They said it was typhus.”
I took his hand. “It wasn’t typhus, Papa.”
“What then?” He was like a small child. Where was my strong papa?
“I don’t know,” I said.
He stepped back, hands on his hips. “But were you not together?”
Zuzanna led Papa to a kitchen chair. “They moved her to a separate block, Papa. She worked as a nurse—”
“And drew portraits for the Nazis. That’s what got her killed. Getting too close to them.” Why did I say such a thing? I knew too well that her bringing me a sandwich that night at the movie theater had gotten her killed.
Zuzanna knelt next to Papa. “You received Kasia’s letters. How did you know how to read them?”
“It took the whole postal center to figure it out. We knew there was some sort of code, but none of us knew how to read it. I dabbed water on the first letter. But then we figured it out. I told certain people, and they got the message to our underground in London, who spread the word. But it was Marthe who said we should iron the letter. That it was a trick from a book she knew.”
Marthe?
I knelt at Papa’s other side. “Thank you for the red thread.”
“I got the word out as best I could. Did you know the BBC broadcast it? What they did to you both…” Papa dissolved into another pool of tears. How hard it was to see our strong papa crying!
I took his hand. “Have you seen Pietrik? Nadia?”
“No. Neither of them. I post the lists every day. Red Cross Center does too. I wish we’d known you were coming.” Papa took up a linen dishcloth and dried his tears. “We’ve been frantic with worry.”
We?
Zuzanna noticed her first, in the shadows of the bedroom doorway, a thickset woman in a dressing gown. Zuzanna went to her and put out her hand.
“I am Zuzanna,” she said.
A woman in Papa’s bedroom?
“I am Marthe,” the woman said. “I’ve heard so many nice things about you both.”
I stood, took a deep breath, and considered the woman. Marthe was a few inches taller than Papa, her dressing gown belted with twine. Brown hair worn in a braid hung down over her lapel. A country woman. Papa had certainly lowered his standards.
Marthe came to stand near to Papa, but he made no move toward her. “Marthe’s from a village outside of Zamosc. A great help to me these years you’ve been away.” Papa looked embarrassed Marthe was there. Who wouldn’t, introducing his girlfriend to his dead wife’s children?
“Why don’t we sit?” Marthe said.
“I would like to go to bed,” I said. It was like a swap out at the market. My eyes went to Matka’s picture on the mantel. Did Papa not miss her? How could he do it?
Papa waved me to him. “Sit with us, Kasia.”
Marthe sat on Matka’s favorite chair, the one she had painted white, with the calico pillow seat. I watched Zuzanna bond with Marthe. Papa looked on, happy to see them connect.
“I wish we could offer you something to eat, but we just finished the last of the bread,” Marthe said.
Papa felt the stubble of his beard. “It is worse than ever now. Since the Russians came, there is barely any food at all. At least the Nazis kept the bakers in flour.”
“So we’ve traded Nazis for Stalin?” I asked. “Even trade if you ask me.”
“I get on well with them,” Papa said. “They have let me keep my job at the center.”
“Let you?” I asked.
“You can get all the Russian cigarettes you want now,” Marthe said, a little too brightly. “But few eggs.”
“It is just a matter of time before we are all calling one another ‘comrade,’ ” I said.
“We’ll get on just fine,” Zuzanna said.
“They are looking for former underground members,” Papa said with a pointed look at me. “They took Mazur last week.”
A volt of current went through me, and all of a sudden I could barely breathe. Mazur? He was Pietrik’s childhood friend, a most skilled agent at the highest ranks of the underground. He’d read me my AK oath. A true patriot.
Big breath in, big breath out.
“I’m done with all that,” I said.
“They took us from the camp on a Swedish bus,” Zuzanna said. “You should have seen it as we crossed the border to Denmark, all the people gathered there with welcome signs. They were very nice to us in Sweden too. We flew the Lublin Girl Guides banner someone had found in the