April 1943

Krakow, Poland

Irena was bent over her needlework, stitching the frayed seam of her skirt when she heard a single gunshot ring out. She jerked and then scowled. After four years of war, she ought to be used to it. Why, the other night a bullet penetrated through her wall while she slumbered. Had it not been for a volume of Slowacki’s poems on the bookshelf which shielded her, she would have been another civilian fatality.

How long would it have taken for someone to find me? Irena frowned. Her world was small. She lived alone, in a one room cottage, and she never deviated from her routine of work, errands, and church.

Draping the finished garment over the arm of the chair, she stretched and yawned. It was nearly midnight and she would have to be at the enamel factory early. As the cleaning lady, she was hardly essential to the war effort, but she kept everything tidy. Her pay was barely enough for food and for her to make rent every month, but she managed to survive. Survive. That was the key word. She longed for better times, when she didn’t have to worry whether or not she would end up on the streets. There were moments when she truly hated herself, but she often had to sin to survive. Stealing, buying off the black market, spending the night with her employer to receive better wages…All to survive. She weekly confessed her sins to the priest, but the guilt was still there and she was no better off.

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