Chapter 44 Rosalie
FORTY-FOUR
ROSALIE
SANOK, POLAND
The cottage I grew up in along the wooded outskirts of Sanok was abandoned.
I don’t know when. I don’t know what else these walls have seen, but they experienced the beginning and end of life both at the same time alongside me.
And they look just as I remember. Outside, ivy has grown around the structure like a protective glove, camouflaging a home against the earth.
My journey home from Maja’s village took weeks. Weeks of doubt. Weeks of hope. Weeks of exhaustion, desperation, and fear of the unknown.
Maja pressed a loaf of bread into my hands and kissed my forehead.
“The roads are not safe, not by any measure. Stay by the edge of the woods when possible. If you face a soldier, don’t say a word.
” She yanked the reins of her horse and circled around me to return to where she came.
I knew it was the last time I’d see her.
Along the road, I passed strangers in torn clothing with hope-starved eyes and concave stomachs, some clutching bundles of fabric, others with their hands hanging heavily by their side.
In the days following Germany’s defeat, soldiers passed by, acting as though they were being pulled somewhere by rope.
I hid in a barn, praying the farmer wouldn’t find me in the morning.
I bartered away my scarf for some crumbs of bread.
By foot and by stowaway on cargo trains, I traveled through dozens of villages, fields of untouched pasture, between mountains and above valleys, across rivers, and alongside streams.
I questioned if I could make it back to Sanok. Then I remembered I questioned if I would survive living along the outskirts of Auschwitz. I risked my life too many times to still be alive, which leaves me in a constant state of wonder—a need to understand my purpose in life.
Is it to live alone for my eternity?
Is it to know love and appreciate what I had versus what I have?
Or is it some unknown event that will alter everything I thought I understood?
When Mama died, I learned that a person who doesn’t move within a set frame of time, won’t accomplish the impossible.
Papa believed that all unpredictable events could be prevented if they followed proper time.
Then when Papa died, my heart told me that time had no relevance.
His life was over because it was the end, and nothing could have changed that.
And Stefan, he devoutly stated that time would find us because our love was something eternal, and we were the beginning and end.
Despite the internal battle to keep moving in my search for Stefan, I took Maja’s advice: “Wait in your old cottage and find your strength in patience.” It sounded like something Papa would tell me if he were here. So that’s what I’ve done.
I’ve been back here in Sanok for just over three months.
Though it seems more like days since I stepped into an old worn photograph—a sliver of a memory.
This isn’t the village I remember. It’s barren, quiet, and in ruins from air-raids.
The Germans are gone, and the Soviets didn’t find interest in our village, but that doesn’t change the outcome of the war.
I’ve spent every single day of the last few months questioning the meaning of time, desiring some greater answer to something I might have never understood. Wondering why Papa lived by the value of time and what about it offered him solace after Mama passed. I needed that.
Despite the intense damage to the square and many of the buildings, the library still stands, intact as if it was protected over all else. Even the door was unlocked.
Amid a village where life resembles a warped old photograph, I found books.
Aristotle, Plato, Newton, Marcus Aurelius…
Philosophers of time, each with a different conclusion.
People don’t view time the same way. People don’t view faiths the same way.
Yet, we co-exist in one world. No one can fit into one category, which means we need to understand the categories in which each person belongs.
I’ve read every available book about time, and when I closed the last cover, I knew what was meant to come next…
I close the door to the cottage and set out through the flourishing forest that masks the disarray, fragments, and debris left behind from a war of hate.
It’s still hard to walk around, knowing there are so few of us here now, but I believe the people of Sanok will come back someday. Those who survived. Those who fled home for safety.
For the last two weeks, I’ve been sweeping rubble and moving piles of brick and stone in a corner of the square, using the tattered clock tower as my north star and reminder of why I’m making the first dent in cleaning the destruction.
Someone must be the first. Someone needs to begin moving the remains of war into the past where it belongs, clearing it for a future.
Aristotle believes there can be no future without progress of today, which means I don’t have to sit and wait for time to find me. I can work toward finding time.
The broom isn’t where I left it yesterday. Up against the library, between the window and door. Maybe someone else began to clean after I left, but I’ve only seen people passing through the square, most avoiding the sights—avoiding the pain of what’s left.
I circle the square, questioning if I moved the broom and forgot, but stop where the clock tower casts a shadow over me, blocking the sun with its narrow shape.
The clock hasn’t moved from two-fifteen since I’ve been back.
Time here is as still as the village. The brick on the side of the tower was blown off, leaving nothing more than the interior walls intact.
Even the village hall is full of rubble, the windows blown in, doors gone.
All those memories I had—the ones I swore were tainted with grief and heartache from Mama’s loss, were beautiful compared to this destruction.
When I first decided to start clearing the square, I pulled some charred bricks away from the clock tower’s entrance and began clearing a path toward the center stairwell—the spine of this building, but stopped when I reached the stairs.
A cold sweat. Racing heart. Pain in my stomach…
I was afraid of the mess I’d find upstairs. Afraid to face the space I lived in—afraid to find all those memories I had with Papa, gone. So, I walked away. Left the clock tower in its state of despair. Turned my back to it and started sweeping the opposite corner of the square instead.
But with the tower’s shadow claiming me now, I can’t look away.
I close my eyes, recalling the first time I brought Stefan up here, excited and nervous, acting as if I didn’t care about him one bit when spending that time with him was all I could think about.
The memory carries me up and around the spiral steps.
My breath struggles as I reach the top. I never had trouble running up these stairs before.
I’ve just lived a lifetime since I’ve done it last.
I take a long inhale just before climbing up the last stair. My throat goes dry. I silently plead not to find swastikas and flags, or worse. Maybe just what Papa left behind—what I couldn’t remove after he passed.
I peek through slitted eyes, finding the polished floor clear of debris.
Papa’s worktable where I left it, the pieces and parts organized into piles as he’d want them.
The kitchenette has a layer of grime and dust but still tidy.
The only remarkable difference is the silence—no movement of the pendulum, wheels or gears.
Papa would always check the escapement first. He said it’s the heart of the clock.
If it fails, all parts stop. I move toward the left side of the tower but stop on my toes as the floor begins to rumble.
The remnants of the glass from the windows rattle. Another plane?
No. It’s over. The war ended. No more planes.
I clutch my chest, pressing the key into my flesh.
A loud thwack follows. Then another.
A woosh joins, forward, then back.
Forward, then back.
A scuffle from the side moves me to the nearest beam, hiding behind it.
“At least the clock’s working again.”
I grab the beam, digging my fingernails into the wood and poke my head around the side, eyes wide, jaw agape.
For a moment, my mind refuses to believe what I could so easily imagine. The world sways around me as I reach out, frightened my fingers will pass through him like a breath of smoke.
“Stefan…” His name catches on a gasp for air.
A choked cry quakes in his throat as he stumbles backward, his hair falling to the side of his face—the way he wore it back—before.
The measure of an eternity passes before his eyes meet mine, wide with shock, disbelief, and plea.
“Rosalie,” he cries out my name through a raw rasp. “Rosalie!” He screams this time and launches himself toward me. He wraps me in his arms so tightly, I can hardly breathe. I don’t need to breathe. I don’t need to hold my breath and wonder if he’s alive. Because he’s here. He’s here.
Tears spill down my cheeks, and I choke back a sob that feels stuck between anguish and reprieve. I lift my shaking hand to his jaw, marveling at the warmth beneath my fingertips. “Yo-you’re rea-lly here,” I whisper in broken syllables.
He cradles my shoulders, his touch suddenly so delicate it’s as if he fears I’ll shatter into dust. He stares at me with astonishment—an emotion I share after fearing he had died somewhere between that hell and here too.
“Somehow…I barely—made it.” His arms shake as he pulls me into his chest.
“How?” my voice breaks.
He exhales, as though forcing a breath into his lungs.
“I—I dashed away from the forced march…collapsed in a snowdrift so deep I thought it would bury me before I— But a hunter found me. He dragged me out of the snow when I thought…I felt it might have been…the end. He and his wife kept me alive. Those first few days are a blur now. Some of it still seems impossible. I was freezing and my mind wasn’t working.
I remember thinking to myself that you must have somehow sent that hunter to me. ”
I wasn’t born to the Jewish faith, but Stefan and his family are the ones who taught me what it means to believe in something bigger than myself.
I curl my arm around my stomach, pressing against the pain. “And after that?”
His lips brush the loose strands of hair dangling over my neck.
“When I left, I had a hard time believing the war was truly over. Every road felt like a trap. I hid in the shadows of trees when I could. I read headlines—Germans defeated, some captured, some dead. Still, I didn’t trust any of it.
At one point, I stumbled into a Red Cross station for displaced persons.
They promised me food and papers, a way to help me get home.
I didn’t even know what county I was in, or how far away from Sanok I was.
I debated the pain of sitting and waiting among so many others, but I wasn’t sure I could make it much farther on my own. ”
My chin trembles as I try to find my voice. “The endless march you were on haunted me every day.”
Stefan lets out a small chuckle. “Me too. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget…
The Red Cross transferred me to other displacement centers, repeatedly, promising me they’d get me home as soon as possible.
The weeks bled into each other until one last seat opened on a train heading south.
I stared out the window at the world passing me by, telling myself I made it this far for a reason.
Rosalie, I never gave up hope that I’d find you. ”
“All this time—you’ve been living on hope…for me?” I whisper.
He presses his forehead to mine, tears seeping between us. “My heart knew where to find you. Even when I doubted the possibility that both of us could somehow make it through and back home…if you were somewhere, it would be here.”
“I came back for the very same reason,” I confess, my voice cracking.
He exhales hard, his arms trembling around me. “I promised I would find you, when the time was right.” His tears streak down my neck.
“Time found us,” I whisper. “Just like you said.”
Stefan pinches the fabric of my dress between his fingers. “Everything you did…every risk, every choice—kept me alive. The thought of you kept me moving because I knew if I stopped—it would all be over. You saved my life.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t know what I was doing, except following my heart. And I thought it failed me when I needed it most. I didn’t save you.”
He pulls back just enough to peer down into my eyes. “You won’t win this argument. Every step you took in the last six years brought us here.”
“Life doesn’t work like that,” I cry. “Philosophers say it’s predetermined, and that we’re powerless.”
“Says who?”
“Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Papa’s clocks?”
“Maybe they’re all right. Maybe our love is eternal. Maybe we are the key to time—the promise to keep life moving forward. Without us, together, there would be no more time. Just like—”
I press my palm against the key at my neck and draw it into the space between us. “The winding key.”
Stefan brushes his fingertip over it, then frames my face in his hands. His gaze burns through me, lines deepening between his brows as if he suddenly finds all the answers he’s ever wanted. He leans in, his lips claiming mine, the key trembling between our pounding hearts.
When missing breaths break us apart, he strokes my cheek and smiles.
As if, somehow everything is all right.
“Ha—have you—found anything—about your family?”
Please, God. Don’t let him suffer what I have.
Stefan presses his forehead to mine and closes his eyes. “They—” his voice shudders. “They made it.” A soft cry escapes with the words. “They’re all right. All of them.”
Tears spill down my cheeks, mixing with his. And now I understand…I don’t need philosophy to find my purpose.
It’s him. He is my purpose.