“We did it, Maria. You’re alive, you’re safe, and you’re free.”

Alive. Safe. Free. Simple words, words that had once seemed nothing but a distant memory. Now that they’d become my reality again, I expected to feel joy or relief, but I didn’t feel any different. Just tired and hungry, as usual.

Maybe when I was truly free, those words would evoke some sort of feeling, but I wasn’t truly free yet. I was away from Auschwitz, but I’d made vows while I was there. To live, fight, and survive; to reunite Hania with her children, find Karl Fritzsch, and get justice for my family. Until I’d done those things, my business was unfinished. The game wasn’t over.

Someday I’d be free, and someday that word would bring me the proper peace and comfort it was supposed to bring. But not today.

* * *

While we waited for Franz, I settled in bed at Irena’s insistence. She stayed in the room with me—perhaps afraid I would return to the floor if she left—and I nestled into the pillows. I hadn’t had a pillow in almost four years.

When Franz returned, he announced that he had brought a fellow resistance member and hospital employee who often helped his family care for those taking refuge with them. And when his companion entered the room, my heart thudded in a way I had almost forgotten possible. The new arrival came to a sudden stop, as he had on that day before dropping his bicycle alongside the road and falling into step with me. A stupid boy drawn to an imprisoned girl, he was now a young man and resistance member; I in many ways was that same girl, shackled to guilt and grief yet finding in him an unexpected refuge.

I was acutely aware of the stark contrasts in our appearance. Me, starved, bruised, and barely alive, and him, a tall, broad young man whose deep blue eyes sparkled with vivacity. But, if he was as distracted by our differences as I was, he didn’t show it. He looked at me as he always had—as if I was more than a number.

I gave him a small smile. “It’s good to see you, Maciek.”

After exchanging introductions and pleasantries, Irena left to fetch me a glass of water and Franz went to wash his hands before tending to me. The door had hardly closed behind them before Mateusz sat on the edge of my bed, regarding me with such rapt attention it was almost daunting.