As Sol recites the blessing of the karpas, Nechuma dips a sprig of parsley into a bowl of salt water and her fingers brush Jakob’s. She sighs, feeling the tension begin to drain from her jaw. Sweet Jakob. He catches her eye and smiles, and Nechuma’s heart fills with gratitude for the fact that he is still living under her roof. She adores his company, his calm. He’s different from the others. Unlike his siblings, who entered the world red-faced and wailing, Jakob arrived as white as her hospital bedsheets and silent, as if mimicking the giant snowflakes falling peacefully to the earth outside her window on that wintery February morning, twenty-three years ago. Nechuma would never forget the harrowing moments before he finally cried—she was sure at the time that he wouldn’t survive the day—or how, when she held him in her arms and looked into his inky eyes, he’d stared up at her, the skin over his brow creased with a small fold, as if he were deep in thought. It was then that she understood who he was. Quiet, yes, but astute. Like his brothers and sisters born before and after him, a tiny version of the person he would grow up to be.
She watches as Jakob leans to whisper something in Bella’s ear. Bella brings a napkin to her lips, stifling a smile. On her collar, a pin catches the candlelight—a gold rose-shaped brooch with an ivory pearl at its center, a gift from Jakob. He’d given it to her a few months after they met at gymnasium. He was fifteen at the time, she fourteen. Back then, all Nechuma knew of Bella was that she took her studies seriously, that she came from a family of modest means (according to Jakob, her father, a dentist, was still settling the loans he’d taken on to pay for his daughters’ education), and that she sewed many of her own clothes, a revelation that impressed Nechuma and prompted her to wonder which of Bella’s smartest blouses were store-bought and which were handmade. It was shortly after Jakob gave Bella the brooch that he declared her his soulmate.
“Jakob, love, you’re fifteen . . . and you’ve just met!” Nechuma had exclaimed. But Jakob wasn’t one to exaggerate, and here they are, eight years later, inseparable. It’s only a matter of time before they are married, Nechuma figures. Perhaps Jakob will propose when the talk of war has subsided. Or maybe he’s waiting until he’s saved enough to afford his own place. Bella lives with her parents, too—just a few blocks west on Witolda Boulevard. Whatever the case, Nechuma has no doubt that Jakob has a plan.
At the head of the table, Sol breaks a piece of matzah gently in two. He sets one half of the matzah on a plate and wraps the other in a napkin. When the children were younger, Sol would spend weeks plotting the perfect hiding spot for the matzah, and when the time came in the ceremony to unearth the hidden afikomen, the kids would scamper like mice through the apartment in search of it. Whoever was lucky enough to find it would barter ruthlessly until inevitably walking away with a proud smile and enough zloty in his or her palm to purchase a sack of fudge krówki at Pomianowski’s candy store. Sol was a businessman and played hard—the King Negotiator, they called him—but his children knew well that deep down he was as soft as a mound of freshly churned butter, and that with enough patience and charm, they could milk him for every zloty in his pocket. He hasn’t actually hidden the matzah in years, of course; his children, as teenagers, finally boycotted the ritual—“We’re a bit old for it, don’t you think, Father?” they said—but Nechuma knows that the moment his granddaughter Felicia has learned to walk, he’ll resume the tradition.
It’s Adam’s turn to read aloud. He lifts his Haggadah and peers at it through thick-rimmed eyeglasses. With his narrow nose, high, sharp cheekbones, and flawless skin accentuated in the candlelight, he appears almost regal. Adam Eichenwald had arrived in the Kurc household several months ago, when Nechuma set a ROOM FOR LET sign in the window of the fabric store. Her uncle had recently died, leaving the family with an empty bedroom, and her home, even with her two youngest still there, had begun to feel empty. Nechuma loved nothing more than a crowded dinner table. When Adam had stepped into the shop to inquire, she was delighted; she offered him the room immediately.
“What a fine-looking young man!” Sol’s sister Terza had exclaimed, after he left. “He’s thirty-two? He looks a decade younger.”
“He’s Jewish, and he’s smart,” Nechuma added. What are the odds, the women had whispered about the boy—a graduate in architecture at the Polytechnic National University in Lvov—leaving 14 Warszawska Street unwed? And sure enough, a few weeks later, Adam and Halina were an item.
Halina. Nechuma sighs. Born with an inexplicable mop of honey-blonde hair and incandescent green eyes, Halina is the youngest and the most petite of her children. What she lacks in stature, however, she makes up tenfold in personality. Nechuma has never met a child so obstinate, so capable of talking her way into (or out of) practically anything. She recalls the time when, at fifteen, Halina charmed her mathematics professor out of giving her a demerit when he discovered she’d skipped class to see the matinee of Trouble in Paradise on opening day, and the time when, at sixteen, she convinced Addy to take a last-minute overnight train with her to Prague so they could wake up in the City of a Hundred Spires on the birthday they shared. Adam, bless his heart, is clearly allured by her. Thankfully, he’s proven nothing but respectful in Sol and Nechuma’s presence.
When Adam has finished reading, Sol offers a prayer over the remaining matzah, breaks off a piece, and passes the plate. Nechuma listens as the soft crack of unleavened bread makes its way around the table. “Ba-ruch a-tah A-do-nai,” Sol sings, but stops short when he’s interrupted by a high-pitched cry. Felicia. Blushing, Mila apologizes and slips from her seat to scoop Felicia from her bassinet in the corner of the room. Tap-dancing her feet, she shushes softly into Felicia’s ear to soothe her. As Sol begins again, Felicia squirms beneath the folds of her swaddle, her face contorting, reddening. When she wails a second time, Mila excuses herself, hurrying down the hallway to Halina’s bedroom. Nechuma follows.
“What’s wrong, love?” Mila whispers, rubbing a finger along Felicia’s top gum as she’s seen Nechuma do, trying to pacify her. Felicia turns her head, arches her back, cries harder.
“Do you think she’s hungry?” Nechuma asks.
“I fed her not too long ago. I think she’s just tired.”
“Here,” Nechuma says, taking Felicia from Mila’s arms. Felicia’s eyes are pinched shut, her hands curled tight into fists. Her bawls come in short, shrill bursts.
Mila sits down heavily at the foot of Halina’s bed. “I’m so sorry, Mother,” she says, straining not to yell over Felicia’s cries. “I hate that we’re causing a fuss.” She rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I can barely even hear myself think.”
“No one minds,” Nechuma says, holding Felicia close to her chest, rocking her gently. After a few minutes, Felicia’s cries wane to whimpers and soon she is quiet again, her expression peaceful. It’s mesmerizing, the joy of holding a baby in your arms, Nechuma thinks, breathing in Felicia’s sweet almond scent.
“I’m such a fool for assuming this would be easy,” Mila says. When she looks up her eyes are bloodshot, the skin beneath them translucent purple, as if the lack of sleep has left a bruise. She’s trying—Nechuma can see that. But it’s tough being a new mother. The transition has left her reeling.
Nechuma shakes her head. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Mila. It’s not what you thought it would be, but that’s to be expected. With children it’s never what you think it’s going to be.” Mila looks at her hands and Nechuma recalls how, when she was younger, her eldest daughter wanted nothing more than to be a mother—how she would tend to her dolls, cradling them in the crook of her arm, singing to them, even pretending to nurse them; how she took great pride in caring for her younger siblings, offering to tie their shoes, wrap gauze around their bloodied knees, read to them before bed. Now that she has a child of her own, however, Mila seems overwhelmed by it, as if it were the first time she’d held a baby in her arms.
“I wish I knew what I was doing wrong,” Mila says.
Nechuma sits down at the foot of the bed by her daughter. “You’re doing fine, Mila. I told you, babies are difficult. Especially the first. I nearly lost my mind when Genek was born, trying to figure it out. It just takes some time.”
“It’s been five months.”
“Give it a few more.”
Mila is quiet for a moment. “Thank you,” she finally whispers, looking over at Felicia sleeping peacefully in Nechuma’s arms. “I feel like a wretched failure.”