We Were the Lucky Ones

Addy jokes about the excruciatingly slow pace at which the locals in Rio move, parading his first two fingers along the bar to demonstrate his cadence compared with that of a typical Brazilian. “No one here is in a hurry,” he says, shaking his head.

Later on at Belmond, Caroline asks Addy to order for the two of them. As they converse, this time over bowls of moqueca de camar?o, shrimp stewed in coconut milk, Addy learns that Caroline is one of four Martin siblings, and that her three older brothers, whose names he asks her to repeat again and again—Edward, Taylor, and Venable—still live at home in Clinton.

“We had a cow in our backyard when we were children,” Caroline says, her eyes lighting up as she reminisces. Addy nearly chokes when she reveals that the cow’s name was Sarah—his little sister Halina’s Hebrew name, he explains. Caroline blushes. “Oh, I hope I haven’t offended you,” she says. “Sarah was part of the family!” she adds. “We’d milk her, and sometimes even ride her to school.”

Addy smiles. “It sounds like your Sarah was a lot less stubborn than mine.” He goes on to tell Caroline about Halina, reminded of the time, after seeing It Happened One Night, that she insisted on cutting her hair short to look like Claudette Colbert, and how she’d refused to leave the apartment for days after, convinced the look didn’t suit her. Laughing, Addy realizes how good it feels to talk of his family, how hearing their names helps, in a way, to confirm their existence.

Caroline tells him about her family as well, about her father, a mathematics professor at Presbyterian College in Clinton, who had taught right up until his death in 1935. “We didn’t grow up with many luxuries,” she says, “except for our schooling. You can imagine with a professor for a father how he felt about our education.”

Addy nods. His parents weren’t professors, but receiving a good education was paramount in his household growing up, too. “What did you call your father?” Addy asks, curious. “What was his name?”

Caroline smiles. “His name was Abram.”

Addy looks at her. “Abram? As similar to Abraham?”

“Yes, Abram. Derived from Abraham. It’s a family name. Passed down from my great-grandfather.”

Addy smiles, and then reaches to his pocket for his mother’s handkerchief, laying it flat on the table between them. “My mother, she . . .” he mimes the act of sewing with a needle and thread.

“She sews?”

“Yes, she sews this for me, before I leave Poland. Here,” Addy points, “these are my—how do you call them?”

“Initials.”

“These are my initials—the A is for my Hebrew name, Abraham.”

Caroline leans over the handkerchief, studying the embroidery. “You are an Abraham, too?”

“Si.”

“Our families have very good taste in names,” Caroline says, smiling.

Addy folds the handkerchief and slips it back into his pocket. Perhaps they are woven from the same thread, he decides.

Caroline is quiet for a moment. She looks down at her lap. “My mother passed away three years ago,” she says. “It’s one of my biggest regrets, that I wasn’t there when she died.”

It is a confession that surprises Addy, for he has just met Caroline. In the years that he was with Eliska she hardly ever spoke of her past, let alone her regrets. He nods in understanding, thinking of his own mother and wishing he could say something to comfort her. Maybe Caroline would feel less alone knowing that he, too, missed his mother terribly. He hasn’t told her, of course, about losing contact with his family. He’d grown so accustomed to avoiding the subject he wasn’t even sure he could bring himself to talk about it. Where would he begin?

He looks up, meeting Caroline’s eyes. There is something so earnest about her, so gentle. You can talk to her, he realizes. Try.

“I know how it is you feel,” he says.

Caroline looks surprised. “You’ve lost your mother, too?”

“Well, not exactly. I don’t know, you see. My family, I think, is still in Poland.”

“You think?”

Addy glances at his lap. “I don’t know for sure. We are Jews.”

Caroline reaches for his hand across the table with tears in her eyes, and all of a sudden the story that he hasn’t told for so many years comes tumbling out.



Two weeks later, Addy and Caroline sit at a desk pushed up against an east-facing window in Caroline’s apartment overlooking Leme Beach, a stack of parchment before them. They’ve seen each other almost every day since their first dinner at Belmond. It was Caroline’s idea to contact the Red Cross for help locating his family. Addy dictates, leaning over Caroline’s arm as she writes. Her optimism has energized him, and the words spill from his lips faster than she can keep up.

“Wait, wait, slow down.” Caroline laughs. “Can you spell your mother’s name for me again?” She looks up, the velvet brown of her irises catching in the light. Her fountain pen hovers over the paper. Addy clears his throat. The softness in her eyes, the soapy smell of her auburn hair, make him lose his train of thought. He spells Nechuma, trying not to butcher the English pronunciation of the letters, then his father’s name and those of each of his siblings. Caroline’s cursive, Addy notes, is effortless and elegant compared with his own.

When the letter is complete, Caroline retrieves a slip of paper from her purse. “I asked at the embassy,” she says, setting it between them and running her finger down a list of cities, “and it seems there are Red Crosses stationed everywhere. We should send your letter to several offices, just in case.” Addy nods, scanning the fifteen cities Caroline has compiled, ranging from Marseille, London, and Geneva, to Tel Aviv and Delhi. She’s written an address next to each.

They talk quietly as Caroline carefully pens fifteen copies of Addy’s letter. When she’s finished, she gathers her stack of stationery and taps it gently on the table so the edges are neatly aligned, and then hands it to Addy.

“Thank you,” Addy says. “This is so very important for me,” he adds, one hand over his heart, wishing he could better articulate how much her help means to him.

Caroline nods. “I know. It’s just awful, what’s going on over there. I hope you hear back. At least for the moment you’ll know you’ve done everything you can.” Her expression is sincere, her words comforting. He’d met her only a few weeks ago, but Addy has learned that there’s no guessing when it comes to knowing what Caroline is thinking. She simply says what she means to say, without embellishment. He finds the trait refreshing.

“You have a heart from gold,” Addy says, realizing as the words leave him how clichéd they sound, but he doesn’t care.

Caroline’s fingers are long, narrow at the tips. She waves them in front of her face, shakes her head. She’s not good, Addy’s also learned, at receiving praise.

“I bring to the post office tomorrow,” he says.

“You’ll let me know the moment you hear something?”

“Yes, of course.”

Through the window, Addy looks east over Leme Rock and the deep blue of the Atlantic, toward Europe. “In time,” he says, trying to sound hopeful, “in time I will find them.”





MAY 11, 1944: The fourth and final battle of Monte Cassino begins. As hoped, the Allies take German forces by complete surprise. As the French Expeditionary Corps destroys the southern hinge of German defenses, the XIII Corps, a formation of the British Eighth Army, moves inland, capturing the town of Cassino and striking German forces in the Liri valley. The Poles, in their first attempt to capture the Cassino, are repelled; casualties approach 4,000 as two battalions are wiped out entirely. Under continued assaults, the monastery remains impregnable.





CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN


    Genek


   Monte Cassino, Italy ~ May 17, 1944


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