We Were the Lucky Ones

by Georgia Hunter

  With every step closer to the ship, the knot in Addy’s chest tightens. He brings a hand to his left-side ribs, to the place where it hurts. Beneath his fingers, he can feel the beat of his heart, his pulse like a timepiece, ticking down the seconds until he disappears from the continent. Until an ocean separates him from the people he loves most. It doesn’t help that the handful of Polish refugees he’s met on the pier – those lucky enough still to be in contact with family back home – describe what they know of the state of their country in terms Addy can’t fathom: overcrowded ghettos, public beatings, Jews dying of cold, hunger, and disease by the thousands. One young woman from Kraków told Addy that her husband, a professor of poetry, had been taken, along with dozens of the city’s intellectuals, to the wall of the city’s Wawel Castle, where they were lined up and shot. Afterward, she said, with tears streaking her cheeks, their bodies were rolled down the hill and into the Vistula River. Addy had hugged her as she cried into his shoulder, and then tried with all of his might to erase the image from his mind. It was too much for him to bear.

  As he inches toward the ship, Addy takes inventory of the languages being spoken around him: French, Spanish, German, Polish, Dutch, Czech. Most of his fellow passengers carry small valises like his own – in them, the handful of belongings with which they hoped to start their new lives. Tucked into Addy’s are a roll-necked sweater, a collared shirt, an undershirt, a spare pair of socks, a fine-tooth comb, a small sliver of army-issued soap, some twine, a razor, a toothbrush, a date book, three leather pocket notebooks (already full), his favourite 78 RPM record of Chopin’s ‘Polonaise, op. 40, no. 1’, and a photograph of his parents. In his shirt pocket he carries a half-used notebook, in his trouser pocket a few coins and his mother’s linen handkerchief. He has 1,500 zloty and 2,000 francs – his life’s savings – stashed in his snakeskin wallet, along with the sixteen documents he’s collected in order to talk his way out of the army and into a Brazilian visa.

  Addy’s encounter with Ambassador Souza Dantas in Vichy had been brief. ‘Leave your passport with my secretary,’ Souza Dantas told him, when they were far enough from the hotel that no one would overhear. ‘Tell her I sent you, and come back for it tomorrow. Your visa will await you in Marseille. It will be good for ninety days. There’s a ship leaving for Rio around the 20th January – the Alsina, I believe. I don’t know when, or if, there will be another. You should get on it. You will need to renew the visa once you arrive in Brazil.’

  ‘Of course,’ Addy said, thanking the ambassador profusely and reaching for his wallet. ‘What will I owe you?’ But Souza Dantas just shook his head, and Addy realised then that it wasn’t for the money that the ambassador was risking his job and his reputation.

  The next day, Addy retrieved his passport. Across the top, in the ambassador’s hand, was written: Valid for Travel to Brazil. He kissed the words, along with the hand of Souza Dantas’s secretary, shed a few belongings, and hitchhiked south. He wore his army attire, hoping the uniform would help get him a ride; the train would have been faster, but he wanted to steer clear of the station checkpoints.

  When he arrived in Marseille, Addy made his way immediately to the embassy, where, amazingly, his visa awaited. It was marked with the number 52. After staring at it for a long moment, he tucked it into his passport and half walked, half jogged to the port. At the sight of the Alsina’s huge black hull looming over the harbour, he laughed and cried in the same breath, at once overwhelmed with hope and anticipation of what the free world would bring, and devastated by the notion of leaving Europe, and with it his family, behind.

  ‘Do you know of other ships sailing for Brazil in the coming months?’ he’d asked at the maritime office. ‘Son,’ the agent behind the window said, shaking his head, ‘consider yourself lucky to make it out on this one.’ The agent was right. There were fewer and fewer passenger ships permitted to sail for the Americas. But Addy refused to give up hope. He’d spent the afternoon huddled in the corner of a cafe near the port, penning a letter to his mother.

  10 Jan. ’40

  Dear Mother,

  I pray that my letters have reached you and that you and the others are well. I have secured passage to Brazil on a ship called Alsina. We leave in five days, on the 15th of January, for Rio de Janeiro. Captain estimates we will reach South America in two weeks. As soon as I arrive I will write again with an address where you can reach me. Remember what I told you about Ambassador Souza Dantas in Vichy. Please be safe. Counting the minutes until I hear from you.

  Love always,

  Addy

  Before he left the cafe, Addy stepped into the washroom, where he changed out of his fatigues and into his suit. But instead of folding his uniform into his satchel as he normally did, he balled it up and slipped it into the waste bin.

  Addy’s cabin is pint-sized. He removes his shoes and shuffles in sideways, careful not to graze the rickety shoulder-width berth, whose walnut-veneer headboard and candlewick-yellow bedcover appear a decade past their prime. Opposite the sagging mattress sit a small mahogany bench and some shallow shelves. He sets his shoes on the bottom shelf and his satchel on the bench, hangs his overcoat and fedora on the hook on the back of the washroom door, then peeks inside. The washroom – his reason for splurging on a second-class ticket – is also impossibly small. Inside, a showerhead dangles from a metal hose attached to the wall over the toilet, and a small, round mirror hangs over a tiny porcelain sink. Addy’s skin tingles at the thought of a hot shower – it’s been nearly a week since his last. He undresses immediately.

  After folding his shirt, vest, and pants into a neat pile on his bed, he collects his soap, comb, and razor and steps into the washroom, still clad in his underwear and socks. He slides the showerhead into its wall mount, and turns the metal lever to the hot position. The pressure is dismal, but the water is warm, and as it washes over him he can feel it softening the strain in his shoulders. He hums as he scrubs himself – underwear and all – until he’s worked up a satisfying lather, then pivots slowly in a small circle to rinse. When his undergarments are suds-free, he peels them off and hangs them over the sink, then soaps himself once again and lets the water run over his bare skin for a moment before cranking the shower lever to off. He reaches for the sole white towel hanging from a bar on the backside of the washroom door and dries himself, still humming. At the mirror, he brushes his teeth, combs his hair, and shaves, running his fingers along the square of his jaw, examining closely for places he might have missed. Finally, he wrings out his wet clothes and, rigging up a clothesline with his twine, hangs them to dry. Stepping back into spare undergarments and his suit, he smiles; he feels like a new person.

  On deck, Addy weaves through a crowd of refugees, nodding hellos and catching snippets of conversations as he makes his way toward the bow of the ship: Did you hear Zamora’s on board? someone asks as he passes. Addy wonders if he would recognise Zamora if he bumped into him; surely the ex-president of Spain has purchased a ticket in first class, a deck above. Most of the talk Addy overhears is that of the ingenious planning and relentless effort required to secure visas. Stood in line for eighteen days straight. Paid off the embassy worker. Just awful, to leave my sisters behind.

  There are several guesses as to how many refugees are aboard – I heard six hundred … ship’s built for three hundred … no wonder it’s so damned crowded … those poor folks down in third class must be miserable. The second-class deck is cramped, but Addy knows it’s nothing compared with the quarters below, in steerage.

  About half of the refugees Addy meets are Jews, several of whom mention Souza Dantas’s name. If it weren’t for the ambassador … The others are a mix of Spaniards fleeing Franco’s regime, French socialists and so-called degenerate artists, and other ‘undesirables’ from across Europe, all seeking safety in Brazil. Most have left behind their families – siblings, parents, cousins, even grown children – and not a soul knows what, exactly, the future will hold. But despite the un
certainty, the underlying mood has shifted, now that everyone has settled on board, to one of giddy anticipation. With the Alsina set to sail at 1700 hours, the air suddenly smells of hope, and freedom.

  Addy walks the length of the ship until he reaches the bow, where he discovers a navy blue door with a brass placard and laughs at his good luck: SALON DE MUSIQUE, PREMIERE CLASSE. A music lounge! He holds his breath as he reaches for the knob and is saddened to discover it locked. Perhaps someone will open it, he tells himself, stepping to the rail, watching as a crush of men and women amble by. Sure enough, after a few minutes, the blue door swings open and a young crewman dressed in white emerges; Addy waits until he has disappeared into the crowd, catching the door with his toe just before it closes. Inside, he faces a stairwell. He climbs the steps in twos.

  The lounge is empty. Its cherry floors gleam from beneath a patchwork of soft wool rugs in red, gold, and indigo. Floor-to-ceiling windows along the starboard-facing wall offer a view of the port, and the wall opposite is decked with mirrors, making the room feel larger than it is. There are polished wood columns in the corners and a broad, arched doorway leading to what Addy presumes to be the first-class cabins. A leather sofa, a few round tables, and a dozen chairs are gathered at one end of the lounge, and at the other end, perched in the corner – his heart somersaults when he sees it – a Steinway grand piano.

  He sizes up the instrument as he approaches. It was made in the early 1900s, he guesses, before the Great Depression, when manufacturers began downsizing to the baby grand. Addy blows on the hood, blinking as a plume of dust levitates over the instrument, gleaming in the sunlight. Beneath the keys, an elegant round stool with carved walnut legs and cast-iron dolphin feet beckons for him to sit. Addy gives the stool a gentle spin to adjust the height and settles onto the smooth, slightly worn surface. He lifts the fall and rests his hands on the keys, overwhelmed, suddenly, with nostalgia for home. Flexing an ankle, he suspends a toe over the piano’s damper pedal. It’s been months since he’s had the luxury of playing, but he has no doubt which piece he’ll play first.

  As the opening notes of Chopin’s ‘Waltz in F minor, op. 70, no. 2’ fill the room, Addy tips his head forward and closes his eyes. In an instant, he’s twelve years old, perched on a bench beneath the keys of his parents’ piano in Radom, where he, Halina, and Mila used to take turns practicing for an hour every day after school. When they were advanced enough, they learnt Chopin, whose name was practically sacred in the Kurc household. Addy can still recall the sense of accomplishment that had filled his heart after he completed his first étude without a single mistake. ‘Maestro Chopin would be very proud,’ his mother had said quietly, patting his shoulder.

  When Addy opens his eyes, he’s surprised to find a small crowd gathered around him. The onlookers are all very smartly dressed. The women wear cloche hats and elegant beaver-collared overcoats, the men fedoras, bowler hats, and tailored three-piece suits. There’s a hint of cologne in the air, a pleasant reprieve from the rank body odour permeating the common spaces a deck below. A different class of refugee, yes, but Addy knows that beneath the fine furs and tweeds, everyone on the boat is fleeing the same dire fate.

  ‘Bravo! Che bello,’ an Italian behind him beams as Addy’s last note settles over the lounge. ‘Encore!’ the woman next to him cries. Addy grins, raising his hands. ‘Pourquoi non?’ he shrugs. He doesn’t need to be asked twice.

  When he finishes one piece, he’s encouraged to play another, and with each encore Addy’s audience grows, along with his gusto. He plays the classics: Beethoven, Mozart, Scarlatti, working up a sweat. He removes his coat, unbuttons his collar. As the onlookers continue to gather, he transitions to pop melodies by his favourite American jazz composers: Louis Armstrong, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin. He’s partway through Duke Ellington’s ‘Caravan’ when the ship’s horn sounds.

  ‘We’re leaving!’ someone shrieks. Addy wraps up ‘Caravan’ with an improvised cadence and stands, the lounge suddenly full of chatter. He reaches for his coat and follows as the crowd converges on the starboard deck to watch the Alsina push back from the dock, her engines growling. The horn sounds again – a long, guttural farewell that hangs in the air for several seconds before floating off to sea.

  And then they are moving, barely at first, as if in slow motion toward an orange sun hanging low over the glittery waters of the Mediterranean. A few of the passengers cheer, but most, like Addy, simply stare as they steam west, past Napoleon III’s splendid nineteenth-century Palais du Pharo, past the pink stone forts and the lone lighthouse at the mouth of the Vieux Port. By the time the Alsina reaches deeper waters, the sun has vanished and the sea is more black than blue. The boat arcs south, and the scenery shifts to an endless expanse of open water. Somewhere beyond the horizon, Addy realises, as the ship picks up speed, is Africa. Beyond that, the Americas. He glances over his shoulder at the long trail of foam dissipating in their wake, at a miniature Marseille. ‘Adieu for now,’ he whispers as the city disappears.

  They’ve been at sea for over a week and he is a regular now in the first-class lounge, which has transformed into a concert hall of sorts – a stage where the passengers gather each night to sing, dance, play whatever they play best, a place where they can get lost in the music, the arts, and forget, for the time being at least, about the worlds they’ve left behind. The piano has been pulled from the corner into the middle of the room, a few rows of chairs arranged in a half circle around it, and various other instruments have surfaced – an African drum, a viola, a saxophone, a flute. The musical talent on board is astounding. Addy just about fell from his stool one evening when he looked up to see not only the Kranz brothers in the crowd – he’d grown up listening to their concert piano on the radio – but beside them, Poland’s sterling violinist, Henryk Szeryng. Tonight, Addy guesses, there are more than a hundred people crowded into the lounge.

  But he can see only one.

  She’s seated to his right at two o’clock, in the second row of chairs, next to a woman with the same pale eyes, ivory skin, and square, self-assured posture. A mother–daughter pair, surely. Addy reminds himself not to stare. Clearing his throat, he decides his final piece of the evening will be one of his own, ‘List’. He glances at her between stanzas. There are dozens of pretty women on board, but this one is different. She can’t be older than eighteen. She wears a white collared blouse and, between her lapels, a gleaming string of pearls. Her finger-waved ash-blonde hair is pinned into a loose bun at the nape of her neck. He wonders where she is from, and how he hadn’t noticed her before. He’ll introduce himself, he decides, before the night is over.

  Addy caps his performance with a bow, and the lounge swells with applause as he leaves the stool. Snaking through the crowded room, he glances again at the girl, and their eyes meet. Addy grins, his heart galloping. She returns his smile.

  It’s midnight when Ziembiński, a director and actor whom the audience has also come to love, finally clinches the soirée with a theatrical reading from Victor Hugo’s Les Voix Intérieures. As the crowd begins to dissipate, Addy waits quietly just beyond the arched doorway to the first-class cabins, averting his eyes so as not to get caught in conversation with passersby – no easy task. After a few minutes, the girl and her mother appear. Addy rights his posture, and as they stroll by, he extends a hand to the mother. ‘It’s what distinguishes the gentlemen from the boys,’ Nechuma told him once. ‘When a mother approves, then you may introduce yourself to her daughter.’

  ‘Bonsoir, Madame …’ Addy ventures, his arm outstretched between them.

  The girl’s mother stops abruptly, seemingly irked to have been disturbed. The way she carries herself, with her shoulders pinned back and her lips pressed tightly together, reminds Addy of his old piano teacher in Radom – a formidable woman whose rigid standards pushed him to become the musician he is today, but with whom he wouldn’t want to share a drink. Reluctantly, she takes his hand.

  ‘Lowbeer,�
� she says in a slight accent, her ice-blue eyes drifting down the length of Addy’s torso. ‘De Prague,’ she says, when her gaze finally meets his. Her face is long, her lips painted mauve. They are Czechoslovakian.

  ‘Addy Kurc. Plaisir de vous rencontrer.’ Addy wonders how much French the pair understands.

  ‘Plaisir,’ Madame Lowbeer replies. After a moment’s silence, the woman turns to her daughter. ‘Puis-je vous présenter ma fille, Eliska.’

  Eliska. Her blouse, he can now see, is sewn from a fine linen, her knee-length navy skirt, a rich cashmere. His mother would be impressed, he thinks, and then swallows the familiar pull, the worry that coils around his heart whenever his thoughts turn to his mother. There is nothing more you can do now, he tells himself. You will write to her again in Rio.