Feliks Haas­man stepped off the train at Łódź Fab­rycz­na and did not look around. Because what for? He could have found his way back to his child­hood home if he were blind.

Thumbs hooked under rifle strap, he took Tar­gowa Street up to Pił­sud­skiego, and hung a right onto Kil­ińskiego. If he chanced on a famil­iar store­front, he calm­ly refo­cused his gaze. A dif­fer­ent man might have searched the faces pass­ing him, but Feliks con­sid­ered him­self a real­ist. He already knew he would rec­og­nize no one he want­ed to see.

The entrance gates to his building’s court­yard on Piotrkows­ka Street stood open. He crossed the cob­ble­stones and stepped inside the vestibule. It smelled, as always, of damp stone and boiled car­rots. The stained glass of the stairwell’s win­dows had been knocked out in places, and as Feliks took the stairs to the fourth floor, unfa­mil­iar slash­es of white light fell onto the wind­ing ban­is­ter, expos­ing a lay­er of dust.

As he’d expect­ed, the mezuzah on his family’s door­frame was gone, as was the brass plate inscribed with their name. A mod­ern lock had been installed above the old key­hole. But the carved art deco num­bers on the door had been left alone. Feliks ran his fin­ger­tips over the four and the two. A sculp­tor friend had brought over the chunk of Cuban mahogany one after­noon when Feliks was just a boy. Tata had gone to work on it imme­di­ate­ly, danc­ing his knife through the sweet-smelling wood right in the mid­dle of the salon.

Sweet­heart, have you lost your mind? I just had that rug cleaned yesterday!

Mama’s voice, its teas­ing lilt, sound­ed so real … He shook off the mem­o­ry and knocked. Firm­ly but, he hoped, not arro­gant­ly. He’d heard the sto­ries: peo­ple killed for the crime of show­ing up unmur­dered at the doorsteps of their fam­i­ly homes. But if being a sol­dier these last six years had earned Feliks any­thing, it was the right to take an impul­sive risk, and call it bravery.

Eter­ni­ties passed before Feliks heard foot­steps shuf­fling toward the door. He’d been wait­ing, against all rea­son, to hear the sharp click of the heels Mama had always insist­ed on, even inside the house.

The door cracked open. Dart­ing eyes peered out. A woman — slight, incon­se­quen­tial. Good. Feliks was quick to make his busi­ness clear. ​“I want noth­ing, ma’am. I’m here only for an old tin my moth­er left in a cre­den­za … in the sec­ond bed­room on the left?”

The door closed. He heard the scrape of met­al as the chain was unlatched. When she’d let him inside and locked the door behind him, the woman drew her cardi­gan tight­ly across her chest and set off down the hall­way. Feliks fol­lowed, set­tling his gaze on a hole in the beige wool at her shoulder.

Even as he did his best not to look, he could not help noting:

The mot­tled pink splotch in the cor­ner of the din­ing room, where his broth­er, Bruno, had chucked a fresh­ly peeled beet when Poland was knocked out of its first World Cup.

Curi­ous­ly shaped patch­es on the walls where the paint looked brighter. It took Feliks a moment to real­ize they were where his father’s met­al­work had once hung.

That the floor still creaked in the same spot in front of the bathroom.

And that all his par­ents’ fur­ni­ture was gone.

Feliks low­ered his shoul­der, let­ting his rifle slide down into his hand. If the apart­ment had been pil­laged, how was he to believe that the one thing he came for remained? Was this meek, mute crea­ture lead­ing him into some sort of trap?

The woman entered Bruno’s room. Feliks came up behind her and scanned the space over her shoul­der. There it was: the wal­nut cre­den­za, a phone book where one of its flut­ed legs used to be. In the cor­ner, next to the win­dow, stood Bruno’s bed. A sullen ado­les­cent leaned against the head­board, his bony knees pulled up to his bare chest. Gen­tly, Feliks placed the rifle back over his shoulder.

The woman crossed the room. ​“You’ll excuse us, Offi­cer.” She wres­tled an under­shirt onto the boy’s nar­row frame. ​“My son, he’s unwell. He removes his cloth­ing, picks wounds into his own skin. He won’t answer if you speak to him … There’s noth­ing I can do.”

“Please, don’t con­cern your­self for my sake.”

When his moth­er fin­ished dress­ing the boy, Feliks nod­ded at him. But the child did not respond. His atten­tion was focused on a length of thread that he was wind­ing tight­ly around his slen­der index finger.

The woman knelt before the cre­den­za, and pulled open a door by a twig wedged into its key­hole. Feliks not­ed that the del­i­cate rosette mold­ings that had once adorned the piece were gone. ​“It’s a mir­a­cle, real­ly — my hus­band threw the pho­tographs away at first. He thought it was mor­bid to keep them in our home, but the truth is, this isn’t our home, is it? We were only just placed here. They’re of your fam­i­ly, then?”

“Who else’s, ma’am?”

The woman reached inside the cab­i­net and pulled out the blue tin. ​“I brought them back up from the street. I knew … it’s odd, but I knew that one day you would come. I was cer­tain of it. Such a beau­ti­ful fam­i­ly, a joy to look at, all those love­ly chil­dren. How many of you are there?”

“There were four of us.” Feliks could not help the ran­cor that had crept into his voice. The woman looked down at the tin in her hands. ​“I’m sor­ry.” She wiped the dust off its lid with the bag­gy sleeve of her sweater. Feliks heard whis­per­ing. He turned to the bed. The boy winced and again avert­ed his gaze.

The woman hand­ed Feliks the tin, and moved to lead him out. At the door, she turned back to him. ​“You know, Offi­cer, three fam­i­lies shared the apart­ment when we first got here, but the oth­ers were moved. I don’t know where. And now it’s just us. Our vil­lage was destroyed. You under­stand, we had noth­ing. Nothing.”

She men­tioned the name of her home­town, but Feliks had nev­er heard of it. The beige sweater she was wear­ing, though — he rec­og­nized that. It was Tata’s. Mama had bought it for him at Vogel’s, up near the inter­sec­tion with Jaracza Street, but Tata had hat­ed it. He had some­thing against cardi­gans — they remind­ed him of schoolteachers.

“My hus­band works for the rail­ways, lay­ing track. He works very hard. It’s a month some­times before he comes home. Because of his job, we were pushed up the list for reset­tle­ment and … well, here we are. Where else could we go?” She looked help­less­ly at Feliks.

A cloy­ing odor per­me­at­ed the room. Lily of the val­ley. But how, when this was almost Octo­ber? Feliks yearned to be back out­side. He should say good­bye. But the walls bore down on him, immo­bi­liz­ing him. Blam­inghim. For the rot that had appeared on the floor­boards, the water stains spread­ing across the ceil­ing. The scent inten­si­fied, a field of putres­cent flow­ers, and now he heard a hum, as if from very far away. A woman’s voice. He strained his ears, and the melody took shape. A Tuwim piece? Yes, a cabaret song, out of an old spy film. One of Mama’s favorites. It grew loud­er. He could make out the lyrics. Love will for­give you anything …

He saw her then: a tall fig­ure in a long, satiny blue dress stand­ing with her back to him in front of the cre­den­za. Her dark hair was swept up in a bun, loose ten­drils at her neck. She posi­tioned a vase of white flow­ers, their tiny bowed heads shiv­er­ing, on a hand-embroi­dered doily.

A loud crash cut off the song, and Feliks saw he was alone. Alone, that is, with the bird­like woman, who rubbed her hands against Tata’s sweater, ask­ing him if he was okay, if he need­ed a glass of water, if she should call some­one — there was a doc­tor two court­yards away, a gyne­col­o­gist, but very kind. At Feliks’s feet lay sev­er­al dozen pho­tographs. He had let the tin drop to the floor.

He couldn’t find the words to make the woman stop talk­ing. She knelt down in front of him. Her fin­gers raked the scat­tered images into a pile. There was Bruno, between goal­posts on the school’s foot­ball field, frozen in mid-move­ment, poised to spring back to life.

The woman picked Bruno up, returned him to the tin.

The hum sound­ed again, faint now. Feliks made out only snatch­es of melody punc­tu­at­ing a dis­cor­dant buzz. He took one last look around the room. There was no doily on the cre­den­za, and cer­tain­ly no lily of the valley.

Feliks adjust­ed his rifle strap. He took the tin the woman had refilled with his fam­i­ly pho­tographs out of her hands and, say­ing noth­ing, left the room.

The woman came up behind him as he spun the new lock. ​“Please, Offi­cer. There’s a trick to it.” He moved aside, and she let him out of the apartment.

In the hall­way, he found his voice, and his man­ners, and thanked her.

“There’s noth­ing to thank me for,” she said. ​“They are your pho­tographs, after all.”

Feliks could not bear what he saw in her eyes. He clenched his fist to keep from reach­ing for her pasty neck. Curs­ing, he raced down the stairs. He should be grate­ful. He knew he should be grate­ful. But he couldn’t stand it, not from some­one so pathet­ic. He swore that he would one thou­sand times take death over pity.

In the court­yard, a small girl, skirt cinched tight­ly at her waist with a man’s belt, pound­ed a rock against the iron rail of the car­pet hang­er. The clang shook Feliks out of his fury. He took sev­er­al deep breaths of crisp air and, glanc­ing up at the win­dow to Bruno’s room, regret­ted the scene he had caused in the apart­ment. Imag­ine, a sol­dier of the II Corps, los­ing his com­po­sure before a woman and her sick child … The only con­so­la­tion was that he nev­er need­ed to see those peo­ple again. He tugged at his ear­lobes, as if that might dis­lodge the hum that had fol­lowed him down the stairs.

Feliks tossed the girl a coin. ​“And where have they brought you from, child?” he asked, but she only slipped the coin under her tongue and gawked at him. It didn’t mat­ter. The infor­ma­tion would tell him noth­ing about the chil­dren who had once reigned supreme in this courtyard.

The train back to War­saw wouldn’t leave for a few hours, so Feliks cir­cled through the unchanged streets. Łódź had sur­vived the war almost entire­ly unscathed, thanks to the tens of thou­sands of Ger­mans who had made it their home. The air was a balm to Feliks’s lungs. In War­saw, dust still hung in thick clouds over the city, months after the Ger­mans had gone. The stench of bod­ies rot­ting beneath the rub­ble could knock the breath out of you if you start­ed down the wrong avenue, or if you hap­pened on one of the squads charged with dis­in­ter­ring the dead, as they trudged home with their shov­els after a shift.

On Wól­cza­ńs­ka Street, a sharp crunch drowned Feliks’s hum. Beneath his boots, curled brown leaves blan­ket­ed the ground. He stopped short. Trees. It had been months since Feliks had seen them ris­ing from between the paving stones of a city street. There were no trees left in War­saw. The Ger­mans, dur­ing their retreat from the city, had fire­bombed them out of exis­tence. He placed his palm on the knot­ty bark of a lin­den and stared up at the boughs arch­ing over the street, obliv­i­ous to the humans who moved across their shadows.

Feliks paced along the edge of the plat­form. The train was near­ly an hour late. Feel­ing eyes on him, he turned to find a man in civil­ian clothes sit­ting on the back­rest of a sta­tion bench, blow­ing rings of smoke in his direc­tion. Feliks took a step back from the tracks and leaned against a pil­lar. He scanned the arti­cles on the slips of week-old news­pa­per with which the babush­ka out­side the sta­tion had wrapped his yeast cakes: chopin’s heart safe­ly returned to holy cross church; lec­tures resume at war­saw poly­tech­nic: All Forty Stu­dents to Pre­pare Diplo­ma Designs on Recon­struc­tion of Destroyed Capital.

A whis­per just behind his ear: ​“Nu?”

Feliks spun around and saw the wiry man, cap pulled low, who had been watch­ing him from the bench. He’d spo­ken the first word of Yid­dish Feliks had heard since Pales­tine. ​“Do I know you?”

The man shook his head. ​“No, Offi­cer. But now you do.” He chuck­led, and put out his hand. ​“Leonid Szyk.”

Feliks didn’t appre­ci­ate the trick. ​“Feliks Haasman.”

Leonid pulled a pack of Amer­i­can cig­a­rettes out of his shirt pock­et and offered one to Feliks. ​“They’re worth their weight in gold.”

Along­side them on the plat­form, a group of soot-encrust­ed work­men cursed loud­ly, com­plain­ing about a mal­func­tion­ing gin at the cot­ton fac­to­ry. Feliks glanced at them, and then switched into Pol­ish. ​“I don’t smoke.”

Leonid shrugged. ​“Your loss.” He pound­ed his chest with the side of his fist. ​“Good for the spleen.” Slip­ping his cig­a­rettes back into his pock­et, he asked, ​“And you’ll be back from, Officer?”

“The West­ern Front. Injured at Bologna.”

Leonid whis­tled, impressed. ​“We haven’t seen many of Gen­er­al Anders’s boys back from the front yet. Word is they’re refus­ing to come home after Yalta.”

This was true. Sol­diers were hes­i­tat­ing to return from the front, afraid of what they might find. The end-of-war nego­ti­a­tions at Yal­ta had not been kind to Poland. The men plan­ning the future of Europe — Churchill, Roo­sevelt, and Stal­in — seemed to have for­got­ten the mas­sive sac­ri­fices Poland had made since the very first days of the war. Feliks shrugged in res­ig­na­tion. ​“What does it mean, Mr. Szyk, to ​‘come home’ when the land on which your home stands has been wrapped up with a bow and giv­en to the Russians?”

“But you did. Come home. ”

“For me it’s dif­fer­ent. They can shift the bor­ders a hun­dred miles this way or that — my Poland is still Poland.”

“You’re an opti­mist, then?”

Feliks was not sure whether by opti­mist, Leonid meant Com­mu­nist. It was hard to gauge where peo­ple stood on the mat­ter these days. Poles on both sides of the ide­o­log­i­cal spec­trum were still being killed, not by the Ger­mans or the Rus­sians now, but by their own coun­try­men. And for what? Dif­fer­ent visions of the future of the coun­try? The only idea that Feliks held strong­ly now was that he want­ed the killing to stop. ​“I’d hard­ly go so far,” he said, avoid­ing Leonid’s gaze.

Leonid took a notepad out of his pock­et. ​“But regard­less, you’ll allow me?”

Feliks glanced at the paper. These lists his coun­try­men car­ried around sad­dened him, part­ly because he did not have one of his own to share. But also because a man who car­ried such lists was giv­ing in to fan­tasies. And of fan­tasies, Feliks did not approve.

Still, how could he say no?

Leonid pro­ceed­ed to recite a list of names. After each, he looked up, and Feliks shook his head. Then Feliks heard, ​“Emil Zielinski.”

A face mate­ri­al­ized. ​“Zielin­s­ki!” Feliks said, incred­u­lous. ​“Small? With a nose like a cau­li­flower? Bit of a joker?”

“Yes, yes! Eye­brows like two riv­er leech­es! He’s my sister’s boy.”

“Artillery­man … Last I saw him was just before we were deployed to Italy. Decent sort, Emilek — always gen­er­ous with his arak. He stayed back when we were deployed to Italy, but he’s alive, in Pales­tine. At least as of ear­ly ​’44.”

“A desert­er? Emil?”

“Many men stayed back. Offi­cial releas­es, with Gen­er­al Anders’s bless­ing. Some of our best sol­diers.” Feliks shrugged. ​“A man can only fight one bat­tle at a time. Emil found some­thing for him­self in Palestine.”

Leonid thought about this.

“You did not find some­thing for your­self in Pales­tine, Officer?”

“No.” Feliks looked down the track, hop­ing the train would soon appear. He longed to be alone, with his pho­tographs. ​“My bat­tle is for Poland.”

“Ah, well.” Leonid did not both­er turn­ing his head to exhale, and his cig­a­rette smoke filled Feliks’s nos­trils. ​“I hope your Poland proves her­self wor­thy of such loyalty.”

Feliks glanced back, and saw that the ranks of the work­men on the plat­form had dou­bled. They were red-faced, as if they’d been drink­ing, and their talk had grown loud­er and increas­ing­ly vulgar.

“They may look stu­pid,” Leonid said in Yid­dish, ​“but in some ways they can be absolute genius­es. When I came back to Poland, I wasn’t in uni­form like you, Offi­cer. I came from There­sien­stadt. My coun­try­men looked me up and down when I reached Kraków and knew exact­ly what I was. Made me pay for it, too.” Leonid tugged down the col­lar of his shirt and showed Feliks a patch of yel­low-green skin, and the ragged rem­nants of a gash at his shoulder.

It was a shame. But not much com­pared to the injuries Feliks had seen in bat­tle. ​“You ought to have had that stitched. Any vil­lage doc­tor could have done it for you.”

Leonid moved so close that Feliks was forced to take a step back. ​“I plan to leave a Leonid Szyk – sized hole in this land just as soon as I’m sure that I’m not leav­ing any of these good souls behind.” He jabbed at his list with his fore­fin­ger before clos­ing his notepad, and slip­ping it behind the cig­a­rette pack in his shirt pocket.

Feliks respond­ed in Yid­dish. The words were clay in his throat, a strug­gle to form after years of under­use. ​“You let evil win, then. You let them chase you away. Out of your home, off your land. Where’s the hon­or in that?”

Leonid laughed. ​“You can keep your hon­or, your Poles, and your Poland. I’ll take my dignity.”

______

In War­saw, Feliks slept in a store­room off the kitchen of a wheel­chair-bound for­mer air force colonel. When he got to his room that evening, he threw him­self on his pal­let on the cold floor.

His west-fac­ing wall had been blast­ed open, but as most of the sur­round­ing neigh­bor­hood had been lev­eled, Feliks, five floors up, still had plen­ty of pri­va­cy. The hole would need to be board­ed up — the colonel had been ask­ing Feliks to take care of it for weeks. But for the moment, Feliks pre­ferred to suf­fer the winds and keep his view over the north­west of the city.

Skele­tons of build­ings dot­ted the vast expanse of rub­ble, their roof­less tops crooked jaws, gap­ing in hor­ror at the sky. Warsaw’s angles had been soft­ened by fire and explo­sions; many of the pro­tru­sions ris­ing from the ground were so dimin­ished that they looked like decay­ing yurts in some dis­tant oblast. And the decom­po­si­tion of the metrop­o­lis con­tin­ued, near­ly a year after the fight­ing had stopped. Feliks saw chunks of mor­tar yield­ing to grav­i­ty and crum­bling off build­ings far in the distance.

In the street below Feliks, a for­mer liai­son offi­cer from the ​’44 Upris­ing ran a makeshift restau­rant from the shell of a bombed-out street­car. He heard the young woman’s pow­er­ful voice echo through the ruins, announc­ing the evening’s dish­es as she slopped soup into tin bowls for the rag-tag group of injured vet­er­ans, grand­moth­ers, and stray dogs gath­ered around her.

When the restau­rant closed for the night, silence fell over the ruins, and the hum that had fol­lowed Feliks back from Łódź took up in his head again. There was no melody at all now, just a monot­o­ne moan, dis­tinct­ly female.

Feliks lit his oil lamp, and pulled over the tin of pho­tographs. Its lid bore the choco­late factory’s logo: a yel­low-haired boy in a romper rid­ing a zebra, with planks of choco­late strapped to his back. Feliks had want­ed to open the tin on the train, but he had­n’t been able to shake off Leonid Szyk, who had been deter­mined to recount every unfair­ness that had befall­en him in Poland. These men were a type, Feliks thought, and per­haps the coun­try would be bet­ter off with­out them.

Feliks loos­ened the lid. Even all these years lat­er, the smell of cocoa still waft­ed out. The pho­to­graph at the top of the pile inside was of Estera, his old­er sis­ter, in a white blouse with a scal­loped col­lar. She sat on a pho­tog­ra­pher’s stool, star­ing wry­ly out at him, her del­i­cate fin­gers clasped around her knee. Feliks slammed the lid back on the tin.

A week after he’d returned from Łódź, Feliks was called up for an appoint­ment at the army bar­racks. Sol­diers return­ing from the West­ern Front were viewed as secu­ri­ty risks by the People’s Army, and Feliks was inter­ro­gat­ed about his polit­i­cal views. He pro­claimed, ​“I am a Jew by birth, but a devout sec­u­lar­ist by con­vic­tion,” and was met with dour nods of approval by the Sovi­et-influ­enced offi­cials. (It was not actu­al­ly his own dec­la­ra­tion: he’d stolen it from a French sculp­tor who had once sum­mered with his fam­i­ly at the Masuri­an Lakes.)

At his check­up with the mil­i­tary doc­tor, Feliks brought up the hum. He couldn’t be the only sol­dier who suf­fered this way. The doc­tor sent him for a bat­tery of hear­ing tests. When his hear­ing proved per­fect, Feliks dropped the matter.

He reen­list­ed, but did not move into the bar­racks. The colonel had to be car­ried up and down the crum­bling stair­well, and Feliks was told to stay with him until con­struc­tion on the Mil­i­tary Home for Incur­ables was completed.

Feliks was assigned to keep the streets free of civil­ians while sap­pers were defus­ing mines and clear­ing shells. When dis­ori­ent­ed repa­tri­ates strag­gled back into War­saw, climb­ing through the rub­ble and search­ing in vain for land­marks, Feliks was often the first sign of offi­cial­dom that they encoun­tered. He liked to believe, despite evi­dence most­ly to the con­trary, that he gave them hope. With a stick, he drew in the mud that coat­ed the streets the routes they could take to reset­tle­ment offices, sur­vivor reg­istries, and soup kitchens.

When he wasn’t work­ing, he watched the city from his perch in the colonel’s store­room. Packs of dogs prowled the alleys; chil­dren scaled piles of rub­ble in spir­it­ed games of Com­mu­nists vs. Home Army. Feliks tried not to think of his fam­i­ly. The apart­ment, though … he kept see­ing that woman in Tata’s sweater.

Nights were a tor­ment. Once, he dreamed of his sis­ter Rosa; she pressed her face against a dirty win­dow. Feliks could see her dark curls flat­tened between her pale skin and the glass. He rushed toward her, but the clos­er he came, the more her face blurred. He banged on the win­dow, called her name, but the image fur­ther dis­solved, until there was noth­ing behind the glass but a murky liq­uid. When he woke, he still couldn’t recall the con­tours of her face. He lit his lamp, tore open the tin, and dumped the pic­tures on the floor. He found a large, high-con­trast print of all four chil­dren, lined up for one of Tata’s pho­tog­ra­ph­er friends, who was exper­i­ment­ing with film stocks he’d brought back from St. Peters­burg. Rosa was only six at the time, and while the oth­ers stood at an angle to the cam­era, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er had sat her atop the cre­den­za. Feliks, Bruno, and Estera looked put out to be stand­ing in the sil­ly pose, but Rosa smiled sweet­ly at the camera.

________

When the woman in the Piotrkows­ka Street apart­ment opened the door for Feliks, she untucked her hair from behind her ears. ​“You’ve come back,” she said. Even in the dim­ness of the foy­er, Feliks could see she was blush­ing. He couldn’t help feel­ing flat­tered. He didn’t con­sid­er him­self par­tic­u­lar­ly hand­some — he always thought he lacked breadth, both across the shoul­ders, and ear to ear. Bruno had had the stronger fea­tures, and the ath­let­ic build. But Feliks sup­posed he cut an impres­sive enough fig­ure in his army uni­form, espe­cial­ly with the long mil­i­tary over­coat he’d brought back from Italy.

The woman led Feliks into what had once been the dairy kitchen, and invit­ed him to sit down for a cup of tea. She apol­o­gized at length for hav­ing noth­ing more to offer. Her hus­band had run into dif­fi­cul­ties when try­ing to send her mon­ey. Feliks sur­veyed the room. Its grey­ing walls begged for a fresh coat of paint, but the space was tidy, and bright­ened by a col­or­ful, embroi­dered table­cloth and a vase of dried flow­ers. On the wall next to the win­dow hung a wood­en crucifix.

The Haas­mans had not been reli­gious. Feliks only ever saw Mama with her head cov­ered on the High Hol­i­days, when she took the chil­dren to shul. The fam­i­ly had occa­sion­al­ly eat­en out­side the home, in restau­rants and even at the tables of Catholics. But Mama had insist­ed on cer­tain things. Among them was keep­ing Shabbes, and hav­ing sep­a­rate kitchens for dairy and meat. Feliks was by far the most lit­er­al-mind­ed of the Haas­mans. He had made up his mind when he was thir­teen that the belief in an omnipo­tent God who watched over men was absurd.

Still, a cru­ci­fix on the wall was too much, even for as devout a sec­u­lar­ist as he was. He changed seats so he was fac­ing away from it.

His host­ess moved on to the top­ic of her unfor­tu­nate son. He’d been a nor­mal, hap­py child before the war. It had been the hunger, or the cold, or the typhus, or the ter­ror that had left him stunt­ed and half-deaf and dumb. There had been an old­er son, too, with a stronger con­sti­tu­tion. He had not come back from the war. As she talked, she cov­ered her mouth with a trem­bling hand.

Feliks took a pouch from his pock­et, pulled out a pile of bills, and placed them on the table. ​“It’s for the credenza.”

The woman low­ered her­self into a chair across the table from Feliks. She stared at the money.

“If it’s not enough, you will of course let me know.”

She shook her head. ​“You must have the cre­den­za. It’s yours, after all. But I couldn’t possibly … ”

Feliks pushed the mon­ey toward her. ​“You must. What would your hus­band say if he found you’d been giv­ing the fur­ni­ture away to strangers?”

“My hus­band.” She looked up at Feliks. In the light from the win­dow, he noticed the spat­ter­ing of youth­ful freck­les across her nose. ​“He’s on the tracks near Szczecin now, I believe.” She shrugged, and then placed her hand over the bills. ​“I could go to the shop and pick up a bit of meat, some bar­ley. Per­haps you’d like to stay? It’s been so long since any­one has joined us … My son and I, we know no one in this city.”

The woman was so close that Feliks could hear her irreg­u­lar breath­ing. She smelled of naph­tha­lene, and vine­gar. She was younger than he’d remem­bered. Still, her shoul­der blades jut­ted out of her bent back like the wings of a starved chick­en. Or a spar­row. Feliks some­how found him­self both attract­ed to and repelled by her small­ness, her vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. She met his gaze when he touched her cheek, and tilt­ed her face so her lips grazed his palm. Relief coursed through Feliks — the relief of feel­ing anoth­er human’s warmth after all this time. But just behind it came the hum. It rose in vol­ume, and in pitch. He willed it away, but it couldn’t be con­trolled. He took back his hand, pushed the chair away from the table, and stood.

The most char­i­ta­ble thing he could do was to take his cre­den­za and go.

Leav­ing the woman alone with the mon­ey, he went down­stairs to fetch the porter he’d hired at the station.

The burly fel­low backed his way out of Bruno’s bed­room hold­ing one end of the cre­den­za; Feliks fol­lowed with the oth­er. He now saw the extent of the dam­age the piece had suf­fered. Some Ger­man had etched the birth and death dates of a Pri­vate Arik Blau into the wood. A sec­ond flut­ed leg had come off when the cre­den­za was lift­ed, and it now banged around inside a drawer.

As they passed what had once been the salon, the porter, far drunk­er than Feliks had guessed at the sta­tion, grunt­ed under the weight of the wood. ​“No won­der they left this piece of shit to rot in here. They’re not idiots, those Ger­mans, are they now?”

Feliks glanced apolo­get­i­cal­ly at the woman. Again he saw pity in her eyes. But also some­thing else.

“I wish I could’ve tak­en bet­ter care of your cab­i­net, Offi­cer,” she said. ​“But the dam­age was already done when I got here.”

Shame. The woman felt shame. For the swastikas etched into the wal­nut of the cre­den­za. For liv­ing in his home. For accept­ing the mon­ey he’d left on her table. And for wit­ness­ing what sure­ly must seem an act of mad­ness — so much effort for a cre­den­za that was all but falling to pieces in his arms.

“Sir,” the porter cut in. ​“If you wouldn’t mind too ter­ri­bly — are we mov­ing this mon­stros­i­ty, or are we play­ing tug-of-war with it across this kind lady’s liv­ing room?”

It was impos­si­ble, Feliks thought, as the freight train chugged east­ward. Impos­si­ble, a nor­mal inter­ac­tion. An inter­ac­tion free of shame or pity or anger. Of sus­pi­cion. Of disgust.

For six years, the coun­try had endured the most salient expres­sion of hatred that any Pole — Catholic or Jew — had ever imag­ined. They had lost fam­i­lies, homes, and land. Final­ly, the night­mare had end­ed. As in a fairy tale, or dream, evil had been defeat­ed. Yet what, real­ly, had changed since 1939?

He sat down and let his feet dan­gle from the open door­way of the box­car. Behind him, the cre­den­za was strapped safe­ly to the wall. With the wind whip­ping his face, he watched the land rum­ble past him. Murky streams, clogged with duck­weed. Out-of-use sta­tions sur­round­ed by the sun-bleached ruins of razed vil­lages. And chil­dren. Chil­dren every­where: band­ing togeth­er to roll fall­en tree trunks into streams, chas­ing small­er ver­sions of them­selves, lob­bing rocks at the train with slingshots.

In the dis­tance, the browns and greens and greys of the flat land­scape leaked into one anoth­er. This view of Poland did not steal Feliks’s breath as had the shim­mer­ing deserts of Per­sia, the turquoise gem that was the Dead Sea, or the Alpine peaks that breached the heav­ens. But the coun­try pulled his insides taut in a way that no oth­er ever could. It was an hon­est land, unas­sum­ing, and some­times it could be sad and strange. He didn’t blame those who no longer saw any­thing here but a vast ceme­tery, who felt they need­ed to leave. But anger like Leonid Szyk’s was mis­guid­ed. Of course there was evil in Poland, but there would be wher­ev­er man walked on earth. Feliks’s duty was to stay. Not just for his own good, but for Poland herself.

It was dark by the time the train reached the out­skirts of War­saw. The trip back to Łódź had not relieved the hum in his head. He rose to unstrap his car­go. Where would he even sleep with it in his room? The cre­den­za was a huge weight that he’d car­ried into a life whose only real advan­tage had been its near total lightness.