Mrs. Tuesday's Departure: A Historical Novel of World War Two by Suzanne Elizabeth Anderson

hands, shaking his head. “They’re moving more quickly than I’d imagined. This Jozef is right about the safe houses, though I’m not sure I would trust someone who had tried to rob your house. The Swedish and Swiss consulates are issuing documents for safe passage in an effort to bring the Jews under their protection.”
    “I want Mila here with us,” I said. “I’d feel better knowing she was with us instead of strangers.”
    “But in doing so, you may be endangering her as well as yourself and Anna,” he countered.
    “Nana, you can’t do that.” Mila reached for my hand and I put down my work to give her a brief squeeze.
    “What can we do?” I looked at Deszo, but he didn’t lift his attention from the page. “After all, how much longer can the war go on? The Allies are coming and I’ve heard that the Russians are close to our border. Certainly the Germans can’t be bothered with rounding up Jews now.”
    Deszo looked up at me and held out the notice. “What further proof do you need?”
    I pushed the paper away and got up from the table. “I can’t believe this. What will they do? Register the Jews and then what? Send them home?”

Chapter Thirty-Eight
    I picked u p the potatoes, carried them over to the stove, and dropped them into a pot of water. I took out a frying pan and began cutting the kielbasa into rough chunks, letting them fall into the pan. “Mila, please go set the table for dinner.”
    I waited until she’d left the room before turning to Deszo. “Are the rumors true? Will they send them away to labor camps like they did in Poland?”
    “Natalie, they don’t come back from those labor camps.”
    “No, it can’t be. I’ve heard people say that they’ve gotten letters from families sent there.”
    “Those are rumors,” he said. “They’re not true.”
    I wiped my hands on a towel and looked around the room for something, I couldn’t remember. I felt helpless and overwhelmed.
    “I have some contacts through the university,” he continued. “People sympathetic to helping the work of the consulates. Let me speak with them. I’ll contact you tomorrow. In the mean time, do not let Mila leave the apartment. She should not register. Tell anyone who asks that she has left with her parents.”
     
    We ate together in the dining room. Mila had set the table with white linen and candles. Anna came to the table wearing a simple gray wool dress, her hair once again pulled back into a neat bun. 
    Deszo sat at the head of the table with Anna on one side of him and Mila on the other. In spite of all that had happened today, they had a lively conversation, Deszo asking Mila about her studies, Anna about her poetry. It was clear that he had decided not to dwell on the realities we faced. At least not during our meal together. I picked at my food and looked out the window at the last flurries of snow.
    “I feel inspired,” Anna said picking up her glass of wine. “I’d like to make a toast, to my return to the University and to Deszo’s return to my life.”
     
    “I’ll make coffee, ” I said.
    “Let’s have it in your study, in front of the stove,” Deszo suggested.
    I nodded and cleared the plates from the table. Mila offered to help, but I shook my head.  “Perhaps you could interest Deszo in a game of backgammon.”
    I piled the dishes in the sink and put the kettle on to boil. I went to the window next to the stove and looked out on the alleyway below. The snow had stopped and where it had fallen there were puddles of ugly black slush. In a strange way I was glad the beauty I’d witnessed in the park was gone. The Germans didn’t deserve to see our city in its full beauty. They deserved what they brought with them, filth, cold, and despair.
    My fingertips brushed against the windowpane. Yes, I recalled feeding the birds when we were young. I remembered the verse our housekeeper had quoted. It was about faith, the hope in the unseen. It was my memory not hers. I am