We Were the Lucky Ones

Mila laughs. It’s been years since she heard her mother use the expression.

At the table, Genek pours generous portions of wine, glancing now and then at Józef, who’s just celebrated his sixth birthday, as he plays with his older cousin Felicia, who will be nine in November. They sit on the floor by the window, engrossed in a game of pick-up sticks, arguing in Portuguese about whether or not Józef nudged a blue stick with his little finger on his last move.

“You did, I saw it move!” Felicia says, exasperated.

“Did not,” Józef persists.

Adam sits on the floor as well, beside his one-year-old son, Ricardo, who seems perfectly content to watch his ten-month-old cousin Kathleen crawl circles around him.

“She’s going to be running before you learn to stand,” Adam teases, squeezing one of Ricardo’s doughy thighs.

Ricardo was born on the first of February at the Federico II Hospital in Naples. In September, however, a few months after the family arrived in Rio, Halina conveniently “lost” his Italian birth certificate and applied for a new one. When Brazilian naturalization officials asked her son’s age, Halina lied and said he’d been born in August, on Brazilian soil. Halina and Adam had agreed—Ricardo would be better off leaving his European identity behind. With Adam’s family gone—he’d learned, finally, that they’d perished at Auschwitz—and with Halina’s family now in Brazil and the States, they had no ties anymore to their homeland. Had the Brazilian officials taken a closer look at Ricardo’s ample jowls, they’d have undoubtedly deduced that he was far too large to have been born just a month before. But Ricardo was asleep, concealed beneath a mound of blankets in his carriage, and the officials didn’t pay him much attention. Within a month, he was issued his second birth certificate, this one Brazilian, with a birth date of August 15, 1946. Ricardo’s real birthday, it was decided, was to be kept a secret.

Next to Adam, Caroline kneels on the floor showing Herta how to swaddle her second-born, Michel, just two weeks old. “Nechuma taught me how to do this for Kathleen,” she says quietly, adjusting the soft muslin cloth beneath Michel. Caroline had worried before their arrival about what Addy’s family might think of her—the American their son invited into his life, who knew nothing of the suffering and hardships they’d endured. Addy had assured her again and again that they would adore her. “They already do,” he’d said. “You are the reason they are here, remember?”

Herta nods appreciatively and Caroline smiles, grateful that, despite the language barrier, she can be helpful. “The trick is to pin down the arms,” she adds, demonstrating as she talks.

In the corner of the room where Addy keeps his turntable—a last-minute splurge before the family arrived—he and Halina flip through a small record collection, discussing what to play next. Addy suggests Ellington, but Halina objects. “Let’s listen to something local,” she says. They agree on the young Brazilian composer and violinist Cláudio Santoro. Addy adjusts the volume as the first piece begins—a piano solo with a modern, jazzy melody—and watches, smiling, as across the room, his father reaches for his mother, loops a hand around her waist, and sways with her to the rhythm, his eyes closed.

It is just before six o’clock when dinner is ready. Outside, the sky has begun to darken. It’s the tail end of fall in Rio, and the days are short, the nights cool. Addy lowers the volume on the turntable before removing the needle; the room grows quiet as the others make their way to their seats. Caroline and Halina prop Ricardo and Kathleen in high chairs and tuck cotton napkins into their collars. Across from them, Genek pats the chair next to his and sneaks a pinch to Józef’s ribs as his eldest slides into his place. Józef bats Genek’s hand away, narrowing his blue eyes and flashing a dimpled smile. Herta sets Józef’s baby brother, Michel, cocooned comfortably in his swaddle, gently into Kathleen’s old bassinet.

Across from Genek, Mila and Selim sit with Felicia between them.

“You look pretty,” Selim whispers to Felicia. “I like your bow,” he adds.

Felicia brings her hand to the navy blue ribbon—a gift from Caroline—that holds her ponytail in place. She smiles shyly, still unsure of how exactly to accept a compliment from her father, but relishing his words; they have a way of filling her with happiness.

Terza, Franka, Salek, Ala, and Zigmund sit in the remaining chairs.

As Sol takes his seat at the head of the table, Nechuma offers Caroline a box of matches. Normally Nechuma would do the lighting—it’s tradition at Pesach for the eldest woman of the house to light the candles—but Nechuma had insisted. “It’s your home,” she’d said, when Addy asked if she would like to do the honor. “I can say the blessing, but it would please me very much if Caroline would light the candles.”

Caroline had been hesitant at first to accept the responsibility. Not only was this her first Passover, but it was the first holiday spent with her new family—she would do anything to help, she said, but would prefer to do so quietly. “This isn’t about me,” she insisted. Addy had coaxed her into it by telling her how much it would mean to him—and to his mother.

Caroline strikes a match and brings the flame to the two wicks. Beside her, Nechuma recites an opening prayer. When the prayer is complete, the women take their seats, Caroline beside Addy and Nechuma at the head of the table opposite her husband, and attention is turned to Sol.

Sol looks around, silently greeting everyone at the table, his eyes glistening in the candlelight. Finally, he rests his gaze on Nechuma. Nechuma takes a deep breath, pulls her shoulders back, and dips her chin in a gesture to begin. Sol returns the gesture. Nechuma watches his shoulders rise and fall, wondering for a moment if her husband might cry. If he does, she realizes, a lump climbing up her throat, she certainly will, too. But after a moment, Sol smiles. Opening his Haggadah, he raises his glass.

“Barukh atah Adonai eloheinu . . .” he baritones, and immediately goose bumps spring to life on the arms of each of the adults in the small room.

Sol’s blessing is short:

“Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, Master of the universe,

Who has kept us alive and sustained us,

And has brought us to this special time.”

The words rest delicately in the humid air as the family takes in the depth of Sol’s voice, the significance of his prayer. Kept us alive. Sustained us. Brought us to this special time.

“Today,” Sol adds, “we celebrate the Festival of Matzahs, the time of our liberation. Amen.”

“Amen,” the others echo with glasses raised.

Sol recites the blessing of the karpas and the family dips sprigs of parsley into small bowls of salt water.

Across from him, Nechuma takes in the beautiful faces looking on—her children, their spouses, five grandchildren, her cousins, and in-laws, resting her gaze for a moment on the chair left empty for Jakob. She glances at her watch, a gift from Addy (“For all of the birthdays I missed,” he’d said); Jakob, far away in Illinois, was no doubt sitting at his own Pesach dinner at the very same moment, celebrating with Bella’s family.

Georgia Hunter's books