The Long Quiet Work
For the next year, Mara worked very quietly.
She visited Helga's kitchen about once a month, never the same day of the week, never wearing anything that would mark her. She read what Helga gave her — papers on the international definition of conscription, a slow and careful history of the country's Service over thirty-eight years, three short novels by Czech and Polish authors about young people resisting their own state's polite forms of coercion. She wrote nothing down. She told her parents nothing. She told Lukas nothing. She kept the secret because the secret kept her safe.
In June, when Lukas came home for his summer leave, Mara watched him very carefully.
He was a little less thin. He had played the piano twice that visit, both times all the way through. He had laughed once at dinner, properly, in the old way. He was healing, slightly. The Service still had a year on him.
On the last night of his leave, Mara walked with him in the garden after dinner. Their parents were inside.
"Lukas. Can I ask you a thing? Honestly?"
He looked at her.
"You can always ask me a thing."
"Are you — do you want to finish the Service? Or would you, if it were possible, stop now and not go back?"
He was very still for a long time.
He said, eventually: "Mara. The honest answer is: I would, if it were possible, not go back. I will go back, because there is no way to not go back, and