When her mother told her she had finally found a safe place for her to live—a convent, she called it—Felicia was dubious. “You will have children around you,” Mila said, trying to cheer her up. “Girls of all ages. And a nice group of nuns who will care for you. You won’t have to be alone anymore.” Though Felicia was desperate for company, it was her mother’s companionship she craved. She hated the fact that Mila would once again be leaving her. “Will the others be like—like me?” she’d asked, wondering if, in fact, any of the girls in this place her mother spoke of would actually want to be her friend. They were Catholics, Mila said, explaining that while she was there, Felicia would be Catholic, too. Surely the other girls would want to be her friends. “Just do as the nuns say, love,” she added, “and I promise, they will take good care of you.”
On her first day at the convent, Felicia’s cinnamon-red hair is dyed blonde. She is no longer Felicia Kajler; she is Barbara Cedransk. She is taught how to cross herself, and to take communion. A week into her stay, when one of the nuns notices her mouthing the words to her prayers, she drags Felicia into the office of the Mother Superior and questions her upbringing. Felicia is surprised to hear the conviction in the Mother Superior’s voice as she snaps, “I’ve known this child’s family for a long time. We treat her like the rest.” In fact, malnourished as she is, Felicia is treated slightly better than the rest. The Mother Superior often sneaks Felicia a bite of cake when the others aren’t watching, allows her a few extra minutes each day outdoors in the sun, and keeps a close watch during the children’s free time, intervening when the older girls, who’ve deemed the skinny newcomer the runt of the group, hurl insults, or sticks.
—
Pulling her wool cap low over her brow, Mila strolls along the split-rail wooden fence of the convent’s garden, trying to make out the faces of the children playing inside. She’s allowed one visit per week, but this one is unscheduled. She can’t help it. She hates being apart from her daughter. She scans the garden, trying to decipher which of the small bundled bodies is Felicia’s. The children look alike in their dark winter coats and hats. They run and shout, their breath puffing in fleeting clouds from pink-lipped mouths as they play. Mila smiles. There’s something about the sound of their laughter that fills her momentarily with hope. Finally, she notices a girl, slighter than the rest, standing still, staring in her direction.
Mila makes her way casually toward the fence, fighting the urge to wave, to jump the wooden beams, to gather her daughter up in her arms and sneak her back to Warsaw. Felicia approaches the fence, too, her chin cocked, curious as to why her mother has come—she keeps close track, and must realize it’s too soon for her next scheduled visit. Mila smiles and nods gently. There’s no reason to worry, she says with her eyes.
Felicia nods, too, in understanding. A stone’s throw from her mother, she stops beside a bench, props her foot on it, and bends over, as if tying her shoelace. Upside down, her hat falls off and her bleached-blonde hair spills toward the earth, haloing her small, freckled face. She peers between her legs at her mother, and, knowing the others can’t see, waves.
I love you, Mila mouths, and blows a kiss.
Felicia smiles, and returns the kiss. I love you, too.
Mila watches, blinking back tears, as Felicia stands, adjusts her hat on her head, and trots back to the other children.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Genek
Tel Aviv, Palestine ~ February 1943
Genek’s stomach pains are back. When they come—typically every thirty minutes or so at their worst—he doubles over, grimacing. “What does it feel like?” Herta asked, when the pains first started, the winter before. “Like someone’s twisting up my intestines with a pitchfork,” he said. Herta had begged him to see a doctor, but Genek was reluctant to do so. He assumed that his digestive system just needed time to readjust to a somewhat normal diet. “I’ll be fine,” he insisted. And anyway, there were so many people in Tehran worse off than he, it was difficult to justify using up the one medic’s precious time and resources.
But that was in Persia. Now they’re in Palestine, where, under the care of the British Army, he and his Polish colleagues in Anders’s Army have access to half a dozen medical tents, a host of supplies, and a team of doctors. Now, the pains are persistent—and have escalated to the degree that Genek wonders if an ulcer has eaten through his stomach lining. “It’s time,” Herta said, the day before, her tone filled less with pity than with frustration. “Please, Genek, go see someone, before it’s too late. Don’t let something that could have been fixed bring you down now, after all that we’ve been through.”
—
He’s seated at the edge of his cot, his toes grazing the ground beneath him, naked but for a white cotton gown that opens in the back. Behind him, a doctor presses the cool, round chest piece of a stethoscope to his ribs, making hmm sounds through his nose as Genek answers each of his questions.
“Lie down,” the doctor instructs. Genek swings his legs onto his cot and leans back, wincing as the doctor’s fingers press into the pale flesh of his stomach. “My guess is you’ve got an ulcer,” he says. “Stay away from citrus, and anything acidic. No more oranges or lemons. Try to eat only mild foods. I have some medicine, too, to help neutralize you. Let’s start there, and we’ll see how you’re doing in a week.”
“All right,” Genek nods.
The doctor adjusts his stethoscope around his neck and tucks his pen into the breast pocket of his lab coat. “I’ll be back,” he says. “Stay put.”
Genek watches him disappear. The last time he was made to wear a hospital gown was at fourteen, when he had his tonsils removed. He doesn’t remember much of the surgery, except for the constant supply of freshly pressed apple juice he enjoyed afterward, along with a week’s worth of doting from his mother. A wave of longing. What he would do right now, to see his mother. It’s been three and a half years since he left home.
Home. He thinks about how far he’s traveled in the last forty-two months. About his apartment in Lvov and the night the NKVD came pounding on his door; how he’d packed a suitcase, somehow knowing when they left that they wouldn’t return. He thinks of the cattle cars to which he’s been confined for weeks on end—dark and dank and riddled with disease, and of his barracks in Siberia and the ice-cold night Józef was born. He thinks about all the corpses he’d seen on his exodus from Siberia, through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan to Persia, about the military camp he called home for four months in Tehran, and about the trip from Tehran to Tel Aviv and how, as their truck had snaked along the narrow roads of the Zagros mountain range, he’d contemplated the very real possibility of careening 1,500 meters to the valley floor. He thinks of Palestine’s beautiful beaches, and of how much he will miss them when he’s shipped off to battle; there has been much talk of late, of Anders’s Army being sent to Europe to fight on the Italian front.