The Upright Heart by Julia Ain-Krupa

Malwina’s uncle. Their mothers shopped at the same grocer, but not at the same butcher. Most girls went to temple, a few of us went to church. Our differences were small and almost unnoticeable
.
    The teachers at our school were mostly Catholic, though it was common knowledge that the beautiful and graceful young history teacher, Pani Tarkowska, came from a poor Jewish family in a nearby town. She wore long skirts and silk blouses in bright, friendly colors, but she could not hide her youth or her beauty. She was set to marry one of the most successful young merchants in Łódź—the son of a banker and a self-made businessman. Her eyes were bright with possibility
.
    Anna walks across the town square into St. Mary’s Church, where she lights a candle, kneeling on the cold stones, staring up at the son of God.
    Anna wonders if Jesus was really a man who existed in this world or if he is just a myth, an ideal man. Was what he suffered so different from what many people endured? Anna never was the type to go to church unless her parents forced her to, but now, ever since the war ended, she finds that it brings her some comfort, and comfort is hard to come by. She thinks of all those girls, her classmates from school, of how such a tiny difference in background could shape their whole world.
    She didn’t want to hear it, but he told her. Her kind father’s face has taken a blow since the war, and now his skin looks waxy, as if he were quickly turning to stone.
    “I want you to know, to understand, how lucky we are,” he said, and then he told her what had happened. How her entire class, along with one or two younger students, had been locked in a tool shed behind the school, and then burnt to the ground.
    “How do you know that?” Anna shouted, her face burning with rage, covering her ears in desperation, trying to block out a truth that cannot be ignored. And the ringing was so loud, as if upon hearing her scream the girls could finally scream, too, all at once. The heavens were in her ears, resounding with their call.
    “No!” she cried, and fell to the table, hitting her forehead as she wept.
    “But it is,” her father said, softening, sitting beside her now, stroking her hair. “Everyone else was put in the ghetto, taken to the camps.”
    She had known without really knowing. Something had gone quiet at the start of the war, as if the memory of the girls’ distant laughter were fading away. With that feeling came both terror and inner peace, a calm that was now wiped away by the spoken truth, by reality. Gone was the last bit of peace inside.
    Even though she hadn’t eaten enough soup that day to satiate her hunger, Anna still ran to the toilet and threw up what little was there. Never before was hunger so irrelevant as it was now, seated at her family table.
IV
    Elżbieta makes a habit of collecting and hiding things. Clothes, books, old newspaper clippings. And what about drying the orange rinds to make a fire? She washes and presses her second-hand goods and locks them up in an old wooden wardrobe.
    “For later,” she tells herself, envisioning just how she will look while dancing in this dress or that shirt. There is nothing more valuable than clothing made of beautiful, fine silk and a ring made of real gold. When the mourning for her father passes (oh, when will it ever pass?), when the family gets back on its feet, when food becomes more easily available, she will be able to dance once more.
    Baby Mateusz sleeps peacefully in his basinet while Waleria grates raw potatoes to make
czarne kluski
in the kitchen. Food is hard to come by these days, especially in the region of Silesia, and whenever a shipment arrives from the UNRRA, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, everyone runs to the township office to get his or her share. First the food goes to the Russian soldiers and then to everyone else. Elżbieta’s siblings are out in the garden feeding the chickens. She can hear