We Were the Lucky Ones

Across the aisle, Halina fans herself with a newspaper. She’d begun the trip sitting opposite Mila, but conversing with her sister while watching the scenery stream by in reverse had made her stomach turn, so she moved to a seat where she could face forward. She’s pregnant. She’s sure of it now. Her stomach heaves when it’s empty, her breasts are swollen and tender, and her slacks have grown snug around the waist. Pregnant! It is a truth as daunting as it is thrilling. She hasn’t said a word to the family yet. She plans to tell them after they reach Bari. And she’ll have to come up with a clever way to share the news with Adam back in ?ód?—perhaps she’ll splurge on a telephone call. I’ve just walked over the Alps, and I’m pregnant, she’ll say. If someone had told her before the war that at twenty-eight she’d lead her family across a mountain range, pregnant and on foot, she’d have laughed wholeheartedly. She’s not a country girl! A three-week haul over the mountains, sleeping on the dirt, with stale bread and water for sustenance? While carrying a child? Not a chance.

Halina replays the past few weeks of their journey in her mind, marveling at the fact that, despite the circumstances, she hasn’t heard a single complaint. Not from Mila, who trekked for hours each day with Felicia on her back; not from her parents, whose limps grew more apparent by the day; not even from Felicia, whose shoes were so small her blistered toes had finally poked a hole in one of them, and who, when her mother wasn’t carrying her, had to take two strides for every one of the adults’ to keep up.

Their border crossing into Italy, thankfully, had been uneventful. “Siamo italiani,” Halina lied to the British authorities manning the checkpoint in Tarcento. When the guards balked, Halina opened her purse. “Returning home to our families,” she said, reaching for the remaining cigarettes.

It was a strange feeling to walk for the first time on Italian soil. Nechuma was the only one in the group who’d been before—she used to visit Milan twice a year to buy silk and linen for the shop. To pass the time and as a distraction from their aching knees on their descent through the Alps, she’d told stories of her travels—of how the vendors at the Milanese markets had nicknamed her la tigre cieca, “the blind tiger,” as she would travel from stall to stall rubbing fabric swatches between thumb and forefinger, always with her eyes closed, before making an offer. There was no fooling her when it came to quality—“I could guess the price to the nearest lira,” she said proudly.

Once in Italy, Halina asked directions to the nearest village. They then walked another six hours, depleted of their water supply; it was dusk and they were all close to delirium when they knocked on the door of a small home on the outskirts of the town. Halina could see that they were in no shape to sleep another night out in the elements, with only a crust of bread to eat and nothing to drink, and gave a silent prayer that whoever opened the door would look at their filthy, bedraggled group with sympathy and not suspicion. She breathed a sigh of relief when a kind-eyed young farmer and his wife opened the door and waved them inside. Nechuma was able to talk to them using the small bit of Italian she had, and soon they were devouring warm plates of peppery pasta aglio e olio. That night, all five Kurcs slept better than they had in months, on blankets the couple had spread across the floor.

The next morning, after offering up profuse thanks to their Italian hosts, the Kurcs continued on by foot toward the train station. En route, they crossed paths with a group of American soldiers who stepped out of their army-green Jeeps when Halina waved and flashed a smile at them. The Americans, one of whom fortunately spoke French, were eager to learn news of the situation in Poland. They shook their heads in disbelief when Halina told them briefly of the unfathomable devastation in Warsaw and the path that she and her family had followed in order to flee their homeland and arrive safely in Italy.

Before they parted, a young, blue-eyed sergeant with a T. O’DRISCOLL patch sewn to his fatigues reached into his pocket and squatted beside Felicia. “Here y’are, darlin’,” he said in an accent unlike any Felicia had ever heard before. She had blushed as the handsome American handed her a brown and silver foil package. “It’s a Hershey bar. I hope you like it,” Sergeant O’Driscoll said.

“Merci,” Mila said, squeezing Felicia’s free hand.

“Merci,” Felicia imitated quietly.

“Where to from here?” the American had asked, patting Felicia on the head as he stood. The soldier who spoke French translated.

“To family in Bari,” Halina explained.

“You’re a long way from Bari.”

“We’ve gotten pretty good at walking,” Halina said, smiling.

“Wait here.” Sergeant O’Driscoll left, and returned a few minutes later with a U.S. five-dollar bill. “Train’s faster,” he said, handing Halina the bill, returning her smile.



Across from Halina, Nechuma and Sol drift in and out of sleep, their chins nodding as the train ricochets on its tracks. Studying them as if through Genek’s eyes, Halina can see how much the war has aged them. They look twenty years older than they had before they’d been locked up in the ghetto, forced into hiding, nearly starved.

“Bari, cinque minuti!” the conductor calls.

Mila runs her fingertips over the scurvy scars still pockmarking Felicia’s neck and cheeks. Her hair is shoulder length now, and blonde from her ears down. Beneath her eyelids, Felicia’s eyes jump. Her forehead twitches. Even in her sleep, Mila realizes, her daughter looks scared. The last five years have stripped her of her innocence. A tear spills from Mila’s eye, down her cheek, and onto the collar of Felicia’s blouse, leaving a small stain on the cotton, a perfect gray circle.

Mila wipes her eyes, her mind turning again to Selim. To the questions she can’t ignore. What will he think of Felicia, the daughter he’s never known? What will Felicia think of him? Yesterday, she had asked what to call Selim. “How about just Father, to start,” Mila had suggested.

A few minutes later, as the train begins to slow, Mila’s heart rate hastens. She pleads with herself to embrace the gift of the husband and father she and Felicia are about to receive. Heaven knows what’s happened to his family—to his father, a watchmaker of modest means, to his eight siblings. Last she knew, a sister, Eugenia, had emigrated to Paris, a brother, David, to Palestine; the rest, she believed, had remained in Warsaw. She’d tried to locate them before the uprising, but they’d either left on their own accord or been sent away—she could find no trace of them. It’s a blessing, she realizes, to soon be reunited with her husband, amid the inconceivable tragedy the war has left in its wake. Most would do anything to be in her position.

Brakes squeal. The scenery outside her window slows to a crawl. Mila can see the Bari station a hundred or so meters ahead, and on the platform, people, waiting. As she rubs Felicia’s shoulder gently to wake her, she makes a promise to herself: She’ll embrace her husband with an open heart. She’ll paint a picture of stability, no matter how hard it might be. For Felicia’s sake. And what happens next—what Selim will think of the girl on her lap with unsightly hair and pink scars running down her face, whether Felicia will learn to love the man she has no recollection of ever knowing—these are things, Mila tells herself, best left in the hands of fate.





CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT


    The Kurc Family


   Bari, Italy ~ August 1945




It’s chaos at the Bari station. Bodies, three rows deep, crowd the platform: men in uniform, small children gripping the hands of what appear to be grandparents, women in their best dresses, waving, standing on their toes, the backs of their calves painted with long charcoal lines to give the illusion of stockings.

As the Kurcs make their way from the train, Halina leads; Nechuma and Sol follow close behind; and Mila brings up the rear, the straps of a leather satchel looped over a shoulder, her hand holding tight to Felicia’s. They shuffle their feet so as not to step on each other’s heels, a body of five moving as one.

“Let’s wait over here,” Halina calls over her shoulder as they make their way through the throngs to a marquee reading BARI CENTRALE, and beside it, a sign with an arrow for PIAZZA ROMA. Gathered beneath the marquee, they remain close, standing in a knot, searching the platform for familiar faces. Unaccustomed to seeing Genek and Selim in military garb, they remind themselves to look only for men in Polish uniform.

“Kurde,” Halina grumbles, “I’m too damned short. Can’t see a thing.”

“Listen for Polish,” Nechuma suggests.

There are several languages being spoken on the platform—Italian, of course, and some Russian, French, Hungarian. But so far no Polish. The Italians are the loudest. They move slowly, and talk with their hands, gesticulating wildly.

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