“You have to go on for both of us.”

“No.” That would never be enough. “You will marry Saul. Or you can come to Paris with me. I will draw and you will study medicine and we will have a fabulous life.” I was speaking quickly now, the words tumbling out in a breathless, almost nonsensical mumble, anything to keep her talking to me. “You can’t leave me. You need to be strong. You owe that much to me.”

But she shook her head, all of the fight in her gone. “I can’t.”

Sadie was not going to make it. This was the end for us. My heart broke.

“You have to let me go,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. She reached down and, with her remaining strength, untied the rope that had bound us tightly together. Then she tried to pull away from me, but I held fast to her. I looked up at the ledge. The rising water had brought us a bit closer to it now. I picked up Sadie and, with great effort, lifted her above my head. She neared the ledge, then slipped from my grasp and fell back to the water, almost sinking us both. I caught her and heaved her up again. This time I managed to place her on the ledge, where she lay motionless for several seconds. She rolled onto her side and held out her hand, trying with the very last of her strength to help me from the water.

“See, I promised you would get out,” I said.

But I had spoken too soon. From behind me, there came a crash and I turned in time to see the far wall of the basin, weakened from the explosions, cave in. A giant wave of water roared toward us, too big and powerful to stop. The force slammed me against the wall and took us both under, swallowing us into darkness.

26

I stepped onto the banks of the Wisła before dawn.

As I had climbed from the sewer, I reached back for the hand that should have been in mine, but was not. Now I stood beneath a vast, dark canopy of stars, alone. I had hoped to see someone, Kara or Saul maybe, waiting for me. But the riverbank was deserted, the others having left us for dead.

We’re going to make it. A promise broken.

After the raging floodwaters had crashed through the basin wall, I had floundered, submerged in the dark, feeling for her beneath the surface for several minutes without success. At last I managed to find her and somehow pull us both onto the ledge. But it was too late. The water had filled her lungs for too long and she was barely breathing. There was a massive gash on her head, too, where the raging current had slammed her into the concrete basin wall. Blood gushed from it, impossible to stop.

“We can make it,” I urged, trying in vain to pull her to her feet. “We’ll go to Paris to paint and to study medicine.” I dangled our dreams in front of her, willing her to reach for them and live.