Withering Courage

I knew all people won and lost, but I couldn’t recall a moment where I had truly won.

The night was cold, but no colder than the look in the Nazi’s eye. Silver rays of moonlight through the clouds glinted on his Mauser. The streets were deserted and utterly quiet, but the gunshot shattered the silence as easily as it would have a window pane.

It was over for Marysia. Within seconds, it was just… over. 

…

I’d been heading to Old Town, a district of Warsaw, Poland to deliver illegal newspapers in the dead of night. These newspapers were produced in a print shop the resistance had recently taken back from the Nazis. The Nazis would pump the papers full of propaganda and lies; we were going to spread the truth.

My preferred route to the drop off spot, a small, half destroyed café, passed by the apartment building where my best friend Marysia’s family lived, consisting of her mother and younger brother. But it was also the most battered route. Debris littered the roads, and a majority of the buildings were hollowed out by bombs. Every time I passed one, memories that belonged, or used to belong to, whoever lived there stood out like a sunflower in a dead field. Broken picture frames and china, children’s toys, books, and clothes–each a silent testament to the destruction. 

Those things were replaceable. But I always wondered, was there a human life lost in one of these rubble piles? I tried to avoid looking.

Marysia had also worked for the resistance and told me yesterday that she would drop by her family’s house tonight and give them some news on what’s been happening within the uprising.

“Be careful,” I’d told her as she turned to leave.

She’d only smiled, the kind of smile that could reassure almost anyone. “I’m always careful. Don’t worry about me.”

You could be as careful as you’d like, yet there was no stopping fate. So I worried. No words would make me change my mind.

As I approached her block, newspapers carefully stuffed into the back of my blouse, I felt collywobbles in my stomach. I’d stopped where I stood as it grew more and more intense. My gut was telling me something was wrong. 

I learned to trust my gut feeling over the past few years, so I held myself back for a moment as I thought of what might be ahead.

I vaguely felt it had something to do with Marysia. But I brought myself to continue walking.

As soon as I rounded the corner of what probably used to be a bakery, I saw a Nazi soldier burst through Marysia’s apartment building door.

And in that moment, I knew exactly what would happen. 

No sooner had I ducked into the nearest alleyway and barely peeked my head out from behind the brick corner had the Nazi rabidly shoved Marysia and her remaining family out the door, barely on its hinges. My palms grew sweaty just watching.

I could hear Marcin’s sobs, even from how far I was. My stomach flipped. Marcin was only ten. He’d been such a jovial boy, always talking and never able to stand still. 

He didn’t deserve to die like this.

None of them did.

Barely audible to me from the long distance between us, the Nazi began speaking, probably loud enough that the entire district could hear him. “Anybody who resists the Führer will face certain death. Look what is happening to your loved ones because of your actions.” The rifle in his hands, not even aimed at Marysia and her family yet, had my whole body tensed. My heart crashed against my ribcage.

Marysia averted her gaze from the Nazi’s stoic face to the ground and closed her eyes, accepting her fate. As much as I felt compelled to intervene, or yell at her to do something, I knew she’d just meet her death sooner, and I’d join her. So I sat there, feeling terribly useless.

As the Nazi lifted the rifle, I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

…

I didn’t hear the following gunshots. As they rang down the street, I sank back into the pitch black alleyway, every inch of me trembling, and tears cascading down my cheeks. The only remaining person that I knew and loved had been taken away from me by this war, like all the rest. I buried my head into my arms, my hands clutching my haversack to my heaving chest. 

When I first joined the uprising, every mission had me worried sick about what might happen. The constant, looming fear of saying one wrong word or taking one wrong step. But every time before I left, Marysia was there to encourage me, her words a lifeline I doubted she believed, because I surely didn’t, whilst everyone else complained that I was inadequate to go into dangerous situations like these. 

“Just keep going, no matter what, Marcelina.” In private conversations, no matter how many times I told her not to, she referred to me by my real name instead of my code name, Lena. “I believe you can do anything.” 

She’d told me ‘I could do anything.’ 

But could I gather the courage to stand up and move on?

Giving up on holding back my sobs, I sat huddled against the partially standing wall of the alley, which was empty of anybody to console me. I fully relented to my tears. 

I really didn’t care what happened to me next. I didn’t believe there was anything left for me now. I didn’t have much hope for Poland anyway, or even Warsaw; our resistance was more likely to get a line in the history books than to take back our city. With that, there wasn’t really anything left for me to fight for. My fight to save the last of what I loved had been utterly, completely lost. Just like every other battle I’d fought over the past few years of the war.

But this defeat hurt the most.