We Were the Lucky Ones

Franka adjusts the tablecloth so it hangs a centimeter from the floor. “Coming!” she calls, and then squats and whispers through the tablecloth: “If they find you, you are the daughter of the concierge.”

I’m the daughter of the concierge. These are the words she’s supposed to recite, should someone discover her in hiding. In the months since she moved to the apartment, she hasn’t needed to use them; until today, no one but the landlord has come unannounced. “I’m the daughter of the concierge,” she whispers, feeling out the lie.

As soon as Franka reaches the door, Felicia hears voices. Three, four maybe, yelling in a language she has learned to recognize as German. The voices belong to men. They stomp from the foyer into the kitchen. Beneath the table, Felicia startles at the jarring clatter of her bowls scattering across the floor.

Amid the chaos, Franka’s voice is there too, talking quickly—she doesn’t live here, she explains, then something about the shoes—but the Germans don’t seem interested. “Halt die Schnauze!” one of them barks, and Felicia holds her breath as they retreat down the hallway toward the bedrooms. For a moment it’s quiet. Felicia is tempted to run, or to call out for Franka, but she decides instead to count. One, two, three. Before she can count to four, there’s more yelling, and when she hears Karl’s voice, too, she shivers. Is it him they’ve come for?

Soon bodies are moving, boots pounding boom boom back up the hallway in her direction, and then there are people in the kitchen, more yelling, and Karl is crying as he begs, his voice pathetic, pleading, “Please don’t, please! I have papers!” Felicia prays for him, prays for the Germans to take his papers and leave, but it’s no use. A shot is fired. Franka screams, and a moment later the linoleum floor shakes from the weight of something heavy meeting it with a disturbing thud.

Felicia claps her hands over her mouth, trying to muffle whatever tortured sound might slip from her. Her heart beats so hard and fast it feels as if at any moment it will bolt right up and out of her throat.

One of the intruders laughs. Felicia tries to steady her breath, her body quaking from the effort. There is rustling. More laughter. Something about zloty. “You see?” a voice croaks in broken Polish, presumably to Franka. “You see what happens when they try to hide? You tell who owns this place we will be back.”

Something moves in Felicia’s periphery. A ribbon of crimson, snaking slowly toward her beneath the tablecloth. She nearly vomits when she realizes what it is. Sliding silently to the far side of the table, she pulls her knees to her chest and squeezes her eyes closed.

“Yes, sir.” Franka’s voice is barely audible.

Finally, the voices and footsteps begin to recede and the door to the apartment clicks shut. The Germans are gone.

Felicia’s instinct is to move, to scramble as quickly as she can from under the table, away from the bloody scene, but she can’t. She rests her head on her knees and cries. In the next moment, Franka is there, beneath the table with her, holding her balled-up frame.

“It’s okay,” she whispers, her lips pressed up against Felicia’s ear as she rocks her back and forth, back and forth. “You’re okay. Everything will be okay.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE


    Addy


   Rio de Janeiro, Brazil ~ January 1943




Addy’s first stop upon returning to Rio de Janeiro from Minas Gerais, his job in the interior complete, is the Copacabana post office. He had prayed every night in Minas that a letter might have arrived, but his hopes are immediately eradicated as he walks in and catches Gabriela’s eye.

“I’m sorry, Addy,” Gabriela says from behind the counter. “I was hoping I’d have something for you.” She seems genuinely sorry to deliver the news.

Addy forces a smile. “It’s okay. Wishful thinking.” He runs his hand through his hair.

“It’s nice to have you back,” Gabriela calls as Addy turns to leave.

“See you next week,” Addy offers with stilted optimism.

As he exits the post office, his chin drops and his chest begins to ache. He’s been a fool to hope. He sniffs, fighting tears, then squares his shoulders. Nothing good will come of all this yearning, he tells himself. You must do more. Something. Anything. This afternoon, he decides, he’ll visit the library. He’ll leaf through the foreign papers, search for clues. Perhaps he’ll find a bit of news that will lift his spirits. What he’d read in Minas was disheartening, and at times confusing. One article called Hitler’s efforts to eradicate the Jews in Europe “premeditated mass murder” and reported an unthinkable number of deaths. Another article said that the “Jewish situation” had been largely exaggerated, that the Jews were not being exterminated, but simply persecuted. Addy didn’t know what to believe. And he found it infuriating that what little information he was able to find was usually tucked into the middle of a periodical, as if the editors themselves weren’t quite sure whether the facts were true, as if the headline OVER 1,000,000 DEAD SINCE THE WAR BEGAN didn’t belong on the front page. The fate of Europe’s Jews, apparently, attracted little attention in Brazil. But for Addy, it was all he could think about.

He slips on his sunglasses and tucks a hand instinctively into his pocket to find his mother’s handkerchief, rubbing the soft white linen between his fingers until his eyes are dry. He glances at his watch. He’s due to meet Eliska for lunch in fifteen minutes.

Eliska had come to visit Minas once while he was there, but seeing her hadn’t done anything to repair what’s begun to feel like a broken relationship. Eliska had grown despondent when Addy told her how preoccupied he was, how he could think of nothing but his family. “I wish I could understand what you’re going through,” she’d said, and for the first time Addy had seen her cry. “Addy . . . what if you never find your family? What then? How will you manage?” Addy had hated hearing those words and what they implied, had resented her for saying them, even though they were the same questions he asked of himself.

“I’ll have you,” Addy had said softly, but his words fell flat. It was obvious now. Eliska knew as well as he did that as long as his family was missing, he would never be able to commit himself fully to building a life with her—to put his whole heart into loving her. Eliska’s tears weren’t for him, Addy realized; they were for herself. She’d already begun to envision a future without him.

At the end of the block, Addy approaches the outdoor tables of Café Campanha. He’s early. Eliska isn’t there yet. He takes a seat at an open table, wondering if the conversation that is about to ensue will lead to a called-off engagement—and if so, what that would mean for the two of them. Heavyhearted, he pulls his leather notebook from his breast pocket. It’s been months since he put notes to paper, but all the thoughts of his family and Eliska and what it meant to love and be loved have churned up a melody. He sketches a staff across the blank page before him and adds the familiar three-quarters time signature. This new piece, he decides as the first notes spill onto the paper, will be a slow waltz, in a minor key.





CHAPTER FORTY


    Mila


   Warsaw, German-Occupied Poland ~ January 1943




Edgar, who’d turned five the week before, skips beside Mila as she walks. His nose is running and pink from the cold. “This is not the way to the park, Frau Kremski.” He says it like he’s smarter than she.

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