The World That We Knew(13)

Lea had been awake for hours. Once she’d found that her mother was gone, she stationed herself at the window, in a panic. She had been changed into a girl who expected the worst. She thought of the fierce look on her mother’s face in the alleyway, and worried what Hanni might do next. Perhaps there was some evidence against her that had come to light, an eyewitness to what had happened in the alleyway had come forth, or some neighbor willing to turn her in, in order to save himself.

When Hanni appeared in the dim courtyard, Lea called out to her grandmother. “She’s come home!”

And not alone, it seemed, for a tall, dark young woman followed her into the building. As soon as Bobeshi spied Ava from her window, she knew the miracle had been accomplished. It was an amazing achievement, but it brought its own sorrow. The time for Lea to leave had arrived.

“Pack up anything that matters,” Bobeshi told her granddaughter. “The suitcase is under the bed.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Lea insisted. But when she saw her grandmother’s dark expression she did not dare to argue.

By now Hanni had unlocked the apartment, and Lea ran to embrace her mother. She had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Bobeshi said I should pack.”

“You should,” Hanni said. “Right now.”

“And when will you pack?” Lea asked.

Hanni turned to the woman lingering in the doorway. “Come in. Come in,” Hanni told her before turning back to Lea. “Here is your cousin, Ava. Say hello.”

In time Lea would forget how suspicious and angry she was and would come to remember the details of this day as if a light had poured over them. She would forget the way she glared at the stranger, and how she had taken a step back, as if ready to run and hide. Instead she would recall the blue pot of soup on the stove, the ticking of the clock on the mantel, the way Bobeshi covered her face so no one would see her cry, the stranger’s heavy boots, more suited to a man than to a young, pretty woman, her mother’s dark hair swept up with tortoiseshell combs, the sadness in her eyes, the gauzy curtains that made it seem as if the world was still the same, if you narrowed your eyes, if you didn’t look too closely, if you managed to still have hope in the world.

“I didn’t know we had cousins.” Lea was cautious. Too much was happening all at once. The world was turned upside down and nothing made sense.

“You have many,” Hanni insisted. “You’ve just never met them. You’ll be visiting cousins who live in Paris.”

Hanni turned away so that her daughter wouldn’t see her eyes brimming with tears. It didn’t matter. Lea saw her mother as she was, fierce as always, but broken inside.

“Where will you be?” Lea asked.

“I’ll be here, taking care of Bobeshi.”

Bright tears burned in Lea’s eyes. “Then I will be, too.”

“No,” Hanni said. “You must honor your mother, as I honor mine. This is not a choice. You must do as I say.”

“You’ll send me away alone?”

“Of course not. You’ll be safe with Ava. She will follow you to the ends of the earth. And she’s stronger than a hundred horsemen. What you ask her to do, she will do without question.”

“I won’t go,” Lea cried. “You can’t make me.”

Without thinking Hanni slapped her daughter, the love of her life, the child she would have done anything for. Lea put a palm to her cheek, confused by her own feelings.

Hanni sank to her knees, reaching to take the girl’s face in her hands. “I need you to do as I say.”

Perhaps her mother blamed her for what had happened with the soldier and this was her punishment, to be sent away.

“When you travel you will no longer be yourself,” Hanni told her.

She would be Lillie Perrin, a Catholic accompanied by her cousin Ava. Jews were no longer issued visas or allowed to travel outside the country, and if asked she must remember an unfamiliar prayer to prove her identity.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.



That evening they shared the last pot of Hardship Soup. It was made only of cabbage and water, for there were no longer any spices. Ava lifted Bobeshi from bed and carried her so she could sit at the table, something she hadn’t been able to do for more than two years.

Bobeshi kissed Ava in gratitude. The kiss was sweet and pure. “She is the one,” Bobeshi declared.

“Why is she so strong?” Lea asked her mother.

“Because she needs to be,” Hanni told her daughter.

In the midst of the heartbreak of what was to be their last dinner, Hanni took out a small paper box. Inside was a gift she’d planned to give her daughter on her thirteenth birthday. Now she understood that they would not be together on that day.

Hanni had considered this gift carefully, ordering it before the Jewish jewelry stores had been closed down, forced to turn over their gold and silver to the government. The charm she’d had fashioned was a silver triangle marked with Lea’s birth date and three Jewish stars. On the back there was the mystical letter hey, the most mysterious symbol in the Hebrew alphabet, which in the ancient world could mean thread or window or fence or behold. It was made up of three lines to represent the three aspects of humanity: the physical world, the spoken word, and the soul. It was one of the names of God. It was protection, it was love, it was a secret, it was the beginning, it was the end.