Albert clears his throat. ‘Right,’ he says, making his way to the shelves.
Halina swallows. A flash of hope.
‘When I saw your car come up and didn’t recognise it,’ Albert says, sliding the shelves gently away from the cedar-planked wall, ‘I thought they’d better hide. Just in case.’
They’d better hide.
Albert knocks on the wall in the place where the shelf used to be. ‘Pan i Pani Kurc,’ he calls quietly.
Halina’s cheeks are suddenly warm. Her skin prickles in anticipation. Behind her, Adam rests his hands on her shoulders, leans in so his chin brushes her ear. ‘They’re here,’ he whispers. Beneath the floorboards, there is movement. Halina listens intently – to the shuffle of bodies moving in her direction, the muffled sound of leather soles meeting wood, the click of a bolt sliding open.
And then, they emerge. First her father, then her mother, squinting as they climb, stooped at first, from the Górskis’ crawl space into the brightly lit den. A strange sound escapes Nechuma’s lips as she rights herself to find Halina before her. Albert steps aside as the women collapse into one another.
‘Halina,’ Sol whispers. He wraps his arms around the union of his wife and daughter, closing his eyes as he holds them, his nose burrowed into the small space between the tops of their heads. They stand like this for a long moment, their bodies melded together as one, crying silently until finally, mother, father, and daughter part, wiping their eyes. Sol seems surprised to see Adam.
‘Pan Kurc,’ Adam nods, smiling. He hasn’t laid eyes on his now in-laws since before he and Halina were married. Sol laughs, holds out a hand, and pulls Adam in for a hug.
‘Please, my son,’ he says, crow’s feet flanking his eyes, ‘you may call me Sol.’
Part III
MAY 8, 1945: VE Day. Germany surrenders and Allied victory is proclaimed in Europe.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
The Kurc Family
Łódź, Poland ~ May 8, 1945
Adam tinkers with the radio’s tuning dial, adjusting it until a voice crackles through its speakers. ‘In a few minutes,’ an announcer says in Polish, ‘we will translate a live broadcast from the White House in the United States. Please stay tuned.’
Halina slides the living-room window open. Three stories below, the boulevard is empty. Everyone, it seems, has stepped inside to gather around their receivers, to listen for the news that Łódź – that all of occupied Europe, and the world, for that matter – has been awaiting for the better part of a decade.
Halina’s decision to bring the family to Łódź was a practical one. They’d managed for a while in Warsaw, but the city, what was left of it, was unlivable. They’d discussed a move back to Radom, had even ventured back for a visit and stayed the night with the Sobczaks, but they’d found that the apartment on Warszawska Street and her parents’ shop were now occupied by Poles. Halina wasn’t prepared for what it would feel like to be met at her old doorstep by strangers – strangers who stared at her with stubborn frowns, who claimed that they had no intention of leaving, who had the nerve to believe that what once belonged to her family was now theirs.
The encounter had infuriated Halina so much she’d flown into a rage; it was Adam who brought her back to her rational mind, reminding her that the war was not yet over, that they were still posing as Aryan and an outburst would only draw dangerous attention. She had left Radom disheartened but determined to find a city where they could settle, at least until war’s end – a city with enough industry that they could find work, and with apartments to house what was left of the family, including her parents, whom she had convinced to stay in Wilonów until the war was officially over. Łódź, Halina heard, had apartments, jobs, and a Red Cross office. And sure enough, it didn’t take her long to find a place to live when they arrived. The city’s ghetto had been liquidated later than most, which meant there were hundreds of vacant homes in the old Jewish Quarter and not enough Poles to fill them. It was nauseating to consider what had become of the families who had lived there before them, but Halina knew they couldn’t afford to rent in the city centre. She selected two neighbouring apartments, the most spacious she could find. They were missing half of their furniture, but there were so many empty homes she was able to salvage enough pieces here and there to make them habitable.
The family is quiet as Jakob arranges five chairs in a semicircle around the fireplace, where the radio is perched like a tombstone atop the mantel. ‘Sit, love,’ he says, gesturing to Bella. She lowers herself gently into the chair, rests a hand on the subtle curve of her stomach. She is six months pregnant. Mila, Halina, Adam, and Jakob sit, too, while Felicia curls up on the floor, wincing as she pulls her knees to her chest. Mila combs her fingers through Felicia’s hair, which has begun to grow in its natural red at the roots. It breaks her heart to see her daughter in pain. The scurvy she’d contracted in the convent bunker has cleared up for the most part, but she still complains of an ache in her joints. At least, Mila sighs, her appetite is back – Felicia had refused food for weeks when Mila first retrieved her, claiming that it hurt too much to eat.
Finally, the voice of Harry Truman, the United States’ new president, spills from the radio’s speakers, and the family leans in. ‘This is a solemn but glorious hour,’ Truman projects through a sea of static. The local broadcaster translates. ‘General Eisenhower,’ Truman continues, ‘informs me that the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations.’ He pauses for effect, and then adds, ‘The flags of freedom fly all over Europe!’
The words ‘freedom’ and ‘fly’ reverberate through the room, drifting overhead like confetti.
The family stares at the radio and then at one another as the president’s alliteration comes to rest tentatively on their laps. Adam removes his glasses and lifts his chin toward the ceiling, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Bella wipes a tear from her eye, and Jakob reaches for her hand. Mila bites her lip. Felicia looks around at the others and then up at her mother, her eyes inquisitive, unsure why they are crying at what she understood to be good news.
Halina tries to picture the American president seated triumphantly behind his desk some 6,000 kilometres west of them. VE Day, Truman called it: Victory in Europe. But to Halina, the word victory feels hollow. False, even. There’s hardly anything victorious about the ruined Warsaw they left, or about the fact that so much of the family is still missing, or about how all around them in what was once Łódź’s massive ghetto, they can feel the ghosts of 200,000 Jews – most of whom, it’s rumoured, met their deaths in the gas vans and chambers of Chełmno and Auschwitz.
A muffled cheer trickles in from the apartment next door. Through the window, a few shouts from the street. Łódź has begun to celebrate. The world has begun to celebrate. Hitler has been defeated – the war is over. Which means, technically, they are free to be Kurcs and Eichenwalds and Kajlers again. To be Jews again. But the mood in the apartment isn’t celebratory. Not while the rest of the family is unaccounted for. And not with so many dead. Every day the estimated toll rises. First it was a million, then two – numbers so large, they can’t even begin to grasp the enormity of them.
When Truman’s speech is over, the Polish announcer states that the Red Cross will continue to erect dozens of offices and Displaced Persons camps throughout Europe, urging survivors to register themselves. Adam switches the radio off and the living room goes quiet again. What is there to say? Finally, it is Halina who fills the silence. ‘Tomorrow,’ she declares, willing her voice to remain steady, ‘I’ll return to the Red Cross, double-check that all of our names are registered. I’ll ask about the DP camps – and when exactly we will be able to access a list of names. And I’ll begin making arrangements to reach Mother and Father in the countryside.’
On the street below, the cheering grows louder. Halina stands and makes her way to the window, slides it gently closed.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
The Kurc Family
Łódź, Poland ~ June, 1945
Every day, Halina walks the familiar route from the apartment in Łódź, first to the temporary Red Cross headquarters in the centre of town, then to the newly erected offices of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and finally to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, or the Joint, as everyone calls it – in hopes of discovering news of missing family. When she isn’t making her rounds, she scours the local daily, which has begun publishing lists of names and classified ads from survivors looking for relatives. The radio, too, has a station devoted to helping survivors reconnect; she’s called in twice. Last week, Halina’s hopes soared when she discovered Franka’s name on a list published by the Central Committee of Jews in Poland – an organisation funded by the Joint Distribution Committee. Her cousin had been sent, along with her brother and her parents, to a camp outside of Lublin called Majdanek; by some unexplained twist of fate, she, Salek, and Terza had survived. Her father, Moshe, however, had not been so fortunate. Halina has begun trying to make arrangements for her cousins and aunt to come to Łódź, but she’s been told it could take months; they are among thousands of refugees awaiting assistance at the DP camp where they’ve been stationed. Halina’s parents, at least, are here now in Łódź; she’d managed to retrieve them at last from the country.
They must be getting bored with me, Halina reckons as she approaches the offices of the Red Cross, where the volunteers know her well. They typically greet her with a half smile, a head shake, and a doleful Sorry, no news. Today, though, the aluminum door has barely swung closed behind her when one of the volunteers rushes at her. ‘It’s for you!’ the woman shrieks, waving a small white paper overhead. A dozen or so people turn. In a space usually filled with sadness, the excitement in the woman’s voice is jarring.
Halina stops, looks over her shoulder and then back at the volunteer. ‘For me? What – what’s for me?’
‘This!’ The volunteer holds a telegram between thumbs and forefingers at arm’s length, then reads it aloud: ‘With Selim in Italy. Find us through Polish II Corps. Genek Kurc.’
At the sound of her brother’s name, the room begins to spin and Halina splays her arms reflexively to keep from falling. ‘What? Where is he?’ Her voice is shaky. ‘Let me see that.’ She reaches for the telegram, dizzy. The Polish Second Corps? Isn’t that Anders’s Army? With Selim, who they all thought was dead? Halina can barely breathe. General Anders is all anyone in Łódź can talk about – he and his men are heroes. They took Monte Cassino. Fought on the River Senio, in the Battle of Bologna. Halina shakes her head, trying to picture Genek and her brother-in-law Selim in uniform, in battle, making history. But she can’t.
‘See for yourself.’
Halina grips the telegram so tightly the beds of her thumbnails go white. She prays there isn’t some kind of mistake.
WITH SELIM IN ITALY
FIND US THR POLISH II CORPS
GENEK KURC
Sure enough, her brother’s name is spelt across the bottom. She looks up. The others watch, awaiting a reaction. Halina opens her mouth and then closes it, swallowing what might be a sob or a laugh, she can’t tell which. ‘Thank you!’ she finally croaks, clutching the telegram to her chest. ‘Thank you!’
The office swells with cheers as Halina brings the telegram to her lips, kisses it over and over again. Tears begin to spill down her cheeks, but she ignores them. A single thought fills her mind. There is no mistake. They are alive. She tucks the telegram into her blouse pocket, spins out of the office, and takes off running. Twelve blocks later, she scales the stairs leading to her apartment in twos and finds her parents in the kitchen, preparing dinner.
Her mother looks up as Halina peers at them through the doorway, panting, her cheeks flushed. ‘Are you okay?’ Nechuma asks, alarmed, her knife suspended over a carrot. ‘Have you been crying?’
Halina doesn’t know where to begin. ‘Is Mila home?’ she asks, breathless.
‘She went to the market with Felicia; she’ll be back in a minute. Halina, what is it?’ Nechuma sets the knife down and wipes her hands on a dish towel tucked into the waistband of her skirt.
Beside her, Sol goes still. ‘Halina, tell us – what’s happened?’ He looks at Halina closely, his brow pinched with worry.
‘I – I have news,’ Halina exclaims. ‘How long ago did Mila—’ She stops short at the sound of a door opening. ‘Mila!’ Racing to the foyer, she greets her sister at the door, grabbing a canvas tote from her arms. ‘Thank goodness you’re here! Come, hurry.’
‘Why are you so out of breath?’ Mila asks. ‘You’re soaked in sweat!’
‘News! I have news!’
Mila’s eyes pop, the hazel of her irises surrounded suddenly by a sea of white. ‘What? What kind of news?’ News could mean anything. She and Felicia follow Halina down the hallway.
At the door to the kitchen, Halina motions for her parents to join her in the living room. ‘Come,’ she calls. When the family is gathered, Halina takes a deep breath. She can barely contain herself. ‘I’ve just come from the Red Cross,’ she says, reaching into her blouse pocket and extracting the telegram. She wills her hands to remain steady as she holds the priceless piece of paper up for her family to see. ‘It came in today, from Italy.’ She reads the telegram aloud, enunciating every word carefully: ‘With Selim. In Italy. Find us through Polish II Corps.’ She looks up at her mother, her father, her sister, Felicia, her eyes dancing between them, filling up again with tears. ‘Signed, Genek Kurc,’ she adds, her voice cracking.
‘What?’ Mila pulls Felicia to her, cradling her head against her low ribs.
Nechuma reaches for Sol’s arm to steady herself.
‘Read that again,’ Sol whispers.
Halina reads the telegram again, and once again. By the third read, Nechuma is in tears, and the small apartment is filled with the deep clap of Sol’s laughter. ‘That is the best news I’ve heard since … I can remember,’ he says, his shoulders shaking.
They hug in pairs, Sol and Nechuma, Mila and Felicia, Mila and Halina, Halina and Nechuma, and then huddle together as one, like a giant wheel, hands wrapped around waists and foreheads pressed up against one another’s, Felicia tucked somewhere in the middle. Time disappears as they hold each other, laughing and crying, Sol reciting the telegram’s twelve perfect words over and over and over again.
Halina is the first to pull free from the circle. ‘Jakob!’ she shrieks. ‘I must go tell Jakob!’
‘Yes, go,’ Nechuma says, drying her eyes. ‘Tell him to meet us here for supper this evening.’
‘I will,’ Halina calls, flying down the hallway.
The door opens and then closes and soon after a hush falls over the apartment. ‘Mamusiu?’ Felicia whispers, peering up at her mother as if awaiting an explanation. But Mila has gone silent. Her gaze volleys left to right, as if searching the room for something she can’t see. A ghost, perhaps.
Noticing, Nechuma rests a hand on Sol’s shoulder. ‘Could you prepare some tea with Felicia?’ she whispers. Sol glances at Mila and nods, beckoning Felicia to the kitchen.
When they are alone, Nechuma turns to Mila, reaches for her arm. ‘Mila, what is it, darling?’
Mila blinks, shakes her head. ‘It’s nothing, Mother – I just –’
‘Come,’ Nechuma offers, guiding Mila to the small table in the living room where they take their meals.
Mila moves slowly, her mind elsewhere as she sits. Resting her elbows on the table, she wraps her hands together into a giant fist and leans her chin into her thumbs. For a while, neither woman speaks.
‘It’s not what you were expecting – to find him,’ Nechuma finally says, choosing her words carefully. ‘You didn’t think he was still alive.’
‘No.’ A tear slips from the corner of Mila’s eye, rolls down her cheek. Nechuma brushes it gently away.
‘You must be relieved though, yes?’
Mila nods. ‘Of course.’ She lifts h
er 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.’
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