“How can you stand it?” I burst out. “What they are doing to those poor, innocent people.”

“The city is better off without them.” She gazed at me unblinkingly. I recalled then how Austria, Ana Lucia’s native land, had welcomed the Anschluss, its annexation with Germany. Ana Lucia was not just consorting with the Germans for a social life, or to gain their favor. She actually agreed with them.

Sickened, I rose from the table. As I left the room, my mind raced. Ana Lucia knew I had gone back across the river. Thankfully, she did not seem to know why—at least not yet.

Upstairs, I looked across the rainy skyline at the drab, gray neighborhood on the far side of the bridge. I should not go back to the sewer. With Ana Lucia suspicious, she would be watching me more closely than ever. I did not know Sadie all that well. I had spoken to her only a handful of times, and it made no sense to risk everything for someone who was practically a stranger. Yet even as I thought this, I knew I would return to the grate. There was nothing to be done for that woman on the bridge—I had stood by helplessly as she took her life and those of her children, just like I had done nothing when Miriam and the other Jewish students had been kicked out of school. But Sadie was still safe, and in some small way, I could help her. I swore to myself then and there that, unlike the others, I would not let her down.

10

Sadie

I listened one Sunday morning as the voices at Kostka Church above the sewer rose in prayer, the priest intoning the now-familiar mass and parishioners, fewer each week it seemed, giving the response. Though I did not have a watch or clock, I could tell from the part of the mass they chanted that it was a quarter past ten, nearly time to go meet Ella. My anticipation rose and I pushed it down, trying not to get too hopeful. Ella had promised to come every Sunday and mostly she did, but there had been a few Sundays in the six weeks since we met that she had not appeared.

“I’m going to get water,” I announced when I judged it to be just before eleven.

Mama gestured toward the full jug. “Saul already went. We have plenty.”

I looked around the chamber, hoping to find some garbage that needed disposal. I found none. “I’m going for a walk, then,” I said, expecting Mama to object. She didn’t answer. I studied her face, wondering if she was suspicious. The first few weeks after making me promise not to go see Ella, she had watched me like a hawk. But she seemed distracted now, weary from her growing belly and the struggle of keeping us going in the sewer. She did not protest as I started hurriedly from the chamber. My discussion with Mama had made me a few minutes late, and as I neared the grate, I hoped that Ella had waited for me.