The mother, too, hears music in her head. The melody is discordant and accusatory. When she covers her ears with her hands, a different tune—a lullaby—asserts itself, more painful for its sweet, rocking lyricism.

The lullaby tells of a hen who sets out for a glass of tea to bring home to her waiting chicks. It is the girl’s favorite, and it is accompanied by the lilt of a kept promise:

The hen returns.

Chapter 41

Summer 1944

The Samaritan’s name is Lidia, and she is one of a small network of Celestyn women who, under cover of darkness, shuttle Róża to safe cellars and attics and any number of abandoned buildings with locks that are broken or can be picked. Each presses bread into Róża’s hands and conveys the latest news: Minsk has been liberated; the Soviets have taken Vilna. But none knows whether any orphans survived the bombings at ul. Poniatowskiego 33. At the time, everyone was hunkered in shelters amid the rain of wall plaster and the cartwheels of ceiling fragments, emerging afterward to find the entire city block destroyed.

Róża wakes each morning, herself in ruins. Lidia fetches her, forces a bowl of thin broth upon her, and occupies her with work assignments in the locksmith shop until another day passes.

Róża is half-grateful. She has no interest in befriending Lidia, who is both odd and intrusive in addition to generous; whose surveillance and taskmastering keeps Róża from acting on her impulse to step out of the shop, wander the open streets, wind up shot.

They copy keys for the safe houses in the area. Lidia’s only outside contact with the operation is a puffy-faced man named Aleksy who delivers boxes of spare lock parts with keys concealed in false bottoms and retrieves them days later, all keys in duplicate, once again hidden.

Róża is a quick learner. She masters the key cutter and works with thick filing sticks to create the copies. Dust shavings float in the air. Her fingers stain dark gray, and she tastes iron on her lips day and night.

Several weeks pass in this way. Lidia fetches Róża before morning’s light and escorts her out beneath evening’s darkness. Best not to stay too long in any one place.

With the constant work comes an inkling of purpose: a rhythm in her hands as she and Lidia methodically cut and file the keys, then stow them away; a thump in her chest as Aleksy leaves the shop with another box wedged in the crook of his arm. One afternoon Róża points to a pile of spare blankets in the corner and says, “If I sleep here, we can work at night also.” Lidia nods, her pale eyes shining.