The Family Behind the Walls

15. Jordanna

FIFTEEN

JORDANNA

AUGUST 14TH, 1943 – ?óD?, POLAND

Wisps of grass tickles my nose after being pulled to the ground, fast and without warning. For a moment, I’m back at the park near home, resting on a picnic blanket. But then I open my eyes, to the endless field surrounding me. I push myself up to my knees and spot the person who grabbed me—not an assailant at all.

Alfie. His beautiful jade eyes are full of words he isn’t speaking. He’s here to work too. “Hi,” he says with his breath. He recognizes me—even without hair—a face as neutral as all the rest. He swallows hard and his forehead creases with both concern and relief. I want to hug him, beg him not to leave me—make me feel better—but I wouldn’t do that even if we weren’t under a watchful eye.

“You’re here,” I say, more for myself, wondering if I’m imagining him.

“Mistakes will not be tolerated,” a guard shouts. “Mistakes result in punishment. We work. We don’t speak.” She leans over another child and screams the orders into their ear once more.

I glance at Alfie, tense, worried how much worse it might be here on the field than in quarantine, but he isn’t paying attention to the guard.

I tap his knee then point to my ear, wondering if his hearing is any better. He’s quick to wag his hand and whispers, “A little,” before returning his attention to the soil.

A smile threatens to tug at my lips, but I can sense a pair of eyes boring into my back. Alfie moves to his left, creating enough space for me to squeeze in between him and the boy on the other side.

“Watch me,” he whispers, focusing on the plant. He digs a circle around it, tugs at the stem, and uses his shovel again to widen the hole. With a second pull, a mound of dirt comes free, revealing potatoes. He removes the larger ones, leaves the smaller ones attached, and re-buries the plant.

The field stretches out before us, with rows of green sprouting plants. Others have already moved up a row or two. Another working boy, maybe a year or two younger than me, walks down our line, dropping potato sacks for us to fill. I suppose it’s clear what I’ll be doing all day.

No one speaks, only works. There are plenty of older prisoner guards keeping a watch on us that it seems impossible to do much else but dig.

“Is Lilli all right?” Alfie whispers as I dig my first circle.

“Yes,” I whisper back, but he peers at me from the corner of his eye and I don’t know if he’s questioning me or isn’t hearing much at all still. I nod my head to answer again. This time, his shoulders fall, and he takes a deep breath.

“Thank God.”

“We’ve been in quarantine since arriving,” I whisper again, wondering if he’ll peer over again.

He doesn’t.

There’s so much I want to say and he’s right here but there might as well be a brick wall between us. I try and focus on digging up the potato roots, avoiding the thought and feeling of the sun bearing down on my pale bald head and neck. I saw some other girls wearing scarves over their heads, but I don’t know where they acquired them.

A shriek from down the row startles me into dropping my shovel. I peer down to see what’s happening and watch a boy being dragged backward by a guard. He’s screaming and crying.

“Don’t look,” Alfie utters.

What did he do wrong? I need to know. How do we know how to avoid the same mistake?

“This was your dinner, but you left it behind. Now it’s gone. Tonight, when you’re starving, you’ll remember how important each potato is, won’t you?” The guard’s words are loud enough to hear without watching the scene. Starvation is a punishment. We’ve all been starving, living off bread and soup water with potato peels, and a thick coffee-like substance. We’re allowed to pump water twice a day, never able to be fully satisfied or even a little, really. I keep wondering how long we can survive without enough food.

With each potato I drop into the sack, I consider taking a bite, dirt-covered, raw, and all.

As Alfie is plucking potatoes, I notice a slash on his right arm. My heart swells, wondering what happened, if he was one of the children who had been whipped.

I glance around for watchful eyes, finding the guards focused on others so I reach over and grab his wrist. His gaze falls to my hand then he pulls his sleeve down to cover the wound. “I’m okay,” he says softly. We aren’t clean here. We’re sleeping, eating, and working in dirt.

The thought reminds me of Papa’s war stories…Mama would always follow his stories with: “They’re trained to survive in inhuman conditions. They know how to take care of themselves in all conditions. It’s nothing you’ll ever have to worry about, my darlings.” She couldn’t have known life would lead us here.

The last story Papa told us was more than a year ago now, but I remember the moment so clearly still:

I scowl at Papa, listening to him tell me about the one night they had to sleep in mud. “What’s interesting, sweetheart, is that while this story might sound awful, it was the most comfortable sleep I had gotten in weeks that summer. The mud kept us cool. It made me think about the natural resources around me and what else I could take advantage of when we were feeling like all hope was lost for us in our battle. Nature has a way of keeping us alive if we’re smart enough to take advantage of what’s right in front of us.”

“Like what?” I ask him. “Besides mud.”

“Eating your greens, catching rain in tins, using vegetables to heal wounds, and leaves—they can do just about anything to help most situations.”

I imagine Papa wrapping himself in leaves to stay safe in battles, but I’m not convinced it could work that easily. “You had greens to eat? I thought most of your food came in tins?”

“Sure, we had greens. Dandelions were our favorite snack some days, and a handful of green clovers could be considered eating a mouthful of luck,” he says with laughter.

“Leo, what are you filling her head with? She’s going to be foraging through the woods eating poisonous berries,” Mama scolds him.

“Don’t eat berries unless you know what they are. Trust me. That never ends well.” His laughter tells me there’s a story about bad berries too.

Moving through the field of potato plants, I spot grassy areas in the distance abutted to a line of trees separating us from what I assume to be more greenery on the other side.

I wonder where the trees lead. Is it a way out? A way in? I think I see people between the trees. Could that be? Are they waiting for us? To take us away? I blink and the people are gone. I blink again and they’re back.

Sweat is rolling down my arms like raindrops—the thought of rain is something of a dream at this point. My skin is tight, burning, and my heart is throbbing. They haven’t given us our daily soup and I don’t have a bowl.

Alfie says something to me, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. His fingers sweep against my face before he lunges toward me as nightfall settles in, blinding me as it does before bed.

A sting across my cheek rattles my brain around. “Sit up. You have to sit up right away.” Alfie is growling at me. Confusion dangles above my head as I’m not quite sitting or lying down, but Alfie’s face is all I can see. He keeps looking from one side to the other. “Get up, Jordanna. You fainted. We can’t let the guard see you like this. You’ll be all right.” He squeezes his hand around my knee but all I feel are pins and needles.

“Dandelions would be nice,” I say.

He stares at me, his brow furrowing. He points to the sky off in the distance. “Rain is coming. Stay upright.”

Rain? It hasn’t rained in weeks. My body sways in slow circles, and the sweat on my face catches a slight breeze. It feels good.

With another glance toward the trees, I find Mama wearing her strawberry-pink rain bonnet, staring up at the sky.

“Mama?” I call out, my words struggling for sound against my ragged breaths.

“What’s the issue over here?” The voice breaks through the thick air, sharp and biting before a strike to my back forces the air out of my lungs, leaving me to fight for a pinched gasp. Pain shoots through me as my knees give out and I fall forward, my forehead thudding against the pebbled dirt. Again, I stifle a breath, pulling in more gritty dry dirt than air. The dusty substance burns within my dry throat.

“Are you unable to work?” a girl shouts, her voice poisoned with venom and impatience.

My vision distorts with colorful spots, stinging from sweat and tears, but I can make out her figure, daunting and stiff as she towers over me, waiting for an answer I don’t give fast enough. She kicks me again, this time to the side of my ribs, and much harder, the force flipping me onto my back before enduring another throb from my head hitting the ground. A burst of light sparks behind my eyes as a sharp pain sears down my spine. For a moment, I’m unsure if I might pass out again.

The ground beneath me is unforgiving, unsteady, and small rocks dig into my palms as I try to hold myself steady. A ringing in my ears silences my surroundings. All I can hear is my pulse pounding against my temples. My breaths are shallow, and my chest is tight. My vision is still blurry as I try to force myself back upright, but the trembling in my hands prevents me from getting up. I slip against the dirt and try again, pushing against the burn in my weak muscles.

Mama’s words ring in my ears, “ You are tougher than you give yourself credit for and you can accomplish things your mind would never imagine. Trust me, sweetheart .” Sometimes it feels as if she’s spent a lifetime preparing us for what she could never have imagined.

“Yes, I can work,” I manage to croak, unsure if my voice is loud enough for anyone to hear. The effort to speak makes my stomach clench, forcing me to swallow back the threat of bile rising up to my throat. I can’t give in to the weakness, not here, not like this.

The guard spares me another glance, carrying on down the row of others with her hands clasped behind her back, her chin in the air. I watch as she moves along, waiting for her to turn back and come after me with another strike.

Alfie stands just a couple steps away, his eyes wide and his face pale. He looks at me as if I’m a ghost, and his heavy breaths tell me he’s struggling to keep himself together too. He blinks hard, holding his eyes closed a moment as if trying to shut out the scene in front of him. He finally sucks in a sharp shuddering breath and stabs his shovel back into the dirt.

I force myself to stand, my legs frailer than toothpicks as I try to steady my balance. “I want to run away,” I whisper, keeping my voice quieter than the passing breeze. “Let’s run away.”

He can’t hear me, and therefore doesn’t respond. It’s obvious he still can’t hear a thing despite what he said earlier. I watch him continuing this tireless labor and all I can do is endure the pang of helplessness in my chest. We’re both hurting so much and couldn’t be more disconnected, even while standing right beside each other.

My nerves fray as I reach for my shovel, still fighting to hold myself upright. My hands refuse to tighten into a strong enough grip needed to make a dent in the ground. Still, I try the best I can, watching dirt flutter around my feet.

I can’t go on this way. I’m away from Lilli and unable to communicate with Alfie. The momentary slice of hope I felt when seeing him here is slipping away, knowing that with only silence between us, our chances of helping each other are dwindling.

The heaviness of despair bears on my chest, holding me back from answers too far out of reach. Even the darkening sky and dense air are against me, making it impossible for me to see past this moment. Alfie and Lilli need me. Mama must have always felt like this about us, but she never stumbled to find a fix for every problem, big or small. What would she do now? How many times in an hour can I ask myself this same question? At fifteen, I should know more. I should know better.

She would tell me the answer is most often right in front of you . So, I stare at the pebbles beneath my shovel, watching them bounce from everyone else digging around me. The ting-ting-ting from shovels against rock reminds me of—a pattern.

We’re in our living room, sitting around our coffee table with Papa on the sofa, leaning in toward us. “Did you hear it?” he asked us.

“The pattern,” Mama says, from the corner of the room, watching with a smile. “Listen for the patterns.”

“You said…‘It’s time for Max to go to bed.’” I blurt out.

Papa tilts his head and raises his brow in my direction.

“Not even close,” Max says with a snicker.

“Do it again, Papa!” Lilli squeals, bouncing up and down on her knees in her blue nightgown, her coiled pigtails swinging in every direction.

“You don’t understand what it means either,” Max teases Lilli.

“You know, we should use this to our advantage in class. No one will know what we’re saying,” Alfie says.

All they need is more ways to keep secrets, I groan to myself. “Alfie, shouldn’t you be getting home?” I nudge my shoulder into his.

“Jordanna,” Mama scolds me. “Alfie’s parents said he could spend the night. Don’t be rude to our guest.”

“He might as well just live here.” I sigh. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but he doesn’t need to know I feel that way.

Mama clears her throat but ignores me. “Go on, darling. Show them one more time. Then you’re off to bed, little mouse,” Mama tells Lilli.

“All right then, let’s see here…” Papa says.

He lifts his pencil and begins tapping it against the coffee table.

[ — ..— —. / ..—. — — — .—. / —... . —.. ]

dah dit-dit dah-dah dit / dit-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dah dit-dah-dah-dit /

dah-dit-dit-dit dit dah-dit-dit

He really did say it was time for bed this round, just maybe not to Max specifically. Max and I have been proficient in Morse code since we were Lilli’s age, but she and Alfie have been learning together over the last years.

“Time for bed!” Alfie shouts. That’s an easy one for Alfie. He picked up Morse code quickly.

“Time for bed!” Lilli repeats.

“Look at that, honey! All the children know Morse code. Now, if you ever must talk to someone in secret, this will solve all your problems, as long as they know Morse code too, of course.”

It’s not like we’ll be sending secret war codes over a radio during a war, but Papa feels strongly about teaching us skills that he says saved his life when he was fighting during the Great War.

Mama smiles. “I’m sure that’ll come in handy when they’re asking me for a glass of water in the middle of the night,” she jokes. “It’s a wonderful skill for you to all have. You never know when you might need it. We should all be lucky Papa has been able to teach us all.”

I never thought all those years of learning Morse code from Papa would ever help me in my lifetime. Yet, it’s like he knew all along, we might someday be desperate for a way to communicate without speaking, but only if the other person knows Morse code too. Alfie does, thanks to Papa.

I jog through my memory, recalling the patterns that symbolize letters. It hasn’t been that long. After a long moment, I begin to tap out the words. “We need to find a way out.”

It takes Alfie a few seconds to peek back at me. “How?” he whispers.

He understood. My chin trembles as I fight back tears, knowing I’ve found a way to talk to him. If anyone was over the age of forty here, I’d worry they might be familiar with Morse code, but no one is older than seventeen. Not here. Only at the barracks.

“What block are you in?” I tap out my next question.

“Four. You?”

It takes me a minute to think about the code in number format. Then I remember how silly it is that the number one and zero are two of the longest tap codes: one short and four long then five long. I tap out the number ten with my knuckle between his knee and mine while continuing to scoop dirt out of a hole with my other hand.

A booming thud follows my last tap, and I whip my head around looking for where it came from. Alfie jumps and looks around too. It doesn’t take long before we both gasp at the sight of a girl who’s collapsed face forward onto the ground.

“She’s dead,” someone says, their voice calm and unconcerned.

“You!” another voice shouts. “Take her to the truck and collect her clothes.”

She’s pointing at Alfie, who’s not looking at her because he hasn’t heard the guard with a whip in her hand. I keep my focus set on the guard but with subtlety, reach behind me and tap Alfie’s knee. He stands up and steps forward in front of me when he spots the guard pointing at him. His knees wobble and his fists clench at his side. What does she want him to do?