By the time she slipped back into town, the streets were beginning to awaken, but she was accustomed to being invisible. She hugged the shadows, keeping her head down. She was nobody, nothing, a nondescript woman from the village out on her morning errands.
“Sie!” A harsh German bark cut through the quiet morning, and she was careful not to react too quickly. Perhaps he wasn’t addressing her. “Halt!” he added.
Slowly, she raised her gaze, keeping her expression neutral, her eyes level and calm. “Dobraj ranicy,” she said calmly. The German staring at her from a few feet away was older, at least in his forties or early fifties, and his uniform was different from the ones she had seen on the younger men—an officer, she guessed. Carefully, she added with deference, “Guten morgen.” She spoke the German words slowly, uncertainly, as if she had just learned them.
“What are you doing?” he asked in uncertain Belorussian, his emphasis landing on incorrect syllables, his pronunciation all wrong. She guessed, from the way he retrieved the phrase so handily, that he’d been here for a while, but that he didn’t have the intelligence or depth to have truly grasped the new language.
“Coming from my mother’s house.” She was glad she had hidden the things she’d brought from the forest in the folds of her dress, for how would she explain them?
“So early?”
“I sleep there sometimes when she is afraid. And lately, you see, she is afraid all the time.”
The German studied her. She stared back, refusing to blink. Finally, he lowered his gaze, and when he looked at her again, his eyes were cold, steely. “And your mother? Where exactly does she live?”
“Gesia Street,” she answered calmly. She had taken note of a street name just on the edge of town in case she needed it. “In the small house with the blue shutters. She painted them herself when I was small, after my father died. She tends the roses in the garden each day, but they haven’t bloomed yet this year. Every night, she falls to her knees and asks God when he will send the flowers.”
She continued to stare at him as he attempted to translate her long string of Belorussian words. Jerusza had taught her that she should never deceive people if she could help it, but that if ever she was cornered, staying calm and spinning a story with useless details was the best way to sell a tale. Someone trying to avoid the truth would naturally speak less, not more. Season the story with meaningless facts and it immediately became more palatable. The fact that the officer was struggling with the language simply made the trick that much more effective.
“Well. You should not be out so early,” he said, taking a step back, effectively releasing her. And then, as he studied her, something in his face changed. He took a step closer again, and her pulse began to race. Had she slipped up somehow? Still, she stared him down silently, refusing to drop her gaze, for to look away would be to signal fear. She had the feeling that this would be the kind of man who would only be encouraged by a whiff of it.
“Your eyes,” he murmured at last. “One blue, and one green…”
She blinked. It wasn’t what she had expected him to say, and the observation threw her for a few seconds. Her eyes were her greatest weakness, the one thing that kept her from blending in if someone got too close. She’d nearly forgotten; it had been a long time since anyone had made a point of mentioning them. “Yes, that’s correct,” she said after a moment.
When he still didn’t say anything, she finally looked reluctantly back up. He searched her eyes again. “It’s just that…” He stopped and shook his head. “Nothing. I’m being foolish. You are Polish, of course, yes? Or Belorussian or whatever you people are right now? Your borders change so often, I can’t keep track.”
Yona nodded.
“Of course you are,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. “Of course. Well, be on your way.” And then, abruptly, he turned and walked away from her. She didn’t linger, for she didn’t want him to change his mind. As she hurried away, his strange reaction spun in her mind.
She walked briskly to the church, head down, and let herself in through the same door in the back she’d slipped out of a few hours before. She went straight to the basement, where she found Sister Maria Andrzeja tending to Anka, whose eyes were still closed.
She turned as Yona entered, but her expression was guarded. “I thought you’d left us.”
“No.” Yona withdrew the hare, the mushrooms, and the fruit, along with the yarrow and herbs. “The girl needed medicine to fight her fever. And I thought you might be hungry.”