When Nechuma looks up, tears fill her eyes, and the faces around her grow blurry. Her children. All of them. Healthy. Living. Thriving. She’d spent so many years fearing the worst, imagining the unimaginable, her heart hollow with dread. It’s surreal to think back on it now, to consider all of the places they’d been, the chaos and death and destruction that had followed a half step behind their every move, the decisions they’d made and plans they’d orchestrated, without her knowing if she would live to see her family again, or if they would live to see her. They’d done what they could, then waited, prayed. But now—now there is no more waiting. They are here. Her family. Finally, miraculously, complete. Tears roll down Nechuma’s cheeks as she says a silent thanks.
A moment later, she senses warmth. A hand on her elbow. Addy’s. Nechuma smiles and signals with a nod that she’s fine. He grins, his own eyes wet, and slips her his handkerchief. When she’s patted away her tears, she spreads the handkerchief over her thigh, running her fingers over the white threaded AAIK, remembering the afternoon she’d embroidered it.
Opposite her, Sol makes a to-do over breaking a piece of matzah to set aside for the afikomen. Mila whispers something in Felicia’s ear. Halina bounces Ricardo on her knee, keeping him content by dipping her fingertip into a bowl of salt water beside her plate and offering him tastes. Genek wraps an arm each around Józef and Herta, resting his hands on their shoulders. Herta smiles and they glance together at Michel, sleeping peacefully in his bassinet.
Herta had discovered she was pregnant not long after learning that her parents, her sister Lola, her brother-in-law, and her niece—all but her brother Zigmund—had been killed at a concentration camp near Bielsko. The news had crushed her, and she’d wondered how she might carry on knowing she was an aunt to a little girl she would never meet, knowing Józef would recognize his maternal grandparents only by name. For months, she was blind with sorrow and anger and remorse as she lay awake at night, questioning—was there something she could have done to help them? Her pregnancy had helped her to see straight again, to draw upon the resilience that had gotten her through her years as an exile in Siberia, as a new mother alone in Palestine, awaiting news from the front. And when their second son was born in March, she and Genek readily agreed—he would be named Michel, after her father.
A plate of matzah is passed around the table and Felicia fidgets in her seat. As the youngest in the room who is able to read, her grandfather has asked her to recite the Four Questions. They’d practiced together every day for weeks, with Felicia asking the questions and Sol singing the answers.
“Are you ready?” Sol’s tone is gentle.
Felicia nods, takes a deep breath, and begins. “Mah nishtanah halaila hazeh . . .” she sings. Her voice, soft and pure as honey, casts a spell over the room. The others are rapt.
At the end of the maggid, Sol recites a blessing over a second cup of wine, and then over the matzah, a corner of which he breaks off and eats. Bowls of horseradish and charoset are passed for the blessings of the maror and the korekh.
When it is finally time to feast, conversation erupts as bowls of matzah ball soup are doled and platters of salted gefilte, thyme-roasted chicken, and savory beef brisket are passed.
“L’chaim!” Addy calls, as plates are piled high.
“L’chaim,” the others chime.
—
With full stomachs, the family clears the table, and Sol slips out of his chair. He’s spent weeks plotting the perfect place to hide the afikomen, and since it would be the first traditional Pesach Józef and Felicia would remember, he’d made a point earlier in the day to explain the significance of the ritual. He tucks the matzah behind a row of books on a low shelf in Addy and Caroline’s bedroom—not too difficult for Józef to find, and not too easy for Felicia. When he returns, the children tear off down the small hallway, and the adults smile at the sound of their quick, receding footsteps. Sol beams, and Nechuma shakes her head. Finally, his wish has been granted—to celebrate among children old enough to enjoy the hunt. She can only imagine the thought that will go into a hiding place next year, when Ricardo and Kathleen are able to partake.
Felicia returns a few minutes later, carrying the napkin.
“That was too easy!” Sol bellows as she presents him the matzah. “Come,” he says, motioning for Felicia and Józef to join him at the head of the table. With a grandchild on either side, Sol wraps his arms around each. “Now tell me, Mademoiselle Kajler,” he says, suddenly serious, lowering his voice a few octaves, “how much are you asking for this afikomen?”
Felicia doesn’t know what to say.
“How about a cruzeiro?” Sol offers, digging a coin from his pocket and laying it on the table. Felicia’s eyes widen and she stares, eventually reaching for the coin. “That’s all?” Sol teases, before she picks it up. Felicia is confused. She looks up at her grandfather, her fingers still hovering above the cruzeiro. “Don’t you think you deserve more?” Sol asks, winking at the others looking on. Felicia has never haggled before. This is her first lesson. She pauses and then pulls her fingers away, smiling.
“Mais! It’s worth more!” she declares and then blushes as the table erupts in laughter.
“Well, if you insist.” Sol sighs, setting a second cruzeiro on the table.
Felicia again reaches, instinctively, but pauses this time, catches Sol’s eye. She lets her hand drop to her side, shakes her head, proud of herself for resisting.
“You drive a tough bargain,” Sol says, puffing out his cheeks as he exhales loudly, digging once again into his pocket. “What do you think, young man; should we offer her some more?” he asks, turning to Józef, who’s been following along, transfixed.
“Si, dziadek, si!” he exclaims, nodding enthusiastically.
When Sol’s pocket is empty, he lifts his hands overhead in defeat.
“You’ve taken everything I have!” he declares. “But, young lady,” he adds, resting a palm atop Felicia’s red head, “you’ve earned it.” Felicia smiles, kisses her dziadek on the cheek. “And you, sir,” Sol says, turning his attention to Józef. “You worked very hard as well, I’m sure of it. Next year maybe it will be you who steals the afikomen!” He pulls a final coin from his shirt pocket and slips it into Józef’s palm. “Now go on, you two. Find your seats. We are nearly through with our Pesach.”
The children make their way back to their spots at the table, Józef beaming, Felicia gripping her collection of cruzeiros tightly in her fist, opening it ever so slightly to show her father. Selim oohs silently, his eyes wide.
Wine glasses are filled for a third and then a fourth time as Sol recites a prayer to the prophet Elijah, for whom they’ve left the door to the apartment open. They sing “Eliyahu Ha-Navi,” and Addy, Genek, Mila, and Halina take turns reciting psalms.
As Sol sets down an empty glass, he looks once again around the table, smiling. “Our Seder is complete!” he says, his voice thick with pride and loose from the wine. Without hesitation, he breaks into song—“Adir Hu”—and the others join in, their voices growing louder and more emphatic with each refrain.
Yivneh veito b’karov,
Bim’heirah, bim’heirah, b’yameinu b’karov.
Ei-l b’neih! Ei-l b’neih!
B’neih veit’kha b’karov!
May He soon rebuild His house,
Speedily, speedily and in our days, soon.
God, rebuild! God, rebuild!
Rebuild your house soon!
“Is it time, at last?” Halina sings. “Can we dance?” On cue, her brothers jump from their seats, and the tables are pushed aside, the windows shimmied open as wide as their small frames will allow. Outside, darkness has fallen.
Addy leans his head out of a window to breathe in the night. Above him, a quarter moon beams its cockeyed grin across the velvet sky, casting a silver-blue light over the cobblestone street below. Addy returns the grin and ducks back inside.
“Mila first,” Genek charges.
“I’m out of practice,” Mila says as she takes a seat at the piano stool, “but I’ll do my best.” She plays Chopin’s Mazurka in B-flat major—a popular, upbeat piece with an energy that is so intrinsically Polish the Kurcs are still for a moment as the notes flood their hearts with memories of home. Despite her years away from the keys, Mila’s rendition is flawless. Halina plays next, and then finally it’s Addy’s turn. He brings the family to their feet with a lively rendition of Gershwin’s “Strike Up the Band.” On the street, passersby crane their necks, smiling at the laughter and melodies drifting from the Kurcs’ open windows four stories above.