Long Way Home(34)
The Joint Committee paid for our support, providing enough money for us to rent a small apartment. Sam’s family moved into the same building, right across the hall from us. We owned nothing except the contents of the suitcases we’d brought with us on the St. Louis, and we spent the remainder of June trying to set up housekeeping again. Little by little, throughout the month of July, we began to reclaim the lives we’d lost when the Nazis came to power. Sam and I explored Antwerp together, drinking coffee in the cafés in the Grote Markt or strolling through the city’s lovely parks or even going to the cinema to help us learn Flemish. It was a new experience for us to be able to roam freely without fear of being accosted and beaten by Hitler Youth. There were no restrictions against Jewish people, no hateful propaganda posters or signs that said No dogs or Jews. And yet I felt as though I was moving forward on thin ice, testing each step, afraid to put on skates and glide effortlessly, unable to believe we were truly free.
Throughout the pleasant summer months, Sam’s father wrote countless letters to his wife as they debated whether or not he should leave Cuba to join his family in Belgium. Mr. Shapiro told us that while we’d been waiting on board the ship in Havana Harbor, the Nazi Party in Cuba had flooded the island with propaganda against Jews, arousing public opinion against allowing us to land. And after the United States and Canada refused us entry, the Nazis had bragged to the world that they had been right about us—nobody wanted dirty Jews in his country. In the end, the question of moving to Belgium was settled for Sam’s father when he was denied entrance because of the deluge of immigrants already flooding the small country. Sam would continue to be responsible for his mother and brothers. He found a part-time job delivering furniture for a Jewish-owned store to help support them and applied to study at a school in Antwerp in the fall.
In August, Sam and I were returning home from the English classes we attended together in the synagogue when my parents and Sam’s mother asked us to sit down in our tiny kitchen for a conversation. “My dear children,” Vati began, “Mutti and I and Mrs. Shapiro have been talking, and we all agree that it isn’t wise for you two to spend all of your free time together the way you’ve been doing and as you did on the ship.”
A cold dread filled my heart. I was holding Sam’s hand and I gripped it tighter beneath the table. “We know you love each other,” Vati continued. “And we believe your love is genuine. But you’re much too young for such an intense relationship and certainly for marriage. Now that we’re all free again, we want to urge you to make some new friends and spend time with other young people your age. Gisela, you need to finish your education—and didn’t you once think of becoming a nurse? Sam, you will be enrolling in the university when that becomes possible, so you both have many years of study ahead. You’re so young, and you’ll have the rest of your lives to be together and be responsible for each other. Why not enjoy these last few years of your youth instead of suffocating each other?”
Neither of us replied right away. The kitchen faucet dripped like a ticking clock. I couldn’t look at Sam. My insides squeezed as if gripped by a fist, as I fought a surge of panic. It was the same panic I’d felt after we were sent to different hotels on our first night in Belgium. The anxiety returned whenever we were apart for too long, and the fear would arise inside me that I would never see Sam again. Suffocating? It was the opposite. I couldn’t breathe when we were apart. And now our parents wanted us to spend less time together? Did Sam share their opinion? Did he think we were suffocating each other? I swallowed my tears as I waited for him to reply.
“May I ask you a question, Mr. Wolff?” Sam said at last. “How did you meet Gisela’s mother? Was it arranged by a matchmaker?”
“No, we met at a wedding. Her cousin was marrying my best friend. I saw Elise across the room and thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.” He looked at Mutti and she seemed to glow as he reached to take her hand. As a child, I’d seen their deep love for each other, and I had watched it grow even stronger under all the pressure we’d endured.
“And how long was it,” Sam asked, “before you knew that you wanted her beside you for the rest of your life?”
Vati nodded and held up his hand. “I understand what you’re saying, Sam—and it was, in fact, only a matter of months. But I was seven years older than you are right now, and my wife was four years older than Gisela is. We both had completed our educations. All we’re saying is that for the next few years you need to have interests in life aside from each other.”
“Are you going to forbid us to be together?”
“Not at all. But will you at least consider what we’re asking? Spend time with other friends. You don’t need to see each other every day. Especially once Gisela starts classes in the fall.”
Sam and I loved our parents. We knew we had a duty to obey them. As hard as it would be to spend time apart, we reluctantly agreed. Vati helped Sam find a study partner at the synagogue, a young man his age named Aaron Goldberg, and they began learning Gemara with the rabbi. It was through Aaron that Sam was introduced to the Zionist organization in Antwerp. They attended meetings together, and afterwards I would sit outside with them on the steps of our apartment and listen to their long discussions on warm summer nights. I watched Sam’s growing interest in the movement to resettle in the ancient land of Israel.