We Were the Lucky Ones Read online

  Though Genek will never admit it (he refers to Altynay as an ‘endless swath of Siberian shitscape’), the forest, despite the suffocating heat and hellish circumstances, is undeniably beautiful. Here, seemingly as far removed from civilisation as possible, surrounded by pine, spruce, and larch – every shade of green she can imagine – and by big, open skies and black-water rivers that snake their way through the trees on their journey north, Herta is but a fleck against nature’s backdrop. She feels at peace. She closes her eyes as Józef nurses, taking in the soft breeze, the chatter of swallows and wagtails in the branches above, feeling grateful for the blessing of the healthy child at her breast.

  Józef was born just before midnight on the 17th of March, on the frozen dirt floor of their barracks. Herta had heaved logs on the day he arrived, breathing through contractions as they came and went every ten, then seven, then five minutes, before finally asking her friend Julia to find Genek, unsure if she could make her way back to camp on her own. ‘When you count three minutes between contractions,’ Dr Dembowski had said, ‘then you know the baby is coming.’ Julia had returned alone, explaining that Genek had been sent to the town on an errand and that her husband, Otto, would cover for him as soon as he returned. Julia had helped Herta to her feet and walked with her, slowly, arm in arm, back to camp, where she called for Dembowski.

  When Genek arrived two hours later, Herta was barely recognisable. Despite the arctic cold, she was drenched in sweat, her eyes pressed shut as she lay in a fetal tuck, drawing and exhaling breath in quick, heavy bouts through o-shaped lips as if trying to extinguish a stubborn flame. Clumps of wet, dark hair stuck to her forehead. Julia sat by her side, massaging her back between contractions. ‘You made it,’ Herta breathed when she rolled over to see Genek, wrapping her hands around his and squeezing hard. Julia wished them luck and left, and Herta endured another six hours of pelvis-splitting pain before it was time, finally, mercifully, to push. It was a quarter to midnight when, with Genek at Herta’s side and Dembowski crouched between her knees, Józef took his first breath. At the sound of their baby’s cry, and at Dembowski’s definitive ‘to chłopiec’ – it’s a boy – Herta and Genek beamed at each other with wet, exhausted eyes.

  That night, they tucked Józef between them in their straw bed, swaddled in Herta’s wool scarf and bundled with two of Genek’s extra shirts and a small knit hat that was passed down between the babies born at the camp; all they could see of him were his eyes, which he rarely opened, and the pink of his lips. They worried about whether he was warm enough, or whether they’d roll over onto him in the night. But soon a deep fatigue overcame them, blotting out their fears like blizzard clouds over the sun, and after a few minutes all three Kurcs were sound asleep.

  Within days, Józef began to put on weight, Herta went back to work, and she and Genek grew used to sleeping with a lump between them. The only real trouble came in the mornings, when Józef would wake wailing, his eyes frozen shut. Herta learnt to rub warm droplets of breast milk onto his lids to coax them open.

  Now, Herta marvels, it’s hard for her to believe it’s been four months since her son was born. She has marked the passage of time by his first smile, his first tooth, by the day he was able to roll himself over from his belly to his back. What will it be next, she wonders: will he suck his thumb? Start to crawl? Say his first words? Herta has written home at each milestone, aching for news of her family in Bielsko. She hasn’t heard from them, though, since before she and Genek left Lvov. The last letter she received had been from her brother Zigmund; his news was disheartening. There are fewer and fewer Jews left in Bielsko, he wrote. Some apparently had left at the start of the war to join the Polish Army. Others had been shipped off by train, and never returned. I’ve pleaded with the family, Zigmund wrote, begged them to leave, or to hide, but Lola is far too pregnant to travel safely. By now, Herta realises, her sister’s baby would be almost a year old. And our parents, Zigmund added, are too stubborn to leave. I suggested we might come to you in Lvov, but they refused. Herta thinks about the child she has yet to meet, wondering if she’s an aunt to a boy or a girl, if the day would come that Ze would get to know his cousin. At the moment it seems unfathomable, separated by such a vast stretch of land, with the world crumbling around them.

  Herta prays often for her family. As much as she is able to somehow make the most of her time here in Altynay, there is nothing she wants more than to return to a life of freedom. Part of her wishes she could travel forward in time, and skip to the end of the war. But there is also part of her that prays for time to stop. For there is no telling what the future might bring. What if, at war’s end, she returns to Poland to discover her family is no longer there? The idea is impossible to contemplate. It’s like staring directly at the sun. She can’t do it. She won’t. And so instead she puts it out of her mind, finding solace in the fact that, for now, at least at this very moment, she and Genek are healthy, and their son is perfect.

  At dusk, Herta finds Genek in their barracks, smiling. ‘Some good news?’ she asks. She unties Józef from her chest, lays the sheet on the dirt floor, and sets him on it. Standing, she rests a hand on her husband’s cheek, realising how lovely it is to see his dimples.

  Genek’s eyes are bright. ‘I think the tides have finally turned,’ he says. ‘Herta, the Soviets may soon be on our side.’

  A month ago, they learnt that Hitler had broken his pact with Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union. The news had apparently stunned the world, but it had done nothing to change their situation in Altynay.

  Herta tilts her head at this news. ‘We thought so at the start of the war, too, yes?’

  ‘True. But this afternoon Otto and I heard the guards whispering something about moving prisoners south to form an army.’

  ‘An army?’

  ‘Darling, I think Stalin is going to grant us amnesty.’

  ‘Amnesty.’ Herta marvels at the word. A pardon. But for what? For being Polish? It’s a difficult concept to digest. But if it means they will be freed, Herta decides, then by all means, she will welcome an amnesty. ‘Where would we go?’ she wonders aloud. From what they’ve heard, there isn’t a Poland to return to.

  ‘Perhaps Stalin is thinking of sending us off to fight.’

  Herta looks at her husband, at his gaunt figure, his newly receding hairline, the hollow over his collarbone. He’s still handsome despite it all, but they both know he isn’t in any shape to fight. She thinks of the others in the camp, too, most of whom are either sick or starving or both. Aside from Otto, born with the natural build of a heavyweight boxer, none of the prisoners are fit to go to battle. She opens her mouth to voice the concern, but, seeing the hope in Genek’s eyes, she swallows the thought, kneeling instead by Józef, who is busy practising his new trick of rolling onto his stomach. Herta tries to picture it: Genek, suited up alongside the Soviets, fighting for Stalin – for the man who’d put them in exile, condemned them to a life of labour. It seems backward. She wonders what this would mean for her and Józef – what would become of them if Genek is sent off to battle?

  ‘Do you have a sense of when this amnesty might be granted?’ she asks, rolling Józef gently to his back. Józef flaps his arms happily, showing off two miniature replicas of his father’s dimples.

  ‘No,’ Genek says, lowering himself to sit beside her. He squeezes Józef’s knee and Józef coos, smitten. Genek smiles. ‘But soon, I think. Soon.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Addy

  Ilha das Flores, Brazil ~ Late July 1941

  It’s become Addy’s habit to wake early, well before the other detainees are up, and walk the path circumventing the tiny Ilha das Flores. He needs the exercise and even more so the chance to be alone for an hour – together they help preserve his sanity. The scenery helps, too. Guanabara Bay is beautiful at dawn, when it is at its calmest, a mirror image of the sky. By ten in the morning, it’s teeming with boat traffic heading to and from Rio de Janeiro’s busy port. />
  This morning Addy awoke before dawn to the shrill cavatina of a kingfisher perched on his windowsill. He was tempted to slip back into sleep, for in his dream he was home in Radom, and his family was just as he’d left them. His father sat at the dining-room table reading the weekend edition of Radomer Leben, his mother opposite, humming as she sewed a leather patch onto the elbow of a sweater. In the living room, Genek and Jakob played a game of cards, Felicia toddled about gripping a ragdoll by the ankles, and Mila and Halina shared the bench at the baby grand, taking turns at the keys, Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ spread out on the music rack before them. The only person missing from the dream was him. He didn’t mind, though; he could have watched the scene for hours, content just to hover above it, basking in its warmth, in the simple knowledge that all was well. But the kingfisher was persistent, and eventually Addy’s dream faded and he rose, sighing as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, dressed, and set off for his walk.

  On the trail, he plucks flowers, each with a name that has become familiar to him over the past three weeks: amaryllis, hibiscus, azalea, and his favourite, the bird of paradise, which, with its fanlike crown of foliage and Technicolor red and blue petals, resembles a bird in flight. There is one species of lily on the island to which he seems to be allergic. When he stumbles upon it he sneezes for the next fifteen minutes into his mother’s handkerchief, which he carries with him always, like a talisman.

  Back at the cafeteria, Addy props his bouquet into a water glass, setting it at the table where he and the Lowbeers typically meet for breakfast. A staff worker appears, and Addy greets him with a smile and a ‘buon dia, tudo bem?’ – the first Portuguese words he’d learnt upon arrival.

  ‘Estou bem, si, senhor,’ the staffer offers, handing Addy a cup of yerba mate tea.

  Addy carries his tea to the porch, where he turns his chair to face west, toward Rio’s coastline. Since their ship arrived in South America, the bitter taste of yerba has grown on him. As he brings the cup to his lips, he takes in the peaceful morning, the smell of the tropics, the ubiquitous birdsong. Under normal circumstances, he might close his eyes and bask in the beauty of it all. But the circumstances, of course, are nowhere near normal. There is far too much at stake for him to truly unwind. And so, instead, he stares at the coastline, reflecting on the past several months – on what had been required of him to get to this island off the coast of Brazil.

  As it turns out, the fisherman he’d chosen in Tangier was able, despite his shoddy skiff, to deliver Addy and the Lowbeers safely to Tarifa. From there, they rode north by bus to the port of Cádiz, where they were told a Spanish ship called the Cabo do Hornos would depart in a week for Rio. ‘I’ll sell you tickets,’ the agent in Cádiz said, ‘but I cannot guarantee they will let you off the boat with expired visas.’ This was not what they wanted to hear, but as far as they knew, the Hornos was their only hope – a speculation that was confirmed when they began recognising the faces of other Alsina passengers at the port, passengers who had also been lucky enough to make their way across the strait to Cádiz. Addy and the Lowbeers didn’t waste time in purchasing one-way tickets aboard the Hornos, assuring themselves that if they made it as far as South America, they would not be turned away.

  When they finally boarded the ship, Addy was forced to acknowledge that he had but a handful of francs left to his name. He would be starting over in Brazil with next to nothing – a truth he grappled with as the Hornos steamed south-west toward Rio. The trip took ten days. None of the refugees on board slept much, as they had been warned when they embarked that at least half a dozen ships before them had been sent back to Spain – the thought of which prompted some to threaten suicide. ‘I’ll jump, I swear it,’ one Spaniard told Addy, ‘I’ll kill myself before I let Franco do the deed.’

  Addy, Eliska, and Madame Lowbeer clung to their expired visas, and to the steadfast hope that the captain of the Alsina had been able to send a wire as he’d promised to the Brazilian embassy in Vichy. Perhaps if the petition had reached Souza Dantas, the ambassador would help. Even if it hadn’t, there was always the chance that Brazil’s president, Getúlio Vargas, would understand their circumstances and extend their papers upon arrival. It wasn’t their fault, after all, that the journey had taken so long.

  It was the 17th of July when the Cabo do Hornos finally docked in Rio and, by some stroke of luck, her passengers were allowed to disembark. Addy was overjoyed. The freedom was short-lived, however. Three days later, Addy, the Lowbeers, and the thirty-seven other Alsina passengers who’d arrived on the Hornos with expired visas were greeted at their doorsteps by Brazilian police and escorted back to the port, where they were loaded onto a freight boat and shipped seven kilometres offshore to Ilha das Flores, where they were now detained.

  ‘We’re being held hostage,’ Madame Lowbeer seethed after their first day on the island. ‘C’est absurde.’ They were given no explanation for why they were being held. They could only assume it was due to their expired visas, a hunch that was verified when one of the passengers, fluent in Portuguese, caught a glimpse of a written notice indicating Vargas’s intent to send the refugees back to Spain.

  Addy takes another sip of tea. He refuses to believe that, after six months, he’ll end up where he began, in war-torn Europe. The Alsina passengers have come this far. Someone will surely persuade the president to let them stay. Eliska’s uncle, perhaps – he’d hosted them those first few days in Rio. He seemed like a good person. He had money. But then again, what access did a civilian have to the president? They will need someone with influence. As Madame Lowbeer often says, ‘When the right palms are greased, we’ll get our visas.’ The Lowbeers have the means to offer a bribe, but to whom those ‘right’ palms belong, Addy has no clue. He is certain that with no contacts in Brazil, no grasp of the language, and no savings, he will be of little help. He’s done everything he can to get them this far – the rest, as hard as it is to admit, is beyond his control.

  According to the Lowbeers, their hope at the moment lies with Haganauer, an Alsina passenger whose grandfather in Rio has a tenuous connection to Brazil’s minister of foreign relations. A week ago, Haganauer had bribed a guard on the island to pass along a letter to his grandfather explaining the circumstances, in hopes that his grandfather would then deliver a plea to the minister on the hostages’ behalf. The plan, everyone agreed, seemed promising. Until it came to fruition, though, there was nothing to do but wait.

  Addy finishes his tea and cradles the ceramic cup in his palms, his mind drifting to Eliska, to the spot at the base of his neck she’d kissed the night before as she excused herself to ‘get her beauty rest.’ They’d decided in Dakar that they were destined to marry – an idea Madame Lowbeer resented vehemently. But Addy isn’t fazed by her disapproval. In time, he assures himself, he’ll convince la Grande Dame he’s worthy of her daughter’s hand.

  He watches a barge make its way to Rio’s port, wondering as he often does what his family would think of Eliska. She is smart, and she is Jewish. She’s passionate and well spoken, capable of a good debate. Surely his siblings would think well of her. His father, too. But would his mother? He can hear Nechuma sometimes, telling him he’s in over his head – warning that Eliska is too spoilt to be the kind of wife Addy deserves. She is spoilt, he can admit, but he knows that this isn’t the real reason his mother would object.

  Relationships begin with honesty, Nechuma once told him. This is the foundation, for to be in love means to be able to share everything – your dreams, your faults, your deepest fears. Without these truths, a relationship will collapse. Addy has spent hours contemplating his mother’s words, ashamed to admit that for all of his and Eliska’s talk of Prague and Vienna and Paris – those glamorous snapshots of their lives before the war – he still cannot speak freely with her about his family. Nearly two years have passed since he last heard from his parents and siblings. Two years! On the outside, he maintains his characteristic cheerfulness, but inside t
he uncertainty is tearing him apart. He is unravelling. Eliska, on the other hand, is bright and sharp and seems so sure of her future. Addy knows instinctively that she would not be able to understand why at night he dreams of Radom and not Rio, why often he wishes he could wake up at home, in his old room on Warszawska Street, despite the circumstances. He runs a thumb along the rim of his cup. Eliska has suffered losses too, he knows. Her father leaving when she was young was hard for her – and perhaps because of this, she’s convinced herself it’s useless to live in the past. Eliska’s world, Addy has begun to realise, does not allow for retrospection, for grief.

  You don’t need to choose between Radom and Rio, Addy reminds himself. Not at the moment, at least. You are here now, on a nearly deserted island in South America, with a woman you love. Addy closes his eyes, trying for a moment to imagine a life without Eliska. A life with nothing connecting him to their shared European roots. A life without her smile, her touch, her unwavering ability to find joy in looking ahead, rather than back. But he can’t.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Jakob and Bella

  Outside Radom, German-Occupied Poland ~ Late July 1941

  Jakob and Bella crouch behind a wall of supplies in the back of the delivery truck, their knees pulled to their chests, leaning into one another for support. Franka, her parents Moshe and Terza, and her brother Salek are hidden along the opposite wall. Up front, their driver curses. Brakes whine as they begin to slow. Since leaving Lvov, they’ve stopped only twice, for fuel; otherwise, per Sol’s instructions, they’ve barrelled north-west, toward Radom.