Opening
Hope tightens and terrifies in these chapters. In 1942, hidden rooms and smuggled film force Alina Dziak and Tomasz Slaski to reckon with what they’re willing to risk for each other and for strangers. In the present, Alice Michaels uncovers the truth that collapses two timelines into one—and shatters her family’s story.
What Happens
Chapter 26: The Weight of Hope
Tomasz decides it’s safe enough to bring Alina on one of his night runs. He leads her to the Golaszewski farmhouse and shows her the secret: their Jewish friends, Saul Weiss and his wife Eva, hide in a suffocating cavity behind a false wall—fed through a vent, tolerated by the owner, but effectively entombed. Through a slim opening, the couple’s gratitude spills out; they already know Alina because Tomasz talks about her constantly.
Eva passes their infant, Tikva, into Alina’s hands. The baby is weightless, starved, and sacred; her name means “hope.” Holding Tikva breaks something in Alina. She walks home in stunned silence, then sobs—ashamed she ever claimed powerlessness while others risked everything. Tomasz holds her and says they can only do what they can, and believe there is hope. The brutal logistics of hiding and the moral shock of witnessing it bring the reality of War, Trauma, and Survival into sharp focus.
Chapter 27: A Dream of Florida
Unable to sleep, Alina asks about Henry Adamcwiz, Tomasz’s American photographer friend. Tomasz explains the plan Henry once offered: smuggle undeveloped film out in a plaster arm cast for a major newspaper documenting the occupation. He turned it down before because he couldn’t leave Alina; he feared she would refuse to join a dangerous escape.
To steady themselves, they build a future in words: a big house in Florida, no winter, Tomasz a pediatrician, Alina working in a library. They name their imagined children Aleksy and Julita—an early thread of Family Legacy and Intergenerational Connection. Across two waiting days, they treat the cellar as a “blissful honeymoon,” transforming fear into intimacy and resolve, with Love, Sacrifice, and Loyalty as the center that holds.
Chapter 28: Please Understand Tomasz
Alice meets Zofia in Poland. Over breakfast, Zofia’s research delivers jolts: birth records for Tomasz and Alina in Trzebinia, none for “Hanna Wiśniewski”—so Babcia was likely born elsewhere. She also finds nothing local for Saul, Eva, or Tikva Weiss. Then she translates Babcia’s note: “Prosze˛ zrozum. Tomasz”—“Please understand, Tomasz.” The note, paired with Tomasz’s unsent love letter, sharpens the puzzle and the novel’s tension around Communication and Silence.
Zofia becomes an indispensable ally, and a central mystery emerges: Babcia’s stories contradict the records. Alice realizes she is not just honoring a request; she is entering a hidden history that refuses to stay buried.
Chapter 29: The Escape Plan
Henry arrives with a route and a risk. Alina and Tomasz will ride in a concealed compartment inside a large wooden crate on a supply truck for a day without food, light, or movement. The truck will skirt the front, then they’ll cross near the Don River into Soviet territory, traveling on foot and by overcrowded train to Buzuluk, where the Polish Second Division is reforming and British officers can funnel Henry’s film toward the U.S.
The plan buckles when Alina admits her identity papers were with her mother and are gone. No papers means no entry to the camp. Henry gambles on his contact, Nadia, to forge documents in a single day. With time tightening, Alina retrieves her mother’s wedding ring and sews it into her coat. Tomasz promises to hold her for the entire journey; Alina decides she can endure anything if they’re together.
Chapter 30: My Name is Alina
Zofia drives Alice to Trzebinia, sketching a grim history—its Jewish community erased, Auschwitz nearby. The first address on Babcia’s list is a ruined farmhouse that exactly matches Babcia’s childhood descriptions. Alice calls home; Julita Slaski-Davis and Babcia cry to see it again.
Details fall into place—Babcia had twin brothers; her mother was Faustina. Zofia asks in Polish, “Are you Alina Dziak?” Babcia nods and adds a new button on her device: a selfie labeled “Alina.” Julita reels as decades of certainty flip in a breath. Later, Alice phones Wade; a hopeful report about their day sours into the old fight when she learns Eddie Michaels hasn’t been given his exact soup. The call ends abruptly, leaving Alice adrift—connected to the past, disconnected at home.
Character Development
These chapters pivot characters from fear to action, fantasy to proof, secrecy to revelation.
- Alina Dziak: Confronts her passivity as she holds Tikva; commits to a terrifying escape and quietly claims a future by stitching her mother’s ring into her coat.
- Tomasz Slaski: Remains steady and protective, yet vulnerable in his devotion; his Florida daydreams reveal the tenderness under his resistance work.
- Alice Michaels: Shifts from dutiful granddaughter to investigator; the farmhouse and discovery of Babcia’s true name bond her to the past even as her marriage strain gnaws.
- Babcia (Hanna/Alina): Breaks a seventy-year silence by naming herself; her agency—via a note, an iPad button, and tears—launches the novel’s central mystery.
Themes & Symbols
War rewrites boundaries—of rooms, families, and selves. The Weiss family’s hidden nook and the crate-bound escape map the physical and moral claustrophobia of [War, Trauma, and Survival]. Alina’s shame-fueled awakening shows how survival choices leave psychic scars, not only for those hunted but also for those who help.
Love asserts a counter-history. In a cellar-turned-sanctuary, [Love, Sacrifice, and Loyalty] sustain Alina and Tomasz—evident in deferred opportunities, shared fantasies, and the tactile promise of a sewn ring. Across time, [Family Legacy and Intergenerational Connection] becomes literal as Alice steps into Babcia’s village and watches a false name fall away. Meanwhile, [Communication and Silence] governs everything: a smuggled film, an unsent letter, a plea to “understand,” and an iPad button that finally speaks.
Symbols:
- Tikva (Hope): The baby’s name embodies fragile, defiant hope; holding her catalyzes Alina’s moral turn.
- The Farmhouse: A memory made material; for Alice, it transforms story into evidence and anchors identity.
- The Ring: A hidden inheritance and portable future—stitched into a hem, carried toward a life not yet earned.
Key Quotes
“Prosze˛ zrozum. Tomasz.”
- Translated as “Please understand, Tomasz,” the note distills decades of secrecy into a plea. It frames Babcia’s silence as love and fear entwined, and it fuels Alice’s quest to read what was never spoken.
“My name is Alina.”
- When Babcia adds “Alina” to her device, she reclaims authorship of her life. The act collapses timelines, giving the past a voice in the present and shifting the novel from suspicion to certainty.
“Tikva — ‘hope.’”
- The name itself operates as a thesis for the 1942 plotline. In Alina’s arms, hope is literal and weightless; its fragility forces Alina to see the cost of inaction and the urgency of choice.
“Blissful honeymoon.”
- This phrase reframes a cellar as a haven. The contrast underscores how love can reimagine a site of terror into one of protection, without denying the danger pressing in.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
This stretch delivers the first major convergence: Babcia is Alina Dziak. With identity unveiled, the dual narratives fuse into a single investigation—not just of escape routes but of why a woman erased herself to survive. In 1942, Alina’s encounter with Tikva turns guilt into resolve and raises the stakes of the escape; in the present, Alice’s discovery transforms a family errand into a reclamation of truth. The chapters reposition hope as both burden and engine, setting up the novel’s next movement: how courage, secrecy, and love carry a name from Trzebinia to America—and what it costs to keep it.