Pembroke, I know, is just off the highway on the South Shore, on the way to Boston. It would take me just under an hour and a half to get there. But I don’t understand why I need to go if they haven’t found Jacob Levy in their records.
“I’m afraid today isn’t going to work,” I say. “I run a bakery, and we’re open until four.”
“So come after you close,” the woman says right away. “Come for dinner.”
I pause. “I appreciate the invitation, but—”
She cuts me off. “Please. My grandmother would like to meet you. She is in her nineties. She is a Muslim, and she too sheltered Jews during the war.”
My heartbeat picks up. “She’s from Paris too?”
“No,” the woman says. “We are from Albania. You know, the Albanian Muslims, they saved more than two thousand of our Jewish brothers and sisters. When I told her the story of your Jacob Levy, she was astonished. She did not know that there were Muslims in Paris who had done the same. Please, she would like you to come tell her your story, and she would like to tell you her story in return.”
I glance at Annie, who is looking at me hopefully. “May I bring my daughter?” I ask.
“Of course,” Elida says immediately. “She is most welcome, as are you. And once we have shared stories, we will help you find this Jacob, okay? My grandmother says she knows how important it is to meet the past, here in the present.”
“Hold on,” I say. I put my hand over the receiver and briefly explain Elida’s request to Annie.
“We have to go, Mom,” she says solemnly. “That lady’s grandma sounds just like Mamie. Except from Albania instead of France. And Muslim instead of Jewish. We should go talk to her.”
I look at my daughter for a moment and realize she’s right. My grandmother is lying in a coma, but Elida’s grandmother is still able to talk. We may never get the full story of what happened to my grandmother, but perhaps hearing from another woman from the same time period, who was involved in a situation similar to Mamie’s, will help us to understand.
“Okay,” I tell Elida. “We’ll be there around six. What’s your address?”
Annie invites Alain to come with us to Pembroke, but he says that he’ll stay behind with Mamie instead. We swing by the hospital to sit with Mamie for a few minutes, then Annie and I set off again, after promising to pick Alain up on our way home. He’s managed to charm the night nurses at the hospital into looking the other way when it comes to their visitation policies; they all know his story and that he has been separated from his sister for nearly seventy years.
It’s a few minutes past six when we pull off the highway in Pembroke. We find Elida’s house easily enough, thanks to the directions she gave us. It’s a blue, white-shuttered, two-story home in a small, well-kept neighborhood just behind a Catholic church. Annie and I exchange looks, get out of the car, and ring the doorbell.
The woman who opens the door and introduces herself as Elida is older than I’d expected; she looks like she’s in her midforties. Her skin is pale, and she has thick, black hair that tumbles down her back, nearly to her waist. I’ve never met anyone from Albania, but she looks like what I’d expect someone from Greece or Italy to look like.
“Welcome to our home,” she says, shaking my hand first, and then Annie’s. Her eyes are deep and brown, and her smile is kind. “It is just my grandmother and me here tonight. My husband, Will, is working. Please, come in.”
I hand her the box of miniature Star Pies I’ve brought for dessert, and after she thanks me, we follow her inside, down a hallway lined with black-and-white photographs of people I assume are her family members. She tells us that in Albania, the main meal of the day is lunch, but that tonight, they’ve made a special dinner. “I hope you like fish,” she says, turning around slightly. “I have prepared an old family recipe that my grandmother used to make in Albania.”
“Sure,” I say, and Annie nods. “You didn’t have to go to so much effort, though.”
“It is our pleasure,” she says. “You are our guests.”
We turn the corner into a dimly lit dining room, where at the head of the table sits a woman who looks far older than Mamie. Her face is heavily lined, and her snow-white hair has fallen out in places, leaving her with a strangely patchy head of receding hair. She’s wearing a black sweater and a long, gray skirt, and she stares at us with bright eyes from behind enormous tortoiseshell glasses that look far too big for her face. She says something in a language I don’t recognize.