The young man blinks. ‘You – you are Addy?’
‘What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into?’ Sebastian asks with mock concern.
‘I’m not sure,’ Addy quips, his hazel eyes sparkling. He glances at Sebastian, winks, and then turns his attention back to the young Pole before them. ‘You tell me.’
‘Oh, there’s no trouble at all, sir,’ the young man says, still pumping Addy’s hand. ‘I work for the Polish consulate. We’ve received a telegram for you.’
Addy buckles at the word ‘telegram.’ The young man grips his hand tightly to keep him from falling. ‘A telegram from whom?’ Addy is suddenly serious. His eyes scour the stranger’s face, as if straining to solve a puzzle.
The young Pole explains that he can’t divulge any information until Addy comes to the embassy, which is a half hour walk from Leme. ‘The office will close in ten minutes,’ he adds. ‘Best to come on …’ But before he can say ‘Monday,’ Addy is gone.
‘Thank you!’ Addy cries over his shoulder as he runs. ‘Sebastian, I owe you a beer!’ he yells.
‘Go!’ Sebastian calls, although Addy is already too far gone to hear him, the top of his head dipping and weaving as he darts between the tanned bodies on the promenade moving at a much more leisurely pace than his.
When Addy arrives at the embassy he is sweat soaked, down to his white cotton undershirt. It’s ten minutes past five. The door to the building is locked. He raps his knuckles against the wood until someone finally answers. ‘Please!’ he begs, panting, when he’s told the embassy is closed. ‘I’ve received a telegram. It’s very important.’
The embassy worker looks at his watch. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but –’ he begins, but Addy interrupts.
‘Please,’ he stammers. ‘I’ll do anything.’
It’s obvious to both men that ‘the embassy is closed’ isn’t an answer Addy will settle for. The gentleman at the door finally nods, loosening his tie. ‘Fine.’ He sighs, indicating for Addy to follow him.
They stop at a small office with a plaque beside it reading M. SANTOS.
‘You are Santos?’ Addy asks.
The gentleman shakes his head as Addy follows him into the office. ‘I’m Roberto. Santos is in charge of incoming telegrams. He keeps the ones he hasn’t filed here.’ Roberto walks around the desk. ‘Have a seat,’ he says, gesturing to a chair as he retrieves his glasses from a shirt pocket, slides them on, and peers down at a six-inch stack of what appears to be freshly inked paper.
Addy is too nervous to sit. ‘I’m Addy,’ he says. ‘Addy Kurc.’
‘Spell your name for me,’ Roberto says. ‘Surname first.’ He licks his thumb, pushes his glasses up his nose.
Addy spells his name and then paces, biting his tongue. It’s all he can do to keep quiet. Finally, Roberto pauses, pulls a paper from the stack.
‘Addy Kurc,’ he reads, and then looks up. ‘This is you?’
‘Yes! Yes!’ Addy reaches for his wallet.
‘No ID,’ Roberto says, waving his hand. ‘I believe you are who you say you are.’ He glances at the telegram and then passes it over the desk to Addy. ‘Looks like it came in two weeks ago, from the Red Cross.’
Addy takes the paper and braces himself. Bad news would come from the newspaper, from the lists of the dead, but a telegram … He tells himself that a telegram can’t be bad news. Gripping the thin paper with both hands, he holds it just under his nose, and reads.
DEAR BROTHER – OVERJOYED TO FIND YOU ON RED CROSS LIST
I AM WITH SISTERS AND PARENTS IN ITALY – JAKOB WAITING FOR VISA TO US
SEND NEWS – LOVE GENEK
Addy devours the words on the page. The letters Caroline had written to the Red Cross offices around the world—nearly two years ago—one of them, somehow, must have found his brother. He shakes his head, blinks, and suddenly it’s as if he is floating in a realm that doesn’t belong to his body. From somewhere just shy of the embassy ceiling, he stares down at the room, at Roberto, at himself, still holding the telegram, at the tiny black letters strewn across the paper. It is only by the sound of his own laughter that he is brought back to earth.
‘Do me a favour, sir,’ Addy says, handing the telegram back over the desk to Roberto. ‘Would you read this to me? I want to be sure I’m not dreaming.’
As Roberto reads the message aloud, Addy’s laughter fades and his head grows light. He props himself on the desk with one hand, cups the other over his mouth.
‘Are you okay?’ Roberto suddenly looks worried.
‘They’re alive,’ Addy whispers into his fingers. The words lodge in his heart and he snaps upright, bringing his palms to his temples. ‘They are alive. May I – may I see that again?’
‘It’s yours,’ Roberto says, returning the telegram to Addy’s hands. Addy holds the paper to his chest for a moment and closes his eyes. When he looks up, tears spill from the corners of his eyes, gathering up beads of sweat as they tumble down his cheeks. ‘Thank you!’ he says. ‘Thank you!’
MARCH 29, 1946: A group of 250 German police armed with US Army rifles enter the Stuttgart DP camp, claiming they’ve been authorised by the US military to search the buildings. A fight ensues and several Jews are injured. Samuel Danziger, from Radom, is murdered. His death, along with the attack, is widely reported in the American press; soon after, the United States imparts a more liberal policy on opening its doors to Jewish refugees.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Jakob and Bella
The North Sea ~ May 13, 1946
Standing on the bow of the SS Marine Perch, Jakob lifts his Rolleiflex and tinkers with its aperture as he gazes down through the lens at his wife and son. A steady breeze rolls off of the sea, salty and cool, carrying with it a breath of spring. Bella cradles Victor in her arms, smiling as the click of Jakob’s shutter fills the space between them.
They’d set sail from Bremerhaven that morning, following the Weser River toward the North Sea. By evening, the Perch, as she was affectionately called, will turn her bow west as they prepare to cross the Atlantic.
Three weeks earlier, they’d received confirmation from the US Consulate General in Stuttgart that – pending a physical exam (refugees with serious conditions weren’t permitted to enter the United States) – their sponsorship would be approved, and their visas would await them in Bremerhaven. Dr Baum had administered the exam and passed Jakob, Bella, and Victor with perfect marks. They were photographed and issued certificates of identification. Two weeks later, they bade their friends at Stuttgart farewell and boarded an overnight train. In Bremerhaven they slept for a week on the floor beneath a sign reading EMIGRANT STAGING AREA until the Marine Perch sailed into the port and they were allowed to board.
The Perch is an old, 1,000-passenger troop vessel – one of the first of its kind to bring refugees to America from Europe. A Liberty Ship. Without any savings to their names, Jakob and Bella relied on the Joint to pay their combined $142 fare; it had also doled out $5 in pocket money to each of the refugees on board. Before leaving Stuttgart, Jakob and Bella had saved up their UNRRA coffee rations, trading their sought-after grinds for a pair of clean shirts – a crisp blue shirt for Jakob and a white blouse with a scalloped collar for Bella – and for a new white cotton bonnet for Victor. They wanted to look their best when Bella’s uncle Fred greeted them on US soil.
A young woman approaches, cooing. Since they boarded the ship, hardly a minute has passed without someone stopping to ask Victor’s age, where he was born, or simply to congratulate Bella and Jakob on the young traveller accompanying them on their journey to the States.
‘Quel âge a t’il?’ the young woman asks, peering over Bella’s arm.
‘He’ll be one in August,’ Bella replies in French.
The young woman smiles. ‘His name?’
‘We call him Victor.’ Bella touches the back of her index finger to the soft skin of Victor’s cheek. It hadn’t taken her and Jakob long to decide what to call their firstborn. V
ictor summed up the elation they’d felt when the war finally ended and they came to grips with the notion that, despite the seemingly insurmountable challenges they’d faced along the way, they’d not only survived, but they’d managed to bring new life into the world. Someday when he’s old enough, Jakob and Bella often mused, their son would understand the significance of his name.
The woman tilts her head and nods, her eyes fixed on Victor’s pink, heart-shaped lips, parted slightly as he sleeps.
‘He’s beautiful.’
Bella stares, too. ‘Thank you.’
‘Such a peaceful sleeper.’
Bella nods, smiling. ‘Yes, seems he hasn’t a care in the world.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
The Kurc Family
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil ~ June 30, 1946
‘You’d better hurry,’ Caroline says, smiling up at Addy from her bed in Hospital Samaritano’s maternity ward. ‘Go,’ she adds, in her best schoolteacher voice, indicating that she won’t take no for an answer. ‘We’ll be fine.’ With her southern American accent, the word fine is long and loose around its edges.
Addy looks at her, and then at Kathleen, asleep at the foot of the bed in an incubator. She was born two days earlier, three weeks premature, weighing in at a mere two kilos. She’s healthy, the doctors assure them, but she’ll need the warmth and oxygen of the incubator for at least a week before she can leave the hospital. Addy kisses his wife. ‘Caroline,’ he says, his eyes wet, ‘thank you.’
Not only had Caroline helped him find his family through the Red Cross, she’d also cashed in her American war bonds, the only savings to her name, to help pay for the family’s passage from Italy. Addy had begged her not to – had sworn he would work out a way to pay for the tickets himself – but she had insisted.
Caroline shakes her head. ‘Please, Addy. I’m so happy for you. Now go!’ she urges, squeezing his hand. ‘Before you’re late.’
‘I love you!’ Addy beams, then bolts for the door.
His parents’ ship is due into Rio at eleven. On board with Nechuma and Sol are his sister Halina and brother-in-law Adam, along with a cousin Ala, who had lost touch with the family at the start of the war but survived in hiding, Nechuma wrote, and Herta’s brother Zigmund, whom Addy had met only once before the war. Genek, Herta, and a son, Józef; Mila, Selim, and Felicia; and Addy’s cousins Franka and Salek and aunt Terza are scheduled to sail for Rio on the next ship from Naples. Fifteen relatives. Addy can’t quite digest the reality of it all. It’s been his singular dream since he arrived in Brazil: to find his family alive and well, to bring them to Rio, to start over together. He’d told himself over and over that the scenario was plausible, but there was always the very real possibility that it wasn’t – that his dream was just that, a dream, one that would eventually slip into the realm of nightmare and haunt him for the rest of his years.
And then the telegram came, and Addy spent weeks laughing and crying, suddenly unsure of how to conduct himself without the weight of the guilt and the worry that had bonded like a barnacle to his insides for the better part of a decade. He was lighter now, and unencumbered – ‘I’m free,’ he told Caroline once, when she’d asked him how he felt. It was the only way he could describe the sensation. Free, finally, to believe with all of his heart that he wasn’t alone.
Addy had replied immediately to Genek’s telegram, imploring him to come to Rio – Vargas had, for the time being, opened Brazil’s doors again to refugees. The family in Italy readily agreed. They would apply for visas right away, Genek wrote. The process of acquiring the paperwork and the passage to South America would be slow, of course, but it would give Addy time to prepare for their arrival.
As soon as the decision was made, Addy got to work pulling together living arrangements: for his parents, an apartment on Avenida Atlântica; for Halina and Adam, a one-bedroom studio just down the street from his on Carvalho Mendonca; for his cousins, and Aunt Terza, a two-bedroom flat on Rua Belfort Roxo. He’s furnished each space with a handful of essentials he’s built by hand – bed frames, a desk, two sets of shelves. With Caroline’s help, he’s collected a hodgepodge set of plates, silverware, and a few pots and pans, along with a couple of sarongs and canvases of inexpensive art to hang on the walls from the São Cristóvão flea market. The apartments are sparse; they pale in comparison to the beautiful home on Warszawska Street where he spent his youth, but they are the best he can do.
‘I hope they don’t mind living like university students for a while,’ Addy had said with a sigh before Kathleen was born, looking around the apartment his parents would soon inhabit. The simple plywood desk he’d built the week before suddenly looked comical compared with the beautiful satinwood writing table he remembered from his mother’s living room in Radom.
‘Oh, Addy,’ Caroline assured him, ‘I can’t imagine they’ll be anything but grateful.’
The palm trees flanking Rua Bambina are a streak of green in Addy’s periphery as he speeds along in the Chevrolet he’d borrowed from Sebastian for the occasion. He shakes his head. Part of him still feels as if he’s living some kind of fantasy. Two days ago, he’d felt, for the first time, the tiny hand of his firstborn wrapped around his little finger – and soon he’ll feel the touch of his mother, his father, his sisters, brother, and cousins, the niece he has yet to meet, a new nephew. He’s imagined the reunion over and over again. But nothing – nothing at all in the world, he realises – can prepare him for what it will be like to see his family in the flesh. To feel the warmth of their cheeks against his. To hear the sound of their voices.
As Addy drives his mind flips back in time to the morning in Toulouse, in March of 1939, when he’d opened his mother’s letter telling him how things had begun to change in Radom. He thinks about his stint in the French Army, about how he’d forged his demobilisation papers, which he still carries in his snakeskin wallet. He pictures himself arm in arm with Eliska aboard the Alsina, bartering with the locals in Dakar, talking his way out of the Kasha Tadla tent camp in Casablanca and onto the Cabo do Hornos. He recalls his journey across the Atlantic, his weeks of incarceration on Ilha das Flores, his first job at a bookbindery in Rio, his innumerable visits to the Copacabana post office and the offices of the Red Cross. He thinks of Jonathan’s party, of how fast and hard his heart had drummed in his chest as he’d summoned the courage to introduce himself to Caroline. He thinks of the green-eyed consulate worker who’d introduced himself outside of Porcão, of the words stamped onto the tissue-thin telegram he’d received – words that, in one swift swoop, changed everything. It’s been seven and a half years since he’s seen his family. Seven and a half! They have nearly a decade of catching up to do. Where will they even begin? There is so much to learn, and he has so much to tell.
Addy reaches the port at eleven on the dot. He parks hastily, nearly yanking the Chevrolet’s emergency brake from its console, and jogs toward the white brick customs building separating him from Guanabara Bay. He’s been to the building four times already – twice when he first arrived in Rio, and twice in the past month to confirm the details of what, exactly, will happen when his family arrives. They’ll be escorted from the ship to a passport control office, he’s been told, and then to another office where they will be asked a series of questions before their visas are confirmed and stamped. He won’t be allowed to greet them until the process is complete.
Too excited to wait indoors, Addy skirts the customs building, stopping short as the bay suddenly comes into view. There are dozens of small fishing crafts in the harbour, and a couple of freight boats, but only one that could be carrying his family. Less than five hundred metres away, a transport vessel floats in his direction, billowing steam from a pair of massive turbines into the cloudless sky. She is huge. The Duque de Caxias. It has to be!
As the ship approaches, Addy can make out the tiny silhouettes of passengers lining her bow, but it’s impossible to distinguish one figure from the next. He shields his eyes from th
e sun and squints over the horizon as he walks the dock, threading between the dozens of others who have gathered to greet the ship. The Duque moves unbearably slowly. Addy paces at the end of the dock. Finally, he can’t stand it any longer.
‘Olá!!’ he hollers, waving at a fisherman rowing by in his dinghy. The old man looks up. Addy digs five cruzeiros out of his pocket. ‘Can I borrow your boat?’
Seated on the dinghy’s wooden bench, Addy rows with his back to the Duque, watching the white bricks of the customs building grow smaller with each stroke. He glides past a buoy marking the end of the bay’s no-wake zone, and a captain heading in toward the shore whistles in his direction – Perigoso! – but Addy only paddles harder, into the deeper water, glancing every now and then behind him at his progress.
When the greeters gathered on the dock are but specks on the horizon, Addy sets down his oars, his heart thumping like a metronome at 120 beats per minute beneath his shirt. Panting, he throws his feet over the bench, turning to face the Duque. Shielding his eyes again from the sun, he stands slowly, feet spread wide for balance, scouring the ship’s bow. What he would do to catch a glimpse of a familiar face! No luck. He’s still too far away. He lowers himself to sit, turns so his back is once again to the boat, and rows closer.
He’s thirty metres from the Duque when his eardrums spring to life, sending a shock of energy through his body. He recognises the voice – the voice that, for the better part of a decade, he’s heard only in his dreams.
‘Aaaa – dy!’
He drops his oars into the dinghy and staggers to his feet – too fast – nearly capsizing before catching his balance. And then he sees her, waving a handkerchief over her head, just as she had the day he left her at the train station: his mother. And next to her, his father, pumping a cane up and down as if poking holes in the sky, and next to him, his sister, waving frantically with one arm, holding a large parcel in the other – a baby, perhaps. It would be just like his little sister to want to surprise him with this news. Addy cranes his neck and peers up at his family, his arms stretched wide overhead in a giant V – if he could reach just a little farther he’d touch them. He yells their names and they yell back, and he is crying now, and they are too, even his father.
We Were the Lucky Ones Page 39
