“Oh, really? The mayor of Corfu said they were happy to be rid of the Jews!”

“Well, here on Lefkada they are giving food and trying to help.”

“And how were my parents? How was Benjamin?”

Milos reached toward her again, but Sarah stepped back. “You can’t go there, Sarah. You can’t save them.”

“Oh yes? Watch me!” She yanked him by his collar with strength that surprised her. Yes, she’d been a strong, stubborn girl once, defending her family and the values she held dear. Milos had fallen in love with that girl, and now she resurfaced. “Take me there now! I demand you to take me there now!”

“I will not.” Milos wasn’t usually stubborn. He was easy. He told Sarah often that all he wanted in the world was to please her. But now he crossed his arms over his chest.

“Then I will go out to find them myself!”

Milos grabbed for her, only reaching the pleats of her dress. But then he stopped because he knew she had won, impossible as it was to prevail against someone willing to risk everything. And she was.

“I will take you there, but only if you stay back. We will give them this food, but that’s all. You will see. There’s nothing else we can do.”

Her love for him washed over her again, but she couldn’t follow it down the dark alley this time. Nor could she muster any promises. “Take me.”

Milos led the way out of his house, past the empty spot upon which their piano had once stood, which his parents had sold in exchange for two liters of contraband oil. Sarah’s entire soul tingled in anticipation of her impending reunion with her family. She followed Milos out the front garden, down the trail covered in dry grass. Past normal people spewing normal chatter as if her family were not prisoners nearby. They walked very far, to the edge of town and then west along the sea a bit. What Sarah saw first was a boy in uniform, a swastika on the band around his arm, just like German soldiers who now frequented her shop. She registered his eyes—surprisingly boring, the color of mud. She had expected palpable evil, but what greeted her was a baby in the body of a soldier. This boy, just a little older than her with plain eyes, wouldn’t harm her family. She began to walk to him.

Milos hissed in a low, harsh voice, “Sarah, you will not. I beg of you, no.”

But she was just going to talk reasonably with this boy soldier. She was going to say she would give him everything she had. She had nothing, of course. But she did have some savings from the bakery. She would give that to him, and he would give her back her family. Her eyes were on the lookout for her family. Where was her family?