Ramona Ausubel - No One is Here Except All of Us

“Zelda?” Regina had croaked.

“My real name.”

Then, Regina had scratched down the note that would stitch her past and her future together. “Where are we going?” she had asked.

“Krasnograd,” one of the Russians had said. “It means ‘beautiful city,’ but that will only come true once you are there.”

In Krasnograd, my letter in hand, Regina went into her house, where her large husband sat at a large table eating a large plate of potatoes. She kissed him on the cheek. “My sister is alive,” she said, tears tracking her face. She could not wait to write back, to tell me that her life was enormous. Utterly overflowing.

On the island, on the day that package arrived, Francesco carried it in his palm from the post office to the jail as if it were a sick bird. He knew what was inside was either an invitation home or word that there was no such place. He watched as Igor read my words with pooling eyes. “She exists,” Igor said.

“Do you want to go to her?” Francesco asked, unbreathing, waiting to be torn in two.

Igor paused, looked at his friend, at his bed, out his window. “Think of the years it took just to send and receive one letter . Do I have to remind you that I am far away in a foreign land? I am not in charge of my own fate.”

“Who knows if the distances are even passable? The walk between your bed and the sea is a long enough journey?”

“As you say,” Igor told Francesco. Francesco went to the sink and splashed his face with cool water to cover any evidence of his relief. Igor’s wife had been saved, and so had Francesco.

“You could write letters with her,” Francesco said.

“Yes, a wife-in-letters might be possible. A paper wife.”

Francesco did not ask what Igor thought about the idea that he had a new daughter, despite what he knew about the time between conception and birth and what he knew about how long Igor had been with him. He wanted Igor to find the silvery threads of joy wherever he could. And maybe in this dream, this daylight waking dream, children could wander in and out and as they pleased and someone would always be there to love them. Maybe Francesco would even be allowed to love this daughter, too. The way he loved the man who was and was not her father.

They fell asleep in the sun, which cut through the one wonderful window. Bars interrupted the light and left stripes of shade across their faces, but their blood was warm and coursing. Telling the story of the warm day was a riot of songbirds. Igor’s dream included an enormous fish carrying him through the weedy deep, where the hands of many children were fat and healthy. He would tell Francesco of this later when they swam and Francesco would swish his own fingertips over Igor’s legs. But for now, life was patient and let Igor and Francesco sleep, peaceful and warm all afternoon with the Solomon star unlit between them.

And the sheep outside scratched their backs against the rough trees. The real stars were hidden behind the sun’s greedy light. No one came to the door, no one disturbed the men from their dreams.

The war was a long way away.

The people did not call out.

The sea did not crawl up the shore and demand to be swum in.

The day warmed and cooled and poured light out onto the water, which turned orange and glorious even though no one was looking.

In the room on the other side of the world, we lit every single one of the mourning candles. We whispered names to ourselves, whispered whole villages, whole mountain ranges, whole rivers and lakes. We watched you, the new baby among us, this life awake for the first time. Our hands found other hands and held on, our eyes met other eyes, our legs touched as we sat on the hardwood of this floor and prayed.

“Welcome to the world,” we said to the baby.

“Welcome to the brand-new world,” we said to each other.

We pray that the fathers sell the vegetables for more than they paid. We pray the crack in the door does not let in the cold. We pray that the snow melts into water. We pray that our feet do not turn to rooted trees. We pray the feathers keep their soft. We pray that the lost are caught by safe hands. We pray that the morning is full of birds. We pray for whatever You have in store, but better, if You can. We pray for the life of this baby, this girl, to be good and long and better as it goes. We pray that we never have to give her away.

Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.

Let every ending be two beginnings.

I am hugely grateful to my editor, Sarah McGrath, for the tremendous care she has taken in helping this book come into the world. And to the whole team at Riverhead, especially Geoff Kloske, Stephanie Sorensen, Kate Stark and Sarah Stein. Thanks also to Sarah Bowlin, who believed from the very first instant. This book has had the benefit of so many pairs of not just capable but brilliant hands.

Tremendous thanks to PJ Mark, my agent, for the kind of careful attention, enthusiasm and friendship every writer dreams about. And thanks to Stephanie Koven and Becky Sweren.

To my amazing teachers, especially those who read the first shaky pages of this story. They were kind and encouraging even though I’m sure that that draft made little sense. Truly, I do not know if this novel would exist without them.

My colleagues in the UC Irvine workshop taught me ten thousand good things. Special thanks to Margaux Sanchez, who read many drafts of this book, each time helping me to see the way forward when I thought I might have come to a dead end.

To the magazines and their editors who have believed in my work, in particular One Story for publishing my very first story, which changed everything for me.

Thank you to the International Center for Writing and Translation at UC Irvine and Glenn Schaeffer for support at a crucial time, support that brought this from being almost-something to being a book. Thanks also to the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, and the Ragdale Foundation.

A Treasury of Jewish Folklore by Nathan Ausubel (probably a distant relative) was full of inspiration. Some stories within it are so fantastic that I hardly wanted to change them at all.

Long ago, members of my family lived in a place called Zalischik, nestled beside the crook of a river in the Carpathian Mountains. That place and the village in this book are not exactly the same, just as some history and parts of the Jewish religion have been reimagined to suit the purposes of this novel.

My parents have never, not once, faltered in their support of my writing. Their faith is overwhelming. And it doesn’t stop there — my sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, stepmother, plus my husband’s family and my terrific, terrific friends — I can’t believe my luck.

Finally, to my husband, Teo, who is everything. Just everything.