“You must be relieved though, yes?”
Mila nods. “Of course.” She lifts her chin, turns to face her mother. “It’s just that—I’ve spent the last six years thinking he was—was dead. I’d adjusted to it. Accepted it, even, as terrible as that sounds.”
“It’s understandable. You had to go on for Felicia’s sake. You did what any mother would do.”
“I shouldn’t have given up on him. I should have been more hopeful. What kind of wife gives up on her husband?”
“Please,” Nechuma says, her voice soft, understanding. “What were you supposed to think? You didn’t hear from him. We all thought he was dead. Besides, none of that matters now.”
Mila glances over her shoulder toward the kitchen. “I need to talk to Felicia.” Mila had spoken less and less of Selim since admitting to Felicia she was unsure of his fate—since choosing, for her own sake, to believe that he was gone. But Felicia had refused to let go. She’d spent the past year asking questions about him, begging her mother for details. “She’s built him up so much in her mind,” Mila adds. “What if she’s—disappointed? When he left, she was just a baby, healthy, pink-cheeked. . . . What if—” Mila stops, unable to describe how much Felicia has changed.
Nechuma reaches for Mila’s hands, lays her palms over them. “Mila, darling, I know all of this is sudden, but think of it this way: you’ve been given a chance, a precious, impossible chance, to start over. And Selim is Felicia’s father. She will love him. And he will love her, just the way you love her. Unconditionally.”
Mila nods. “You’re right,” she whispers. “I just hate that he doesn’t know her.”
“Give him time,” Nechuma says, “and yourself time—to figure it out again—how to be a family. Be patient. Try not to worry too much about it. You’ve done enough worrying for a lifetime.”
Mila slips her hands from under her mother’s to wipe a tear from her cheek. What does it mean, she wonders, to live a day of her life without worry? Without a plan? Every minute of every day has been orchestrated, to the best of her ability, since the start of the war. Is she even capable, Mila wonders, of letting things unfold on their own?
—
Later that evening, once Felicia is asleep, the family sits at the dinner table, studying a map spread out before them. Halina has sent a telegram to Genek, letting him know that for the most part, the family is alive and well. Still no word from Addy, she wrote. When are you discharged? Where should we meet?
The exercise of deciding where to go next is difficult. Because next most likely means a new forever. It means thinking about where to settle. Where to start over. During the war, their options were fewer, the stakes higher, their mission singular. It was simple, in a way. Keep your chin down, your guard up. Stay one step ahead. Stay alive for one more day. Don’t let the enemy win. To think about a long-term plan feels complicated, and burdensome, like flexing an atrophied muscle.
“The first question,” Halina says, looking around the table, “is do we stay in Poland?”
Sol shakes his head. His eyes are stern. Despite the news from Genek in Italy, he has found very few reasons lately to smile. Two weeks ago, not long after learning of his brother-in-law Moshe’s death, he’d discovered that a sister, two brothers, four cousins, and half a dozen nieces and nephews who had been living in Kraków at the start of the war had also been killed. His extended family, once so large, has been reduced to just a few. The news had wrecked him. He presses the pad of his index finger to the table. “Here,” he says, frowning, “we are not safe.”
The others sit silently, considering what they do and do not know. The Germans have surrendered, yes, but for Jewish survivors, the war is far from over. Already, the Kurcs have heard stories of Jews returning to their hometowns only to be accosted, robbed, sometimes killed. In one instance, a pogrom erupted when a group of locals accused a returning Jewish man of kidnapping a Polish child—he was hung from a tree—and for days after, dozens more Jews were shot dead in the street. There is truth, it seems, to Sol’s declaration.
Eyes turn to Nechuma. She nods in agreement, glancing at her husband and then down at the map. “I agree. We should go.” The words are heavy in her lungs, leaving her breathless. It is a declaration she never thought she’d make. Six years ago, Hitler’s proclamation to remove the Jews from the continent seemed absurd. No one believed such cold-blooded plans could come to fruition. But now they know. They’ve seen the newspapers, the photographs, they’ve begun to process the numbers. Now there is no denying what the enemy is capable of. “I think it’s best,” she adds, swallowing. The idea of leaving behind all that was once theirs—their home, their street, the shop, their friends—is nearly impossible to conceive. But, Nechuma reminds herself, those things are things of the past. Of a life that no longer exists. There are strangers now living in her home. Could she and Sol take it back, even if they wanted to? And who is left of their friends? The ghetto has been empty now for years. As far as they knew, there were no Jews left in Radom. Sol is right. It isn’t smart to stay in Poland. History repeats itself. This is one truth of which she is certain.
“I think so, too,” Mila says. “I want Felicia to grow up someplace she can feel safe, where she can feel—normal.” Mila frowns, wondering what the concept of “normal” even means to her young daughter. The only life Felicia knows is one of being hunted. Forced into hiding. Sneaked through ghetto gates. Left in the hands of strangers. She is nearly seven, and all but the first year of her life has been spent in war, with the sickening awareness that there are people who wish her dead just by virtue of her birth. At least Mila and her siblings have the experience to understand that it hasn’t always been this way. But the war, the persecution, the daily fight to survive—this is Felicia’s normal. Mila’s eyes begin to water. “Think of everything we’ve been through,” she says. “Everything Felicia has been through. There isn’t a way to erase what has happened here.” She shakes her head. “There are too many ghosts, too many memories.”
Beside Mila, Bella nods, and Jakob’s heart aches for her. Hers is an opinion that doesn’t need to be spoken; they all know that for Bella, a return to Radom would be impossible. With her parents and her sister gone, there is nothing left for her there. Jakob finds Bella’s hand, and as he folds his fingers around hers, he can’t help but recall how, in her deepest months of despair, he’d all but lost her. How she had pushed him out of her life. It had torn him apart, to see her like that, to watch her disappear. He’d never felt so helpless. Nor had he felt such relief when she finally made the effort, little by little, to pick herself up and to carry on. He’d seen glimmers of the old Bella in Warsaw, but it is this pregnancy, this new life inside her, that seems to have helped her restore the strength she needs, at last, to heal.
Jakob glances up at his parents. He can tell from the way his mother seems to be bracing herself that she knows what he’s about to say. It’s old news—he’s told her already that he and Bella are considering a move to the United States—but the words don’t come easily. “Bella’s uncle in Illinois,” he begins quietly, “has agreed to sponsor us. It doesn’t guarantee a visa, of course, but it’s a start. And it makes sense, I think, to take him up on it.” Surely the others understand that at least in the States, Bella could be surrounded by what remains of her family.
“Once we get to Chicago,” Bella says, looking from Nechuma to Sol, “we can inquire about visas for the rest of the family. If that’s something you might be interested in.”