When Anna became engaged to Daniel, their mother, knowing that they couldn’t afford the kind of dress Anna would want from a dressmaker, decided to make a gown herself. She, Bella, and Anna had scoured the pages of McCall’s and Harper’s Bazaar for the designs they liked. When Anna finally picked her favorite—inspired by film stills of Barbara Stanwyck—the Tatar women spent an entire afternoon at Nechuma’s fabric shop, poring over bolts of various satins, silks, and laces, marveling over how luxurious each felt as they rubbed it between their fingers. Nechuma gave them the materials they finally selected at cost, and it took Gustava nearly a month to finish the gown—a V-neck, with a white lace-trimmed bodice, long gathered Gibson sleeves, buttons down the back, a bell-shaped skirt that fell just to the floor, and a powder-white satin sash tied at her hips. Delighted, Anna deemed it a masterpiece. Bella had secretly hoped she’d get to wear it someday.
“I’m just happy I brought it,” Anna says. “I almost left it with Mother, but I couldn’t bear to part with it. Oh, Bella.” Anna stands back to take her in. “You look so beautiful! Come,” she says, adjusting the gold brooch hanging around Bella’s neck so it sits perfectly centered in the hollow between her collarbones, “before I cry. Are you ready?”
“Almost.” Bella fishes a metal tube from her coat pocket. She removes the lid, then swivels the bottom a half turn and applies a few dabs of Peppercorn Red lipstick carefully to her lips, wishing she had a mirror. “I’m glad you brought this, too,” she says, rubbing her lips together before dropping the tube back into her pocket. “And that you were willing to share,” she adds. When lipstick was pulled from the market—the army had better use for petroleum and castor oil—most women they knew clung fiercely to what was left of their supplies.
“Of course,” Anna says. “So—gotowa?”
“Ready.”
Carrying the candle in one hand, Anna guides Bella gently through a doorway.
The foyer is dimly illuminated by two small votives propped on the staircase balusters. Jakob stands at the foot of the stairs. At first, all Bella can make out of him is his silhouette—his narrow torso, the gentle slope of his shoulders.
“We’ll save this one for later,” Anna says, snuffing out her candle. She kisses Bella on the cheek. “I love you,” she says, beaming, and then makes her way to greet the others. Bella can’t see them, but she can hear whispers: Och, jaka pi?kna! Beautiful!
A second silhouette stands motionless beside her groom, the candlelight catching the frizz of a long, silver beard. It must be the rabbi, Bella realizes. She steps into the flickering glow of the votives, and as she slides her elbow through Jakob’s, she feels the tightness between her ribs disappear. She isn’t nervous anymore, or cold. She’s floating.
Jakob’s eyes are wet when they meet hers. In her sister’s ivory heels, she’s nearly as tall as he. He plants a kiss on her cheek.
“Hello, sunshine,” he says, smiling.
“Hi,” Bella replies, grinning. One of the onlookers chuckles.
The rabbi extends a hand. His face is a maze of wrinkles. He must be in his eighties, Bella guesses. “I am Rabbi Yoffe,” he says. His voice, like his beard, is rough around the edges.
“Pleasure,” Bella says, taking his hand and dipping her chin. His fingers feel frail and knotted between hers, like a cluster of twigs. “Thank you for this,” she says, knowing what a risk he’d taken to be there.
Yoffe clears his throat. “Well. Shall we get started?”
Jakob and Bella nod.
“Yacub,” Yoffe begins, “repeat after me.”
—
Jakob does his best not to bungle Rabbi Yoffe’s words, but it’s difficult, partly because his Hebrew is rudimentary, but mostly because he’s too distracted by his bride to keep a thought in his mind for more than a few seconds. She is spectacular in her gown. But it’s not the dress he’s taken by. He’s never seen her skin so smooth, her eyes so bright, her smile, even in the shadows, such a perfect, radiant cupid’s bow. Against the ebony backdrop of the abandoned house, ensconced in the golden glimmer of candlelight, she appears angelic. He can’t take his eyes off her. And so he stumbles through his prayers, thinking not about his words but about the image of his soon-to-be wife before him, memorizing her every curve, wishing he could snap a photo so he could show her later on just how beautiful she looked.
Yoffe pulls a handkerchief from his breast pocket, places it over Bella’s head. “Walk seven times,” he instructs, drawing an imaginary circle on the floor with his index finger “around Yacub.” Bella extracts her elbow from Jakob’s and obeys, her heels clicking softly on the wooden floorboards as she walks a circle, and then two. Each time she passes in front of him, Jakob whispers, “You are exquisite.” And each time, Bella blushes. When she has returned to Jakob’s side, Yoffe offers a short prayer and reaches again into his pocket, this time removing a cloth napkin, folded in two. He opens it, revealing a small light bulb with a broken filament—a functioning light is too precious to break now.
“Don’t worry, it no longer works,” he says, wrapping up the bulb and bending slowly to place it at their feet. Something creaks and Jakob wonders whether it’s the floorboards or one of the rabbi’s joints. “In the midst of this happy occasion,” Yoffe says, righting himself, “we should not forget how fragile life truly is. The breaking of glass—a symbol of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, of man’s short life on earth.” He motions to Jakob, and then to the floor. Jakob brings a foot down gently on the napkin, resisting the urge to stomp for fear that someone might hear.
“Mazel tov!” the others cry softly from the shadows, also straining to subdue their cheers. Jakob takes Bella’s hands, weaving his fingers between hers.
“Before we finish,” Yoffe says, pausing to look from Jakob to Bella, “I would like to add that, even in the darkness, I see your love. Inside, you are full, and through your eyes, it shines.” Jakob tightens his grip on Bella’s hand. The rabbi smiles, revealing two missing teeth, then breaks into song as he recites a final blessing:
You are blessed, Lord our God, the sovereign of the world,
who created joy and celebration, bridegroom and bride,
rejoicing, jubilation, pleasure and delight,
love and brotherhood, peace and friendship. . . .
The others sing along, clapping softly as Jakob and Bella seal the ceremony with a kiss.
“My wife,” Jakob says, his gaze dancing across Bella’s face. The word feels new and wonderful on his lips. He steals a second kiss.
“My husband.”
Hand in hand, they turn to greet their guests, who emerge from the shadows of the foyer to embrace the newlyweds.
A few minutes later, the group is assembled in the dining room for a makeshift dinner, a meal smuggled in under their coats. It’s nothing fancy, but a treat, nonetheless—horsemeat burgers, boiled potatoes, and homemade beer.
Genek clinks a fork gently against a borrowed glass and clears his throat. “To Pan i Pani Kurc,” he says, his glass lifted. “Mazel tov!”
Jakob can sense how difficult it is for Genek to keep his voice low.
“Mazel tov,” the others echo.
“And it only took nine years!” Genek adds, grinning. Beside him, Herta laughs. “But seriously. To my little brother, and to his ravishing bride, who we’ve all adored since the day we met—may your love be everlasting. L’chaim!”
“L’chaim,” the others repeat in unison.
Jakob raises his glass, smiling at Genek, and wishing as he often does that he’d proposed sooner. Had he asked for Bella’s hand a year ago, they would have celebrated with a proper wedding—with parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles by their sides. They’d have danced to Pop?awski, sipped champagne from tall flutes, and gorged on gingerbread cake. The night, no doubt, would have wrapped with Addy, Halina, and Mila taking turns at the keys of a piano, serenading their guests with a jazz tune, a Chopin nocturne. He glances at Bella. They’d agreed it was the right thing, to marry here in Lvov, and even though she never said it, he knows she must feel a similar longing—for the wedding they thought they’d have. The wedding she deserved. Let it go, Jakob tells himself, pushing aside the familiar stitch of regret.
Around the table, glasses touch rims, their cylindrical bottoms catching the candlelight as bride and groom and guests sip their beer. Bella coughs and covers her mouth, her eyebrows arched, and Jakob laughs. It’s been months since they’ve had a drink, and the ale is harsh.
“Potent!” Genek offers, his dimples carving shadows in his cheeks. “We’ll all be drunk before we know it.”