gaining traction within that nearby nation. Hatred was like some otherworldly beast, seeded in small acts of violence and oppression against our Jewish citizens, growing in strength as the power-hungry fed it with rhetoric and propaganda.

  It’s only when I look back now with the wisdom of age that I can see that warning signs were scattered throughout our simple life even then. I remember the first few times I heard that Jewish friends in Trzebinia had been robbed or assaulted or had their properties vandalized. My parents were appalled by this turn of events, and by then, my father had well and truly indoctrinated us children with his opinions on relationships between Trzebinia’s Jewish and Catholic communities. A Polish man is a Polish man, he’d often say to us, because to my father, a man’s heritage and religion were irrelevant—Father was interested only in character and work ethic. But this was not a perspective that our whole community shared, and those ugly strains of anti-Semitism enraged my otherwise mild-mannered father.

  In the summer of 1939, Father and I took a trip into the town. Mama had baked an extra loaf of poppy seed bread, and I’d arranged it in a basket with some eggs for Aleksy and Emilia. This had become a regular part of my routine—I visited them for lunch once a week, and in return, Mama was always telling me to take them some food. This felt an odd arrangement to me, given Aleksy was wealthy and we were poor, but my mama was a traditionalist and she had always seemed completely bewildered that a man could manage to arrange food for himself and his daughter.

  That day, Father and I rode the cart into town to the supplies store. He went inside to conduct his business, and I walked the three blocks to the medical clinic to deliver the basket of goods to Aleksy’s secretary. I knew Father would be a while, so I meandered my way back to the store.

  As I walked, I daydreamed about Tomasz. In the year he’d been in Warsaw, we’d fallen into a solid routine of taking turns writing letters, and he’d been home for two delicious weeks during his midyear break. That particular day, it was my turn to write a letter, and I was thinking about what I might say, so lost in thought that I was startled when I finally approached the store and heard my father shouting inside. I peered through the doors somewhat anxiously and discovered he was in a heated discussion with Jan Golaszewski, our neighbor to the northeast, the father of Filipe’s girlfriend, Justyna. Just then, Justyna rushed out of the store. She gave me a wide-eyed look, then embraced me.

  “What’s this about?” I asked her, but the words escaped as a sigh because I already suspected the answer.

  “Oh, my father is blaming the Jews for everything, and your father is defending them.” Justyna’s weary sigh matched my own, then she shrugged. “Same old argument they always have, just more heated today because of the buildup.”

  “The buildup?” I repeated, confused. Justyna assessed me with her gaze, then she grabbed my elbow and pulled me close.

  “The buildup at the border,” she whispered, as if we were sharing a scandalous piece of gossip. “Surely you know? It’s why everyone is stocking up.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I admitted, and in hurried whispers before my father returned, Justyna told me: Hitler’s army was coming for us; an invasion now seemed inevitable.

  “I can’t believe your parents haven’t warned you,” she whispered.

  “They treat me like I am a baby,” I groaned, shaking my head. “They think they need to protect their fragile little flower from things that might upset me.”

  I knew enough about the situation with the Nazi regime that I was nervous, but I was also quite confused by this news from Justyna. Coming for us? What could they possibly want from us? Justyna suggested an answer before I even asked the question.

  “My father says it’s the Jews. He says that if we didn’t have so many Jews in this country, Hitler would leave us alone. You know how he is, Alina. Father blames the Jews for everything. And you know how your father is...”

  “A Polish man is a Polish man,” I whispered numbly, repeating the words automatically before I refocused on my friend. “But Justyna, are you sure? Are we really about to go to war?”

  “Oh, don’t worry,
” Justyna told me, flashing me a confident smile. “Everyone is saying that the Nazis have barely any ammunition and the Polish army will defeat them quickly. Father is quite certain it will all be over within a few weeks.”

  From there though, I saw everything differently—for the first time, I understood the recently frenetic activity of my parents and brothers, and I finally understood their bewildering insistence on preserving perfectly good food before it was even necessary to do so. Even as my father drove the cart back toward our house, I realized the unusually busy roads were not a sign of townsfolk making the most of the warm weather—rather, people were shifting. Everyone was operating in a different mode—everyone was rushing somewhere. Some were heading into Warsaw or to Krakow, as if a larger city would provide them shelter. Some were preparing their homes for relatives who were coming from Warsaw or Krakow, because plenty of city folk had decided the country would offer a refuge. No one seemed to know what to do, but it was not in our national nature to stay still and await catastrophe, so instead—people kept active. Through enlightened eyes, it seemed to me that the people of my town were scurrying like ants before a storm.

  “Is it true? About an invasion?”

  “You don’t need to worry about that,” Father said gruffly. “When you need to worry, Mama and I will let you know.”

  I sat down that evening and I wrote a very different letter to Tomasz than the one I’d been planning. In the entire page of text, I simply pleaded with him to come home.

  Don’t try to be brave, Tomasz. Don’t wait for danger. Just come home and be safe.

  I’m not really sure now why I ever thought that “home” would be a safe place for any of us given our proximity to the border, but in any case, Tomasz did not come home. In fact, things disintegrated so rapidly that if he sent me a reply to that letter, it never arrived. It felt like the life I’d known disappeared overnight.

  On September 1, 1939, I was roused from the depths of sleep by the sound of my bedroom window rattling in its frame. I didn’t recognize the sound of approaching planes at first. I didn’t even realize we were in danger until I heard my father shouting from the room beside me.

  “Wake up! We must get to the barn,” Father shouted, his voice thick with sleep.

  “What is happening?” I called, as I threw my covers back and slipped from my bed. I had just opened my bedroom door when the first of many explosions sounded in the distance, and the windows rattled again, this time violently. It was dark in our tiny home, but when Mama threw the front door open, moonlight flooded in and I saw my brothers running toward her. I knew I needed to run but my feet wouldn’t move—perhaps I was still half-asleep, or perhaps it was because the moment felt so much like a terrible nightmare that I couldn’t convince my body to act. Filipe got as far as the front door when he noticed me, and he crossed the small living room to take my hand.

  “What is happening?” I asked, as he dragged me toward the barn.

  “The Nazis are dropping bombs from planes,” Filipe told me grimly. “We are ready and we have a plan, Alina. Just do as Father says and we will be fine.”

  He pushed me into the barn after Stanislaw, Father and Mama, and as soon as we were inside, Father pulled the heavy door closed behind us. Blood thundered around my body at the sudden darkness—but then I heard the creak of hinges as the latch in the floor was opened.

  “Not the cellar,” I protested. “Please, Mama...”

  Filipe’s arm descended on my shoulders and he pushed me toward the opening, then Mama grabbed my wrist and tugged me downward. Her fingers bit into the skin of my arm, and I pulled away frantically, trying to step back.

  “No,” I protested. “Mama, Filipe, you know I can’t go down there—”

  “Alina,” Filipe said urgently. “What is scarier? The darkness or a bomb falling on your head?”

  I let them drag me down into the suffocating blackness. As I sank into the cramped space, the sound of my heartbeat seemed unnaturally loud. I scrambled across the dirt floor to find a corner, and then I wrapped my arms around my knees. When the next round of echoing booms began to sound, I shrieked involuntarily with each one. Soon enough, I was in a fetal position against the dirt floor, my hands over my ears. A particularly loud explosion rocked the whole cellar, and as dust rained down on us, I found myself sobbing in fear.

  “Was that our house?” I choked, in a moment of silence.

  “No,” Father said, his tone gently scolding. “We will know it if the house goes. It is Trzebinia, they are probably taking out the rail line...maybe the industrial buildings. There is no reason for them to destroy our homes. We are likely safe, but we will hide in here until it stops, just to be sure.”

  Filipe and Stanislaw shifted to sit on either side of me, and then the cellar was again filled with a stifling silence as we all waited for the next explosion. Instead, we were surprised by a more welcome sound.

  “Hello?” a distant, muffled voice called. “Mama? Father?”

  Mama cried out in delight and opened the hatch, then climbed up to help my sister, Truda, and her husband, Mateusz, into the cellar. To my immense relief, Father turned an oil lamp on to help them see their way. Once we were all safely inside the cellar again, Mama and Truda embraced.

  “What do we do now?” I asked breathlessly. Everyone turned to look at me.

  “We wait,” Mama murmured. “And we pray.”

  * * *

  We spent much of that first day huddled together, hidden in the cellar beneath the barn. The planes came and went and came back again. Later, we would learn that several hundred bombs were dropped across our region during those long hours we spent hiding. The bombing was sporadic, unpredictable and fierce. From my position in the cellar, the explosions near and far and all around us sounded like the end of the world was happening just outside of our barn.

  Most people have no idea what prolonged terror really feels like. I certainly didn’t until that day. In that terrifying darkness, I sweated through hours and hours and hours of being certain that any second, a bomb would fall on us—that any second, the cellar would cave in—that any second, a man with a gun would appear in the doorway to take away my life. I had not been comfortable with confined spaces even at the best of times, but that day I felt a depth of fear that I’d never even realized was possible. I lived my death that day, over and over and over again in my mind. Extreme anxiety like that doesn’t obey the normal laws of emotion; it doesn’t get tired, it doesn’t fade, you never grow used to it. I was every bit as petrified eight hours into those air strikes as I was when they began, until I was entirely convinced that the only end for the fear would be the end of life itself.

  There was an extended break in the bombing early in the afternoon. We didn’t dare breathe a sigh of relief at first, because there had been breaks earlier in the day but they hadn’t lasted long. This time, long minutes went past, and after a while, even the sound of plane engines faded away to blessed silence.

  Filipe was desperate to run next door to check on Justyna and her family. It was only a few hundred feet—he assured us he’d hide in the tree line along the woods and he’d be back in less than half an hour. Mama and Father grumbled, but eventually allowed him to go, and predictably, as soon as permission had been granted, Stanislaw decided he was going too.

  The rest of us climbed into the doorway of the barn for some fresh air, and with the skies still clear, we remained there until the twins returned. Father and Mateusz sat in the doorway; Mama, Truda and I sat in a line behind them. Truda and Mama talked quietly as we waited, but I sat silent, my mouth too dry for small talk.

  As promised, my brothers were gone for less than half an hour, but they returned visibly shaken, and at first I thought they’d discovered the worst. They joined us in the barn, sitting against the doorposts on either side of Father and Mateusz. There was some good news—the Golaszewski family were fine, and l
ike us were physically unscathed. But Jan had made a trip into Trzebinia during the last brief bombing break. He had seen locals walking the streets weeping the loss of their families, children with injuries so bad Filipe couldn’t bear to repeat the details, and dozens of homes alight.

  During my hours in the cellar, I had been so consumed with anxiety that my own safety had monopolized my thoughts, but as my brother relayed Jan’s findings, another fear broke through. I was rapidly processing the implications of what a severely damaged Trzebinia could mean and the risk to Aleksy and Emilia. The medical clinic was just off the town square—right where the homes were densest. And if they were dead—that would mean that one day soon, Tomasz would return and there’d be no family waiting for him. Suddenly, all roads led to the impact of this potential development on Tomasz.

  “Aleksy,” I croaked. Everyone shifted to stare at me, and I saw the sadness in their eyes. “Aleksy and Emilia have to be okay. They have to be.”

  “If Aleksy is okay, he will be tending to the injured...” Mama murmured. I could imagine that—Aleksy hiding during the bombing, then emerging to help the wounded, but if that was true, who was comforting and protecting Emilia? I had been riding out the bombing raids surrounded by my whole family—and it was still the most terrifying experience of my life. She was seven years old, and with Tomasz away, she only had her father, so if he was busy or even injured himself...

  “We have to get Emilia!” I blurted, and Filipe sighed impatiently.

  “How? Who knows when the planes will return?”

  “But if Aleksy is busy helping people, who will be with her? She might be alone! Please, Father. Please, Mama, we have to do something!”