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what we have servants for.”
    But my mother likes Franciszka and has told her that she would buy eggs from her the following week.
    Very cleverly, my mother asks our cook to find Franciszka at the market and to bring her to our house instead.
    I think my mother liked having someone new to talk to, and, as hard as it is to explain, she made a connection with Franciszka.
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    O N ONE OF HER VISITS, we notice that Franciszka seems a little distracted.
    My mother asks, “Is there something bothering you?”
    She tells us that her daughter is very beautiful and smart but there are many candidates applying for the job she is interviewing for.
    Franciszka says, “I worry that they won’t hire her because her clothes are not fancy enough.”
    My mother says, “Well, we can solve that problem,” and she disappears into her room and comes back with two dresses.
    â€œDo you think these will fit her?”
    Franciszka looks somewhat confused at my mother. “Yes, you’re both slim, so they should fit her well. I just need to take up the hem a bit since you are taller than Helena, but that’s easy to fix. It’s just that . . .” She pauses. “It’s just that I can’t really afford to buy them from you.”
    My mother responds with a giggle. ”Oh no, you can have them. I have so many that I could never wear them all anyway. Besides, this vanilla dress is particularly suited for someone working in an office. When would I ever wear that at home with Mikolaj?” she says, as she ruffles my hair.
    And so it must have been Franciszka’s daughter that my father saw that day.
    Both my mother and I knew this.
    We are excited when Franciszka tells us that her daughter, Helena, got the job.

Chapter 36
    A fter the Germans come to Poland, my father still works at the hospital but is demoted from chief.
    One day, a German commander comes to the hospital with an appendix that has burst.
    â€œHe could have died,” my father tells us.
    The commander needs an operation immediately and demands, “Who is your best surgeon?”
    â€œThat would be Dr. Wolenski” is the response. “But he is Jewish.”
    The commander says, “Get him for me now!”
    My father says, “I guess when your life is on the line, you can turn your head the other way, because the commander orders me to do the operation. He also instructs his guard to shoot me if he doesn’t survive.”
    My mother and I gasp, but then my father says, “Don’t worry. As you can see, I am here to tell you the story, so there’s a happy ending. I saved him.”
    My father regularly checks on his patient, and a kind of uneasy friendship develops between them.
    â€œIt’s hard not to have a high regard for your father,” my mother says, and I know what she means.
    A short time after this, my father is told that he can no longer work at the hospital.
    His dedication, his reputation, and his leadership—none of it mattered.
    The commander is not as bad as we think because after he leaves the hospital, he comes to see my father at home. He tells us to sell whatever we can and to get out. He says that within months, all the Jews in Sokal will be rounded up and kept in an enclosed area that they are mapping out. “I cannot help you any more than this,” he says.
    My father thanks him, and they shake hands before he leaves.
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    M Y PARENTS START to sell everything—our furniture, our paintings, our clothes, and even our house. My mother complains that people are paying us a fraction of what our things are worth, but my father says, “We don’t have a choice and the buyers know it.”
    I hear my father telling my mother that he has false passports, but no one will take the chance to transport us because he is too well recognized. “Maybe you and Mikolaj