We Were the Lucky Ones

by Georgia Hunter

  It’s quite possible, Addy realises, that in the midst of war, his letters aren’t reaching his mother. Or that they are reaching her, and it’s her letters that aren’t reaching him. Addy wishes he had a friend in a neutral country in Europe who could forward his correspondences. There is also the possibility, of course, that his letters are arriving at his old address, but the family is no longer there. It’s unbearable, picturing his parents confined to a ghetto, or worse. He’d begun writing to his physician, to his old piano teacher, and to the superintendent of his parents’ building, asking each to share some news, to pass his missives on if they happened to know the whereabouts of his parents and siblings. He hasn’t heard back from anyone yet, but he refuses to stop writing. Putting words to paper, engaging in a form of conversation, seeing the word Radom scrawled across the face of an envelope – these are the things that keep him grounded.

  Addy pushes open the door to the Copacabana post office, breathing in its familiar scent of paper and ink. ‘Bom dia, Senhor Kurc,’ his friend Gabriela calls from her usual perch behind the counter.

  ‘Good morning, Gabi,’ Addy replies. He hands her his letter, already stamped. Gabriela shakes her head as she takes it. He no longer has to ask.

  ‘Nothing today,’ she says.

  Addy nods in understanding. ‘Gabi, I’m moving to the interior for a few months next week, for a job. Is it possible to hold my mail, in case anything comes while I’m away?’

  ‘Of course,’ Gabriela smiles kindly, in a way that tells him he’s not the only one waiting for news from abroad.

  As he leaves the post office, Addy’s heart is heavy, and he realises it’s not just the fate of his family that is weighing on him, but something else. Twice in the last week, Eliska has brought up the subject of a wedding; she’s asked him to think about what kind of food they might serve, and later suggested they talk about a honeymoon. Both times he’s changed the subject, realising it’s impossible to contemplate a wedding with his family still missing.

  Addy lets his mind slip back in time to the beach in Dakar, where he and Eliska had clung to each other as fiercely as they did to the idea of a life of freedom, their love swept along by a swift current of danger and uncertainty … Would they make it to Rio? Would they be sent back to Europe? Whatever happened, they told each other, they’d be together! Now, at long last, they are safe. There are no more fishermen to bribe, no more expired visas to agonise over, no more hour-long walks to a deserted beach to make love in privacy. But now, for the first time in their relationship, they argue. They argue about whom to include in their dinner plans – Eliska’s friends are more fun, she says, his friends too intellectual. ‘No one wants to sit around talking about Nietzsche,’ she once groused. They butt heads about unimportant things like the fastest route to the market, and whether the espadrilles in the shop window are worth the splurge. (‘I think not,’ Addy will say, knowing that Eliska will inevitably show up to their next date wearing them.) They bicker over which station to tune to on the radio – ‘Forget the news, Addy,’ Eliska once said, exasperated. ‘It’s too depressing. Can we listen to some music?’

  Addy sighs. What he would give to spend an hour with his mother, to get her advice about the woman he plans to marry. Talk to her, Nechuma would say. If you love her, you must be honest with her. No secrets. But they had talked. They were honest with one another. They’d talked about how things felt different between them on South American soil. Once, they’d even discussed ending their engagement. But neither is willing to give up just yet. Addy is Eliska’s anchor, and Eliska, Addy’s thread to the world he left behind. In her eyes, he sees Europe. He sees a reminder of his old life.

  Walking instinctively toward the Teatro Municipal, Addy finds himself recalling Eliska’s words from the week before, when he’d confided in her once again how anxious he felt about losing contact with his family. ‘You worry too much,’ she’d said. ‘I hate it, Addy. I hate seeing the sadness in your eyes. We’re free as birds here; let’s relax, enjoy ourselves a bit.’ Free as birds. But he cannot feel free when so much of him is missing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Mila and Felicia

  Radom, German-Occupied Poland ~ April 1942

  Since the massacre, which is what everyone began calling it when Mila, Felicia, and the four others were returned to the ghetto, the SS have unleashed a beast. Perhaps they realised what they were capable of, or were holding back before. They aren’t holding back any longer. The violence at Wałowa escalates by the day. There have been another four roundups in the weeks since Mila returned. In one case the Jews were marched to the train station and herded into cattle cars; in another they were simply brought to a perimeter wall and shot. There are no more lists, no more false promises of a life of freedom in Palestine or the States. Instead there are raids, there are factories searched, there are Jews lined up and counted. The Germans are always counting. And every day, a Jew in hiding or without the proper work papers is killed. Some are even gunned down at random. Last week, as Mila and her friend Antonia returned from a day’s work at the factory, a pair of SS soldiers strolled by on the street, casually unholstered their pistols, knelt down, and began shooting, as if in target practice. Mila ducked silently into an alleyway, giving thanks for the fact that Felicia wasn’t with her, but Antonia panicked and ran straight into their path. Mila sank to her knees and prayed as the sound of several more gunshots ricocheted off the brick walls of the two-storey apartments lining the street. When the stomp of German boots finally receded, she ventured out and found Antonia a few metres away, lying still, face down on the cobblestones with a bullet hole between her shoulder blades. It could have been me, she thought, sickened by the reality that what little order had existed when the ghetto was first erected had long been lost. The Germans were killing now for sport. Any day, she knows, could be her last.

  ‘Remember, walk only in your socks, and play very quietly,’ Mila instructs. She glances at her watch. She mustn’t be late. Panicked over what might happen should Felicia be discovered at the factory, Mila has begun leaving her behind in the flat to fend for herself while she’s at work.

  ‘Please, Mamusiu – can I come with you?’ Felicia begs. She wants nothing of staying home alone.

  But Mila is adamant. ‘I’m sorry, love. You’re better off here,’ she reasons. ‘I’ve told you – you’re a big girl now, and you barely fit beneath my desk at the workshop.’

  ‘I can be small!’ Felicia pleads.

  Mila’s eyes water. It’s the same struggle every morning and it’s awful, hearing the desperation in her daughter’s voice, letting her down. But she mustn’t relent. It’s far too dangerous.

  ‘It’s not safe,’ Mila explains. ‘And it won’t be for long. I’ve been thinking of a new way to get us out of here. Both of us. We must be patient. It will take some time to prepare.’

  ‘Will we be with Father?’ Felicia asks. Mila blinks. It’s the third time in the past week Felicia has asked about Selim. Mila can’t fault her for it. When she’d been at her most despondent, she’d indulged in hours of telling Felicia about Selim, a way of fooling herself into thinking that by talking about him, he would come back, give her some answers, some advice on how to survive, how to keep Felicia safe. She’d told Felicia countless stories of her handsome doctor father: the way he’d push his glasses up his nose, the way the corners of his mouth had crinkled when Mila first told him that she’d become pregnant within months of marriage – as if the strength of their love needed a physical manifestation – and later, after Felicia was born, the way he would make her laugh by counting her toes, by blowing kisses into her belly, by playing endless games of peek-a-boo. Felicia can recite these stories, along with the details of his face, as if recalling them from her own memory.

  Mila has put so much hope into Selim’s return, it is understandable that her daughter would assume that any plan for their safety would involve him. But the odds of her husband being alive have begun to feel
impossibly small, and Mila knows that the longer she clings to this fantasy, the more dangerous it becomes. It’s been two years of constant worry. Constant fear of the worst. Mila has had enough. She can’t do it any longer. She has to let him go, to take responsibility for herself and for Felicia. It will be less harrowing, she realises, to mourn him than to worry incessantly about him. Until they are safe, she’s decided, she must believe he is dead. It is the only way to keep her wits about her.

  But how can she tell this to Felicia? How can she explain to her almost-four-year-old daughter that she might never know her father? ‘You need to prepare her,’ Nechuma has said over and over. ‘You can’t keep her hopes up; she’ll resent you for it.’ Her mother is right. But Mila isn’t ready yet, for the conversation, for the heartbreak that will ensue. Instead, she will try a new tack. She will tell part of the truth. She reaches for Felicia’s hands, holds them in hers.

  ‘I want so badly to believe your father will come back to us. But I – I don’t know where he is, love.’

  Felicia shakes her head. ‘Something happened to him?’

  ‘No. I don’t know. But what I do know is that if he is well, wherever he is, he’s thinking of you. Of us.’ Mila manages a smile. Her voice is soft. ‘We will try to find him, I promise. It will be a lot easier to ask around once we’re outside the ghetto. But until then, we must think about what’s best for us. You and me. Okay?’

  Felicia looks at the floor.

  Mila sighs. She squats before Felicia, wraps her fingers gently around her upper arms, and waits for her to look up. When she does, there are tears in her eyes. ‘I know it’s awful, being alone all day,’ Mila says quietly. ‘But you have to know it is for the best. You are safe here. Out there …’ Mila looks to the door, shaking her head. ‘Do you understand?’

  Felicia nods.

  Mila glances again at her watch. She is late. She’ll need to jog to the workshop. She reminds Felicia about the bread in the pantry, about walking in her socks, about the place in the cabinet, the secret spot where she’s meant to hide and to stay perfectly still, like a statue, should anyone knock while Mila is at work.

  ‘Goodbye, love,’ Mila says, kissing Felicia on the cheek.

  ‘Goodbye,’ Felicia whispers.

  Outside, Mila locks the door to the flat and closes her eyes for a moment, praying as she does every morning that the Germans won’t raid the flat while she’s gone, that she will return in nine hours to find her daughter right where she left her.

  Felicia frowns. Her mind buzzes. Her father is out there somewhere, she is sure of it. He will come back to them. Her mother may not believe it, but she does. She wonders for the thousandth time what it will feel like to meet him, imagining him scooping her off her feet, magically easing her hunger, filling her up with happiness. Her mother had mentioned a way to get them out of the ghetto. Maybe this new idea of hers will lead them to her father. Felicia’s shoulders sink as she remembers the two plans before it. The mattress. The list. Both were horrifying. With each, she had ended up back where she started, and worse off for it. Her mother speaks often of waiting. Of being patient. She hates that word.

  It takes Mila several weeks to gather what she needs for her plan to work: a pair of gloves, an old blanket, scissors, two needles, several lengths of black thread, two buttons, a handful of fabric scraps, and a newspaper. What she takes from the factory she tucks discreetly into her bra or under her waistband, keenly aware that the last worker who was searched and caught with a spool of thread in the pocket of his winter coat was murdered on the spot.

  Every night, from the flat’s second-storey window, she presses her nose to the glass and runs her gaze along the brick apartments lining the ghetto perimeter, studying each of the three gates at the main entrance on the corner of Wałowa and Lubelska Streets – a wide arch for vehicles, flanked by two narrower openings for pedestrians. And every night it’s the same: the German wives arrive just before six, dressed in their sleek overcoats and felt caps. They stroll in through the vehicle gate and congregate at the ghetto’s cobblestoned entrance, waiting for their husbands, the ghetto guards, to be relieved from duty. Some cradle infants in their arms, others clasp the hands of small children. While the women mingle, the three hundred or so Jews returning from day labour camps outside the ghetto are herded back in through the two smaller pedestrian gates. At six o’clock sharp, the guards, along with their wives and children, disappear from beneath the arched vehicle entrance, and all three gates to the outside world are sealed shut, not to be reopened until morning.

  Mila checks the time. Ten minutes until six. At the ghetto entrance, a little boy darts from his mother’s side to wrap his arms around the leg of one of the guards. Which of these strangers, she wonders, lives in her parents’ old home? Which of the wives bathes in her mother’s porcelain bathtub? Which of the children practises scales on their beloved Steinway? The thought of a Nazi family making themselves comfortable at 14 Warszawska makes her sick.

  She watches as the ghetto gates swing closed. Six o’clock on the dot.

  This time, Mila decides, her plan will work. It has to. She and Felicia will escape. And they’ll do it in plain daylight, for all of the goddamn guards to see.

  It’s after curfew and the ghetto is quiet. Mila and her mother stand at their small kitchen table, their supplies laid neatly in front of them. A single candle burns for light. ‘Shame I left my patterns at the shop,’ Nechuma says quietly, as she cuts a page of newspaper into the shape of the body of an overcoat. ‘You’ll have to dress warmly,’ she adds. ‘We have nothing for lining.’ Mila nods as she kneels to pin her mother’s makeshift pattern to the blanket she’s spread across the floor, snipping the wool carefully along the edges of the paper. She and Nechuma trade the scissors back and forth, repeating the process for the coat’s sleeves, lapels, collar, and pockets. And then, sitting on opposite sides of the table, they begin to sew.

  The hours slip away as the women work. Every so often they look up at one another, their eyes glassy, and smile – it’s been a long time since they’ve sewn together and it feels good, a distant reminder of the afternoons, long before Felicia was born, when they’d sit down to fix a hem or patch a seam – it was often during those afternoons at each other’s side that their most meaningful conversations would unfold.

  At around three in the morning, Nechuma tiptoes to the pantry and pulls out a drawer to reveal a safe hidden underneath. She returns with four fifty-zloty notes. ‘Here,’ she says. ‘You will need it.’ Mila takes two of the notes and slides the remaining two across the table.

  ‘You keep these,’ she says. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll be with Halina soon.’

  Halina had left Radom three weeks earlier when Adam was assigned a job working for the railroad in Warsaw, mending tracks destroyed by the Luftwaffe before the city fell. Franka and her brother and parents had gone with her. Halina had written as soon as she was settled, urging Mila to come to Warsaw. We found a flat in the heart of the city, she wrote – this, Mila knew, meant they were living outside the ghetto walls, as Aryans – I am working on getting our parents positions at the arms factory in Pionki. For you, jobs in Warsaw are plentiful. Franka has a job nearby. We have everything you need here. Please – find a way to come!

  Nechuma slides the notes back across the table. ‘Here we have work, and our ration cards. You will be on your own for a while,’ she says, nodding toward the window. ‘You will need this more than we will.’

  ‘Mother, it’s the last—’

  ‘No, it’s not.’ Nechuma taps her breastbone gently with her forefinger. Mila had nearly forgotten. The gold. Two coins, covered in ivory cotton – her mother had camouflaged them as buttons. ‘And there is the amethyst,’ Nechuma adds. ‘If we need to, we’ll use it.’ What was left of the silver had bought Adam his life. Everything else they’d sold or traded for extra food rations, blankets, and medicine. Thankfully, they hadn’t yet been forced to part with Nechuma’s purple stone.

/>   ‘All right then.’ Mila tucks two bills into each side of the coat’s collar before stitching it up.

  When she first devised her plan, Mila had petitioned her parents to flee to Warsaw with her, but they’d insisted it was too dangerous. ‘Go find your sister and Franka, get Felicia to a safe place,’ they said. ‘We’ll only get in your way.’ It was wrenching for Mila to admit it, but they were right. Her chances of a successful escape were greater without them. Her parents moved slowly now, and still carried the faint Yiddish accents of their childhoods. Posing as Aryan would be more difficult for them. Halina had mentioned in her letter a factory in Pionki, a plan to transfer Sol and Nechuma there. In the meantime, they were still employed, and everyone knew that a job was the only thing that mattered in the ghetto.

  As a dull, silver light fills the room, Nechuma sets her needle down. Mila sweeps the leftover shreds of fabric from the table into her palm and hides them under the sink. Their work is complete. Mila wraps a scarf around her neck, a patchwork of SS uniform scraps, and then slides her arms into the sleeves of her new overcoat. Nechuma stands, running her fingers over the seams, feeling for loose threads on the buttonholes, eyeing the hem that hangs a centimetre off the floor. She smooths a lapel and tugs at a sleeve to make it lie perfectly flat. Finally she takes a step back, and nods.