She wipes Shira clean first, taking the dirt and grime from her cheeks and neck with slow, gentle turns of the cloth. Patiently, indulgently, she swabs Shira’s hands—cupped tight as if cradling something, a habit started after her father didn’t return—moving the cloth quickly between each of Shira’s fingers, then sponging her wrists and upper arms. She sends Shira flitting up to the loft and begins on herself, unbuttoning her shirt to reach her chest, her back, and the space under her arms. The water trickles down her sides; Róża catches it with the cloth and carries it upward along her body, taking care to rub away her odor. She sponges until she senses a slight shift outside the barn. Henryk? He lingered after delivering the bucket, she thinks, and is now watching her through a crack in the lower barn wall. Her breath grows shallow. She looks down at her exposed breasts, her taut stomach, her jutting hips. Her first instinct is to turn away, but she holds herself still. They will be fed here tonight. Sheltered. She douses the cloth again and continues on, the feel of Henryk’s eyes watching her, seeing her.

Later in the day, Róża peers through a gap in the loft boards and glimpses Krystyna inside the farmhouse, agitated, arguing with Henryk. She is shaking her head, hard, causing the baby, Łukasz, to slip sideways down her hip. Róża sinks low to the loft floor.

Henryk enters the barn and begins forking hay out in large piles, blocking the sight line from the neighboring fields and the road.

The farmhouse, white with carved shutters painted a cheery blue, is smaller than the barn and does not fully occlude the view from the road, especially where it curves. The tavern must be somewhere close by because already Róża can hear carousing.

At nightfall Róża shows Shira how to wrap her finger in the clean corner of a rag to make a toothbrush and how to relieve herself in a bucket filled with straw that Henryk will afterward mix with the animals’ hay and waste.

Henryk brings a different bucket with food in it. Boiled cabbage and turnips. “Krystyna sent this for you. Just for tonight. She’s very frightened.”

Róża nods, grateful.

Back beneath hay, Róża presses the heels of her hands to her eyes. Spots of yellow and black bloom there, spreading like spilled dye. They chase away images of Natan and her parents.

Eventually, she opens her eyes to find Shira watching, enchanted, as two rabbits hop sideways on a hay bale and scurry about. If Shira misses her bedtime rituals from home—a drawn bath, warm milk with nutmeg and honey, snuggles from her grandparents—she doesn’t show it. On her leg, her fingers tap out the rhythm to some elaborate melody only she hears in her head.