“Do you still see Ayala and her family?” Annie asks.
Elida smiles. “Every day. You see, I married Ayala’s oldest son, Will. And now, our families are one forever.”
“That’s incredible,” I breathe. I smile at Elida’s grandmother, who blinks a few times and smiles back. I think about how many lives she changed when she and her husband made the decision to shelter a Jewish family, despite the fact that they could have lost their lives because of it. “Thank you so much for telling us your story.”
“Oh, but the story is not finished,” Elida says. She smiles, reaches into her pocket, and withdraws a folded piece of paper, which she hands to me.
“What is this?” I ask as I begin to unfold it.
“It is Besa,” she says. “You are looking for Jacob Levy, and your request came to me. My husband, Will, the son of Ayala, who my grandmother saved nearly seventy years ago, is a police officer. I asked him to do this favor, and he found your Jacob Levy, born in Paris, France, on Christmas Day 1924.” She nods at the piece of paper in my hand. “That is his address. As of a year ago, he was living in New York City.”
“Wait,” Annie interrupts. She grabs the piece of paper from me and stares at it. “You found Jacob Levy? My grandmother’s Jacob Levy?”
Elida smiles. “I believe so. His information matches the details your mother provided.” She turns to me. “Now you must go find him.”
“How can we ever thank you?” I ask, my voice trembling.
“There is no need to,” Elida says. “Besa is our honor. Just promise us that you won’t forget what you learned here today.”
“Never,” Annie says right away. She hands the piece of paper back to me, and her eyes are wide as saucers. “Thank you, Mrs. White. We’ll never, ever forget. I promise.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Cinnamon Almond Cookies
INGREDIENTS
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. almond extract
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup cinnamon sugar （3/4 cup granulated sugar mixed with 1/4 cup cinnamon）
DIRECTIONS
1. In a large bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Add the eggs and almond extract and beat until well combined.
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt, and add to the butter mixture, approximately 1/2 cup at a time, beating after each addition, until well combined.
3. Divide the dough into 5 parts and roll into logs, wrap each in plastic wrap, and freeze until firm.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
5. Spread cinnamon sugar in a shallow dish. Unwrap logs and roll them in the sugar until liberally coated.
6. Slice the logs 1/4-inch thick and place slices on greased baking sheets. Bake for 18–20 minutes.
7. Cool for 5 minutes on baking sheet, then transfer to racks to cool.
Rose
Once, very long ago, when Rose was four years old, her parents had taken her, along with her sister Helene, to Aubergenville, not far from Paris, for a week in the countryside. Her mother was very pregnant that summer of 1929; Claude would be born just six weeks later. But for those glimmering summer moments in the sun, it was just Rose and Helene, four and five years old, the objects of their parents’ attention and affection.
Helene had been charged with watching her younger sister, while her parents sipped white wine on the back deck of the small home they were renting from friends for a week. They were not watching when Helene took Rose around the corner of the house, to the little creek that babbled by.
“Let us go in the water,” Helene said, taking her sister by the hand. Rose hesitated. Maman and Papa would be angry, she thought. But Helene insisted, reminding Rose of the stories their mother read them at bedtime about the family of ducks who lived along the banks of the Seine. “The ducks go swimming all the time, and it is fine,” Helene told her. “Do not be such a baby, Rose.”
And so Rose followed her sister into the water. But the calm surface was deceptive; there was a current running underneath, and as soon as Rose stepped in, she felt it sucking at her toes, pulling her under, taking her away. She did not know how to swim. She was suddenly underwater, thrust into another world, where there was no air, almost no sound. She tried to scream, but the water only filled her lungs. It was dark beneath the surface, dark and unfamiliar. She could see light far away, far above her, but she couldn’t seem to get to it. Her limbs were heavy and wouldn’t move, and in these strange, watery depths, she felt that time was suspended. Until the moment her father pulled her to the surface, called there by her screaming sister just in time, she had been sure she would disappear into the murky, muted world forever.