Those Who Are Saved

by Alexis Landau

  Something shuddered inside of him, and Sasha knew this man was his father. Realizing that Sasha recognized him, his father started to cry, little tears seeping out of his eyes, and he gestured for Sasha to come closer so that he could embrace him, but then, as strong as a current, the crowd parted them and strangers engulfed Sasha, their expressions desolate and somber, vibrating with an inherent atomization, echoing the diaspora of not just this war but of all the wars and pogroms and massacres that had ever been.

  He woke to the predawn light, the sheets damp, his temples throbbing, knowing that when all this was done, whether or not they found Lucie, and whether or not Vera stayed with him, he would find his father.

  Chapter 53

  SASHA

  August 1945, Paris, France

  Traces of virginity still clung to her: the pointed crisp collar, the white blouse underneath a navy cardigan, the slim pencil skirt and flat black shoes, her thick reddish hair in a heavy braid down her back, as though she were afraid to cut it off and sever the final tie to what she had been.

  They sat together at a café in the 15th arrondissement, near where she worked. The neighborhood was industrial, home to the Citroën factory and rough, but Helene had found a job as a seamstress here. She worked every day except today, Sunday. Her new home was a furnished rented room above a tobacco shop. When Sasha and Gussie called her this morning, she had sounded afraid at first, as though he were hunting her down, to interrogate her or berate her, but when he explained, with Gussie’s help and constant interjections, that he and Vera Volosenkova had recently visited the convent of St. Denis, and they were searching for Vera’s daughter, Lucie, and he hoped she might have some information about the girl, she agreed to meet them here at this shabby café on the water, the Sunday morning sun warming the tabletop. She drank weak tea with no sugar, and the croissants were stale, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  Staring into the cloudy tea, as if at confession, she explained to Gussie that after Sasha and Madame Volosenkova had left the convent that day, she begged Sister Ismerie to change her mind and tell them the truth. The Bonheurs had picked up Lucie only days beforehand, a sign from God if there ever was one. But Sister Ismerie clung to the command from on high, as directed by the Vatican and the Holy Father, that the church must protect these baptized children’s souls, and under no circumstances return any hidden children to the Jews, whether it be the child’s mother or the Zionists.

  “It’s the same thing to her,” Helene said, her eyes watering. “But God would never keep a child from his mother. And so I left.” She swallowed hard. “I spent days searching for Madame Volosenkova, with no address, with nothing—Sister Ismerie had burned it. I thought I would never succeed.” She looked up at him shyly as Gussie translated all that she just said to Sasha.

  “And here you are,” Sister Helene added in French.

  Sasha took her hand.

  Church bells clanged in the distance, cutting through the dissonant noise from down the street, which was clogged with students waving the familiar red flag with its yellow sickle and star, hungrily embracing what their parents had feared before the war. The other side always lay dormant, Sasha thought, sharpening itself for new believers.

  He realized he was squeezing her hand too hard. Sun splintered through the passing clouds, warming the back of his neck. She blushed and in one smooth motion handed him a folded-over piece of paper. “Lucie is living with this family. They are good people.”

  Gussie translated what she said, her eyes bright with excitement.

  He opened it and read an address, written in fine cursive on paper the color of ivory.

  Chapter 54

  VERA

  August 1945, Paris, France

  When Vera rounded the corner, she saw Sasha pacing in front of the apartment, studying the sidewalk. It was a shock; she had expected he would be gone, that’s what they had decided, but during the long car ride back to Paris, she felt sick over it, anticipating the emptiness of walking into the apartment with him no longer in it. She felt winded, jarred by the sight of him, unsure if he had changed his mind or if something else had changed. Clouds, like pale sandbars, indented the sky. Lavender-tinged, luminescent. Putting down her valise, she brushed aside wisps of hair, and called out, “Sasha!” her voice trembling in the thick air.

  The sound of her voice struck him like an electric current, and he ran to her. She started to explain that she didn’t mean to return earlier than he had anticipated, but she was so happy to see him again anyway, and she was sorry for—

  He grabbed her hand. “I know where Lucie is. She’s living with a family in Saint-Palais.”

  Her knees buckled under her and she reached for something to hold, but Sasha was already there, holding her.

  “How?” she managed, her voice barely audible. “How do you know it’s really true?”

  “I know it is.”

  She flung herself into him, her chest exploding, her breath rushing too fast, in sharp cresting waves, the trees spinning, the cobblestones flowing like water under her feet, and Sasha whispering into her hair, “It’s all right. I’ll tell you everything in the car. Let’s go get her.”

  * * *

  • • •

  He drove as fast as he could in the same borrowed Citroën, but she willed him to go faster. Her heart beat violently, and she tried to take measured breaths, reasoning with herself to calm down, to wait and see, as so many things were still unknown. What if Lucie didn’t recognize her, or didn’t want to come with her? Or what if this whole story was a mistake and the nun had the wrong child?

  She gripped the piece of paper, staring down at the meticulous handwriting. Marie and Jean-Paul Bonheur. Vera rearranged her plaid skirt, wishing she had worn something prettier, something that Lucie would like. Lucie used to watch Vera dress for the evening, mooning over a sequined dress, a ripple of silk. Anything with a sheen pleased her, and she was always upset to discover that the next morning Vera had returned to her normal self, as though Vera’s wool cardigan tucked into a pencil skirt betrayed the glamorous apparition who had kissed her good night the evening before.

  The afternoon grew overcast, tipping into gray. Vera worried that they would arrive too late, and already the drive was taking longer than the customary five hours because of the poor conditions, with many of the roads in disrepair, or blocked off. “I don’t want to scare her, blundering in there at night. It could make the whole event appear even more unreal than it already is. I always pictured finding her in the morning.”

  He slowed as they approached a railroad crossing.

  “I knew it,” she continued breathlessly. “That nun at St. Denis wanted to tell me something. The way she stood there on the steps, watching us drive away . . . but I thought it was only the irrational chatter of my mind. I’ve grown so used to that chatter.” She sat up, staring out at the vineyards, and at the blue-shuttered châteaus lording over rows of green.

  At the crossing, a freight train sped past in a blur of smoke and steel.

  * * *

  • • •

  They waited in the car with the windows rolled down, and stared at the stone cottage across the street with roses growing in haphazard bunches in the yard. The red-tiled roof slanted down sharply, housing two small windows framed by pale green shutters. The cottage, nestled and protected by generous foliage, was set back from the road, with rosemary bushes dotting the perimeter, and all the wild roses. They listened to the birds flitting through the trees, the tiny squeak of the weather vane on the rooftop that shifted in the wind. A dog barked in the distance. Vera thought how different this summerhouse was from their old place in Sanary, even though it also stood a short distance from the sea, a bike ride away, but this was the Atlantic coast, near the Pyrenees, a wilder and more rustic landscape, whereas in Sanary they had bathed in the warm Mediterranean currents. Nonetheless, she wondered if Lucie was reminded
of her old life, being here, even a trace of it.

  She thought she heard a woman’s voice call out into the fading twilight, along with the clatter of pots and pans coming from an open window, the air carrying the expectation of dinner. Rising above these sounds, the cicadas chanted from the trees, a deep quivering hum.

  She caught movement in the bottom floor of the house, through the kitchen window, and strained to see more.

  “I think you should just knock on the door,” Sasha finally said.

  “You’re not coming?”

  He shook his head. “It’s better if you go on your own.”

  She swallowed, her chest needled with panic. Her clammy hands clenched the piece of paper with the address. “I’m afraid.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I’ll be here waiting for you. Waiting for both of you.”

  Reaching for the car-door handle, about to open it, Vera saw a girl in a floral dress with fluttering sleeves sprint across the field that separated this cottage from the next one, her leather satchel too big for her slight frame. Her movements were coltish, her honey-colored hair a thick sheet across her back.

  Not Lucie. Not even close.

  Vera inhaled, holding her stomach. She shut her eyes, shaking her head. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “It’s not her . . .”

  “Wait,” Sasha said, leaning forward.

  The girl laughed and gestured to someone across the field. “Viens, au ralenti!” she shouted.

  Another girl came into view, wearing a white blouse with puffed sleeves, a pleated gingham skirt. She was smaller and thinner, her dark hair cut short into a balloon of loose curls, her eyes suspicious and then playful when the other girl looped her arm through hers, and for a brief moment the two girls conferred over a comic book. They laughed, theatrically throwing back their heads.

  Perched on the edge of the seat, Vera let out a breath, leaving blurry circles on the windshield. “Sasha,” she whispered, as if saying it too loudly would threaten what she saw before her and make it disappear. “It’s Lucie.”

  “Yes,” he said thickly, “I know.”

  Vera watched Lucie, marveling at how recognizable certain gestures were: she brushed a strand of hair away from her face with impatience, and her brow furrowed as she examined the comic. She jutted out a hip and cocked her head to the side, the pose she assumed when deliberating something.

  Vera looked at Sasha, her voice breaking. “What if she doesn’t recognize me?”

  “She will,” he whispered.

  Vera opened the car door, the early-evening air hitting her face. “Lucie!” she cried.

  The girl immediately looked up, her face a question, unfolding into recognition, her eyes widening. She inched closer to her friend, but the other girl stood motionless, entranced by the sight of Vera.

  Vera ran toward Lucie, her knees buckling, her chest breaking apart, as if she might not reach her, as if at the last moment Lucie would dissolve into thin air.

  Lucie stared at her with a shocked, glazed expression, and Vera started to cry, sharp hiccuping sobs that made it hard to catch her breath, her eyeliner running in sticky rivulets, her mouth trembling, wanting to say so much, but instead an odd bleating came out. She threw her arms around her daughter, taking in Lucie’s hair and skin, the feeling of Lucie’s body relenting, melting into hers.

  Vera inhaled, trying to drink up all of Lucie, her heart beating so fast she thought it might beat through the fissures of veins and vessels that held it in place. “I’m here. I’m here now. I’m here,” she whispered, pressing her face into Lucie’s hair, breathing in her powdery scent, the crown of her head dampening from Vera’s tears.

  Lucie’s birdlike shoulders twitched under the pressure of Vera’s embrace, as though she was suppressing a mountain of sobs.

  “I found you. I found you,” Vera repeated, trying not to frighten her.

  Lucie pulled away and stared hard at Vera’s face and her clothes, taking in every detail. She didn’t seem scared so much as mystified, floating in suspended shock. She instinctually reached for her friend’s hand, but the girl had run into the house, leaving the front door ajar.

  “Do you remember me?” Vera asked, her voice trembling.

  Lucie slowly nodded.

  Vera knelt down and stroked Lucie’s cheek. The golden heart flashed from a chain around her daughter’s neck. The wine-colored birthmark smudged her third left finger.

  Lucie gripped her mother’s hands as if they might melt away, as if her flesh proved unconvincing. “Why did you leave me?”

  Vera started to explain, but she struggled to breathe, as if stuck under a roaring wave at the bottom of the ocean.

  Then Lucie flung her arms around Vera, murmuring, “Mama, I thought you forgot me. I thought you forgot and then I thought you were dead,” and she started to cry, her slight frame shaking, and Vera clutched her closer, so close their breath melded into one breath, rising and falling, the map of her daughter’s body pressing into hers.

  Vera tightened her arms around Lucie, tunneling back to those golden afternoons, her palm resting on Lucie’s downy back, reassured by the steady rhythm of Lucie’s breathing, her fragile head tucked into the curve of Vera’s neck, with her smattering of dark hair, eyelids translucent half-moons, asleep to the world.

  Lucie looked up, her eyes searching her mother’s, a surge of recognition coursing between them, running through Vera into Lucie and back again, an eternal, spinning loop; Vera realized it had never stopped.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The inspiration for Those Who Are Saved: exile, motherhood, wish fulfillment

  Growing up in LA, I shortsightedly felt as though life were happening elsewhere, as if real culture and history remained out of reach. I then discovered that during World War II, many European exiles fled to Los Angeles, such as novelists Lion Feuchtwanger and Thomas Mann, writers Salka Viertel and Bertolt Brecht, musicians Erich Korngold, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, and Theodor Adorno, directors Otto Preminger and Fritz Lang, and so many others. These exiled artists formed a community congregating and living in some of the very places where I grew up: Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, and Santa Monica. They too felt at odds with the city’s natural beauty and ceaseless sunshine, with the brash Hollywood glamour and the lack of obvious culture. I began to feel a kinship with these displaced artists who still clung to the Old World while they were forced to adapt to a new one. I wanted to write about the experience of exile, and this is how the characters of Vera Volosenkova and her husband, Max, were born, as well as their friends and cohorts, who gathered at Villa Aurora, a Spanish-style house in the Pacific Palisades hills overlooking the ocean.

  As I was writing about a mother separated from her daughter, and how this causes Vera so much pain, I reflected on the perpetual project of motherhood, full of battle and worry, and how every decision, even seemingly small, trivial ones, can feel like the wrong one, inducing guilt and anxiety. Of course, Vera’s choice is heightened by the life-and-death consequences of war; but even today, as a mother, the stakes often feel so high in terms of what you choose for your child, or for yourself. These feelings of guilt and inadequacy helped me shape Vera’s intense guilt in the aftermath of her ill-fated decision to leave Lucie with her governess, a guilt that is not shared by her husband in the same way, which also shows how men and women deal with grief, especially around the loss of a child, in starkly different ways.

  This story is also inspired by one of my favorite writers, Irène Némirovsky, most well-known for her novel Suite Francaise, written during the first years of the German occupation of France but not discovered until the late 1990s and published in 2002, as the manuscript was hidden in a suitcase for decades. Némirovsky was a Russian Jewish writer living in Paris during World War II. She did not escape France in time, and was killed at Auschwitz in 1942, but she left two young daughters behind who survived the
war. In a way, this book is for her, a kind of wish-fulfillment, of what her life could have been if she had gotten out, and come to Los Angeles.

  READING LIST

  I am deeply indebted to the following books that provided a rich trove of research and inspiration:

  A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters from the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward

  edited by Isaac Metzker

  From the advice section of the Jewish Daily Forward, this book compiles various letters spanning over eighty years, tracing how Eastern European immigrants grappled with their new lives in America.

  After Auschwitz

  directed by Jon Kean

  A wonderful documentary that follows six women, all survivors of the Holocaust, who moved to Los Angeles after the war, and in varying degrees, struggled to create new lives while the past continued to haunt them.

  Brave Men

  by Ernie Pyle

  Selections from Pyle’s writings as a war correspondent in Europe during WWII offer a realistic and fresh look at army life in the trenches, field hospitals, and bombed cities, providing unique and specific details.

  City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940s

  by Otto Friedrich

  A seminal history of Hollywood from WWII to the Korean War, featuring various writers, actors, directors, politicians, and studio heads, full of delicious gossip and the backstory to how the most well-known movies from that time period got made.

  Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood’s Golden Age