We Were the Lucky Ones Read online

  Her brothers had written recently from Lvov, where they reported that the Soviets have assigned them desk jobs. Desk jobs! The news has begun to irk her. How is it that she, of all people, has ended up in the fields? Before the war, Halina worked as an assistant to her brother-in-law Selim at his medical lab, where she wore a white coat and latex gloves; her hands, most certainly, were never dirty. She thinks back to her first day at the lab, to how sure she had been that she would find the work tedious, and how, after a week, she discovered that the research – the minutiae of it all, the daily potential for new discoveries – was surprisingly gratifying. She would do anything to return to her old job. But the lab, like her parents’ shop, has been confiscated, and if you were a Jew out of a job, the Germans were quick to appoint you with a new one. Her parents have been dispatched to a German cafeteria, her sister Mila to a garment workshop, mending uniforms in from the German front. Halina has no idea why she was given this particular assignment; she’d assumed it was a joke, laughed even, when the clerk at the city’s makeshift employment agency handed her a slip of paper with the words BEET FARM written across the top. She hasn’t a lick of experience harvesting vegetables. But clearly it doesn’t matter. The Germans are hungry, and the plants are ready to come out of the ground.

  Glancing down at her hands, Halina frowns, disgusted. She can barely recognise them; the beets have stained them dark fuchsia, and in every crevice there is dirt – beneath her fingernails, in the small folds of skin around her knuckles, stuck between flesh in the open blisters pockmarking her palms. Even worse, though, are her clothes. They’re as good as ruined. She doesn’t mind as much about the trousers (thank goodness she’d decided to wear slacks, and not a skirt), but she was particularly fond of her chiffon blouse, and her shoes are another story entirely. They are her newest pair, brogue lace-ups with a slightly squared-off toe and a small, flat heel. She’d purchased them over the summer at Fogelman’s and worn them today assuming she’d be assigned a task at the farm’s business office, perhaps in accounting, and that it wouldn’t hurt to look put together to impress her new bosses. Once a beautiful, polished cordovan brown, the toes are now scuffed and discolored, and she can barely see the intricate decorative perforation on the sides. It’s tragic. She’ll have to spend hours with a sewing needle later, picking them clean. Tomorrow, she’s decided, she’ll dress in her shabbiest clothes, maybe borrow some things Jakob left behind.

  She sits back on her heels, wipes the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand, and pokes out her bottom lip as she blows again at the stubborn lock of hair tickling her face. How long, she wonders, before she’s able to get a trim? Radom has been occupied for thirty-three days. Her salon is closed now to Jews, which is a problem as she’s desperate for a haircut. Halina sighs. It’s her first day at the farm, and already she’s sick of it. Thwack.

  It feels like an eternity since her day began. She was picked up that morning by a Wehrmacht officer who wore a pressed green uniform with a crisp swastika band on his arm and a moustache so thin it appeared to have been drawn over his lip with a charcoal pencil. He’d greeted her with a glance from beneath his visored field cap and a single word, ‘Papiere!’ (hellos, apparently, were too good for Jews), then jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Get in.’ Halina had climbed gingerly into the bed of the truck and found a seat among eight other workers. She recognised all but one. As they motored beneath the chestnuts flanking Warszawska Street – she refused to call it by its new German name, Poststrasse – she kept her head down for fear of being recognised; how embarrassing it would be, she’d thought, for someone from her previous life to see her being carted away like this.

  But when the truck paused at the corner of Kościelna Street, she looked up and managed, to her horror, to catch the eye of an old schoolmate standing by the entrance to Pomianowski’s candy shop. At gymnasium, Sylvia had desperately wanted to be Halina’s friend – she’d followed her around for the good part of a year before they finally grew close. They did their homework together and visited each other on weekends. One year, Sylvia invited Halina to her home for Christmas; on Nechuma’s insistence, Halina brought along a tin of her mother’s star-shaped almond biscuits. They’d lost touch since graduation; the last Halina knew, Sylvia had taken a job as a nurse’s aide at one of the city’s hospitals. All of this flashed through her mind as the truck sat idling, as the old friends stared at one another from across the cobblestone. Halina had thought for a moment about waving – as if it were perfectly normal for her to be huddled there, in the back of a truck, she and eight other Jews, on their way to work – but before she could lift a hand, Sylvia narrowed her eyes and looked away; she’d pretended she didn’t even know her! Halina’s blood had boiled with humiliation and fury, and when the truck finally motored on, she spent the next half hour thinking of the things she’d like to say to Sylvia when she ran into her next.

  They drove and drove, the cityscape quickly fading, two-laned streets and seventeenth-century brick facades giving way to a patchwork of orchards and pastureland and narrow dirt roads hemmed in by pine and alder trees. Halina had cooled off by the time they arrived at the farm, but her bottom was bruised from all of the jostling, which made her hate the day even more.

  When they parked, there wasn’t a building in sight, just dirt, and rows upon rows of leafy stems. It was then that Halina realised, looking out over the hectares of farmland, that this was no desk job. The officer lined them up beside the truck and tossed baskets and burlap sacks at their feet. ‘Stämme,’ he said, pointing to the sacks. ‘Rote rüben,’ he added, kicking a basket. Though she knew enough German to get by, ‘stems’ and ‘beets’ weren’t yet in her vernacular, but the instructions were easy enough to decipher. Stems in the sack, beets in the basket. After a moment the officer handed each of the Jews a knife with a long, dull blade. He glared at Halina as she took hers. ‘Für die stämme,’ he said, resting a hand on the well-worn wooden grip of the pistol strapped to his belt, his moustache morphing along with the curve of his lips into the shape of a talon. Brave of him giving us knives as big as these, Halina thought.

  And so it went. Thwack, rip, shake, stuff. Thwack, rip, shake, stuff.

  Perhaps she should pocket a couple of beets to bring home to her mother. Before their food was rationed, Nechuma would grate roasted beets and toss them with horseradish and lemon to make cwikla, pairing it with smoked herring and boiled potatoes. Halina’s mouth waters; it’s been weeks since her last decent meal. But something in her knows that an extra beet at dinner wouldn’t be worth the consequence of getting caught stealing.

  A whistle shrills and she looks up to see the silhouette of a truck a hundred or so metres away, and beside it, a German officer, presumably the one who brought them, waving his cap over his head. From her plot, she can make out two of the others, already walking in his direction. As she stands, her muscles scream. She’s spent far too many hours of the day bent at right angles. She drops the knife on top of the beets in her basket and balances the wicker handle in the crook of her elbow. Wincing, she reaches for the stem-filled sack, loops its twine strap over her opposite shoulder, and begins limping toward the truck.

  The sun has dipped behind the tree line, giving the sky a pinkish hue, as if stained by the juice of the plants she’d spent all day harvesting. She’ll need a warmer coat soon, she realises. The officer whistles again, motioning for her to pick up her pace, and she curses him under her breath. Her basket is heavy; it must weigh nearly fifteen kilos. She walks as quickly as her joints will allow her, wondering if any of the beets she’s pulled will end up in the cafeteria where her parents work. They’ve been there for a week. ‘It’s not so bad …’ her mother said after their first day, ‘… aside from having to prepare such lovely food we’ll never taste.’

  At the truck, the officer with the flyaway moustache waits with an out-stretched palm. ‘Das Messer,’ he says. Halina hands him the knife, then sets her bag and basket on the truck bed befor
e climbing up. The others are already seated, each looking as bedraggled as she. They retrieve a final worker and then hunker down for the ride home, their day’s work at their feet, too tired to talk.

  ‘Same time tomorrow,’ the German barks, as the truck slows to a stop in front of 14 Warszawska Street. It’s nearly dark. He hands Halina her papers through the window of the truck’s cab, along with a small, stale, 100-gram wedge of bread, her compensation for the day.

  ‘Danke,’ Halina says, taking the bread, trying to mask her sarcasm with a smile, but the officer refuses to look at her and speeds off before the word has left her lips. ‘Szkop,’ she whispers as she turns and hobbles toward home, fishing for a key in her coat pocket.

  Inside, Halina finds Mila in the foyer, hanging up her coat; she has just returned from the uniform workshop. Felicia sits on a Persian rug, waving a silver rattle, smiling at its tinkly sound.

  ‘My goodness,’ Mila gasps, taken aback by Halina’s appearance. ‘What on earth did they put you up to?’

  ‘I’ve been farming,’ Halina says. ‘Crawling about in the fields all day. Can you believe it?’

  ‘You – on a farm,’ Mila quips, suppressing a laugh. ‘Now there’s a thought.’

  ‘I know. It was dreadful. All I could think,’ Halina says, balanced on one foot by the door as she slips out of a shoe, wincing as she reopens a blister, ‘was if Adam could only see me, grovelling around on all fours in the dirt, like an animal! What a laugh he’d get. Look at my shoes!’ she cries. ‘God, what a mess.’ She studies her socks, marvelling at the soil they, too, have collected, peeling them off carefully so as not to sully the floor. ‘What’s that?’ she asks, pointing to a loop of fabric draped loosely around Mila’s neck.

  ‘Oh,’ Mila says, glancing at her chest, ‘I forgot I was wearing it. It’s something I made – I don’t know what you’d call it, a harness I suppose?’ She turns, pointing to where the fabric is crisscrossed between her shoulder blades. ‘I can tuck Felicia inside here.’ She turns again, pats the loop dangling down the length of her torso. ‘It keeps her concealed on the way to and from the workshop.’

  Mila brings Felicia with her to work every day, even though technically children aren’t allowed. No persons under the age of twelve in the workplace – it’s one of the Germans’ many decrees, disregard of which is punishable by death. But Mila can’t not work – everyone has to work – and it’s not as if she can leave Felicia, who’s not even a year old, alone all day in the apartment while she’s away.

  Halina admires her sister’s ingenuity, her courage. She wonders if she were in Mila’s shoes whether she would have the gall to walk into a workshop with a child strapped illegally to her breast. Mila has changed since Selim left. Halina thinks often about how, when everything was easy, motherhood was hard for Mila – and now that everything is hard, it’s a role that seems to come more naturally. It’s as if some sort of sixth sense has set in. Halina doesn’t worry any longer whether, with one more sleepless night, Mila might come undone.

  ‘Does Felicia like it in there, in her – harness?’ Halina asks.

  ‘She doesn’t seem to mind it.’

  Halina tiptoes to the kitchen as Mila begins arranging the table for dinner. Even though their meals aren’t what they used to be, Nechuma still insists that they use their silver and chinaware. ‘What does Felicia do while you’re sewing all day?’ she calls.

  ‘She plays beneath my worktable, mostly. She naps in a basket of fabric scraps. She’s been incredibly patient,’ Mila adds. The cheerfulness has evaporated from her voice.

  Bent over the kitchen sink, Halina runs water over her hands and arms, imagining her eleven-month-old niece playing beneath a table for hours on end. She wishes there were something she could do to help. ‘Nothing from Selim today?’ she asks.

  ‘No.’

  Water splashes against the sink’s metal basin, and Halina is quiet for a moment. Genek, Jakob, and Adam have all written to share their new addresses in Lvov, to check in. In their letters, they say that they haven’t seen Selim since the Soviets took over. Halina’s heart breaks for her sister. It must be impossible not knowing where her husband is, if he’s even alive. She’s tried a few times to console Mila with her own outlook – which is that no news is better than bad news – but even she knows that Selim’s disappearance can’t be a good thing.

  In his last letter, Adam had confirmed what they’d read in the Tribune and in the Radomer Leben – the papers were their only source of news now, as their radios had been confiscated – that the Polish Army in Lvov had disbanded, and the Germans had pulled out, leaving the city in the hands of the Red Army. Not terrible, was how Adam described living under the Soviets. There was plenty of work to be had, he said. He’d found a job, in fact. The pay was pitiful, but it was a job. He could find Halina one, too. And he had news – something he had to share with her in person. He signed his letter With love, and added a postscript: I think you should come to Lvov.

  Despite her apprehension of living under Soviet rule, the idea of moving to Lvov thrills Halina. She misses Adam deeply – his calm, reassuring way, his gentle, confident touch, the touch that made her realise that the boys she’d dated before him were utterly inept compared with the man that he is. She’d do anything to be with him again. Halina wonders whether his news might be a proposal. She’s twenty-two, he thirty-two. They’ve been together long enough; marriage seems the logical next step. She thinks about it often, her heart flooding at the idea of him asking for her hand and then wringing itself dry as she realises that to be with Adam would mean leaving Radom. No matter how she spins it, it doesn’t feel right to abandon her parents. With Jakob and Genek in Lvov, who else would watch out for them? Mila has Felicia to tend to, and Addy is still stuck in France – in his last letter he said he’d received orders to enlist, that in November he would be joining the army. And so that leaves only her. And anyway, even if she could justify going to Lvov for just a short while with the intention of returning, the trip itself would be nearly impossible, as the latest of the Nazi decrees has robbed her of the right to leave her home or ride the train without a special pass. For now, she has no choice. She will stay put.

  A lock rattles and Sol’s voice echoes a moment later through the apartment as he calls for his granddaughter.

  ‘Where is my peach?’

  Felicia grins and pushes herself to a wobbly stand, toddling down the hallway from the dining room, her arms extended in front of her like little magnets, pulling her to her dziadek’s arms. Halina and Mila follow behind. Felicia laughs as Sol scoops her up, growling playfully, nibbling on her shoulder until her giggles turn to squeals. Nechuma appears behind him, and Halina and Mila greet their parents, exchanging kisses.

  ‘Oh my,’ Nechuma breathes, staring at Halina’s clothes. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I’ve been harvesting. Have you ever seen me this vile?’

  Nechuma studies her youngest child, shakes her head. ‘Never.’

  ‘And you? The cafeteria?’ Halina asks, hanging up her mother’s coat.

  Nechuma holds up her thumb, wrapped in a bloodstained bandage. ‘Aside from this, it was a bore.’

  ‘Mother!’ Halina reaches for Nechuma’s hand so she can take a closer look.

  ‘I’m fine. If the Germans would give us decent knives I wouldn’t cut myself so often. But you know what? A little blood in their kartoflanka won’t kill anyone.’ She smiles, pleased at her secret.

  ‘You should be more careful,’ Halina scolds.

  Nechuma pulls her hand away and ignores the comment. ‘I have a treat for us,’ she says, extracting a handkerchief filled with a handful of potato peelings from under her blouse. ‘Just a few,’ she says, when she sees Halina’s eyebrows jump. ‘I’ve peeled them thick. Look, we’ve got nearly half a potato here.’

  Halina stares. ‘You stole them? From the cafeteria?’

  ‘No one saw me.’

  ‘But what if they had?’ Halina’s tone is h
arsh, probably too harsh. It’s not like her to speak like that to her mother and she knows she should apologise, but she doesn’t. It was one thing for Mila to sneak an infant into her workplace – she has no alternative but to do so – but another for her mother to steal from the Germans and then shrug it off.

  The room is silent. Halina, Mila, and their parents all look at one another, their gazes forming a square. Finally, Mila speaks. ‘It’s okay, Halina, we need it. Felicia is a skeleton, look at her. Mother, thank you. Come, let’s make soup.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  Jakob and Bella

  Lvov, Soviet-Occupied Poland ~ October 24, 1939

  Bella steps carefully so as not to clip the backs of Anna’s heels. The sisters move slowly, deliberately, talking in whispers. It’s nine in the evening, and the streets are empty. There isn’t a curfew in Lvov as there is in Radom, but the blackout is still in effect, and with the street lamps extinguished, it’s nearly impossible to see.

  ‘I can’t believe we didn’t bring a flashlight,’ Bella whispers. ‘I walked the route earlier today,’ Anna says. ‘Just stay close, I know where I’m going.’

  Bella smiles. Slinking through backstreets in the pale blue light of the moon reminds her of the nights she and Jakob used to tiptoe at two in the morning from their apartments to make love in the park under the chestnut trees.

  ‘It’s just here,’ Anna whispers.