Addy pulls his letter from his back pocket, traces his fingers over his old address in Radom, thinking of his mother. Rather than imagine the worst, he has taken to recreating his lost world in his mind. He thinks of how, on Sundays, the cook’s day off, Nechuma would prepare a family dinner, taking great care as she crumbled caraway seeds between her fingers over a hash of red cabbage and apples. He thinks of how, when he was little, she would lift him up every time they entered and left the apartment so he could run his fingers along the mezuzah that hung in the arched doorway to his building. How she would lean over his bed and kiss his forehead in the mornings to wake him, smelling faintly of lilacs from the cold cream she’d rubbed onto her cheeks the night before. Addy wonders if his mother’s knees still bother her in the cold, if the weather has warmed enough yet for her to plant her crocuses in the iron basket on the balcony—if she still has a balcony. Where are you, Mother? Where are you?
It’s quite possible, Addy realizes, that in the midst of war, his letters aren’t reaching his mother. Or that they are reaching her, and it’s her letters that aren’t reaching him. Addy wishes he had a friend in a neutral country in Europe who could forward his correspondences. There is also the possibility, of course, that his letters are arriving at his old address, but the family is no longer there. It’s unbearable, picturing his parents confined to a ghetto, or worse. He’d begun writing to his physician, to his old piano teacher, and to the superintendent of his parents’ building, asking each to share some news, to pass his missives on if they happened to know the whereabouts of his parents and siblings. He hasn’t heard back from anyone yet, but he refuses to stop writing. Putting words to paper, engaging in a form of conversation, seeing the word Radom scrawled across the face of an envelope—these are the things that keep him grounded.
Addy pushes open the door to the Copacabana post office, breathing in its familiar scent of paper and ink. “Bom dia, Senhor Kurc,” his friend Gabriela calls from her usual perch behind the counter.
“Good morning, Gabi,” Addy replies. He hands her his letter, already stamped. Gabriela shakes her head as she takes it. He no longer has to ask.
“Nothing today,” she says.
Addy nods in understanding. “Gabi, I’m moving to the interior for a few months next week, for a job. Is it possible to hold my mail, in case anything comes while I’m away?”
“Of course,” Gabriela smiles kindly, in a way that tells him he’s not the only one waiting for news from abroad.
As he leaves the post office, Addy’s heart is heavy, and he realizes it’s not just the fate of his family that is weighing on him, but something else. Twice in the last week, Eliska has brought up the subject of a wedding; she’s asked him to think about what kind of food they might serve, and later suggested they talk about a honeymoon. Both times he’s changed the subject, realizing it’s impossible to contemplate a wedding with his family still missing.
Addy lets his mind slip back in time to the beach in Dakar, where he and Eliska had clung to each other as fiercely as they did to the idea of a life of freedom, their love swept along by a swift current of danger and uncertainty. . . . Would they make it to Rio? Would they be sent back to Europe? Whatever happened, they told each other, they’d be together! Now, at long last, they are safe. There are no more fishermen to bribe, no more expired visas to agonize over, no more hour-long walks to a deserted beach to make love in privacy. But now, for the first time in their relationship, they argue. They argue about whom to include in their dinner plans—Eliska’s friends are more fun, she says, his friends too intellectual. “No one wants to sit around talking about Nietzsche,” she once groused. They butt heads about unimportant things like the fastest route to the market, and whether the espadrilles in the shop window are worth the splurge. (“I think not,” Addy will say, knowing that Eliska will inevitably show up to their next date wearing them.) They bicker over which station to tune to on the radio—“Forget the news, Addy,” Eliska once said, exasperated. “It’s too depressing. Can we listen to some music?”
Addy sighs. What he would give to spend an hour with his mother, to get her advice about the woman he plans to marry. Talk to her, Nechuma would say. If you love her, you must be honest with her. No secrets. But they had talked. They were honest with one another. They’d talked about how things felt different between them on South American soil. Once, they’d even discussed ending their engagement. But neither is willing to give up just yet. Addy is Eliska’s anchor, and Eliska, Addy’s thread to the world he left behind. In her eyes, he sees Europe. He sees a reminder of his old life.
Walking instinctively toward the Teatro Municipal, Addy finds himself recalling Eliska’s words from the week before, when he’d confided in her once again how anxious he felt about losing contact with his family. “You worry too much,” she’d said. “I hate it, Addy. I hate seeing the sadness in your eyes. We’re free as birds here; let’s relax, enjoy ourselves a bit.” Free as birds. But he cannot feel free when so much of him is missing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Mila and Felicia
Radom, German-Occupied Poland ~ April 1942
Since the massacre, which is what everyone began calling it when Mila, Felicia, and the four others were returned to the ghetto, the SS have unleashed a beast. Perhaps they realized what they were capable of, or were holding back before. They aren’t holding back any longer. The violence at Wa?owa escalates by the day. There have been another four roundups in the weeks since Mila returned. In one case the Jews were marched to the train station and herded into cattle cars; in another they were simply brought to a perimeter wall and shot. There are no more lists, no more false promises of a life of freedom in Palestine or the States. Instead there are raids, there are factories searched, there are Jews lined up and counted. The Germans are always counting. And every day, a Jew in hiding or without the proper work papers is killed. Some are even gunned down at random. Last week, as Mila and her friend Antonia returned from a day’s work at the factory, a pair of SS soldiers strolled by on the street, casually unholstered their pistols, knelt down, and began shooting, as if in target practice. Mila ducked silently into an alleyway, giving thanks for the fact that Felicia wasn’t with her, but Antonia panicked and ran straight into their path. Mila sank to her knees and prayed as the sound of several more gunshots ricocheted off the brick walls of the two-story apartments lining the street. When the stomp of German boots finally receded, she ventured out and found Antonia a few meters away, lying still, face down on the cobblestones with a bullet hole between her shoulder blades. It could have been me, she thought, sickened by the reality that what little order had existed when the ghetto was first erected had long been lost. The Germans were killing now for sport. Any day, she knows, could be her last.
—
“Remember, walk only in your socks, and play very quietly,” Mila instructs. She glances at her watch. She mustn’t be late. Panicked over what might happen should Felicia be discovered at the factory, Mila has begun leaving her behind in the flat to fend for herself while she’s at work.
“Please, Mamusiu—can I come with you?” Felicia begs. She wants nothing of staying home alone.
But Mila is adamant. “I’m sorry, love. You’re better off here,” she reasons. “I’ve told you—you’re a big girl now, and you barely fit beneath my desk at the workshop.”
“I can be small!” Felicia pleads.
Mila’s eyes water. It’s the same struggle every morning and it’s awful, hearing the desperation in her daughter’s voice, letting her down. But she mustn’t relent. It’s far too dangerous.