Chapter 30 Stefan
THIRTY
STEFAN
SANOK, POLAND
This old brick building has always felt like a second home to me.
Silberg Textiles, the factory that I would keep running just as well as Father and Grandfather—if the Nazis hadn’t seized the business two years ago.
I would have never imagined myself living beneath the factory like this—like a scavenging rodent.
Going on fourteen months of trying to find resources, connections, food, and updates on the war and coming up short each day.
A stolen radio does nothing but give more bad news.
I’ve risked slipping out into the streets at night, searching for any visible member of the resistance who might have more information than me or who might be able to help me find Rosalie and my family.
But all I’ve found are dark roads, void of people.
The wooden board beneath scrapes against the jagged stone floor as I feel around for the fraying end of a string.
I must have swept it away when I was asleep.
Once I find it, I yank it just enough, so the lightbulb flickers to life.
I lift my wrist overhead and squint through one eye to read the time on my watch.
Sleeping during the day just to remain awake at night hasn’t become easier over the months.
Sleeping in general feels impossible more days than not.
I lie here, sketching notes into dust with my fingertip—routes I could take toward the Sanok Jewish Ghetto.
The mice scamper around my head, pipes drip, and machinery rumbles from the floors above.
The noises are chaos in my head while I try to remember the sound of Rosalie’s voice, the smell of her hair, her gentle touch.
I don’t know if she’s all right. I don’t know if my family is alive. And I’m going mad, feeling as though I’m trapped in a different world than they’re in.
I roll to my side, my back aching, head pulsating, and stomach cramping with hunger. My boots rest on the cobwebbed shelf next to my paper-wrapped bottles of pills. I pat down my pocket, making sure my documentation is still on me, and grab my boots to slip on.
Every footstep along the corroding cement floor catches shards of broken material, debris from aging bricks along the wall, and dirt. “Bruno, Eryk,” I whisper, their names sounding like a quick zip on my tongue.
From both sides of me, in the shadows of shallow wall inlets, the two of them sit up as if I’ve scolded them. I’m the only one who just manages to wake up at the same hour every night. I can’t fault them.
“I’m awake,” Bruno says.
“Yes—same,” Eryk follows. They’re quick about shoving their feet into boots and hopping up, ready to scavenge the building for food.
“I was dreaming about overstuffed dumplings, fresh and warm from my grandmother’s kitchen,” Bruno says.
Both mine and Eryk’s stomachs rumble in response.
I’m only a bit younger than the two of them.
They both work here and have worked here for years.
First for my father, then for the Nazis who forced them to labor without say.
They aren’t Jewish, which makes them luckier than me, but both have families living down here too, just in another storage space.
None of them have anything left to their names.
Finding a dry spot to call home was their only option, and I’m grateful for the companionship.
Still, I know I’m the most restless of them all.
I’m a danger to them if we’re found down here.
I can’t just sit here, feeding off the scraps we find.
Not when half of my heart is missing outside these walls.
Only the three of us go up to the main floor to find what we can at night. At least the nights where there isn’t a lazy police officer squatting on behalf of a Nazi.
The first two flights of stairs lead to an exterior vent, offering a view just wide enough to check for a watchman.
The rain is coming down harder than a garden spigot and the gated post at the entrance, where a police officer would be standing for the night, vacant.
“All clear,” I tell the other two, stepping down from the crate we keep lined up beneath the vent.
“Is the old man asleep or missing?” Eryk asks.
“Missing. It’s raining.”
“Ah, he’d melt. Of course,” Bruno adds.
The factory floor is dark and quiet, just a hum of electricity running through wires. As we do most nights, we go from office to office, rummaging through drawers for scraps of food left behind. Only a few of the Nazi officials who “manage” the factory lock their doors when leaving for the night.
“The big office is unlocked,” Bruno hisses.
The big office—the one Father used as a living room type of setting for workers to come in and feel at home when talking with him.
Now it looks like the Reichstag vomited blood all over the room.
The desk is made of mahogany, shined with a frosted glass top, and fitted with a forest-green leather chair.
The door may be unlocked, but the desk drawers are what matters.
I pull my sleeve down below my palm and tug on the drawer, finding it gives way.
Tins of food line the drawer and my mouth waters, imagining what might be inside.
We must be careful of what we take so they never suspect our evening raids.
Mama used to bake sweets and send them to the factory in tins just like these, always ensuring there was enough to go around.
Bruno is on the other side of the desk and Eryk is behind him pulling open sliding doors on a hutch while I’m compiling small amounts of food from the tins. A plop and shuffle pull my attention toward Eryk as he’s trying to catch a load of addressed envelopes spilling out of the hutch.
“Shi—argh—sorry, I didn’t know—”
I drop the food onto a piece of notepaper on the desk and spin around to help get the envelopes cleaned up.
“What is all of this?” I say more to myself than to the other two. Father never got behind with his correspondence or bills.
I see his name scrolled across several envelopes with old company accounts, and some letters with unfamiliar handwriting. Then…some with my initials.
That handwriting is different. Smaller, deliberate loops. My heart skips a beat before pounding against my ribcage.
There is no return address—only Silberg Textiles written in heavy pen, the strokes jagged and bleeding with inkpots. Intercepted mail? Is that what this is? The German-run administration in the factory must have kept them for their records…or forgotten about them during changes of leadership.
I don’t understand why they would end up here without an address—how just my name could point to Silberg Textiles, even after my family was taken and my father reported me as living abroad.
My chest tightens. Could it be? Could she have been writing to me all this time?
For months, I’ve been desperately searching for a way to find her, and all this time, the answer might be here in ink, hidden by the enemy.
My hands shake as I scramble through the other envelopes, searching for anything that has my name or Father’s.
“What is it?” Eryk asks.
“Letters addressed to my father and me.” I don’t want to say any more. Not until I know for sure. The food matters very little at this moment, but I know we need to eat.
I shove the envelopes into my coat pocket then scoop the food up in the paper.
“There isn’t any other food over here,” Bruno says.
“We should have enough for tomorrow and the day after now,” I say, my words rushed, urgent. I need to get back downstairs so I can open these letters.
What if someone else writes the way Rosalie does?
My heart might not be able to take that type of tease.
I don’t know who sends Father mail, but maybe whoever it is could be a link to finding him and the others.
My heart is full of far too much hope to be let down.
This must be something. We’ve searched every part of this factory for supplies and food, finding little to survive on, but we haven’t found access to notable papers or documents, especially ones with a possible outside source until now.
Back in the cellar, I hand over two-thirds of the food to Bruno and Eryk before dropping onto my knees in my small nook in the wall.
I slide the letters out of my pocket and shield them in front of me.
They’re postmarked, the oldest from a year ago last May.
The newest is from just a couple of weeks ago.
My heart thunders and I can’t keep a steady grip on the envelope. Please God. Let this be her. Please.
I slip my finger beneath the flap then pull the note out, the paper torn off the top and bottom.
May 12, 1942
Dear Stefan,
I’m sorry I haven’t been able to write to you sooner. Going to the post wasn’t an option. I’m not sure if this letter will even find you, but I’ve been pleading with all the stars in heaven that it does. I’m desperate to know if you’re all right and safe.
If someone is kind enough to deliver this to you, remember the letters on the front. Write back, using them exactly how you see them, and a courier will know where to deliver it.
I want to tell you everything, where I am, but I know nothing I write on paper will be safe. I’ll try my best to explain.
The one who took me knew where to find me. I’m in their personal territory, but it could be much worse. I’m able to remain safe for the time being, but I can’t leave. It isn’t an option.
I’m still in the country. Same hour, but too far away to walk.
The wife is with child and requires aid. I’m not sure what will happen after delivery.
If you’re somewhere safe. Please, stay safe. As soon as they release me—if they release me, I will find you.
I’m not sorry for going in first. I don’t regret my decision.
Because I love you with all my heart.
I’ll write again soon, as soon as I can.
Love,
R
I flip the envelope over, searching for the letters she mentions.
One corner flap is bent, and I carefully press it back, finding slightly smudged letters, written in red lead: XjrKoII.
A code, but no return address. She didn’t tell me where I can physically find her.
The hints aren’t enough. Too far away to walk?
Nothing is too far…
She’s alive. She’s safe. For now. Or then, when she sent this.
My heart races as I reach for the most recent letter, not able to weed through the rest first. I need to know she’s still all right. She must be if she’s written. She must be.
I tear open the envelope with haste and unfold the same type of paper, shredded at the top and bottom.
April 17, 1943
Dear Stefan,
Another letter. Another day of not giving up hope that you’re alive.
The baby of this couple is eight months old now, but they still require help. I’ve begged to be released but it didn’t end well, and I won’t be doing that again.
I wish there was a way for me to know you are safe. But as I’ve mentioned in earlier letters, I won’t receive correspondence through the post. And no one like us is allowed in the area I’m in.
I hope you know…If a clock could speak in syllables rather than measures, there would be two more hours today. What I wouldn’t give for any hour to read your words. For us to find each other and connect through time…
You might have been born on the third of April, ’21, but I’ll never forget the following twelve months that led to the 21st of April, ’23 at 11:01.
Those fifteen years, eighteen hours, twenty-three minutes, and nine seconds brought us together in May at the thirteenth hour of the day.
Time will wait for us. Time is always the answer.
I love you. Every day, every hour, every minute, second, and breath.
R
I read the note again, scratching my head, confused and wondering whether she’s all right, coherent, and aware of what she’s saying. My birthday isn’t the 3rd of April. I wasn’t born in 1921, or on the 21st of April in 1923.
Fifteen years? That would have been 1938. We met in 1940. May. We lost the business in May but in the morning, not after noon.
My eyes strain the longer I stare at her words, rereading the entire note repeatedly before stopping at:
Time is always the answer.
What I wouldn’t give for any hour to read your words…
If a clock could speak syllables…
I lie back down, shoving my coat beneath my head, and clutch her letters against my chest. Time is always the answer.
My eyes burn as I imagine the numbers on the wall beside me.
Numbers. Not dates. Not hours. Letters. A code—a message she’s trying to send me, so I’ll find her. I swear on my life I will find her.