The Last Embrace (5 page)

Only one day he didn't. At first Mamma tried to be cheerful. “He's just gone to see friends,” she reassured. But a night passed, then another, and then she forgot to maintain her pretense of calm. She left me with Nonna and did not return by morning. I tried to pray in the darkness at night for their safe return. Please, I said over and over again, because I did not know any other words. It seemed to work, because two days later Mamma came back. She was pale and drawn—and still alone. She took to her bed. Nonna ran for the doctor.

A few days later, Mamma emerged, but her stomach no longer swelled as much. “Is Papa still with friends?” I asked.

Mamma shook her head. “No,” she replied bluntly, not bothering to cushion the truth. “He's been arrested.” My heart froze. I'd seen a man once, taken from the street by the police. People whispered that he would not come back. I prayed more, adding more
please
s until I was saying the word a thousand times each night before finally falling asleep.

Papa did return a week later, walking through the door as unexpectedly as he had disappeared. He looked the same, right down to the same clothes, now dirty and creased. He'd even managed to keep the mizpah heart and not have it taken. But he fell into a chair with a wince that suggested he was hurting on the inside, and a haunted look in his eyes that did not go away. He did not return to his work after that but wrote from home, welcoming in the occasional visitor. Instead it was Mamma who took to the streets, leafleting and attending meetings and protests against the Fascist regime, calling for elections.

I jumped as a drop of cold water hit my back and the vision evaporated. I rolled over. Liam stood over me, a mischievous grin in his eye. He had come up from the water's edge, shaking droplets of water from his hair like a wet dog.

“Why, Addie,” he drawled. “You haven't even gotten wet. You're missing all of the fun.”

“I'm fine,” I protested, but he reached down and picked me up. I tried to pull away but his wiry grip was surprisingly strong.

“Liam Scott Connally, don't you dare!” his mother began to admonish, but it was too late. Her voice faded as Liam carried me toward the water. “Please put me down,” I begged, flailing. But he stared straight ahead, not listening. The boy who just hours earlier had protected me from a neighbor's wrath over a broken window was now my tormentor.

I closed my eyes, knowing what was coming next. The waves thundered in my ears, a sound I had heard thousands of times in my nightmares. Water splashed around Liam's ankles as they reached the surf, kicking up the icy spray against my bare skin. Then he let me go. I screamed as cold darkness enveloped me. I reached wildly for the bottom, trying without success to find my footing. A powerful wave slammed into me from behind, tossing me like a ball until I could no long figure out which way was up. I flailed my arms, panicking. Water filled my nose and mouth, salt where air should have been.

Suddenly I was lifted to the surface. “Hey.” Charlie's strong arms encircled me, holding me close as I coughed the water from my burning lungs. “It's okay. I've got you.” He had reached me in a few long strokes. “Easy.” His voice was soothing. He raised me higher as a wave lifted them so it would not break on me. “I've got you.” I did not answer, but leaned my head against the wetness of his chest, still trying to catch my breath.

A second later Jack reached us. “Addie, are you okay?”

“That was so cool,” Robbie exclaimed, dog-paddling up from behind. He and Jack followed Charlie as he carried me to shore.

Charlie neared the beach blanket and set me down gently. Mrs. Connally wrapped a towel around me. “Liam, how could you?” she demanded. “Addie, are you all right, dear?”

“It was a joke,” Liam replied defensively.

“You idiot,” Charlie swore. Liam's face crumpled and he slumped forward, as though he had been punched in the stomach. Clearly his older brother's opinion meant everything.

I nodded and assured Mrs. Connally I was fine. A man carrying a white ice cooler on his back walked down the beach calling out, “Ice cream!” Mrs. Connally fished in her bag for coins. “Come with me, boys,” she said, standing. Robbie and Jack started after her. Liam hung back, watching Charlie, as if wanting to make what he had done all right. But Charlie did not look away from me, until finally Liam followed the others reluctantly.

Charlie put a hand on my shoulder and slid closer. “You want to talk about it?”

My trembling eased slightly. “There's nothing to tell.” I fought the urge to put my head on his shoulder. Though I'd only just met Charlie, he seemed to have a way of making everything okay—even the beach.

“But Trieste is on the coast, isn't it? You've lived by the water your whole life. You can't swim at all?”

“I don't know,” I confessed, pulling the towel closer around me. “I can't even breathe when I get near the ocean.”

“I could try to help you.”

“No, thanks.”

“You're not ready. I understand.” I wanted to tell him I never would be. “I hope you'll come to the beach with us anyway. 'Cause I promise,” he added, shooting a murderous look down the beach toward Liam, “that what happened today will never happen again.”

I was losing the battle to stay awake in civics class as Mrs. Lowenstein droned on about wartime production in Britain. I blinked against heavy eyelids, but the polka dots of her dress seemed to blend together, making my vision swim. Normally I enjoyed the class, which purported to be about the past two centuries of history, but in fact focused unabashedly on the war in Europe. But Mrs. Lowenstein's monotone recitation of facts about steel manufacturing today hardly seemed relevant.

The rest of summer had passed much like that first day with the Connallys, afternoons on the beach with the boys and trips to the boardwalk in the evening. But then the days began to shorten and we only had a bit of time on our Schwinn bikes after dinner before the sun dropped low to the bay. There was a tiny release in the humidity, like air leaking from a balloon.

One day I spied Aunt Bess taking out a large box. “What are you doing?”

“Packing. It's only a week until we return to the city and we have to register you for school.” Life at the shore was all that I had known here. I had almost forgotten about Philadelphia.

“What grade will I be in?”

Aunt Bess looked confused. “I suppose they'll have to test you.”

“Will I need to bring my own school supplies? How will I get there?” I piled my questions on top of one another, realizing from her expression that she did not know the answer. She had not done this before either.

She paused to set down the pile of shirts she'd been packing, then swiped at her brow. “I suppose,” she said, “we will have to figure out all of this together.”

“I don't want to go,” I had burst out to Jack as he helped me through Steinbeck's
Of Mice and Men
on the porch of his family's beach house that evening.

“We're not that far from you in the city,” Jack offered. “We might even have classes together.” But I was not consoled—it was not the same as being next door, hearing their laughter through the open window as I fell asleep.

I waited until a few days after we returned to the city to ask. “I want to go see the Connallys.” We had just finished supper at Aunt Bess and Uncle Meyer's house on Porter Street in the small dining room sandwiched in between the parlor in front and kitchen in back. The row house was so narrow I could almost touch both sides with my arms outstretched.

We'd moved into the parlor after eating, sitting three across on the flowered, slip-covered sofa, facing the fireplace we never used. Aunt Bess may have tried to seem American outside, but the house was filled with tarnished framed photos of grandparents and other relatives from the old country and the Shabbes candlesticks and Kiddush cup sat on the mantel.

Aunt Bess was reading
Home Chat
magazine while Uncle Meyer smoked his cigar and listened studiously to the news on the radio. I had waited until after the weather report to bring up the Connallys. Uncle Meyer followed the forecasts and their accuracy as studiously as though he was embarking on a great sea voyage. Even Aunt Bess, who spoke at him constantly, did not talk during the weather. But I had to ask quickly; after the news, Uncle Meyer would retreat to the basement, where he'd constructed an elaborate model railroad, complete with farms and a town, stretching nearly the length of the parlor above. I wondered if he wished I'd been a boy so he might have someone to share it with.

“I have their address,” I added hopefully.

“You can't go,” Aunt Bess replied distractedly, bending to smooth the area rug which was a bit frayed at the edges. “It's practically across town.”

I had looked at a street map and knew this wasn't true. “It's no farther than walking to school. I can do it.” It was the first time since coming here that I had spoken up for something I wanted and it felt good.

“The Irish neighborhood is dangerous,” Aunt Bess replied.

“Why?” I pressed. I did not want to be rude to my aunt and uncle, who had done so much for me, but I could not leave it alone.

“They don't like Jews,” she replied bluntly. So she had not been speaking of crime, but of the hatred of Jews that existed here as surely as it had back home in Italy.

“But the Connallys aren't like that.” She shook her head, unconvinced. My heart sank. “Uncle Meyer?” He lowered the newspaper, blinking with surprise at being included in the conversation. Normally it was Aunt Bess who did all the talking. My uncle could not be more different from Papa, who was a decade younger and so fiery—or had been, at least, before his arrest. “Do you think I can go?”

My uncle adjusted one of the two pens that always protruded from his shirt pocket, then glanced over at Aunt Bess before answering. “It's different here,” he said, his voice stilted. “This isn't like at the shore. The goyim and the Jews...people are separate.”

“Why?”

He took off his glasses and rubbed at a speck of dirt, fumbling for an answer. “That's just the way it is. There are lots of nice kids right here on the block. You should be with your own kind, especially now.” He stopped awkwardly. He was talking, of course, of the things that were going on in Europe. The Germans had continued their march across the continent, seeming to occupy another country each week. Hitler hated the Jews, was banning them from schools and professions and even the streetcars. There were stories of arrests. And Italy had allied itself with Germany, which meant things were worse now, too, in Trieste. My stomach tightened. My parents had been persecuted for their political activity—they were hardly religious at all. But Hitler would not see it that way—a Jew was a Jew.

“About that...” I licked my lips, changing to the other subject I'd been wanting to ask them about. “I heard on the radio about a program offering visas for some refugees. Maybe my mother and father would qualify.”

My aunt and uncle exchanged a look. “Getting visas for your parents isn't the problem,” Uncle Meyer said gently. My spirits lifted. “We offered to arrange it a long time ago. They want to stay in Trieste and keep doing their work.” Uncle Meyer's voice was even scratchier than usual. He had left Italy when he was fifteen and made his way here alone. His skin was a shade more olive than most here, but beyond that did not have the slightest accent or trace of the old country. He had not looked back. He still cared for his brother, though, and it pained him that he could not bring my father to safety.

“Oh.” I looked away. All this time I'd assumed that Mamma and Papa could not come, and that they would follow when their papers were ready, like Mamma had said. But the truth was that their work mattered more than I did. It always had.

“When all of the fighting is over, I'm sure they'll come.” Aunt Bess spoke as though the war was wrapping up. She had not seen, though, the things I had before leaving, the way people over there were stocking up supplies and digging hiding spots ahead of the armies rolling in.

I swiped at my stinging eyes, then stood and walked upstairs to my room. It was tiny, no more than a large closet that could just hold a twin bed and dresser. But Aunt Bess prepared the way she thought a girl my age would like, with pink flowered sheets and curtains. She and Uncle Meyer were trying their best, but it wasn't the same as my own family.

I reached for the photograph of my mother and father, which sat in a frame on the corner of the dresser. When we'd come to Philadelphia from the beach, I'd been surprised to see this photo of my parents by the seaside on the mantel above the fireplace. “They sent it right after they were married,” Aunt Bess had told me. “Why don't you put it in your room?” I ran my finger over the image. They looked so young and carefree.

So my parents wanted to stay in Italy—or had anyway, the last time we'd been able to reach them. I wrote to them each week, but so far there had been no reply. “Overseas post is so unreliable,” Uncle Meyer offered, to try to explain the lack of a response. I was not consoled. Things might have worsened for them and they could be trying desperately to leave.

I set down the photo. There was a section of newspaper from yesterday's
Bulletin
on the top of the dresser as well. I picked it up, along with the dictionary beside it. I'd been working through the paper at Jack's suggestion as a way to improve my English. But the story, about refugees displaced by fighting in France, just made my heart ache worse. In my memories, my childhood in Trieste was idyllic. That was gone now, though, and the reality, of war and violence and suffering, leapt off the pages at me. What was life like for Mamma and Papa now?

The doorbell rang and I looked up from the paper. Visitors were constant on Porter Street, neighboring women dropping by to borrow a cup of sugar or share the latest bit of gossip, and men from the tiny shul on the corner of Porter Street needing Uncle Meyer for the minyan, the ten men required to pray on Shabbes. “Good evening, sir.” Joy surged through me as Charlie's rich, familiar voice flowed up the stairwell. I dropped the dictionary and leapt up, then smoothed my hair, hoping the smell of Uncle Meyer's cigar did not linger about me.

“I was just in the area,” I heard Charlie explain. It was, of course, a lie. He had no cause to be in our neighborhood, far from his own home. It was as if he'd heard me calling out for him. “And I thought...” He stopped midsentence as he saw me at the top of the stairs. I had seen him just days earlier at the beach, but here, dressed more formally in chinos and a collared shirt with his hair held in place by a bit of pomade, he seemed somehow older—and even more handsome. “Hi, Addie. Would you like to come over for ice cream?”

Trying to contain my excitement, I turned to my aunt. “May I?”

“I don't know.” She looked at Uncle Meyer uncertainly, hesitant to be rude to Charlie by saying no outright. “It's so far, and she doesn't know the neighborhood.” Her voice was heavy with concern. My heart sank. They were going to say no.

“I will walk her there and back personally, sir,” Charlie said, voice solemn and low. There was something about him that could be trusted.

Uncle Meyer relented. “Fine, but have her home by eight.”

“Don't overstay your welcome,” my aunt cautioned in a low voice, and I wondered if she was just talking about the Connallys or if I had somehow been a burden here, too. I tried to stay neat and out of the way, not cause extra work or expense.

Charlie held the door and I hurried past before my aunt and uncle could change their minds. Outside, it was still warm and neighbors sat on their porches or marble steps, smoking and watching the children play handball in the street. They stared curiously as we made our way down the block. Everyone knew about the immigrant girl from Italy who had come this summer to live here—but who was this goy walking with her?

Charlie seemed not to notice, whistling a bit as we reached the corner, passing the barbershop where Uncle Meyer and the other men played cards. I glanced at Charlie out of the corner of my eye, trying not to stare. “Mom thought you might like to come over.”

“Oh.” I'd wanted it to be his idea.

“But I offered to be the one to come get you.” My spirits lifted again, riding the endless roller coaster I'd boarded the day I'd spied the Connallys across the rooming house yard.

I followed him northeast and the streets grew wide and unfamiliar. The Irish neighborhood ran close to the shipyard and soot-covered dockworkers made their way home, empty lunch tins in hand. “Careful.” Charlie grabbed my arm to guide me around a pothole at the curb. I shivered at the contact. Then the sidewalk grew even and he let go of my arm once more. Finally he stopped at a corner house with bright yellow curtains and a small garden of flowers beside the front step. “This is it.”

But the lights of the house in front of us were darkened. Perhaps the others had gone out. I followed Charlie inside uncertainly. Did he mean for us to be alone? “Surprise!” Lights flickered on and the Connallys stood around their dining room table, a cake before them aglow with candles.

“Got her,” Charlie said, sounding as if he'd gone to the grocery store for milk.

“Addie!” Robbie cried, running to me and wrapping himself around my waist.

I was too surprised to respond. Robbie had asked me once at the shore when my birthday was, but I hadn't thought anyone else had heard, or might remember. As they sang to me, a chorus of smiling faces, illuminated by candlelight, my mind whirled. September 9, my seventeenth birthday, was still three days away and Aunt Bess had mentioned something vaguely about going out to dinner on Sunday to celebrate.

But I hadn't expected this. Mrs. Connally served the cake. It was just big enough to hold the candles that had been crammed on top, and there was a tiny slice for each of us when it was cut up, none leftover for seconds. It was homemade, though, right down to the wobbly writing that said Robbie had helped. I had not had a real cake since Nonna made one for my twelfth birthday in Trieste. After she was gone Mamma had been too busy with her causes to manage more than tiramisu from the café down the street. And Aunt Bess, for all of her good intentions, could not bake and relied on store-bought Entenmann's. This was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted.