Paul lies on top of me, not moving, legs intertwined with mine. His heavy breathing matches my own. “Wow!” he says finally, lifting his head to kiss my eyelids, my cheeks. Then he shifts his weight off me gently, rolling over onto his back.

I rest my cheek on his bare chest, feeling my body ache dully below. “‘Wow’ is good?”

He laughs, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “Wow is great.” He turns onto his side to face me, his expression serious. His eyelashes, I notice, though long and dark, are blond at the tips. “‘Wow’ is I never knew it could be like this.” I do not respond. My first time. So different, so much more than what I expected. Paul continues, “I mean, to feel this way about someone so soon. I’m glad we’re engaged. I only wish I had a ring to give you.”

I shake my head. “It’s not important.”

“I’ll get you a nice one when we get to America,” he promises. Then he reaches around his neck and pulls off the chain. “My dog tags.” He presses them into my hand. “You can wear these for now.”

I study one of the engraved plates that hang from the chain. It bears his name and a series of numbers I do not recognize. “But I can’t. I mean, this is your identification. You need this.”

“Nah, these are important in combat, to identify me if something happens. But the war is over. I’ve got two weeks of paperwork until I’m done. Nothing is going to happen. Anyway, I’ll go to the quartermaster tomorrow after you’ve gone, get another set made. Okay?” He places the chain around my neck.

I wrap my hand around the cool metal tags. A piece of Paul to keep close until we are together again. “Yes.”

“You should try to get some rest,” he says gently, pulling the blanket up around us. “You have a long trip ahead of you tomorrow.” I nod, suddenly tired. I roll onto my side, facing away from him, and he presses against my back, cupping his legs beneath mine. His cheek is rough against my shoulder. I listen to the rain as it beats against the window, feeling safe and warm. We are going to be together like this every night. Married. My eyelids grow heavy and I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

I open my eyes with a start, trying to remember where I am. In the dim light of morning, I can make out the small hotel room, my bag lying in the corner. Paris, I remember. Paul. Suddenly, the events of the previous evening—the reunion with Paul, his proposal, our lovemaking—come rushing back. I roll over to find him propped up on one elbow, looking down at me. “Good morning,” he says.

“Don’t you ever sleep?”

“I slept a bit. You?”

“Like a baby,” I reply honestly. “I seem to sleep well around you. But what time is it? I mean, my train—”

“It’s okay. It’s not yet five. You don’t have to leave for an hour or so.” He draws me close once more. A jolt of electricity shoots through me as his hand slides down my side. He pauses at my lower torso, feeling the roughness of my scar. A concerned expression crosses his face.

I pull away, suddenly self-conscious. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. But I was wondering how you got that.”

I bite my lip. I have not told anyone the story of what happened that night on the bridge, nor the events leading up to it. Not Dava, not even Rose. Now, as I lie in Paul’s arms, I am seized with the urge to tell him everything. But will he be horrified, repulsed? It doesn’t matter. If we are going to be married, he should know the truth. I take a deep breath. “In Kraków, during the war, there was a…” I hesitate, trying to find the right words in English. “A movement of Jews within the ghetto. Fighting back. How do you say?”

“Resistance?” he suggests.

“Yes. Have you heard of it?”

Paul shakes his head. “I’ve heard of the one in Warsaw, not Kraków.”

All of the struggling, so many had died. And we were still not even a footnote in history. “The resistance used to try to do things against the Nazis. One time, we exploded a bomb in a café full of S.S. officers.”

“We?” Paul asks. I nod and he whistles low under his breath. “I had no idea you were a partisan. No wonder you’re so fearless.” Fearless. A warm feeling grows inside me. “That’s why the Nazis had you in the special prison cell, isn’t it?”

I nod. “They wanted me to give up information about the others. I didn’t.”

“So were you shot during the café bombing, or did that happen later, when they tried to arrest you?”

“Neither, actually. There was another girl in the resistance, Emma. She was my best friend.” And the wife of the man I loved, I think. But I cannot bring myself to speak of Jacob to Paul, not now. “Emma was Jewish too, but she was living under another name as a non-Jew.” I speak slowly, trying to find the right English words to explain. “She worked for a Nazi, a very big one, and was able to get things for us—security passes, information. She became involved with him. In order to get information,” I add quickly. I do not want Paul thinking ill of Emma, wondering as I sometimes had, why she had really become involved with Kommandant Richwalder. “She became pregnant.” Paul’s eyes widen. “The Kommandant wanted to take her away from Kraków and marry her, so we had to get her out of the city. I was in charge of helping her to get out and meet up with her husband.”

“She was already married?”

“Yes, to another resistance member. He had been injured in the café bombing and was being hidden outside of town.” Suddenly, I am back in Kraków, waiting for Emma in the bushes outside her aunt’s house. I was supposed to pick her up at dawn, but I knew she would never leave Kraków without saying goodbye to her father. Shortly after I arrived, the door to the house opened and Emma slipped out, a shawl over her head. As I followed her silently through the dark, still streets toward the ghetto, anger rose in me. So much was being risked to help her escape and now she was selfishly putting all of us in further danger.

“Marta, are you all right?” Paul is still watching me, a concerned look on his face.

I blink several times, clearing the vision from my mind. “Fine, sorry. Before we could escape, the Kommandant found Emma and discovered that she was Jewish.” I recount hiding in the shadows, watching the Kommandant confront Emma. “I had hoped she might be able to somehow talk her way out of it. He seemed to have genuine feelings for her so I thought he might understand. But when he pulled out his gun, I had to do something. I shot him.”

“Oh, Marta.” Paul touches my cheek.

“I killed him. But he managed this first.” I touch my side. “Then the Gestapo came and arrested me and, well, you know the rest.”

“And Emma?”

“She escaped. When I realized I was shot, I told her to go on without me.”

“She left you?”

I nod. “I made her go. She didn’t want to, but there was no other choice. I told her where Jacob—that’s her husband—was hiding. The plan was for them to meet up, cross the border into Slovakia. I don’t know if they made it. Anyway, that’s how I wound up in prison where you found me.”

He stares at me, his expression one of amazement. “I had no idea…”

I swallow over the lump that has formed in my throat. “If you don’t want to, I mean, if this changes your mind about me, I understand,” I say, trying to keep my voice from cracking.

“What? Oh God, Marta, that’s not it at all.”

“I mean, it’s a lot to deal with, I know. I killed a man.”

“You killed a Nazi,” he corrects me. “To save your best friend.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t feel like that.” I burst into tears.

He draws me close and I bury my head in his chest. “It’s okay,” he whispers, stroking my hair.

A few minutes later, I pull back, wiping my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I say between gulps of air.

“Don’t be. I still see the faces of the Germans I killed, too. There was this one soldier, a boy, really. He couldn’t have been older than twenty. There were others, of course, but this one…I was only about five feet away.” Though he speaks quickly, I am able to follow his clear, familiar cadence. “After I hit him he looked so surprised. I think he expected me to take him prisoner instead. Maybe I should have. But his unit had just killed my best friend, David. Grenade in our foxhole. It would have been me, too, if I hadn’t gotten up to relieve myself three minutes before. I came back and there was blood everywhere, on our packs, on the cards we’d been playing gin with minutes earlier. I held David while he died.”


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