“You’re not. You’re just tired. Why don’t you call for Estia. She’s all done in the kitchen; she can help while we finish our meal.”
“That’s a good idea.” Mila sighs, relieved. She leaves Felicia with Nechuma while she goes off to find the maid. When she and Nechuma return to their seats, Mila glances at Selim. “Okay?” he mouths, and she nods.
Sol spoons a mound of horseradish onto a piece of matzah, and the others do the same. Soon, he is singing again. When the blessing of the korekh is complete, it’s time, finally, to eat. Platters are passed, and the dining room is filled with the murmur of conversation and the scrape of silver spoons on china as dishes are piled high with salted herring, roasted chicken, potato kugel, and sweet apple charoset. The family sips wine and talks quietly, gingerly avoiding the subject of war, and wondering aloud of Addy’s whereabouts.
At the sound of Addy’s name, the ache creeps back into Nechuma’s chest, bringing with it an orchestra of worries. He has been arrested. Incarcerated. Deported. He is hurt. Afraid. He hasn’t a way to contact her. She glances again at her son’s empty seat. Where are you, Addy? She bites her lip. Don’t, she admonishes, but it’s too late. She’s been drinking her wine too quickly and has lost her edge. Her throat closes and the table melts into a blurry swath of white. Her tears are poised to flow when she feels a hand over hers, beneath the table. Jakob’s. “It’s the horseradish root,” she whispers, waving her free hand in front of her face, blinking. “Gets me every time.” She dabs discreetly at the corners of her eyes with her napkin. Jakob nods knowingly and squeezes her hand.
—
Months later, in a different world, Nechuma will look back on this evening, the last Passover when they were nearly all together, and wish with every cell in her body that she could relive it. She will remember the familiar smell of the gefilte, the chink of silver on porcelain, the taste of parsley, briny and bitter on her tongue. She will long for the touch of Felicia’s baby-soft skin, the weight of Jakob’s hand on hers beneath the table, the wine-induced warmth in the pit of her belly that begged her to believe that everything might actually turn out all right in the end. She will remember how happy Halina had looked at the piano after their meal, how they had danced together, how they all spoke of missing Addy, assuring each other that he’d be home soon. She will replay it all, over and over again, every beautiful moment of it, and savor it, like the last perfect klapsa pears of the season.
AUGUST 23, 1939: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign the Molotov-Ribbentrop Nonaggression Pact, a secret agreement outlining specific boundaries for the future division of much of Northern and Eastern Europe between German and Soviet powers.
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939: Germany invades Poland. Two days later, in response, Britain, France, Australia, and New Zealand declare war on Germany. World War II in Europe begins.
CHAPTER FOUR
Bella
Radom, Poland ~ September 7, 1939
Bella sits upright, knees pulled to her chest, a handkerchief balled in her fist. She can just make out the square-cornered silhouette of a leather suitcase by her bedroom door. Jakob is perched on the edge of the bed by her feet, the cold nighttime air still clinging to the tweed of his overcoat. She wonders if her parents had heard him climbing the stairs to their second-story flat, tiptoeing down the hallway to her room. She had given Jakob a key to the flat years ago so he could visit when he pleased, but he’d never been so bold as to come at this hour. She pushes her toes into the space between the mattress and his thigh.
“They’re sending us to Lvov to fight,” Jakob says, out of breath. “If anything should happen, let’s meet there.” Bella searches for Jakob’s face in the shadows, but all she can see is the oval of his jawline, the dim whites of his eyes.
“Lvov,” she whispers, nodding. Bella’s younger sister, Anna, and her new husband, Daniel, live in Lvov, a city 350 kilometers southeast of Radom. Anna had been begging Bella to consider moving closer to her, but Bella knew she couldn’t leave Jakob. In the eight years that they’ve known each other, they’ve never lived more than four hundred meters apart.
Jakob reaches for her hands, laces his fingers between hers. He brings them to his mouth and kisses them. The gesture reminds Bella of the day he first told her he loved her. They’d held hands, fingers entwined as they sat facing each other on a blanket spread across the grass in Ko?ciuszki Park. She was sixteen.
“You’re it, beautiful,” Jakob had said softly. His words were so pure, the expression in his hazel eyes so unadulterated, she’d wanted to cry, even though back then she’d wondered what a boy so young thought he knew about love. Today, at twenty-two, she isn’t surer of anything. Jakob is the man she’ll spend her life with. And now he’s leaving Radom, without her.
“How—how will you get there?” Her voice is soft. She’s afraid that if she raises it, it will crack, and the sob percolating at the base of her throat will escape. The clock in the corner sounds a single toll and she and Jakob flinch, as if stung by a pair of invisible wasps.
“We’ve been told to meet at the train station at a quarter past one,” Jakob says, glancing toward the door, letting his hands slip from hers. He cups his palms over her knees. His touch is cool through the cotton of her nightgown. “I have to go.” He leans his chest against her shins, rests his forehead on hers. “I love you,” he breathes, the tips of their noses touching. “More than anything.” She closes her eyes as he kisses her. It’s over too quickly. When she opens her eyes, Jakob is gone, and her cheeks are wet.
Bella climbs out of bed and walks to the window, the wooden floorboards cold and smooth beneath her bare feet. Pulling the curtain aside a touch, she stares down at Witolda Boulevard two stories below, scanning for a sign of life—the flicker of a flashlight, anything—but the city has been blacked out for weeks; even the street lamps are extinguished. She can see nothing. It’s as if she’s staring into an abyss. She jiggles the window open, this time closing her eyes for a moment as she listens for footsteps, for the far-off whine of a German dive-bomber. But the street, like the sky above, is empty, the silence heavy.