Tonight Is Already Tomorrow by Lia Levi

Author:Lia Levi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Europa Editions
Published: 2020-12-16T00:00:00+00:00

Paula had stopped talking one day. They were walking their usual way and she stopped every now and again to look at store windows, the pharmacy, or a lady’s hat trimmed with a mass of ribbons.

“You’re not done yet . . .” Alessandro murmured.

“Am I supposed to tell you the whole story in chapters? Kristallnacht, what we heard about relatives and friends arrested on the street? Or do you want to know about the lines my father had to stand in, day after day, in front of the embassy of this or that country to try and get a visa? The answer was always the same: ‘Our quotas have already been filled.’ And he had to go back home.”

“You’re here now,” Alessandro said, confused.

“Italy has been everything for us. They got us away just before we were thrown into the fire. We’ll never forget it, of course. I have nothing else to say to you.” She started striding ahead of him, forcing Alessandro to break into a run to keep up with her.

“That’s enough now!” Paula had stopped in her tracks, as if she were challenging an unwelcome suitor. “I told you some of my stuff because I thought you needed to know, but at some point, we need to stop. Only old people want to talk about the past all the time,” she said. Then she added, to Alessandro’s surprise, “I’ve had enough of speaking French, too. Why should we put both our fathers’ backs up?” Finally, she murmured almost to herself, “At times like these we need our fathers to protect us.”

After her tirade, she went straight back to normal, as evanescent as the color of her hair. Her Italian had come along remarkably; she wanted to learn the language perfectly. She asked him about Alma. “We’re just friends,” Alessandro mumbled. He didn’t like the new tone Paula had adopted. It felt inappropriate and somehow disrespectful of what had passed between them, and what they had shared—if briefly. She was putting a dent in his own suffering but she went on regardless. Was he in love with Alma? In love? That was a joke, he was a twelve-year-old schoolboy and she was fourteen! It was . . . a deep friendship. Well, that was what Alma called it. Paula giggled absentmindedly.

The two girls started spending all their time together. Alessandro couldn’t swear to it, but he was pretty sure they were speaking French. Of course, Alma didn’t have a father telling her not to.

The family set sail under the June sun in 1939. They had arrived at the beginning of the year, when the wind was still icy. War was brewing in Europe, and the association had been frantically scrabbling to get as many visas as possible for the refugees who had been temporarily accommodated in Genoa. After a long and delicate process, secretly guided from the shadows, the Bergs were finally issued a visa: destination, Singapore.

The two families that had hosted them were not allowed to wave them off from the docks; their departure was to take place at dawn, with the utmost discretion.

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