Amid the chaos, Franka’s voice is there too, talking quickly – she doesn’t live here, she explains, then something about the shoes – but the Germans don’t seem interested. ‘Halt die Schnauze!’ one of them barks, and Felicia holds her breath as they retreat down the hallway toward the bedrooms. For a moment it’s quiet. Felicia is tempted to run, or to call out for Franka, but she decides instead to count. One, two, three. Before she can count to four, there’s more yelling, and when she hears Karl’s voice, too, she shivers. Is it him they’ve come for?
Soon bodies are moving, boots pounding boom boom back up the hallway in her direction, and then there are people in the kitchen, more yelling, and Karl is crying as he begs, his voice pathetic, pleading, ‘Please don’t, please! I have papers!’ Felicia prays for him, prays for the Germans to take his papers and leave, but it’s no use. A shot is fired. Franka screams, and a moment later the linoleum floor shakes from the weight of something heavy meeting it with a disturbing thud.
Felicia claps her hands over her mouth, trying to muffle whatever tortured sound might slip from her. Her heart beats so hard and fast it feels as if at any moment it will bolt right up and out of her throat.
One of the intruders laughs. Felicia tries to steady her breath, her body quaking from the effort. There is rustling. More laughter. Something about zloty. ‘You see?’ a voice croaks in broken Polish, presumably to Franka. ‘You see what happens when they try to hide? You tell who owns this place we will be back.’
Something moves in Felicia’s periphery. A ribbon of crimson, snaking slowly toward her beneath the tablecloth. She nearly vomits when she realises what it is. Sliding silently to the far side of the table, she pulls her knees to her chest and squeezes her eyes closed.
‘Yes, sir.’ Franka’s voice is barely audible.
Finally, the voices and footsteps begin to recede and the door to the apartment clicks shut. The Germans are gone.
Felicia’s instinct is to move, to scramble as quickly as she can from under the table, away from the bloody scene, but she can’t. She rests her head on her knees and cries. In the next moment, Franka is there, beneath the table with her, holding her balled-up frame.
‘It’s okay,’ she whispers, her lips pressed up against Felicia’s ear as she rocks her back and forth, back and forth. ‘You’re okay. Everything will be okay.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Addy
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil ~ January 1943
Addy’s first stop upon returning to Rio de Janeiro from Minas Gerais, his job in the interior complete, is the Copacabana post office. He had prayed every night in Minas that a letter might have arrived, but his hopes are immediately eradicated as he walks in and catches Gabriela’s eye.
‘I’m sorry, Addy,’ Gabriela says from behind the counter. ‘I was hoping I’d have something for you.’ She seems genuinely sorry to deliver the news.
Addy forces a smile. ‘It’s okay. Wishful thinking.’ He runs his hand through his hair.
‘It’s nice to have you back,’ Gabriela calls as Addy turns to leave.
‘See you next week,’ Addy offers with stilted optimism.
As he exits the post office, his chin drops and his chest begins to ache. He’s been a fool to hope. He sniffs, fighting tears, then squares his shoulders. Nothing good will come of all this yearning, he tells himself. You must do more. Something. Anything. This afternoon, he decides, he’ll visit the library. He’ll leaf through the foreign papers, search for clues. Perhaps he’ll find a bit of news that will lift his spirits. What he’d read in Minas was disheartening, and at times confusing. One article called Hitler’s efforts to eradicate the Jews in Europe ‘premeditated mass murder’ and reported an unthinkable number of deaths. Another article said that the ‘Jewish situation’ had been largely exaggerated, that the Jews were not being exterminated, but simply persecuted. Addy didn’t know what to believe. And he found it infuriating that what little information he was able to find was usually tucked into the middle of a periodical, as if the editors themselves weren’t quite sure whether the facts were true, as if the headline OVER 1,000,000 DEAD SINCE THE WAR BEGAN didn’t belong on the front page. The fate of Europe’s Jews, apparently, attracted little attention in Brazil. But for Addy, it was all he could think about.
He slips on his sunglasses and tucks a hand instinctively into his pocket to find his mother’s handkerchief, rubbing the soft white linen between his fingers until his eyes are dry. He glances at his watch. He’s due to meet Eliska for lunch in fifteen minutes.
Eliska had come to visit Minas once while he was there, but seeing her hadn’t done anything to repair what’s begun to feel like a broken relationship. Eliska had grown despondent when Addy told her how preoccupied he was, how he could think of nothing but his family. ‘I wish I could understand what you’re going through,’ she’d said, and for the first time Addy had seen her cry. ‘Addy … what if you never find your family? What then? How will you manage?’ Addy had hated hearing those words and what they implied, had resented her for saying them, even though they were the same questions he asked of himself.
‘I’ll have you,’ Addy had said softly, but his words fell flat. It was obvious now. Eliska knew as well as he did that as long as his family was missing, he would never be able to commit himself fully to building a life with her – to put his whole heart into loving her. Eliska’s tears weren’t for him, Addy realised; they were for herself. She’d already begun to envision a future without him.
At the end of the block, Addy approaches the outdoor tables of Café Campanha. He’s early. Eliska isn’t there yet. He takes a seat at an open table, wondering if the conversation that is about to ensue will lead to a called-off engagement – and if so, what that would mean for the two of them. Heavy-hearted, he pulls his leather notebook from his breast pocket. It’s been months since he put notes to paper, but all the thoughts of his family and Eliska and what it meant to love and be loved have churned up a melody. He sketches a staff across the blank page before him and adds the familiar three-quarters time signature. This new piece, he decides as the first notes spill onto the paper, will be a slow waltz, in a minor key.
CHAPTER FORTY
Mila
Warsaw, German-Occupied Poland ~ January 1943
Edgar, who’d turned five the week before, skips beside Mila as she walks. His nose is running and pink from the cold. ‘This is not the way to the park, Frau Kremski.’ He says it like he’s smarter than she.
‘I know. We’re making a stop on the way. It will only take a moment.’ Having spent the past four months in Warsaw working for a family of Nazis, Mila has become fluent in German.
In the Bäcker home (which Mila learnt had belonged to a family of Jews who now, she presumed, lived in the Warsaw ghetto), Mila is known as Isa Kremski. Edgar’s father is a high-ranking officer in the Gestapo. His mother, Gundula, is as lazy as the house cat, but what she lacks in productivity she makes up for in a hot temper and a raging sense of entitlement – a know-it-all with a propensity for slamming doors and squandering her husband’s money. Mila’s work is far from ideal, but it pays, and despite the fact that her heart breaks every day to be around a child that is not her own, she likes Edgar, as spoilt as he is, and the job is far better than her old one at the workshop in Wałowa. At least here in Warsaw, unlike in the ghetto, she has a small semblance of autonomy.
Mila spends her mornings wiping furniture with a damp cloth, scrubbing porcelain bathroom tiles, and preparing meals. In the afternoons she takes Edgar to the park. No matter the weather – frost or rain, sleet or snow – Gundula insists that her son spend an hour outside. And so every day, Mila and the boy walk the same route from the Bäckers’ doorstep along Stępińska Street to the southern tip of Łazienki Park. Today, though, Mila has deviated a few blocks west to a street called Zbierska. It is a risk – she isn’t sure yet how she’ll convince Edgar to keep quiet about the detour – but Edith had told her to come during the day, and
she desperately needs to see her.
Mila met Edith, a seamstress, soon after taking the job with the Bäckers. Edith visits the apartment weekly, to sew a tablecloth or tailor a dress for Frau Bäcker, a jacket for Herr Bäcker, a pair of knickers for Edgar. Yesterday when Gundula was out, Edith arrived as Mila was midway through polishing a drawerful of silver, and the pair struck up a conversation. They got on beautifully, speaking in hushed tones in their native Polish. Mila couldn’t help but suspect that Edith was also a Jew posing as an Aryan, a hunch that was confirmed when Edith mentioned casually that she grew up just east of Okopowa Street – an area Mila recognised immediately as the Jewish quarter, now part of the city’s ghetto. When Mila told her about Felicia, Edith mentioned a Catholic convent outside of town that might be accepting orphaned children. ‘I could find out if there is room for one more,’ she offered, but just as she said it, Gundula returned, and the women worked the rest of the afternoon in silence. Before she left that day, Edith slipped Mila her address, scrawled across a corner torn from one of the Bäckers’ periodicals. ‘I live just up the street,’ she whispered, and then added, ‘you’ll need to visit in the early afternoon when my neighbours are at work – they are … watchful.’
Mila glances down at the small triangular piece of paper in her palm, checks the address: 4 ZBIERSKA.
‘What kind of stop?’ Edgar wants to know. ‘I want to go to the park.’
‘Your mother asked me to pay a visit to Edith, the seamstress,’ Mila lies. ‘You know her, you’ve seen her around the house. She measured you last week, for a shirt.’
‘What for?’
‘Never mind. It will only take a second.’ Mila rings the button next to Edith’s name, grateful that the seamstress had included a surname on the address, and after a moment Edith’s voice chirps through a speaker.
‘Who is there?’ she asks in Polish.
Mila clears her throat. ‘Edith, it is – it’s Isa. I have Edgar with me. Please, could we come up for a moment?’ A second later, the door buzzes and Mila and Edgar climb a narrow stairwell three floors to a door marked 3B.
Edith greets her with a smile. ‘Hello, Isa. Edgar. Please, come in.’ Edgar scowls as they step inside.
‘I’m sorry to barge in on you unexpectedly,’ Mila says. She glances at Edgar, wondering how much Polish he can understand, and looks back up at Edith. ‘You mentioned a convent yesterday …’
Edith nods in understanding. ‘Yes. It’s in a town called Włocławek about eighty kilometres from here. I sent a letter today actually, to let them know there is a child in need. I’ll tell you as soon as I hear back.’
‘Thank you.’ Mila breathes. ‘I – very much appreciate the help.’
‘Of course.’
Edgar tugs on Mila’s skirt. ‘Can we go? It’s been a minute.’
‘Yes, we can go. We’re off to the park,’ Mila adds, reverting to German as she turns to leave, trying to retain a semblance of levity in her voice.
‘Thanks for the visit, Isa,’ Edith offers. ‘Stay warm out there.’
‘We’ll try.’
The moment she hangs her coat on the rack in the Bäckers’ foyer the following day, Mila senses something is wrong. The apartment is stagnant, eerily quiet. Herr Bäcker would be at work by now, but on most days Mila arrives to Gundula puttering about, scribbling a list of chores, and to Edgar bouncing a ball or darting through the house engaged in some sort of imaginary battle, yelling, ‘Pow! Pow! Pow!’ his hands cocked like imaginary pistols. Today, though, the silence in the apartment sends a cold trickling through Mila’s veins.
She shivers as she makes her way down a corridor to the living room. It’s empty. She continues on toward the kitchen but stops short as she passes the dining room. There is a figure at the far end of the room, sitting motionless at the head of the table. Even from the hallway, Mila can see that Gundula is red in the cheeks, her eyes ablaze with anger. Fighting the instinct to leave as quickly as she’d come, Mila turns to face her but remains in the doorway.
‘Frau Bäcker? Is everything all right?’ she asks, her hands clasped together at her waist.
Gundula glares at her for a moment. When she speaks, her lips barely move. ‘No, Isa, everything is not all right. Edgar told me you went to the seamstress’s house yesterday, on the way to the park.’
Mila’s breath catches. ‘Yes, we did. I apologise, I should have told you.’
‘Yes, you should have told me.’ Gundula’s voice is suddenly louder, and more stern than Mila has heard it before. ‘What, pray tell, would prompt such a visit?’
Mila had guessed that Edgar might say something and had constructed an excuse in her mind.
‘I asked her if she would come to my home later this week,’ Mila begins, ‘as I’m in dire need of a new skirt. I was embarrassed to tell you.’ Mila looks down. ‘I’ve been wearing this one for years, as I … I can’t afford to buy a new one. Edith mentioned one day that she had some extra fabric she could sell for a fraction of what it would cost in a store.’
Gundula glowers at Mila, shaking her head slowly left to right. ‘A skirt.’
‘Yes, Madame.’
‘Where is this skirt?’
‘She’s cutting it for me as we speak, said she would bring it next week.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ What composure Gundula held a minute ago has begun to unravel.
‘Excuse me?’
‘You lie! I can see it in your eyes! You lie about the skirt, about your name, about everything!’
Edgar’s face pokes through a doorway behind Gundula. ‘Mutter? What—’
‘I told you to stay in your room,’ Gundula snaps. ‘Go!’ Edgar disappears and Gundula’s chair scrapes loudly against the wooden floor behind her as she stands. ‘You take me for a fool, Isa – if that’s even your name – is it?’
Mila lets her hands fall to her sides. ‘Of course it’s my name, Madame. And of course you are right to be angry about one thing, and that is the fact that I didn’t tell you about our visit to the seamstress. For that I am truly sorry. But you are wrong to accuse me of lying about my identity. I’m offended you would say such a thing.’
As Gundula approaches, Mila notices a vein protruding like a purple snake from her neck and takes a step back, her instinct begging her once again to turn and run, to get out. But she holds her ground – running would only admit the truth.
Gundula is close enough for Mila to smell her breath, when she stops, balls up her hands into fists, and exhales, exasperated. It sounds like a growl. ‘I told Carty,’ she spits. ‘I told him you couldn’t be trusted. Just wait until he has you arrested, just wait!’
Mila backs up slowly, into the corridor. ‘Madame,’ she says calmly, ‘you are overreacting. Perhaps a glass of water would help. I will fetch you one.’ As she turns to make her way to the kitchen, Mila catches something alarming in her periphery – the shadow of an object moving rapidly overhead. She ducks, but it’s too late. The vase hits the back of her skull with the hollowed knock of two heavy objects colliding. At her feet, glass shatters.
Mila’s world goes dark for a moment. The pain is searing. With her eyes closed, she reaches for the doorway, grateful when her fingers find it, catching herself. When she opens her eyes, she touches the back of her head with her free hand; a lump has formed on the spot where the vase struck her. She glances at her fingers. Amazingly, there is no blood. Just pain. You should have run.
‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’ Gundula is crying. ‘Are you all right? Ach mein Gott.’
Regaining her balance, Mila steps gingerly from the mound of the broken glass at her feet and makes her way down the hallway to a closet to retrieve a broom. When she returns, Gundula is standing in the place where she left her, shaking her head, her eyes wild, like those of a crazed woman.
‘I didn’t mean to – I’m sorry,’ she whimpers.
Mila doesn’t reply. Instead, she sweeps. Gundula lowers herself to sit in a dining chair, muttering to herse
lf.
When her dustpan is full, Mila carries it to the kitchen, empties the glass into a trash receptacle under the sink, and returns the dustpan to the closet. Reaching for the two empty milk jars on the counter, she holds one in each hand and retraces her steps, trying desperately to ignore the throb radiating from the back of her head to her eye sockets, the voice inside pleading with her to get out, and to get out fast. ‘I’m going to the dairy,’ she says, her voice calm, as she passes the doorway to the dining room. And as quietly as she’d come, she leaves, without any intention of returning.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Bella
Warsaw, German-Occupied Poland ~ January 1943
They are a mother and daughter, Bella realises from behind the shop register as she studies the two German women perusing dresses. They have the same ivory skin and sharp curve to their jaws, the same way of carrying themselves, tilting their heads just so as they run their fingers along the dresses hanging in rows throughout the shop. Bella blinks away the tears filling her eyes.
‘This one would look nice on you,’ the girl says, holding a blue wool dress up to her mother’s torso. ‘The colour is just right for you. It complements your eyes.’
Bella and Jakob have been in Warsaw for six months. They’d thought for a moment about staying in Radom, but Radom was a small town compared with Warsaw, and they feared they would be recognised. There was no work to be had, anyway. Both ghettos had been liquidated, and only a few young workers remained. And Bella’s parents, of course, were gone. They’d been deported with the others, as Ruben had warned, and it was no secret any more – if you were sent to Treblinka, you didn’t come back.
And so, with no more guards manning the ghetto gates, Bella and Jakob had gathered up the few belongings that they could salvage from their empty flats, prayed that their IDs would serve them, and boarded a train to Warsaw, using all but a few of the zloty they’d stashed away for the fare.
We Were the Lucky Ones Page 28