We Were the Lucky Ones

With every step closer to the ship, the knot in Addy’s chest tightens. He brings a hand to his left-side ribs, to the place where it hurts. Beneath his fingers, he can feel the beat of his heart, his pulse like a timepiece, ticking down the seconds until he disappears from the continent. Until an ocean separates him from the people he loves most. It doesn’t help that the handful of Polish refugees he’s met on the pier—those lucky enough still to be in contact with family back home—describe what they know of the state of their country in terms Addy can’t fathom: overcrowded ghettos, public beatings, Jews dying of cold, hunger, and disease by the thousands. One young woman from Kraków told Addy that her husband, a professor of poetry, had been taken, along with dozens of the city’s intellectuals, to the wall of the city’s Wawel Castle, where they were lined up and shot. Afterward, she said, with tears streaking her cheeks, their bodies were rolled down the hill and into the Vistula River. Addy had hugged her as she cried into his shoulder, and then tried with all of his might to erase the image from his mind. It was too much for him to bear.

As he inches toward the ship, Addy takes inventory of the languages being spoken around him: French, Spanish, German, Polish, Dutch, Czech. Most of his fellow passengers carry small valises like his own—in them, the handful of belongings with which they hoped to start their new lives. Tucked into Addy’s are a roll-necked sweater, a collared shirt, an undershirt, a spare pair of socks, a fine-tooth comb, a small sliver of army-issued soap, some twine, a razor, a toothbrush, a date book, three leather pocket notebooks (already full), his favorite 78 RPM record of Chopin’s Polonaise, op. 40, no. 1, and a photograph of his parents. In his shirt pocket he carries a half-used notebook, in his trouser pocket a few coins and his mother’s linen handkerchief. He has 1,500 zloty and 2,000 francs—his life’s savings—stashed in his snakeskin wallet, along with the sixteen documents he’s collected in order to talk his way out of the army and into a Brazilian visa.

Addy’s encounter with Ambassador Souza Dantas in Vichy had been brief. “Leave your passport with my secretary,” Souza Dantas told him, when they were far enough from the hotel that no one would overhear. “Tell her I sent you, and come back for it tomorrow. Your visa will await you in Marseille. It will be good for ninety days. There’s a ship leaving for Rio around the twentieth of January—the Alsina, I believe. I don’t know when, or if, there will be another. You should get on it. You will need to renew the visa once you arrive in Brazil.”

“Of course,” Addy said, thanking the ambassador profusely and reaching for his wallet. “What will I owe you?” But Souza Dantas just shook his head, and Addy realized then that it wasn’t for the money that the ambassador was risking his job and his reputation.

The next day, Addy retrieved his passport. Across the top, in the ambassador’s hand, was written: Valid for Travel to Brazil. He kissed the words, along with the hand of Souza Dantas’s secretary, shed a few belongings, and hitchhiked south. He wore his army attire, hoping the uniform would help get him a ride; the train would have been faster, but he wanted to steer clear of the station checkpoints.

When he arrived in Marseille, Addy made his way immediately to the embassy, where, amazingly, his visa awaited. It was marked with the number 52. After staring at it for a long moment, he tucked it into his passport and half walked, half jogged to the port. At the sight of the Alsina’s huge black hull looming over the harbor, he laughed and cried in the same breath, at once overwhelmed with hope and anticipation of what the free world would bring, and devastated by the notion of leaving Europe, and with it his family, behind.

“Do you know of other ships sailing for Brazil in the coming months?” he’d asked at the maritime office. “Son,” the agent behind the window said, shaking his head, “consider yourself lucky to make it out on this one.” The agent was right. There were fewer and fewer passenger ships permitted to sail for the Americas. But Addy refused to give up hope. He’d spent the afternoon huddled in the corner of a café near the port, penning a letter to his mother.

10 Jan. ’40

Dear Mother,

I pray that my letters have reached you and that you and the others are well. I have secured passage to Brazil on a ship called Alsina. We leave in five days, on the 15th of January, for Rio de Janeiro. Captain estimates we will reach South America in two weeks. As soon as I arrive I will write again with an address where you can reach me. Remember what I told you about Ambassador Souza Dantas in Vichy. Please be safe. Counting the minutes until I hear from you.

Love always,

Addy

Before he left the café, Addy stepped into the washroom, where he changed out of his fatigues and into his suit. But instead of folding his uniform into his satchel as he normally did, he balled it up and slipped it into the waste bin.



Addy’s cabin is pint-sized. He removes his shoes and shuffles in sideways, careful not to graze the rickety shoulder-width berth, whose walnut-veneer headboard and candlewick-yellow bedcover appear a decade past their prime. Opposite the sagging mattress sit a small mahogany bench and some shallow shelves. He sets his shoes on the bottom shelf and his satchel on the bench, hangs his overcoat and fedora on the hook on the back of the washroom door, then peeks inside. The washroom—his reason for splurging on a second-class ticket—is also impossibly small. Inside, a showerhead dangles from a metal hose attached to the wall over the toilet, and a small, round mirror hangs over a tiny porcelain sink. Addy’s skin tingles at the thought of a hot shower—it’s been nearly a week since his last. He undresses immediately.

After folding his shirt, vest, and pants into a neat pile on his bed, he collects his soap, comb, and razor and steps into the washroom, still clad in his underwear and socks. He slides the showerhead into its wall mount, and turns the metal lever to the hot position. The pressure is dismal, but the water is warm, and as it washes over him he can feel it softening the strain in his shoulders. He hums as he scrubs himself—underwear and all—until he’s worked up a satisfying lather, then pivots slowly in a small circle to rinse. When his undergarments are suds-free, he peels them off and hangs them over the sink, then soaps himself once again and lets the water run over his bare skin for a moment before cranking the shower lever to off. He reaches for the sole white towel hanging from a bar on the backside of the washroom door and dries himself, still humming. At the mirror, he brushes his teeth, combs his hair, and shaves, running his fingers along the square of his jaw, examining closely for places he might have missed. Finally, he wrings out his wet clothes and, rigging up a clothesline with his twine, hangs them to dry. Stepping back into spare undergarments and his suit, he smiles; he feels like a new person.

On deck, Addy weaves through a crowd of refugees, nodding hellos and catching snippets of conversations as he makes his way toward the bow of the ship: Did you hear Zamora’s on board? someone asks as he passes. Addy wonders if he would recognize Zamora if he bumped into him; surely the ex-president of Spain has purchased a ticket in first class, a deck above. Most of the talk Addy overhears is that of the ingenious planning and relentless effort required to secure visas. Stood in line for eighteen days straight. Paid off the embassy worker. Just awful, to leave my sisters behind.

There are several guesses as to how many refugees are aboard—I heard six hundred . . . ship’s built for three hundred . . . no wonder it’s so damned crowded . . . those poor folks down in third class must be miserable. The second-class deck is cramped, but Addy knows it’s nothing compared with the quarters below, in steerage.

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