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father has a big apartment for me, and she can have her own room with us.”
    Not workable
, I think, and I scramble to make something up. “She feels safe in that house and doesn’t want to leave.”
    The thing with a lie is that soon more become necessary to cover up the ones before it. And so I continue with, “After my brother is married, she will live with him.”
    It’s hard to think clearly when you’re this upset, so I don’t even know if anything I am saying makes sense.
    In any case, Casmir is just as upset as I am, so he doesn’t question it.
    â€œWhen do you have to leave?” I ask.
    â€œBy the end of the month,” he replies.
    â€œSo soon?” It was the response that I would have had, no matter what the answer was.
    He says, “I will come back to see you when I can.”
    All of a sudden, the realization of what I’ve done hits me.
    I feel myself panicking.
    I want to say, “Take me with you, forget what I’ve just said,” but I know I can’t. The thought of being away from him is unbearable and I start to sob uncontrollably.
    What he says next catches me completely by surprise. ”Helena, let’s get engaged.”
    Did he plan on asking me all along, or is he reacting to the distraught girl in front of him?
    â€œReally?” I say, my voice cracking as I try to suppress a sniffle.
    â€œReally is not an answer,” he says.
    Even now, he is the Casmir that makes everything better.
    â€œWhat will your father say?” I ask timidly.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter,” he says in a dismissive manner. “He’s old and tired now. He won’t make me repeat his mistake.”
    â€œWhat mistake?” I ask.
    Casmir says, “I never told you that my mother committed suicide, Helena.”
    I am taken aback by this.
    â€œWhen his wife found out about my mother, she threatened to divorce him if he kept seeing her.
    â€œSo he told my mother that he had to end the relationship. After she died, he never forgave himself. In a letter she left for him, she made him promise to take care of me and told him that she would always love him. It was then that I was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland.”
    â€œOh, Casmir,” I say, and now the tears are for him. “It must have been horrible for you.”
    He says, “I didn’t know how to think of my father for the longest time. He loved me but kept me distant from his family. He visited me at school, but I never went home on holidays like the other boys. Now that he thinks his time may be limited, he wants me near him. When I see him, all he wants to talk about is my mother. He tells me that she was the one who really loved him. My father doesn’t care that his wife hears him when he says, ‘Not like this one. All she wants is the money.’”
    Casmir tells me that his father wants him to have his business in Germany.
    I didn’t know that Casmir had suffered such loss as a child. He hid it well.
    I need to make him understand even more than ever now.
    I say, “Please wait for me, Casmir. I know how much your mother must have loved your father because that is how I feel about you.”
    We leave the restaurant, and he walks me home with his arm over my shoulder. I love that feeling.
    Casmir hires someone to replace him at work, but everyone knows that we are engaged so I am treated very well.
    Sometimes I think of Ferda and what she would think of this.
    Almost every day, I wish for the war to be over.

Chapter 15
    O ne day,my mother says, “Casmir is good friends with the German commander, right?”
    I reply, “Yes, I told you this.”
    She says, “Well, then, let’s invite them both over for dinner before he leaves.”
    I look at my mother as if she has lost her mind. I don’t have to say that we have a Jewish family underneath the table where we are sitting and another one in the shed.
    She