At nightfall, Krystyna brings soup. Neither she nor Henryk mention them leaving. After they eat, Róża beds Shira down for the night, telling a new installment of the story. The little girl discovers a family of moles, gently poking one another with their noses and scuffling about in a hole near the garden! The girl fears the moles will tunnel through a bed of enchanted flowers, so she smartly composes a “moving song” for her bird to sing to them. Upon hearing the jaunty tune, the moles don their hats, reach for their rucksacks, and scurry off, heads bobbing to the music—and the garden is safe. Shira asks: “What do the moles carry in their rucksacks?” Róża answers: “Their eyeglasses!” Shira’s own eyes grow wide with delighted wonder. Then Róża whisper-sings the lullaby, folds her hands over Shira’s hands, and tucks her in with her blanket—all before Henryk scales the ladder.

They are not kicked out of the barn the day after or the day after that. Róża carves shallow nicks in the barn rafter with a rock to keep track of each day. She likes the weight of the rock in her hand, the give of the soft wood beneath. In the accumulation of marks she feels the triumph of survival, tempered always by fear.

Chapter 4

As Róża marks the rafter, another day’s end, Shira whispers her persistent questions: “Why must we hide? Why must we stay silent?” Róża fixes Shira with her eyes, wishing she had answers that would still her.

“Some giants don’t like flowers, and because they believe the music in our voices helps the flowers grow, we must never let the giants hear our songs.”

“Is it all right for a bird to sing?”

“Yes, so long as we stay silent.”

Róża turns back to the rafter, thinking of Henryk’s visit the previous night. He moved inside her slowly, almost gently. She couldn’t help noting his differences from Natan: the very heft of him, how his chest has less hair, how his smell holds the earth’s tang in it. Even as she kept herself entirely still—looking on as if from a different body, a different place—her eyes wandered from the wall to his face, his sloping gray eyes—

The sharp point of the rock, clenched in Róża’s fist, bites at her flesh. She swallows a yelp and sets the rock down in the corner. She calculates back, trying to figure out which nick Shabbas fell on, unobserved.

Maybe the merchant’s wife lives by herself in the tall house? Unlike Henryk, who is exempt because of an eye nerve problem that keeps him from clearing his vision quickly in smoke, the husband has likely been conscripted.

Counting the nicks, Róża sees it is their eleventh day in the barn.

Chapter 5