Renia burst into uncontrollable laughter, as if she’d gone mad. Then she contained herself. She went over to Ilza, but the girl pushed her away, angry at her own suicide failure. This was why resistance operatives carried cyanide capsules, why partisans held extra grenades for self-destruction.
At dawn, the supervisors drove them out, screaming and cursing. They were moved to separate cells. Renia’s new cell, which held eight women, was an improvement. The beds were covered with mats; bowls and spoons were stored on shelves; there was a clean bench to sit on.
“What are you in for?” asked a woman with delicate features.
“I was arrested for trying to cross the border.”
“I was arrested for reading cards,” the woman said, beginning to cry. She was a midwife with two adult sons, one an engineer and the other a clerk. One of her neighbors, out of malice, told the Gestapo that she was a fortune-teller. The woman had been at Katowice for seven months without having even been sentenced yet. “Be careful what you say to the other women,” she whispered to Renia. “There are spies among them.”
Renia nodded. This woman seemed pleasant. Motherly.
Do not think of your family, she told herself. Do not feel.
After breakfast, they were moved to the main corridor. The key keeper hit Renia hard for no reason. “You probably want to sit idle and do nothing. That would be unthinkable for us Germans. Get to work! I won’t tolerate spoiled ladies!”
The corridor was lined with long tables of ladies “plucking feathers,” or, rather, removing the hard quills from the down. Renia joined them. As she worked, she looked around cautiously for Ilza. She spotted her nearby, but they could not talk. Supervisors with whips stood next to them—chatting was verboten. Sitting across from Renia was the woman with the delicate features. Renia stared at her sad, pretty eyes, noting that they emanated a twinkle, radiating empathy. The woman’s face spoke of the tortures she’d endured and the pity she felt for Renia, and she began tearing up. Renia, pained by this, had to turn away. Time flew, as Renia focused on the future. Would she be there for long? Executed? That would be better than the beatings.
They returned to their cell for lunch: burnt broth with vegetable leaves. When Renia rejected the meal in disgust, the other prisoners grabbed her bowl and devoured her food. “After some time here,” they said, “you’ll beg for this kind of soup.”
“She’s a lady,” one of the peasant women mumbled resentfully. “She feels that this soup is beneath her, but she’ll miss it.”
After lunch, back to work: four more hours of plucking feathers. At first, Renia was restless. But then, every fifteen minutes, a prisoner was called and taken outside for interrogation.
Shivers ran down her body whenever the door opened, sweat when a different name was announced. Until.
“Wanda Widuchowska!”
Renia froze. A whip hit her on the back.
“Come with me.”
Chapter 25
The Cuckoo
Bela and Renia
AUGUST 1943
Renia was not the first courier to be imprisoned, interrogated, and tortured as a Christian Pole. Bela Hazan maintained her non-Jewish disguise long after she’d ever imagined she could. It was a terrible burden of secrecy, yet it had obvious advantages.
After arriving at Pawiak Prison from Szucha, Bela had hoped to find Lonka Kozibrodska, the only soul on earth who understood her, but was instead placed in an isolation chamber: a pitch-black dungeon. She felt around for the narrow bed, but it was too painful for her to lie down, so she spent most of her time pacing her tiny, dank space, nibbling on bread crusts, sipping water and fake coffee, listening to other prisoners’ screams. She was terrified that she would die and no one would know what had happened to her. And yet Lonka was so close.