The Sweetness of Forgetting

by Kristin Harmel

  “The times were different,” Jacob continues after a long pause. “But I had the responsibility to do more.” He sighs, long and heavy, and continues with his story. “After I left Rose’s home, I went to my own home. My parents were there, and my baby sister, who was just twelve years old. My father knew, as I did, what was coming, and so he was ready. We went to a friend’s restaurant in the Latin Quarter, where the owner agreed to hide us in his basement. I could have taken Rose there too, but the risks were too great; she would begin showing her pregnancy soon, and I knew that if she was ever captured, she would be sent straight to her death. So I had to get her out of France, get her somewhere safe where the Germans could never find her.

  “My father and I agreed, at the same time, that the safest solution for our family was to wait out the roundup in hiding, and then to go on with our lives, always keeping our ears to the ground so that we were aware when the Germans were coming. That night, and long into the next day, and the day after that, we hid in a cramped room in the basement of the restaurant, wondering if we would be found out. At the end of the third day, we emerged, hungry and exhausted, believing the worst was over.

  “I wanted so very much to go to the Grand Mosque of Paris, where I knew Rose had been taken. But my father stopped me. He reminded me that I would be putting Rose and everyone there in danger if I went. And so I managed to get word through my friend Jean Michel that she was still safe. I asked him to tell her that I was safe too, that I would join her soon, but I don’t know if word ever reached her. Just two days later, the French police showed up at our door to take my father and me away. They knew we had been part of the resistance, and this was the payment.

  “They took my sister and my mother too, and at Drancy, the transit camp outside of Paris, we were separated, taken to different barracks. I never saw them again, although I found out later that they were deported to Auschwitz, just like my father and I.”

  We’re all silent for a moment, and I notice that outside, the sun is casting long shadows over the fields on either side of the interstate. My stomach swims as I think of Jacob and his family being hauled away to a death camp. I swallow hard.

  “What happened to your family?” Gavin asks Jacob softly. He squeezes my hand again and glances at me with concern.

  Jacob takes a deep breath. “My mother and sister did not survive the initial selection at Auschwitz. My mother was frail and weak, and my sister, she was small for her twelve years and would have been considered unfit for work. They were taken directly to the gas chamber. I pray that they did not understand what was happening. But I fear that my mother, at least, knew enough to be aware. I imagine she must have been very frightened.”

  He pauses to collect himself. I can’t seem to formulate words in the interim, and so I wait.

  “My father and I were both sent to the barracks,” he continues. “At first, he and I buoyed each other’s spirits as best we could. But soon, he grew very ill. There was an epidemic at Auschwitz. Typhus. For my father, it began with chills in the night, and then weakness and a terrible cough. The guards made him go out to work anyhow, and although I and the other prisoners tried to make work as easy for him as possible, the disease was a death sentence. I sat with him on his last night as fever ravaged his body. He died sometime in the autumn of 1942. It was impossible to tell the day, the week, the month anymore, for in Auschwitz, time ceased to exist in any normal sense. He died before the snowfalls, though, that much I know.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I finally manage to say. The words feel woefully inadequate.

  Jacob nods slowly and looks out the window for a moment before turning back to us. “In the end, he was at peace. In the camps, when people died, they looked almost like sleeping children, innocent and unworried at last. For my father, it was the same. I was happy to see my father’s face that way, because I knew he was finally free. In Judaism, the idea of heaven is not well defined, as it is in Christianity. But I believed, and still believe, that in some way, my father found my mother and sister again. And this brings me comfort, even to this day. The idea that they reunited, that they were together again.”

  He smiles, a bitter, sad smile. “There is a sign at Auschwitz that says, ‘Work makes you free.’ But the truth was that only death made you free. And at last, my family was free.”

  “How did you manage to survive?” Gavin asks. “You must have been in Auschwitz for what, more than two years?”

  Jacob nods. “Nearly two and a half. But the fact was, I did not have a choice. I had promised Rose I would come back for her. And I could not, would not, break that promise. After the liberation, I came back to find her. I was so sure that I would be with her again, that we would be reunited, that we would be able to raise our child together, that perhaps we would have more children and somehow escape the shadow of the war.”

  Gavin and I listen raptly as Jacob tells us about coming back to Paris, about looking desperately for Rose, about believing in the depth of his soul that she had lived. He tells us of his despair upon not finding her, of the conversations he had with Alain, who was alone and adrift after losing his whole family and who was being cared for by an international refugee organization.

  “I finally came to America,” he says, “because this is where Rose and I had promised to reunite. I was trying to fulfill my end of the promise, you understand. And so every day for the last fifty-nine years, I have waited at the tip of Battery Park. It is where we agreed to meet. I always believed she would come.”

  “You were there every day?” I ask.

  Jacob smiles. “Nearly every day. I had a job, of course, but I would go before and after work. The only days I missed waiting in the park were the day I broke my hip and the days after, as well as the days following September 11, when it was impossible to go to the park. I was standing in the park, in fact, when the first plane hit the World Trade Center.” He’s silent for a moment and adds softly, “It was the second time in my life I’d watched the world fall down before my eyes.”

  I absorb this for a moment. “How were you so sure that my grandmother would come for you? Didn’t you start to believe that maybe she had died?”

  He considers this for a moment. “No. I would have felt it. I would have known.”

  “How?” I ask softly. I don’t mean any disrespect; it’s just that I can’t imagine hanging on for seventy years because of a feeling.

  Jacob stares out the window for a moment and then turns to me with a small, sad smile. “I would have felt it in my soul, Hope,” he says. “Do you understand? It does not happen very often in life, but when two people find that sort of connection, the kind of connection your grandmother and I have, they are forever tied to each other. I would have felt a piece of my soul missing if she was gone. When God joined us together, He made us two halves of the same whole.”

  Gavin’s hand suddenly tightens on mine, and he looks over at me with wide eyes.

  “What?” I ask him.

  Instead of replying, he glances in the rearview mirror. “Jacob?” he asks. “What do you mean by that? By God joining the two of you?”

  And in that moment, before Jacob replies, I understand what Gavin’s getting at, and I know what Jacob is about to say.

  “The day Rose and I were married,” Jacob says. “We became one in God’s eyes.”

  I swallow hard. “You and my grandmother were married?” I repeat.

  Jacob looks surprised. “Of course,” he says. “We did so in secret, you understand. Her family did not know, nor did mine. They believed us to be too young. We longed for the day we could have a ceremony in front of them, to celebrate with the people we loved the most. But we never had the chance.”

  I’m struggling to understand, and I suddenly realize what this means; if my grandmother was married to Jacob, her marriage to my grandfather had never been real. I feel another pang of sadness for him, for the losses he never knew.

  Or had he? Had my grandfather realized in 1949, when he went to Par
is, that Jacob Levy had survived, that Jacob’s very existence annulled his own union with my grandmother? Had he, for this reason, told my grandmother that Jacob had perished? The thought makes my stomach swim uneasily, and I realize I may never know the answer.

  “Did you marry my grandmother because she was already pregnant?” I venture.

  “No.” Jacob shakes his head vehemently. “We married because we loved each other. We married because we feared the war would tear us apart. We married because we knew we were destined for each other. The baby, I believe, was conceived on the night of our wedding, the first time we were together in that way.”

  I close my eyes and absorb this. My mother hadn’t been the product of an affair between teenagers; she’d been conceived in marriage. She’d been the result of the consummation of the love between Mamie and Jacob. She, and then I—and then Annie—were all that remained of the ill-fated union between two soul mates.

  “Don’t you see?” Jacob asks after a long silence. “I was right all along. Rose has been alive. I knew it in my heart. And now, finally, I will see her again.”

  Jacob falls asleep just after we pass through Providence, and in the waning evening light, Gavin and I sit in silence, each lost in our own worlds.

  I don’t know what’s going through Gavin’s mind, but his face looks sad. It’s how I’m feeling too. I’m not sure why, mere hours away from a reunion that’s been nearly seventy years coming, I feel emptiness instead of jubilation. I suppose it’s because all that was lost seems to overwhelm what was gained. Yes, Mamie had a life of freedom and safety. Yes, she gave birth to my mother, who gave birth to me, carrying on the family she’d promised Jacob she’d protect. And yes, Jacob had survived all these years, all these miles. But they had each carried their burdens alone, when they didn’t have to. Because of misunderstandings, or perhaps lies, they had each lost the kind of love that I’d never believed in before.

  But now I do. And it terrifies me, because I know I’ve never known that kind of love. Not even close.

  Gavin pulls over for gas just past Fall River, and as Jacob continues to sleep in the backseat, I step away from the car and call Annie. I tell her we’ve found Jacob and are on the way back with him in the car. I smile as she squeals and goes to tell Alain. I can hear his exclamation of excitement in the background too. I assure her we’ll be there in two hours or less and that Jacob will tell her the whole story then.

  “Mom, I can’t believe you did it,” she says.

  “It wasn’t just me,” I say. “It was you, honey. And Gavin too.” I glance over to the car, where he’s pumping gas, his back turned to me. He reaches up absentmindedly to scratch the top of his head, and I smile. “It was Gavin too,” I repeat.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Annie says anyhow. There’s a warmth in her voice that I haven’t heard in a long time, and I’m grateful for it. “So what’s he like, anyways?”

  I tell her about finding Jacob in Battery Park, and about how he’s kind and polite and has loved Mamie all these years.

  “I knew it,” she says softly. “I knew he’d never stopped loving her.”

  “You were right,” I say. “See you in a few hours, sweetheart.”

  I hang up, and as I walk slowly back to the car, I look above me, where the first stars of twilight are beginning to poke holes through the sky. I think of all the nights I saw Mamie sitting at the window, waiting for the same stars, and I wonder whether this is what she’s been looking for, the love of her life, who’d been here all along.

  As I come up beside Gavin, he looks down and smiles gently at me. “You okay?” he asks. I watch as he removes the nozzle from his gas tank, replaces it back on its lever, and screws the cap back on.

  “Yeah,” I say. I glance into the backseat, where Jacob is sleeping soundly. I’m suddenly overwhelmed, and there are tears streaming down my cheeks. “It’s real,” I say. “All of it.” I don’t expect him to understand me, but somehow, he does.

  “I know,” he murmurs. He pulls me into an embrace, and as I rest my head against his chest and wrap my arms around him, I can feel myself letting go. I cry as he holds me, and I’m not quite sure whether I’m crying for Jacob and Mamie, or for myself.

  We stand there for a very long time without speaking, for no words are needed. I know now that the prince is real, and that the people who love you the most can save you, and that fate might have a bigger plan for all of us than we understand. I know now that fairy tales can come true after all, if only you have the courage to keep believing.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Star Pie

  INGREDIENTS

  3 cups flour

  1 tsp. salt

  3 Tbsp. granulated sugar

  1 cup shortening

  1 egg, beaten

  1 tsp. white vinegar

  1 cup plus 4 Tbsp. water, divided

  1 cup dried figs, chopped

  1 cup dried prunes, chopped

  1 cup red or green seedless grapes, sliced and divided

  6 Tbsp. brown sugar

  1 tsp. cinnamon

  1/2 cup slivered almonds

  1 Tbsp. poppy seeds

  Cinnamon sugar for sprinkling (3 parts sugar mixed with 1 part cinnamon)

  DIRECTIONS

  1. Prepare crust by sifting flour, salt, and granulated sugar together. Using two knives or a food processor, cut in shortening until mixture has the consistency of thick crumbs. Add egg, vinegar, and 4 tablespoons water to dry mixture and mix with a fork, then with floured hands, until dough forms a ball.

  2. Cool dough in refrigerator for 10 minutes, then divide into two halves. Roll one half into a circle and press into a 9-inch pie pan. Put other half aside.

  3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

  4. Mix figs, prunes, 1/2 cup sliced grapes, brown sugar, cinnamon, and 1 cup water in heavy medium saucepan. Stir over medium-high heat until sugar dissolves and mixture boils. Reduce heat to medium low, cover, and cook for 20 minutes. Remove cover and cook, stirring constantly, 3–5 minutes more until most of the liquid has evaporated and mixture is the consistency of thick jam. Remove from heat.

  5. While filling cools, spread almonds in a thin layer on a baking sheet and toast in oven for 7–9 minutes, until slightly browned.

  6. Remove toasted almonds from oven and mix into fruit mixture. Add poppy seeds and remaining 1/2 cup sliced grapes. Stir well to incorporate.

  7. Pour fruit mixture into prepared bottom piecrust. Roll remaining dough into 10-inch-by-10-inch square. Cut into 1/2-inch-wide strips and arrange them in a star pattern, crisscrossing across top of crust. Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon sugar.

  8. Bake for 30 minutes, or until top crust is golden brown. Remove from oven and cool completely. Keeps in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Serve cold or at room temperature.

  Rose

  The water Rose was swimming in had begun to turn colors now—muted, milky colors that reminded Rose of the paintings by Claude Monet that she’d loved so much as a girl. There were water lilies and weeping willows in the murky deep, and sometimes poplars casting shadows across the surface, far above her too.

  When she was a girl, Rose had always longed to go to Giverny, the place where Monet had painted many of his famous works; she had believed it must be the most beautiful place in the world. It was only when she was older that she’d understood the place itself wasn’t more beautiful than anything she’d seen; it was the way Monet had captured it with his paints and his canvases. Once, she and Jacob had gone to Argenteuil, just outside Paris, where Monet had lived and painted for a time, and Rose had been disappointed to realize that the town, while beautiful, was not as extraordinary as Monet had made it seem.

  Beauty, she had realized then, was all in the perception. After the war, she’d found, with a bit of shock, that she was no longer able to perceive that sort of beauty in anything. Although she was dimly aware that the world was still beautiful, it was as if the edges were suddenly blurred, and all the light was gone.
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  And now, as the silken colors swirled around her in these mysterious depths that she couldn’t seem to escape from, she floated and listened. There were voices again, far away, above the surface of this great and gentle sea. She tried to will herself toward the surface; it suddenly felt very important to know who was there. Had she heard something different this time?

  As she floated slowly up, closer to the surface, cradled by the soft waters, the colors suddenly reminded her of the dress she’d made for her secret wedding day. April 14, 1942. A Tuesday, a date she would never forget. She’d gotten the fabrics from her friend Jacqueline, the only one who knew what she and Jacob were planning. But Jacqueline had been taken away the first week in March, arrested for daring to be foreign and Jewish. It was just a sign of the horrors to come, but Rose hadn’t known that yet. Not on the beautiful day of her marriage.

  The dress was many layers of gauzy material, and it had taken her more than a month to sew it in the darkness of her room at night. When her sister Helene would ask what she was doing, she would hide the dress beneath her blankets and make an excuse. She’d always believed that on some level, Helene knew. And although Helene’s tight-lipped disapproval of Jacob bothered her, Rose also felt that in the blacked-out darkness of night, Helene was glad that one of them, at least, had found an escape from the sadness that swirled around them.

  Rose had not wanted to wear white to her wedding, although she was, of course, still pure. But white represented innocence, and there was nothing innocent in Paris anymore.

  And so she had arrived in her dress of many colors, all of them shades that reminded her of the sky at dawn, which was then her favorite time of day. Milky blue. Soft rose. Buttery yellow. Pale apricot. Foggy lavender. A thousand layers, it seemed, that swirled around Rose with a lightness that reminded her of clouds.

  “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Jacob had told her when she entered the room. And from the way he’d looked at her, she’d known he meant it with all his heart. Their eyes had met then, and in his gaze, she could see everything that lay ahead of them: a life together somewhere far from Paris, and of course children, many children. They would laugh and tell stories and grow old in each other’s arms. Life stretched before them, endless and happy in that moment. And Rose allowed herself to believe in it.