The Things We Cannot Say

The ride in the back of the produce truck is harrowing for both Alina and Saul. They travel in total silence in the darkness and suffocating closeness with only Alina’s small cache of food and water. When they arrive at the Don River, they climb out of the crate and board a boat, more a raft, to cross into Soviet territory, free of the Nazis. There is no drama to the crossing. From there the two walk to the train station, chaotic with Polish refugees. The two-week train ride to Buzuluk is difficult. The two are crowded into a cattle car with little sunlight or ventilation. The refugees must take turns sitting. When they arrive at the camp in Buzuluk, they are initially turned away as the camp is over-crowded. Alina negotiates. Her companion, she says pointing to the wan Saul, is a doctor and can be useful. Only when she gives them her mother’s ring, however, do they gain entrance.

Over the next months, Saul emerges as an inspirational force, ministering to dozens of refugees and their children. Alina, because of her supposed injury and her cast, is given charge of teaching the camp’s orphans. Alina never stops waiting for Tomasz to arrive. Her friendship with Saul deepens. He refuses to abandon hope that Tomasz will get to Buzuluk. Until then, he assures Alina, he will never forget Tomasz’s sacrifice: “I am grateful for the opportunity to help you in return. This, my friend, is how we find the best of humanity, during times when the worst of humanity may seem to have the upper hand” (371). When Alina feels the first signs that she may be pregnant, Saul agrees to marry her, to stand in for Tomasz, so Alina might avoid the ostracism directed at unwed mothers even in the refugee camps.

When the British officers finally arrive to escort Tomasz and his wife (and the film canister) to England, Alina is unsure what to do. Saul insists they must finish the mission, that Tomasz will find her. They fly off to London, deliver the film canister, and in short order find themselves on the way to freedom in America, husband and wife, Dr. Tomasz and Hanna (née Wisniewski) Slaski.

Over the next 50 years, Saul finds professional success in central Florida as a respected pediatric surgeon until his retirement. After a brief stint as a college teacher, he dies in his late 80s from the onset of dementia. The two raise Tomasz’s child, a daughter they name Julita, in a happy and stable home, determined their daughter will never know “hunger or oppression” (403), sharing parenting joy and sorrows, and never finding the right moment to reclaim their identities. Alina never entirely gives up hope that someday Tomasz will show up at her doorstep. She clings to the lines from the letter he left in her plaster cast along with the canister of film: “I will not rest until you are back with me where you belong” (397).

For her part, Alice Michaels faces a dead end. With only two days left before she returns to Florida, she sees her only hope is Emilia’s granddaughter. Alice returns to the clinic and begs the woman to at least tell her where Tomasz Slaski’s grave is. It is actually behind the farmhouse Alice had visited just days before. Why would he be buried on the Dziak farm? The simple grave marker deepens the mystery: It indicates that Tomasz Slaski was recognized for his heroic efforts to help Jewish refugees.

Nothing makes sense for Alice. How could her father, a gentle and compassionate man, let his only sister believe he was dead for so many years? Alice returns to the clinic and demands the woman help her, threatening to stay in the clinic until she agrees to let her visit Emilia. Security comes and removes Alice from the clinic. A call to her family that night confirms that things are coming apart. Callie is struggling to make dinner, Eddie was sent home from school after a tantrum, and Wade is locked in his study on a conference call. Alice then gets a message from her mother: Babcia has suffered another stroke.

On her last day in Poland, Alice briefly thinks of giving up and taking an early flight home. Then she thinks, “It feels so unfair that after all of the love [Babcia]’s given me, this one thing she’s asked me of me is something I just can’t give her” (359). She and Zofia take a trip up to the mountains around Trzebinia. The view is breathtaking, and for a moment Alice feels totally herself. As they head down the mountain, Alice receives a text. Emilia wants to meet her.

The meeting that afternoon is tearful. Alice hooks up a Skype connection, and for the first time in nearly 80 years Babcia and Emilia meet. Slowly, Alice pieces together the story of the switched identities. She learns that Tomasz Slaski turned himself into the Nazis after Alina left with Saul to prevent the truck from being stopped by any checkpoints. He sacrificed himself to ensure Saul and Alina safe passage and to ensure the film made it to the Allies. Alice finds out that Tomasz was arrested and executed by the Nazis and that Alina’s surviving family secured his body and buried it on the hill where Alina and Tomasz would meet.

Alice decides that her grandfather, whatever his name, was a gentle and loving man. Before she leaves for the airport, she Skypes Wade and discovers that Wade and Eddie are playing chess and that Wade is communicating to his son through his app. She understands better now that her kids need two parents and that her love for Wade is deeper than ever: “Just for a second, all of the chaos inside me eases, and my mind is completely still. I have a great love [for my family]. It’s not clean and simple, because our lives are not clean and simple—and it’s harder day-to-day to keep that love in our focus, because we have so much else to manage” (392).

On the long flight home, Alice finally untangles Babcia’s cryptic message: Babcia fire Tomasz. The fire icon in the communication app was the closest she could come to ashes—it is a request, Alice realizes, to bury Babcia’s ashes next to the man she loved. Alice returns to the hospital long enough to have a joyous and tearful reunion with her grandmother. Babcia dies quietly the following morning. The Michaels family flies to Poland, and in a dignified ceremony they inter the ashes of both Saul and Babcia with Tomasz. The simple memorial marker also lists Saul’s wife and his daughter Tikva, so they will never be forgotten.

Alice, on the return home, feels energized. She now knows that her family is a dynamic, that she does not need to be the single driving force. She thinks that perhaps the experience of the last months might make for a promising book.