The Things We Cannot Say

“You and I were made for each other—so whether you come to be with me or I come home to be with you—we will always find our way back to each other.”

The novel explores the dynamic of a pure and absolute love that never alters, never wanes. This passage from the first conversation between Alina and Tomasz as young, eager romantics facing Tomasz’s imminent departure for Warsaw proves prescient in ways neither lover can imagine, as the novel closes 80 long and difficult years later with the two lovers finally reunited in death.

“Need help. Find Tomasz. […] Babcia fire Tomasz.”

This desperate communication from Babcia to Alice through the laptop language app reveals a critical theme about the interdependence of families and how family members need each other. The cryptic message using the app’s limited icon dictionary puzzles Alice. Her mission to Poland will ultimately reveal that Babcia is begging for her ashes to be buried with the man she loves.

“I stared into the dispersing crowd as I learned for the first time the way it felt to force someone else’s welfare to a higher priority than your own instinct for survival.”

Alina has no experience to understand the brutal reality of the Nazi occupation. She has just witnessed the execution of Tomasz’s father, the town’s most respected doctor, as a show of force. Alina, to this point preoccupied with Tomasz’s departure for Warsaw, here understands she must now put the needs of her parents and the farm ahead of that. This realization marks her first step into adulthood.