With love, Mother
Addy sighs, trying once again to make sense of it all. He’s heard of shops closing, of Jewish families leaving for Palestine. His mother’s news doesn’t come as a surprise. It’s her tone that unsettles him. She’s mentioned in the past how things have begun to change around her—she’d been livid when Genek was stripped of his law degree—but mostly Nechuma’s letters are cheerful, upbeat. Just last month, she’d asked if he would join her for a Moniusko performance at the Grand Theatre in Warsaw and had told him of the anniversary dinner she and Sol enjoyed at Wierzbicki’s, of how Wierzbicki himself had greeted them at the door, offered to prepare something special for them, off the menu.
This letter is different. His mother, Addy realizes, is afraid.
He shakes his head. Not once in his twenty-five years has he ever known Nechuma to express fear of any kind. Nor has he or any of his brothers and sisters ever missed a Passover together in Radom. Nothing is more important to his mother than her family—and now she is asking him to stay in Toulouse for the holiday. At first, Addy had convinced himself that she was being overly anxious. But was she?
He stares out the window at the familiar French countryside. The sun is visible from behind the clouds; there are hints of spring color in the fields. The world looks benign, the same as it always has. And yet these cautionary words from his mother have shifted his equilibrium, thrown him off-balance.
Dizzy, Addy closes his eyes, thinking back to his last visit home in September, searching for a clue, something he might have missed. His father, he recalls, had played his weekly game of cards with a group of fellow merchants—Jews and Poles—beneath the white-eagle fresco on the ceiling of Podworski’s Pharmacy; Father Król, a priest at the Church of Saint Bernardine and an admirer of Mila’s virtuosity at the piano, had stopped by for a recital. For Rosh Hashanah, the cook had made honey-glazed challah, and Addy had stayed up listening to Benny Goodman, drinking C?te de Nuits and laughing with his brothers late into the night. Even Jakob, reserved as he usually was, had set down his camera and joined in the camaraderie. Things had seemed relatively normal.
And then Addy’s throat goes dry as he considers a thought: What if the clues were there but he hadn’t been paying enough attention? Or worse, what if he’d missed them simply because he didn’t want to see them?
His mind flashes to the freshly painted swastika he’d come across on the wall of the Jardin Goudouli in Toulouse. To the day he’d overheard his bosses at the engineering firm whispering about whether they should consider him a liability—they’d thought he was out of earshot. To the shops closed all over Paris. To the photographs in the French papers of the aftermath of November’s Kristallnacht: smashed storefronts, synagogues burned to the ground, thousands of Jews fleeing Germany, rolling their bedside lamps and potatoes and elderly along with them in wheelbarrows.
The signs were there, for sure. But Addy had downplayed them, brushed them off. He’d told himself that there was no harm in a little graffiti; that if he were to lose his job, he’d find a new one; that the events unfolding in Germany, though disturbing, were happening across the border and would be contained. Now, though, with his mother’s letter in hand, he sees with alarming clarity the warnings he’d chosen to ignore.
Addy opens his eyes, nauseated suddenly by a single notion: You should have returned home months ago.
He folds the letter into its envelope and slides it back into his coat pocket. He’ll write to his mother, he resolves. As soon as he gets to his flat in Toulouse. He’ll tell her not to worry, that he will be returning to Radom as planned, that he wants to be with the family now more than ever. He’ll tell her that the new composition is coming along well, and that he looks forward to playing it for her. This thought brings a trace of comfort, as he imagines himself at the keys of his parents’ Steinway, his family gathered around.
Addy lets his gaze fall once again to the placid countryside. Tomorrow, he decides, he’ll buy a train ticket, line up his travel documents, pack his belongings. He won’t wait for Passover. His boss will be angry with him for leaving sooner than expected, but Addy doesn’t care. All that matters is that in a few short days, he’ll be on his way home.
MARCH 15, 1939: A year after annexing Austria, Germany invades Czechoslovakia. Meeting little resistance, Hitler establishes the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia from Prague the next day. With this occupation, the Reich gains not only territory but also skilled labor and massive firepower in the form of weaponry manufactured in those regions—enough to arm nearly half of the Wehrmacht at the time.
CHAPTER TWO
Genek
Radom, Poland ~ March 18, 1939
Genek lifts his chin and a plume of smoke snakes from a part in his lips toward the gray-tiled ceiling of the bar. “Last hand,” he declares.
Across the table, Rafal catches his eye. “So soon?” He takes a drag from his own cigarette. “Did your wife promise you something special if you got home at a decent hour?” Rafal winks, exhaling. Herta had joined the group for dinner but had left early.
Genek laughs. He and Rafal have been friends since grade school, when much of their time was spent huddled over lunch trays discussing which of their classmates to ask to the year-end studniówka ball, or whom they’d rather see naked, Evelyn Brent or Renée Adorée. Rafal knows Herta isn’t like the girls Genek used to date, but he likes to give him hell when Herta isn’t around. Genek can hardly blame him. Until he met Herta, women were his weakness (cards and cigarettes, too, if he’s being honest). With his blue eyes, a dimple on each cheek, and an irresistible Hollywood charm, he’d spent most of his twenties basking in the role of one of Radom’s most sought-after bachelors. At the time, he hadn’t minded the attention in the least. But then Herta came along and all of that changed. It’s different now. She’s different.
Under the table, something brushes Genek’s calf. He glances at the young woman sitting beside him. “Wish you would stay,” she says, her eyes catching his. Genek had just met the girl that night—Klara. No, Kara. He can’t remember. She is a friend of Rafal’s wife, visiting from Lublin. She curls a corner of her mouth into a coy smile, the toe of her oxford still pressed against his leg.