We Were the Lucky Ones

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 centimeters from the door. Taking a slow, deep breath, she licks her lips and taps her knuckles 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 realizes 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 traveling 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 mobilized 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 kilometers 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 color 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.

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