Chapter Nine

FROM THE CORNER of my eye, I see the small suitcase waiting for me near the door of our apartment. My heart pounds. This is it. I look at Jakub. Finally, we are quiet for the first time after twelve hours of fighting. The blame game as usual, and now it’s goodbye.

I told him. A watered-down version of the truth.

Jakub sits on the tattered green couch across from me, a leftover from the Polish family who once lived here and relocated to the Aryan side. Jakub’s endless paperwork is splayed across the coffee table, his makeshift office. I glance down at his life’s work for what may be the very last time. His precious archives. The history of the Warsaw Ghetto. From October 1940, when the German officials first decreed the establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto, to... no ending yet. But we all know how it ends.

“You’re leaving. Just like that,” he says once again, throwing up his hands.

“It isn’t ‘just like that,’ Jakub. How many times do I have to explain?” I sigh heavily, gearing up for the next round. “I couldn’t sit back and wait to die. I had to do something.”

“Was I even a factor in your decision, Bina?” He swallows hard. I watch his large Adam’s apple go north, south, and north again. “Did you ever love me?” The one question that has been on his lips the whole night and probably the nearly four years we’ve been married.

I hold my gaze steady, prevent my eyes from fast blinking, my body from fidgeting, my lips from quivering, my words from escaping, keenly aware of all the telltale lying signs, praying my acting is good enough. “Of course I love you.” I just love your brother more.

He points to the suitcase, the tone of his voice escalating. “You know, you’re a terrible wife, but a great actress. No one pretends better than you.” He wants to hurt me right now, so I let him. “No wonder they picked you to go to the Aryan side to serve as a courier.”

That’s what I told him. Courier. Delivering messages to the outside world, particularly to the Polish underground. A plea for help. A risky job. Many of the girls who served bravely as couriers never made it back alive. A lie and a truth. I just don’t tell Jakub that the messages are a plea to procure guns, ammo, dynamite, and raw materials to make grenades. This much I owe Zelda.

“I couldn’t continue teaching drama classes and playing pretend,” I tell him for the umpteenth time.

“All you do is play pretend.” Jakub’s forehead scrunches tightly. He is much too young to have those deep-set creases. How many of those did I give him?

My husband wants to hit me. He never would, but I see the rage roiling inside the tightening coils of his fists, as though clutching everything I have ever done wrong.

“And what of the girls, those on that despicable list that you were so keen to save just days ago? Yesterday’s news?” The meanness, the sarcasm, begins to spew again. He used to be so gentle, so patient. I’ve done this to him. “Have you already forgotten about your big show at the Judenrat? I have heard of nothing else from my colleagues.”

Queen of the Whores.His band of intellectuals probably remind him at every turn, and even when they are silent. Jakub sees the shame I brought down upon him in their clever eyes.

“That hasn’t changed. There’s a plan for the girls too,” I lie again. My God, it’s become so easy. I pray that Zelda does have a plan for them as she promised me. I glance quickly at my watch. I must go. She is already there, waiting for me at the Behrmans’ apartment. I rise slowly from the chair.

“So that’s that.”

“Jakub, please.” I try to shut out his rapid-fire accusations to take one last, lingering look around the two-room apartment—our prison and refuge. I spent all night cleaning, doing laundry, to leave our home in the best shape possible. I turn away so my husband can’t see my face. Can’t see me eyeing the washbasin in the distance, the tiny sliver of lavender soap next to the faucet, and envisioning his brother slippery wet and naked as the sunbeams eclipse his lanky body. My eyes water slightly. I will only have those images in my head. I’m leaving Aleksander too.

I take in the little life we created and place my hand over my rapidly beating heart. There’s a good chance I will never see this place again. There is an even better chance I won’t make it back alive. But I’m willing to take the risk. Why? I wonder. Why can’t I die with my husband, hold his hand, and wait for my number to be called to the death train like the other wives? Die clinging to those precious archives? I look away. It’s not my fate, it is Jakub’s.

Inhaling deeply, I grab my thick wool trench hanging neatly over the chair in the kitchen. Jakub follows me to the door.

“You killed Kapitan,” he announces, his hand covering mine on the doorknob, not ready to release me just yet. “It was you, wasn’t it? I suspected you were up to something that night you brought soup to Eryk and his sister. I saw the lying in your eyes. When Kapitan was found murdered the next day, I thought to myself: Was it Bina? She lies, but could she kill? Could she go that far?”

Yes, Jakub,my eyes confess, but I remain silent. And now I’m about to go even further.

Five minutes. I must meet Zelda in five minutes. And Jakub still wants to fight. Our last moments together will be spent bickering.

“And my brother? Is Aleks part of this? Is he with those radicals too?” he presses, now blocking the door with his body.

“It was all me, only me.” I will never betray Aleksander. “And I’m not sorry for killing that man who sent so many of us to our deaths. My only regret is not having done it sooner.” I straighten to my full height.

His face tightens. “Who the hell are you? You killed Kapitan, and yes, the world is a much better place without that bastard. But they will find you, Bina. And if they can’t find you, they will come after me and Aleks. You put us at great risk. You know that, right?”

My heart is no longer pounding, it’s crashing. I know that. So does Aleksander. It is the most troubling piece of all. Jakub now knows that I am willing to sacrifice him for the big picture. That if I am discovered, he will pay the price for my actions. That’s how it works in the ghetto—the crime of one family member is a consequence for all. That’s how they have us cowering like beaten dogs. Sweat trickles down my temples. Jakub can see it. I need to go, but I don’t want us to end like this. I point to the table with his precious papers. “The archives... I will be on the outside. Please, let me help. Let me get your work into the right hands.”

Jakub glances at the table. He realizes that his murderess wife is his one chance to bring the story of the ghetto beyond the walls. But he doesn’t want to give me the satisfaction. His forehead furrows, a thousand lines making their presence known. He is wrestling with himself, and I don’t have time for his painfully time-consuming analytics.

I move past him, walk to his worktable. “I need to leave immediately. But let me do this one thing for you.”

He exhales hard, says nothing, just nods. I take that as a yes and pick up the first stack of papers. His own reporting. The book he’s working on, rigorously documenting daily ghetto life. His insights, his creation. There is so much more, but this pile means the most to him.

“I will protect it,” I vow, pressing the papers to my chest. “I will give this to someone who will make this matter. I promise you.”

He nods again, but with some extras: a deep squint, a head tilt, and a tight pressing of his lips—a look I know intimately. It is the same intense expression when he slipped the ring on my finger, when he buried our dead fetus, when he orgasms.

“I know you think my work means nothing,” he says with resentment. “That the archives are a waste of time. History will prove you wrong.”

Guns matter. Food matters. Freedom matters. But to Jakub, the stories matter most.

I open my suitcase in front of him to stuff the papers inside. And when I look up, his eyes meet mine, only with less hate. I had stuck our wedding picture on top of all my clothes. Beneath it (which he doesn’t see) is a photo of Aleksander and me by the sea, our backs to the camera—a silhouette of his body near mine, not touching, with just enough air between us. Karina and Jakub were also there that perfect summer day, but lounging on the beach blanket. Jakub took the picture. He thought it was artsy. If only he knew.

No more words are exchanged between us. We are done. I’m glad he saw the wedding picture. Tears fill his eyes as he pulls me in close, just like he did the night I murdered Kapitan. His embrace is hard, demanding. It’s over, we are over. We embrace everything we lost and everything we will never have together. I am late for the mission, but it doesn’t matter right now. I want to savor Jakub one last time, hold on to the quiet between us. Zelda will have to deal with it. Dabrowski will have five minutes extra to live. Feeling the jutting bones of my husband’s thin, sunken-in chest against me, I whisper one lone truth into his ear. “Live, Jakub... Just live.”