“I was with them until my second birthday. Sometimes at night I could see their faces in my mind, frozen there, like a piece of my past I couldn’t touch but would always remember.”
He looked puzzled, but he nodded, encouraging her to go on.
“That’s why I recognized my father, I think, though I never expected it. He was always there, just beyond my reach.” She dared a glance at Zus and then hung her head in shame. “He’s a German officer, Zus. He’s the one who told me the Germans were coming to the woods.”
He hadn’t moved away, but he looked as if he’d been slapped. “Yona…”
“You see, I’m not like you after all. Your family is dead. Mine is perhaps responsible for that. Maybe… maybe I was born to be something terrible,” she concluded in a whisper.
He didn’t say anything, and as she looked down, she feared that he agreed, that he was appalled. But then he reached out and wrapped his hands around hers. He waited until she looked up before speaking. “We all come into this world with our fate unwritten, Yona. Your identity isn’t determined by your birth. All that matters is what we make ourselves into, what we choose to do with our lives. You are no more a Nazi than I am a creature from outer space who flies among the stars.”
Despite the tears in her eyes, despite the gravity of their discussion, she couldn’t stop herself from choking out a laugh. He touched her face, tilting her chin up so she had to look him in the eye.
“You are you, Yona, and you are extraordinary. It doesn’t matter who your parents are, or even who raised you. Who are you here?” He tapped her chest, just above her left breast, and then he lingered there, his palm against her skin. She could feel her heart beating against his hand.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“But I do. You are a warrior. You are a hero, and a fighter, and a savior. You are a caretaker and a life giver.” He took a deep breath and waited until she looked up at him. “And you are the woman who has reawakened a heart I thought would sleep forever.” He reached for her hand and placed her palm on the left side of his chest so that they sat in the quiet, their hands over each other’s hearts, feeling the steady rhythm of life. “You are a woman I hope can forgive my shortcomings, and a woman I hope might one day find space in her heart for me.”
At this, her eyes filled with tears. “You are already there, Zus. Can’t you feel it?”
His palm pressed into her chest, absorbing the beats of her heart, which seemed to march in time with his. Slowly, he nodded.
“I’m just not certain that there will ever be space in your heart,” she said softly. “And I understand if there’s not.”
He looked into her eyes. “You are already there, too, Yona.”
And then his lips were on hers, and it felt different from the last time. There was no hesitation, no question hidden in the way they touched, nothing left unsaid. Zus knew now that Yona understood his past, and she knew that he understood hers. None of it mattered, not in this moment. As she blew out the candle and felt the weight of him on top of her, his body covering hers and his hands entangled in her hair, she closed her eyes and released her fear. The only thing that remained was the only thing that mattered: love—the kind that could be found in the darkness when all pretenses had disappeared, the kind born of pain and despair and hope, the kind that was a shelter in the storm.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
In the morning, Zus was gone, but when she saw him in the clearing an hour after daybreak, his eyes were warm, and when he reached out to touch her hand, his fingers brushing gently against hers, she could feel the current running between them, a shared energy she’d never felt with Aleksander.
“Are we sure about this?” he asked, leaning in close, and for a second, she thought he was asking if she was certain about what they’d shared the night before. But when she looked into his eyes, she understood instantly that he was asking instead about the mission they were about to embark on. Already, Chaim, Rosalia, Leonid, and Bernard Zuk were clustered near the remnants of last night’s fire, talking to the Rozenberg brothers, and the two Rozenberg wives, Regina and Paula, who were handing out guns. Shimon was on the other side of the clearing with Rubin Sobil and Harry Feinschreiber.
“There is great risk.” Yona’s gaze settled on Rosalia. “But I think it is something we must do.”
Zus nodded slowly. “Then it is time.”
He stepped away from her and called to the others. All around them, the members of the camp emerged from their huts one by one to listen.