Mrs. Hollander, of course, understood. Why wouldn’t she trust her best employee?
The bright sun turned to clouds and rain, then the night’s darkness set in. Total quiet. Renia, posing as “Wanda” from the found documents, waited for the train, her heart beating wildly. Even once she and the other passengers were speeding along, every moment felt like an hour. Over and over, she played through her mind the upcoming scene of glee: how her parents’ faces would glow when they saw her.
And yet, why did her stomach ache ominously?
They arrived at a small station. “Is this Miechów?” Renia quietly asked her non-Jewish smuggler.
“Not yet. Soon, soon.”
And then it was soon. “This one?”
“We cannot get off at Miechów.”
“What? Why?” Renia froze.
“It will make your journey too difficult,” the smuggler whispered. Renia was about to protest, when the woman added, “I don’t have time to take you.”
Renia pleaded. No was not an option.
“I promise,” the smuggler told her, quieting her, “that as soon as I get you to B?dzin, I will turn back and go to Miechów. I will get your parents and your brother. I will bring them to you in B?dzin.”
“No.” Renia put her foot down. “I must go see them now.”
“Listen,” the smuggler said, leaning into her. “Sarah said you absolutely cannot go to Miechów. I cannot take you there.”
As the locomotive chugged past fields and forests, Renia’s mind whirred. She did not have long to decide. Should she ditch the smuggler, get off, stay here, and try to cross the border later somehow? But Sarah was older, wiser, more competent. And it made sense that Renia cross the border quickly; that she get the most dangerous part of the journey over with.
Renia passed the Miechów station glued to her seat, her heart leaden, her brain in a fog.
She spent a few days at the smuggler’s house in Cz?stochowa, snacking, sleeping, longing, waking up jolted by frantic thoughts. It had been several years since she’d seen her sister—a lifetime. What did Sarah look like now? Would they recognize each other? Would she make it across the border? Renia felt weirdly comfortable in this alien part of Poland, where she was a stranger. Her foreignness was an asset: no one would recognize her. Her Jewishness was buried that much deeper.
*
The border crossing went without incident, and once in B?dzin, Renia set out along the streets that sloped uphill to the castle, passing the town’s colorful and ornate facades, its Art Deco–rounded balconies and Beaux Arts gargoyles and balustrades that marked the area’s prewar glory. To the Freedom kibbutz! Feeling optimistic, the eighteen-year-old leapt up the stairs and threw open the door. She saw a hallway that glistened in the sunlight, and a room with young men and women, all dressed in clean clothes, sitting around tables, reading. It seemed so normal.
But where was Sarah? Why didn’t she see her sister?
A young man, Baruch, introduced himself. He, like everyone here, knew who she was. Renia took one moment for a deep breath. What a treat—to be herself.
Baruch struck Renia as kind, resourceful, and full of life. He led her up two more flights of stairs to the sleeping quarters. The room was quiet, dark. She stepped in gingerly. Then she made out a muffled moaning.
It was Sarah, lying in bed. Sarah!
Baruch took Renia’s arm, led her over. “Sarah,” he said, gently, “would you like it if Renia came to see you?”
Sarah jumped out of bed. “Renia!” she cried. “You are all I have left in the world. I was sick worrying for you.”
Sarah’s kisses and embraces were warm on Renia’s skin. Tears pooled on the mattress. Despite the older girl’s weakness, she led Renia straight to the kitchen to feed her. In the kitchen light, Renia could see how skinny her sister’s face had become, all bone and edge. She tried not to think about how, years earlier, Sarah had obtained papers to immigrate to Palestine. The owner of the shoe store where she worked had even offered financial help, but their father had been too proud to ask his relatives for the additional funds she’d need. So, she had stayed. She looks so much older, Renia noted, disturbed. Sarah’s face was not the countenance of a twenty-seven-year-old. But watching her sister assemble a meal for her, full of gusto, Renia thought, She’s still young in spirit.