We Were the Lucky Ones Read online

  In the square, the last few bits of daylight cast a rose-coloured glow over the marble-columned facade of the Capitole. Addy watches a flock of pigeons take flight as an old woman makes her way toward a series of roofed arcades to the west, and he is reminded of an evening last summer when he and his friends had sat at sundown at a cafe in a similar square in Montmartre, sipping glasses of Sémillon. Addy replays the conversation from that evening, recalling how, when the subject of war arose, his friends had rolled their eyes. ‘Hitler is un bouffon,’ they’d said. ‘All this talk of war is just a fuss, une agitation. Nothing will come of it. Le dictateur déteste le jazz!’ one friend had professed. ‘He hates jazz even more than he hates the Jews! Can’t you just see him walking around Place de Clichy with his hands over his ears?’ The table had erupted in laughter. Addy had laughed along with them.

  Reaching for his pencil, he returns to his pad of paper. He plots a melodic phrase, and then another, writing quickly, willing his pencil to keep up with the music in his head. Two hours pass. Around him, tables begin to fill with men and women settling in for their evening meal, but Addy hardly notices. When he finally looks up, the sky has darkened to a deep periwinkle blue. It’s getting late. He pays his bill, folds his pad of paper under his arm, and walks across the square to his apartment on Rue de Rémusat.

  He enters the courtyard of his building, unlocks his mailbox, and rifles quickly through a small sheaf of letters. Nothing from home. Disappointed, he climbs four flights of stairs, hangs up his cap, and removes his shoes, arranging them neatly on a straw mat by the door. He drops his mail on the table, flips on the radio, and fills a kettle with water, setting it on the stove top to boil.

  His place is small and tidy, with only two rooms – a tiny bedroom and a kitchen just big enough for a bistro table – but it suits him; he’s the only one of his four siblings who is still single, despite his mother’s prodding. Opening his icebox, he peruses its contents: an ounce of creamy Camembert, a half litre of goat’s milk, two speckled eggs, a red Malus apple – the kind his mother used to set out for a snack when he was little, sliced and drizzled with honey (Addy likes to keep one, always, within reach) – a sliver of steamed cow tongue wrapped in butcher paper, a half-eaten bar of dark Swiss chocolate. He reaches for the chocolate. Careful not to tear it, he peels back the silver foil and breaks off a square of the bittersweet cocoa, letting it melt for a moment in his mouth. ‘Merci, la Suisse,’ he whispers as he sits down at the table.

  At the top of his pile of mail is the latest Jazz Hot review. Addy skims the headlines. STRAYHORN JOINS ELLINGTON IN COMPOSITION PARTNERSHIP, one of them reads. Two of his favourite jazz composers. He makes a mental note to keep an eye out for their work. Beneath Jazz Hot is a pale blue slip of paper he’d missed earlier. When he sees it, his heart skips, and the remnants of chocolate suddenly taste sharp on his tongue. He picks it up, turns it over. Typed across the top are three words: COMMANDE DE CONSCRIPTION. It is a military conscription order.

  Addy reads the slip twice. He has been ordered to join a Polish column of the French Army. He is to report immediately to L’hopital de La Grave to complete his medical exam and paperwork; his duty will begin in Parthenay, France, on November 6th. Addy sets the order on the table and stares at it for a long while. The army. And to think that this morning he was lamenting for his brothers, grappling with the thought of them in uniform, terrified of their fate. Now, his circumstances are no different from theirs.

  Addy’s ears start to ring and it takes him a moment to realise that the water has begun to boil. He rises to switch off the burner, running a hand through his hair. As the kettle’s whistle grows faint, Addy is struck by how quickly things can change in this new realm of his. How, in an instant, his future can be decided for him. Retrieving the conscription notice, he makes his way to the kitchen window overlooking the corner of the Place du Capitole, presses his forehead against the glass. Sidney Bechet’s clarinet sings softly through his radio’s speakers, but he is oblivious. The army. Several of his friends have been called up, but they are all French. He’d hoped that as a foreigner he might be exempt. Perhaps, he thinks, there is a way out of this. But the small print at the bottom of the slip suggests otherwise. FAILURE TO REPORT TO DUTY WILL RESULT IN ARREST AND INCARCERATION. Merde. He is in good health. Of fighting age. No, there is no way out. Merde. Merde. Merde.

  Four stories below, Moretti’s Occitan cross, inlaid on the paving stones, reflects beneath the street lamps like a giant granite tattoo. Overhead, a half moon is on the rise. How is it possible, Addy wonders, that amid such serenity a war is being waged across the border? Where are Genek and Jakob now? Are they awaiting orders? Are they in combat, at this very moment? Addy glances up at the sky, picturing his brothers pressed shoulder to shoulder in a trench, oblivious of the rising moon, thinking only of the mortars flying overhead.

  Addy’s eyes begin to water. He slips a hand into his trouser pocket and retrieves his handkerchief, a gift from his mother. She’d given it to him a year ago, when he was home last for Rosh Hashanah. She’d found the fabric in Milan, she said, on one of her buying trips – a soft, white linen to which she’d hand-stitched a small border and embroidered his initials in the corner, AAIK. Addy Abraham Israel Kurc. ‘It’s beautiful,’ Addy had declared when his mother handed him the handkerchief. ‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ Nechuma had replied, but Addy knew how much care she’d put into making it, how much pride she took in her craft. He rubs his thumb over the embroidery, imagining his mother at work in the back room of the shop, a bolt of cloth laid out before her, her tape measure, scissors, and red silk pincushion at her side. He can see her measuring her thread, twisting an end between her fingers and bringing it to her lips to wet it before guiding it through the impossibly small eye of a needle.

  Addy breathes deeply, feeling the rise and fall of his chest. It’s going to be all right, he tells himself. Hitler will be stopped. France hasn’t seen any fighting yet; for all one knows, the war will be over before it does. Perhaps his friends in Toulouse, who had begun to call it the drôle de guerre – the phony war – were right, and it is only a matter of time before he’ll be able to return to Poland, to his family, to the life he’d left behind when he moved to France. Addy thinks about how, a year ago, if someone had offered him a job in New York City, he’d have likely jumped at the opportunity. Now, of course, he would do anything – anything – just to be home, sitting at his mother’s dining-room table, surrounded by his parents, his siblings. He folds his handkerchief back into his pocket. Home. Family. Nothing is more important. He knows that now.

  SEPTEMBER 22, 1939: The city of Lvov surrenders to the Soviet Red Army.

  SEPTEMBER 27, 1939: Poland falls. Hitler and Stalin immediately divide the country – Germany occupies the western region (including Radom, Warsaw, Kraków, Lublin), and the Soviet Union occupies the eastern region (including Lvov, Pinsk, Vilna).

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jakob and Bella

  Lvov, Soviet-Occupied Poland ~ September 30, 1939

  Bella checks the brass number hanging on the red door. ‘Thirty-two,’ she whispers under her breath, comparing it twice with the address scrawled in Jakob’s handwriting on the letter she’d carried with her from Radom: 19 Kalinina Street. Apartment 32.

  Jakob’s camera hangs around her neck, his coat over her forearm, folded to conceal the layers of mud it had collected en route. Never before has she been so filthy. She’d peeled off a pair of ripped stockings, cursing the loss, and tried her best to stomp the mud from the soles of her shoes and to wipe her face clean, licking her thumb and dabbing at her cheeks, but without a mirror the effort was useless. Her hair is as unruly as a thorn bush, and she’s still damp beneath her layers. When she lifts her arms the smell is appalling. How she needs a wash! She must look awful. Never mind. You’re here. You’ve made it. Just knock.

  Her fist hovers a few centimetres from the door. Taking a slow, deep breath, she licks her lips and taps her knuckle
s softly on the wood, tilting her head forward, listening. Nothing. She knocks again, louder this time. She’s about to knock a third time when she hears the faint clip of footsteps. Her heart raps in sync with each step as it grows louder, and for a moment she panics. What if she’s greeted, after coming all this way, not by her Jakob but by a stranger?

  ‘Who is it?’

  A puff of air escapes her lips – a laugh, her first in weeks – and she realises she’s been holding her breath. It’s him.

  ‘Jakob! Jakob, it’s me!’ she says to the door, levitating to her toes, suddenly feather-light. Before she can add, ‘It’s Bella,’ there is a quick metallic click, a deadbolt sliding in its mount, and the door swings open, forcefully, pulling with it a vacuum of air. And then, there he is, her love, her ukochany, looking at her, into her, and beneath the layers of grime and sweat and stink, somehow she feels beautiful.

  ‘It’s you!’ Jakob whispers. ‘How did you …? Come in, quickly.’ He pulls her inside and locks the door behind them. She sets his coat and camera on the floor, and when she stands his hands are on her shoulders. He holds her gently, his gaze travelling the length of her, studying her. In his eyes Bella sees the worry, the exhaustion, the disbelief. Whatever has happened here in Lvov has left a mark on him. He hasn’t slept, it seems, in days.

  ‘Kuba,’ she starts, calling him as she sometimes does by his Hebrew name, wanting nothing but to assure him that she’s okay, she’s here now, he mustn’t worry. But he isn’t ready yet to talk. He pulls her to him, enveloping her so fully she can hardly breathe, and in that instant she knows she was right to come.

  With her arms tucked beneath his, she presses her head into the familiar crook of his neck, running her forearms up the narrow of his back. He smells as he always does – of wood chips and leather and soap. She can feel his heart beating against hers, the weight of his cheek, heavy on her head. Beneath his shirt, his shoulder blades protrude like boomerangs, sharper than she remembers. They stand like this for a full minute, until Jakob leans back, lifting her with him, up and up until her feet float from the ground. He laughs, spinning around, and soon the room melts out of focus and she’s laughing, too. As her toes touch the floor, Jakob leans forward. She lets the weight of her torso dissolve into his arms, and as he dips her she tips her head back, feeling the blood rush to her ears. He cradles her there for a moment, dangling in his arms – the final exultant posture of a ballroom dance – before pulling her to her feet.

  Jakob stares at her again, holding both her hands, his expression suddenly serious. ‘I can’t believe you made it,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘I got your letter just after the fighting started. And then we were mobilised and by the time I returned you still weren’t here. Had I known it would be this bad, Bella, I promise I would never have asked you to come. I’ve been so worried.’

  ‘I know, love. I know.’

  ‘I don’t know how you made it.’

  ‘We nearly turned back, on several occasions.’

  ‘You have to tell me everything.’

  ‘I will, but first a bath, please,’ Bella smiles.

  Jakob sighs, his eyes softening. ‘What would I have done if …’

  ‘Shhh, kochanie. It’s okay, darling. I’m here.’

  Jakob tucks his chin so his forehead rests gently on Bella’s. ‘Thank you,’ he whispers, closing his eyes, ‘for coming.’

  They sit at a small square table in the kitchen, their hands wrapped around mugs of hot, black tea. Bella’s hair is still wet from her bath, the skin of her neck and cheeks flushed pink – she’d scrubbed herself clean and soaked for all of three minutes before Jakob tapped softly on the washroom door, undressed, and climbed into the tub with her.

  ‘I honestly didn’t think it would work,’ Bella says. She’s just finished explaining Tomek’s plan, how petrified she was of being discovered, turned back, or taken captive. Tomek, it turns out, had been right about the German front line – she was able to skirt it by crossing the meadow where he left her. But when she reached the forest on the other side, she lost her sense of direction and veered north, walking for hours until finally stumbling across a pair of train tracks, which she followed to a small station on the outskirts of the city. There, despite her muddy, pathetic state, she talked her way through one last checkpoint, bought a one-way ticket with her remaining zloty, and rode the last several kilometres to Lvov by train.

  ‘I was surprised when I got here,’ Bella says, ‘I didn’t see Wehrmacht on the streets – I expected to find the city swarming.’

  Jakob shakes his head. ‘The Germans are gone,’ he says quietly. ‘Lvov is Soviet-occupied now. Hitler pulled his men out a few days before Poland fell.’

  ‘Wait – what?’

  ‘Lvov fell just three days before Warsaw—’

  ‘Poland has – has fallen?’ The colour has left Bella’s cheeks.

  Jakob takes her hand. ‘You haven’t heard?’

  ‘No,’ Bella whispers.

  Jakob swallows, seeming unsure of where to begin. He clears his throat, and explains as succinctly as he can what Bella has missed, telling her how the Poles in Lvov had waited for days for help from the Red Army, which was stationed just east of the city, how they thought the Soviets had been sent to protect them, and how, after a while, it became clear that wasn’t the case. He describes how completely outnumbered they were; how, when the city finally surrendered, General Sikorski, head of the Polish military, negotiated a pact that allowed Polish officers to leave the city – ‘“Register yourselves with Soviet authorities and go home,” the general said.’ Jakob pauses, peers for a moment into his mug. ‘But just after the Germans left, dozens of Polish officers were arrested by the Soviet police, without explanation. That’s when I scrapped my uniform,’ Jakob adds, ‘and decided I’d be better off hiding out here, waiting for you.’

  Bella watches Jakob’s Adam’s apple travel up and down the length of his throat. She is stunned.

  ‘A few days later,’ Jakob continues, ‘after Warsaw fell, Hitler and Stalin split Poland in two. Right down the middle. The Nazis took over the west, the Red Army the east. We’re on the Soviet side here in Lvov … which is why you didn’t see any Germans.’

  Bella can barely speak. The Soviets are on the side of the Germans? And Poland has fallen. ‘Did you – did you have to …’ But she trails off, the words jammed in the roof of her mouth.

  ‘There was fighting,’ Jakob says. ‘And bombing. The Germans dropped loads of bombs. I saw people die, I saw horrible things … but no.’ He sighs, looking at his hands, ‘I didn’t have to … I didn’t manage to hurt anyone.’

  ‘And what of your brother, Genek? And Selim? And Adam?’

  ‘Genek and Adam are here in Lvov. But Selim … we haven’t heard from him since the Germans retreated.’

  Bella’s heart sinks. ‘And the officers they arrested?’

  ‘No one’s seen them since.’

  ‘My God,’ she whispers.

  It’s dark in the bedroom, but from the sound of Jakob’s breathing next to her, Bella can tell that he is awake, too. She’d nearly forgotten how lovely it felt to lie down for a night’s sleep on a mattress; it was heaven compared with the wooden floorboards of Tomek’s wagon. Rolling to face Jakob, she loops a bare calf over his knee. ‘What should we do?’ she asks. Jakob sandwiches her leg between his. She can feel him looking at her. He finds her hand, kisses it, and brings her palm to his chest.

  ‘We should get married.’

  Bella laughs.

  ‘I missed that sound,’ Jakob says, and Bella can tell that he’s smiling.

  Of course, she’d meant what should they do next – as in, should they stay in Lvov or return to Radom? They haven’t discussed yet which option is safest. She presses her nose and then her lips to his, holding the kiss for a few seconds before pulling away.

  ‘Are you serious?’ she breathes. ‘You can’t be serious.’ Jakob. She wasn’t expecting the subject of marriage to come up.
Not on their first night together again, at least. The war, it seems, has emboldened him.

  ‘Of course I’m serious.’

  Bella closes her eyes, her bones sinking heavily into the mattress beneath her. They can talk about their plan tomorrow, she decides. ‘Was that a proposal?’ she asks.

  Jakob kisses her chin, her cheeks, her forehead. ‘I guess that depends on what your answer is,’ he says finally.

  Bella smiles. ‘You know what my answer is, love.’ She rolls over and he pushes his knees into the backs of hers, wraps his arms around her, cocooning her in his warmth. They fit perfectly together.

  ‘Then it’s a deal,’ Jakob says.

  Bella smiles. ‘It’s a deal.’

  ‘I still can’t believe you’re really here,’ Jakob whispers. ‘I was so scared you wouldn’t make it.’

  ‘I was so scared I wouldn’t find you.’

  ‘Let’s not do that again.’

  ‘What again?’

  ‘I mean … let’s not ever be apart, ever again. It was –’ His voice fades to a whisper. ‘It was awful.’

  ‘Awful,’ Bella agrees.

  ‘Together from now on, all right? No matter what.’

  ‘Yes. No matter what.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Halina

  Radom, German-Occupied Poland ~ October 10, 1939

  Gripping a knife in her free hand, Halina blows a wisp of blonde hair from her eyes and rocks forward onto her knees. Pressing a clump of pink beet stems against the earth, she flexes her jaw, raises her blade, and brings it down with as much force as she can muster. Thwack. Earlier in the day, she learnt that if she put enough muscle into it, she could slice off the stems in one motion instead of having to go at each plant twice. But that was hours ago. Now she’s spent. Her arms feel as if they are hewn from oak, as if they may split at any moment from her shoulders. Now it takes two, sometimes three attempts. Thwack.