Chapter Twenty-Four

APRIL 19, 1943

WITH THE FIRST glimmer of dawn, we are as ready as we will ever be. None of the fighters went back to sleep. Who could sleep? Instead, we drank more, laughed harder, shared stories from our pasts—our ghetto past. The past prior to our captivity has long been erased. Zelda, of course, makes the final toast with a rousing “redemption through resistance” speech.

“L’chaim. Here’s to life, our lives,” she says. But this time, her toast is not with a glass of whiskey. Instead, she raises one of Tosia’s dynamite specials high above her head. “Go big, my friends. Go hard,” she urges. “We are going to sabotage those bastards as soon as they enter the central gates. We have already laid mines all around the entrance. We will wait until a large platoon is inside, and then we’ll set off the explosives. After that, they will surely send in tanks. The goal is to hit those goddamn tanks immediately. Lob those grenades. Blow them up, don’t hesitate. Our secret weapon is the element of surprise. We have only one shot at this. Don’t stop, don’t pause, don’t breathe, don’t retreat. No matter what.”

We all know what that means. Don’t stop fighting until you’re dead.

Jakub has been assigned to report everything as it unfolds. He will need to move through the ghetto like a mouse and record the details as though he were a war correspondent, which he is. Zelda said it is crucial to get the news of our revolt out to the rest of the Jews in Europe. To tell a different story, that there is another way. No more walking into the ovens like sheep to the slaughter, rather encouraging fighting back like hungry wolves to the end. “Our story is not simply a story, Jakub. It defines our survival as Jews,” Zelda tells him. “This is the history we must tell. Now do it.”

Jakub is our designated Josephus—Flavius Josephus, a first-century Jewish-Roman historian and military leader, the recorder of heroic Jewish tales. Bald and emaciated, my husband has never been so fired up, so light on his feet. The color has returned to his face. He meets my smile with a smile. I am proud of him, and for the first time in our marriage, he feels it.

It’s only been twelve hours. We haven’t fought, haven’t touched, but we are sharing a renewed appreciation for each other—for surviving. His way and mine. I now respect the pen in his hand, and he knows the guns in our hands are my doing. On the other hand—the invisible one—I am witnessing a new disturbing development evolving before my eyes.

Her name is Tosia.

As Zelda discusses details of our battle plan, I notice Aleksander and Tosia exchanging furtive glances. My heart clinches. The way he is looking at her, and how she twirls her fingers through her reddish curls, the alluring sparkle in her gray-green cat eyes looking right back at him. Did you two get close when you made bombs together? I yearn to bang my fists on the wooden table and demand an explanation. What about me, Aleks? I’m alive. I came back for you. Just look at her. All those freckles, you can barely see her pale skin beneath the scarlet clusters. Look at me, damn it. Yes, Tosia is smart, skilled, creative. But I’m smarter, more skilled, more creative. Look at the guns in your hands. I did that, not Tosia. Me.

Zelda’s right brow is arched like a bow pulled too far, and her scolding eyes are shooting arrows in my direction. She’s warning me to stop the nonsense. I angle my shoulders and cast my gaze downward. I’m being a child. I’m married. Jakub is alive, right here next to me. Aleksander is not mine, never was. My cheeks burn. I excuse myself to the bathroom and dash into the small makeshift commode that barely fits a human.

Examining my reflection in the tiny mirror over the washbasin, I acknowledge what I see isn’t pretty. The green-eyed monster has consumed my face. Aleksander’s attention is firmly, pointedly, on the bomb maker and not me. He needs to prove that he doesn’t desire me. That I’m Jezebel and he is innocent—still the good brother.

I splash water on my face. He is right.

I return to the table as Zelda discusses our advantages over our enemy: the will to fight to the death, that we choose how we die, and that we know all the ghetto’s hiding spaces—from fake floorboards to attic passageways, to underground tunnels to bunker hideouts to rooftops. We have geographical advantage, she says. It’s our turf. Blah, blah, blah. I hear but don’t hear. Aleksander is half smiling at Tosia in the same way he looked at me that night. I could scream.

Zelda stands for the finale, her closing arguments in our makeshift war room. “This is our moment to avenge our loved ones.” She smiles broadly, and it is truly her loveliest feature, softening the severity of her resting pinched expression. “Today is payback.”

I glance at the youngest members in the room, at their gritty faces, their fledgling fists curled at their sides, ready for action. Zelda turns to the more than one hundred resistance members of all ages packed inside the bunker. “We have enough guns for each of us. Do. Not. Waste. A. Single. Bullet,” she commands, acknowledging each face slowly with her piercing, slow-moving panoramic stare, a general sending her ill-equipped unit onto the front lines knowing that every soldier matters. “Make every shot count. If you are hit, shoot one more time. The last word must be yours.”