I sat up on the wood planks that formed my bed a few inches above the ground, bones aching in a way that reminded me of the pains my grandmother used to complain about. I thought longingly of the eiderdown quilt that had once covered my bed in our apartment, a far cry from the thin piece of burlap Mama had found for me here. I reached for my shoes at the foot of the bed. Mama still insisted, as she had the day we arrived, that we keep our feet dry, instructing me to swap between the two pairs of socks I had daily. I came to understand why: the others, who were less careful, developed infections, sores and pain from the dirty water that constantly seeped through our shoes.

I brushed my teeth, using a bit of the clean water from the pail and wishing for some baking soda to make them fresher. Then I walked to where Mama was preparing breakfast. The day after Pawel had left us, the others sat around, as though waiting for him to come and take us from here. But Mama set about making the chamber as inhabitable as possible. It was as if, despite her promise to me that it would be only a few days, she knew we were going to be here much, much longer.

My mother kissed me on the top of my head. We had become closer in the weeks since coming to the sewer. I had always been Papa’s girl, “little Michal,” Mama teased, referring to how much like him I was. But it was just the two of us now. She smoothed my hair. Mama brushed her hair and mine every single night in the sewer. “We must keep up appearances,” she said determinedly, and the glint in her eyes revealed a hope for the life we would live after. As a child, I had always been a tomboy, resistant to grooming and looking nice. But here I did not fight her. Despite her efforts, staying clean was a constant battle. The filth of the sewer continually soiled my clothes and hair to a point even I could not stand. I was grateful that we did not have a mirror.

As she pulled away from me, her much-rounder stomach brushed against my arm. I imagined the baby (still too unreal to call brother or sister) who would be born without a father, who would never know the wonderful man that Papa had been. “We’ll read after breakfast,” Mama said decisively, referring to the school lessons she insisted on giving me each morning. She tried to keep a certain order to our lives here, breakfast, then cleanup and lessons on a small chalkboard Pawel had given her as if I were not nineteen but still a child in school. We took long naps in the afternoon, though, trying to pass the day.

Breakfast this morning was dried cereal, less than usual because we were waiting for Pawel to make his semiweekly visit with more food. Mama had divided it equally into five portions, three for the Rosenbergs and two for us. Bubbe came and collected their bowls wordlessly and retreated to their corner of the chamber. The Rosenbergs had their own routine, too, which seemed to revolve around daily prayer.