When ten minutes had passed and Irena hadn’t returned, I persuaded Franz to let me talk to her before he did. Outside, the early morning sun lent its soft golden hue to the fresh snow that covered the house, barn, fields, and trees. The pastoral scene should have filled me with tranquility, but, as I crossed toward the wood pile where Irena was sitting, I was seized by a sudden unease. No one was ordering me to walk faster or shoving me toward my labor assignment, and I wasn’t sure what to make of the sensation.

I sat next to Irena, who didn’t acknowledge me. “Are we going to sit here until we freeze to death, or are we going to talk about your lovers’ quarrel?”

“There’s nothing to talk about, and it was not a lovers’ quarrel,” she said, glaring. “I knew you’d be obnoxious, which is exactly why I didn’t tell you about him.”

“A wise decision, lovesick idiot.”

Muttering a stream of expletives, Irena got up to walk away, but I grabbed her arm to prevent her departure. Falling quiet, though visibly annoyed, she sat while I cast jokes aside.

“I’m finished, I promise. Didn’t you know Franz was German?”

“Of course, but aside from that, I only knew his first name, because it wasn’t safe to share personal information. I assumed he was a German who didn’t support the Nazis. Instead, he’s an ethnic German who grew up in Poland and used his ethnicity to save his own ass.” She dug a hole in the snow with her booted foot, sighing. “I didn’t think he was a coward, that’s all. Or a traitor.”

“So are you, Frau Aufseherin.”

Irena stopped digging and stiffened. She waited, probably expecting me to retract my statement; instead I gestured to her uniform.

“You did this to help me, but you swore loyalty to the Third Reich and pretended to be a guard, didn’t you? If Franz is a traitor for being a Volksdeutsch who doesn’t actually support the Nazis, what does that make you?”

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out, so I made my final play.

“You even hit me.”

At that, Irena sprang to her feet. “If I hadn’t, we would’ve been killed, you know that—”

“Checkmate.”

She fell silent while her fury dissipated. “Dammit, Maria, you’re such an idiot,” she whispered, sinking back onto the log pile.

“Would you have listened to me otherwise?” I asked with a small smile, but I gave her hand an apologetic squeeze. “Now, are you going to make Franz get frostbite, too, or can we go back inside?”

We trudged to the farmhouse, where Frau Meinhart was scrambling eggs for breakfast while Herr Meinhart stoked the fire. Franz sat in the living room, then stood and waited for Irena. When she reached him, they didn’t speak.