We Were the Lucky Ones



The port in Tangier is crowded with ships steaming across the Strait, to and from Tarifa. Addy counts three British aircraft carriers, a handful of cargo ships, and dozens of fishing boats. He and the Lowbeers walk the piers, debating which vessel they should approach. There is a ticketing office at the far end of the port, but visas will surely be required to make a purchase. They decide they’ll be better off hiring a captain on their own.

“How about him?” Addy points to a fisherman with sun-cracked skin and a shaggy beard sitting at the square stern of his boat, eating his lunch. His skiff is small with a flat bottom and peeling blue paint—just inconspicuous enough, Addy hopes, to cross the Strait unnoticed, and just functional enough to bring them safely to Tarifa. A faded Spanish flag flaps gently from the craft’s narrow bow. The fisherman shakes his head, however, at Madame Lowbeer’s first offer.

“Peligroso,” he says.

Madame Lowbeer removes her watch. “Esto también,” she says, surprising Addy with her Spanish.

The fisherman squints down the pier as if trying to decipher whether anyone of authority might be watching, and then looks back up at the threesome again for a moment, considering his options. Addy is grateful for their appearance—they may be refugees, but they are certainly put together well enough to look trustworthy. “El reloj,” the fisherman finally huffs.

Madame Lowbeer slips the watch into her purse. “Primero, Tarifa,” she says coolly. The fisherman grunts and waves them aboard.

Addy lowers himself into the skiff first to help load their belongings. The Lowbeers, thankfully, had decided in Casablanca to ship their three massive portmanteaux to Madame Lowbeer’s brother in Brazil. They travel now with leather valises similar in size to Addy’s. When their things are stowed, Addy offers his hand as the women step gingerly into the boat, eyeing a small pool of oily water gathered on the floor of its stern.

The ride is bumpy. Madame Lowbeer vomits twice over the side. Eliska’s cheeks turn a ghostly shade of white. No one speaks. Addy holds his breath on multiple occasions when he’s sure their small skiff is about to be engulfed in the wake of a passing freighter. He keeps his gaze fixed on Tarifa’s rocky coastline, praying they can make their way unnoticed—and afloat—to Spanish soil.





JUNE 22–30, 1941: In a surprise twist of events, Hitler turns his back on Stalin, breaking the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact and attacking the entire eastern front, including Russian-occupied Poland. Huge in scope, the invasion is code-named Operation Barbarossa. In Lvov, after a week of bitter fighting, the Soviets are defeated; before retreating, however, the NKVD massacres thousands of Polish, Jewish, and Ukrainian intellectuals, political activists, and criminals held in the city’s prisons. The Germans publicly blame the Jews for these massacres, declaring that the victims were mainly Ukrainian. This, of course, enrages the pro-German Ukrainian militia, who, along with the Einsatzgruppen (SS death squads), take vigilante action against the Jews inhabiting the city. Jewish men and women who haven’t found their way into hiding are stripped, beaten, and murdered in the streets by the thousands.





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


    Jakob and Bella


   Lvov, Soviet-Occupied Poland ~ July 1, 1941




Lvov has come undone. The madness began at the end of June, shortly after Hitler’s surprise attack on the Soviet Union, which is when Jakob, Bella, Halina, and Franka went into hiding.

They’ve been holed up in their building’s basement for over a week. A Polish friend named Piotr brings news and food when he can—a one-man makeshift relief organization. “The city is swarming with Einsatzgruppen and what appears to be a Ukrainian militia,” Piotr said when he first came by to check on them. “They are targeting Jews.” When Jakob asked why, Piotr explained that the NKVD had murdered the majority of the inmates at the city’s jails before fleeing, thousands of whom were Ukrainian, and that the Jews were being blamed. “It doesn’t make much sense,” he said. “Hundreds of the inmates were Jewish—but this doesn’t seem to matter.”

There is a single knock from upstairs. Piotr. It was no secret that he, too, would be targeted by the Germans should he be discovered aiding Jews. Jakob stands. “I’ll go,” he offers, lighting a candle and tiptoeing to the staircase. Along with news of the pogrom, Piotr often brings food—small parcels of bread and cheese. His knocks usually come once a day, in the evening.

“Be careful,” Bella whispers.

Yesterday, ten days after the pogrom began, Piotr said that the paper estimated the city’s Jewish death toll at a horrific thirty-five hundred. Ten, twenty, even a hundred, Bella could believe. But thousands? The statistic is far too gruesome for her to bear, and she can’t put out of her mind the fact that she hasn’t heard from her sister since the invasion. Again and again she imagines Anna’s beautiful body among those strewn in the streets—Piotr says he has to step over corpses just to reach their doorstep. Bella has begged Piotr to visit Anna’s flat; he’s been twice, and twice he’s returned with the news that his knocks have gone unanswered.

She listens as Jakob climbs the stairs. Soon there is another single knock, this one from Jakob, followed by four quick reciprocal taps, Piotr’s code indicating it is safe to open the door. The hinges whine, and a story below, Bella exhales, listening to the faint murmur of conversation.

“It’s going to be all right,” Halina says, sitting down next to her.

Bella nods, admiring her sister-in-law’s strength. Adam is missing, too. He’d insisted on remaining aboveground during the pogrom, claiming that the resistance needed him now more than ever. Halina has yet to hear from him, and yet here she is offering Bella comfort.

The women sit quietly, listening. After a while, the conversation halts and Bella stiffens. The silence overhead stretches on for two, three, four seconds, then nearly half a minute. “Something’s wrong,” she whispers. She can feel it in the dread blooming within her rib cage; whatever it is, she doesn’t want to know. Finally, the door above squeals, the deadbolt snaps shut, and footsteps make their way slowly back to the staircase. By the time Jakob reaches the basement, Bella can barely breathe.

Jakob hands the candle and a loaf of bread to Halina and lowers himself to sit. “Bella,” he says softly.

Bella looks up, shakes her head. Please, no. But in Jakob’s face she can see that her instinct is right. Oh God, no.

Jakob swallows, staring at the ground for a moment before uncurling his fingers. In his palm is a note. “Piotr found it, sticking out from under Anna’s door. Bella, I’m so sorry.”

Bella stares at the wrinkled slip of paper as if it were a bomb about to detonate. She presses her lower back into the wall behind her, brushing Jakob’s hand away when he reaches for her. Jakob and Halina exchange a worried glance, but Bella doesn’t notice. She is paralyzed by the notion that whatever her husband has, whatever he knows, will destroy her. That in a moment’s time, everything will change. Jakob waits patiently, silently, until finally Bella gathers the courage to take the note. Holding the wrinkled paper with both hands, she recognizes her sister’s handwriting immediately.

They are taking us away. I think they are going to kill us.

Bella braces herself, suddenly unsteady, as if the ground beneath her has given way. She crumples the note, and as the walls begin to spin, her world goes dark. She brings her fist to her forehead and wails.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


    Halina


   Lvov, German-Occupied Poland ~ July 18, 1941




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