“Hershel, please tell us,” she finally begs. “Where are the others? Who didn’t make it?”

Hershel looks up at Róża. The others go silent.

“Ilan and Mayer, may they rest in peace.”

Sorrow mixes with relief as Róża thanks God that Aron and Chana are alive.

“Also we lost little Paweł,” Hershel says in a breaking voice. “They’re burying him now. Ruthie couldn’t corral him and he got hit.”

Paweł: partisan-in-miniature; Issi’s older brother; he asked Aron practically once a day when he’d be old enough to go on his first mission. Róża kept her distance from the children here, except for him.

Róża looks around at the other mothers, enveloping their children. Ruthie—whom she’d refused to help by holding Issi—bent over the hillside, her hands clutching dirt.

Something breaks loose inside Róża and skitters down the stairs of her heart. Her fingers feel for the stitches at the waistband of her pants, the re-stowed address card. She can’t wait any longer; she must get to Shira now.

She builds the case in her mind: She knows how to survive in the woods on her own. And once she has Shira with her she can determine where to go next, whether to return here or find another place to hide. She wishes she could see with her own eyes Aron and Chana safe after the attack; but she doesn’t wait. Her clothes and boots well-enough dried, she turns from the fire, stuffs her pockets with potatoes, and begins walking, away from the newly forming camp, in search of Celestyn and the convent that’s held Shira in safekeeping.

Chapter 37

Spring 1944

The Oberleutnant returns to the convent and demands another recital. It is early evening. Mother Agnieszka intercepts Zosia, carrying clean towels from the laundry, to retrieve her violin, quick. As Zosia walks nervously to the calefactory, her fears focus on Adela being in the audience. What might she say or do?

But the Oberleutnant is there alone. Settled in an armchair, he speaks kindly to Zosia, encouraging her to take her time with the tuning and warm-up. Mother Agnieszka stands in the corner, her hands clamped tightly in front of her habit.

Zosia takes a preparatory breath, a deep, silent inhale and exhale. Pan Skrzypczak taught her this, though she’d already learned such controlled breathing in the barn with her mother. She plays the second part of Bruch’s Violin Concerto no. 1, lyrical and languorous. Though she is nervous, her playing is smooth. Pan Skrzypczak told Zosia that Joachim advised Bruch on this work and that he not only received its dedication but was the soloist to first perform it. Zosia likes to think of this: another bit of music that kept Joachim from loneliness.