Chapter Fifteen

IENTER STACH’S OFFICE wearing a simple black skirt and a faded but clean white blouse. The couple who brings me supplies also brought me more clothes. Stach smiles, then laughs. “You look like Maria.”

Maria was one of my family’s maids. Young, pretty, smart Maria, the daughter of our head chef. I glance down at my attire. He’s right. This was our female staff’s uniform. Black skirts and starched white blouses.

“What I would give to trade places with Maria right now,” I quip.

His smile fades quickly. “More importantly, why are you here? It’s too dangerous. I told you not to come, no matter what. Unless it’s an emergency.”

“It is an emergency.”

He points to the door. On the other side of it sits his assistant at his desk. Stach lowers his voice. “I’m having suspicions about him. We believe there may be a mole in the organization. A Nazi plant. I’m watching his every move these days.” He motions me to the couch, but I remain standing.

“I need you to get me inside the Great Synagogue right away.”

“Inside the synagogue? To pray?” He laughs, sees my face, and stops immediately. “What’s going on?”

I inch closer. “Ninety-four girls were seized from the ghetto and are being held hostage in the synagogue’s basement. The Nazis intend to use them as sex slaves, and most likely will kill them when they’re done. They are children. All virgins, religious girls. Most are orphans and have already been through hell. We know that they are being held there for at least two more days, being prepped for their Nazi tormentors.”

Stach sighs deeply. “Who ordered this? Stroop?”

I nod. “Who else? He sent an edict before I left the ghetto, demanding our girls be used to help alleviate his soldiers’ stress. You know how it is, round-the-clock murder can be taxing.” I feel the lump forming in my throat. “It’s all so much worse than I thought, Stach.”

He walks over to the coffee table, picks up the pack of cigarettes lying there. We both sit on the couch close together. He lights up a cigarette, offers me one, and I take it. “What can I do to help?” he asks.

I gather my thoughts, focusing on the fresh flowers in a crystal vase in front of me, realizing I haven’t seen a vase filled with fresh-cut flowers in three years. “I need you to get me inside the synagogue as soon as possible. Also, I need”—I pause—“one hundred cyanide tablets.”

He falls backward into the cushion of the couch. “Oh, is that all? Jesus, Bina. Cyanide? Let me get this straight. You want me to magically transport you inside a heavily guarded fortress so you can help murder those girls before the Nazis can? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Yes, maybe,” I hiss back, pop off the couch, and begin to pace. “I don’t know what else to do. These are children, who will be raped and then murdered. No happy ending here. No escape. I was given orders to help them die with dignity. So yes, it’s fucking crazy, but this world we live in is fucking crazy.” And then I remember Dina, my promise to Eryk. It doesn’t end. “And there’s another issue...”

Stach holds up his hand. “We are not done with this one yet. I won’t do it. You’re going to get yourself killed. There is no possible way to do what you want to do and come out of this alive.”

“Believe me, I know,” I say, straightening my shoulders. “But there has got to be a way inside. You can do something. You must know someone... must have something on someone. That’s how these things work, am I right?” I want to remind him that he managed to get someone to shoot Mateusz dead inside of Auschwitz, but I hold back. I see the look in his eyes. He’s already thinking that.

He turns away, but I won’t let him. I grab Stach by the shoulders, make him face me. “Goddamn it, help me! You know someone.”

“Keep your voice down, and I mean it.” He pushes me off him, fighting like we used to fight, like a brother and sister.

I point my finger between his eyes. “You are going to help me, period. I’m not leaving here until you do. Damn it, Stach, think!”

His pupils dart back and forth, and I know the truth without Stach revealing it. There was a time when we used to finish each other’s sentences. He does know someone... someone in a very high place. It’s written all over him. A homosexual Nazi? I implore with my eyes.

He nods without moving his head. Even secrets have secrets.

I don’t ask the details. “Go to him now,” I command. “I need you to get me inside the synagogue before it’s too late and I have no options.”

“You already have no options.” Stach’s smooth forehead breaks out into a sweat. He grabs another cigarette, heads to the bar, pours himself what is clearly not his first drink of the day and nowhere near his last. He pivots with the refreshed whiskey in hand. “You are playing a dangerous game here for both of us.”

Playing it safe no longer exists. “And there’s the other thing...”

He raises his glass in a mock toast. “To the woman who is never satisfied.”

I run my fingers through my hair, limp and lacking in luster, when I once possessed a golden mane. “I need you to save one girl. Get her out, into the forest, somewhere, anywhere, safe.” I point across the room. “Hide her behind that bookcase. I don’t care. Whatever you need to do, just do it.”

“Why, who is she?”

“She is my student, and I care about her and her family. She is barely ten, Stach. Most likely the youngest one there.” I look away, then turn back to him with my eyes blazing. I let out a deep, elongated breath. “I was pregnant, you know.”

“Was?” He searches my face. “When, what happened?”

If I say it aloud, then it makes it more real. But if I don’t... I take the drink from his hand and swig hard until the glass is emptied. “The day they killed my father in our home, they beat me up badly and dragged me out of the house by my hair. I was three months pregnant. I lost the baby the day I arrived at the ghetto, only to be told later by the ghetto obstetrician that the damage was so great I will never be pregnant again.” I bite my lips, deciding whether to tell him the whole truth. “Your father was there, in our home, watching,” I whisper. Your father orchestrated it. If you could have seen his face, Stach. But I say none of this. I don’t have to. Stach knows. I see him picturing his father’s evil sideways grin. Konrad Sobieski made no secret of hating my family, especially my wealthy, successful father, who Stach secretly wished was his own.

Stach lowers his head and his upper body curves as if he’s trying to make himself as small as possible.

“You didn’t do it, Stach,” I tell him. “He did. They did, not you.”

He raises his watery eyes. “I will help you. All of it. I will get you inside the synagogue, find you the pills, save the girl. Damn that despicable bastard to hell.”

“I have something to offer you that might help,” I say. “It’s not here. But if you need to trade it for the little girl’s life... It’s a violin. Extremely valuable. A Stradivarius.”

He places his hand to his forehead. “Seriously, Bina. What are you doing with one of those?”

“The girl I told you about, she’s from the Behrman family.”

“Why is that name so familiar?” he asks.

I roll my eyes. “Because we saw them perform at least a dozen times at the symphony together.” If only I could be sitting and gossiping with Stach at the symphony in my parents’ box seats.

“Yes, of course, I know who they are. Keep the violin for now.” He walks over to his desk, searches for the key, unlocks the middle drawer, grabs a thick wad of cash—he seems to have an endless supply—and a pistol. He shoves the cash inside his coat, the pistol into his waistband. “But you are not going anywhere. Stay here, in my office,” he orders, and I’m instantly reminded of when he played King Lear. Same bullying tone. “I will be back in a few hours.”

“And your assistant, the mole?” I gesture to the door.

“I’m going to send him out on a meaningless errand that will take him the rest of the day.” He pauses, grabs his overcoat off the coatrack. “Please, don’t do anything stupid.”