“This is filling me with sorrow,” she says slowly. “Any of these women could be my sister. Or, none of them could be my sister”

O

ne after the other, Hannah picks up each photograph. She looks, brings it up to her face and lets her eyes blur before the features: eyes, nose, mouth.

She should know. She should be automatically drawn to her own flesh and blood. Some deeply embedded instinct should cause her to lift her finger and, with certainty, point at a picture and say, “It’s her. This is Perla. This is my sister.”

But she simply does not know.

On the table in front of her is the picture Emmy borrowed from her parents. The three of them: Hannah and Perla and tiny Becca, still no more than a toddler.

She picks it up. She looks at the shape of Perla’s face, studies it. Her cheeks are slightly puffy. Is that because she was a child? Is it because she ate plenty of Mama’s porridge, made with the first squirts of creamy milk? Mama always gave Perla the best of the food, afraid that she hadn’t grown because she did not feed her enough when she was a baby. No matter how much Tatte tried to tell her that these things are from Hashem, and he had two uncles and a sister who also did not grow, she never stopped blaming herself.

And what of her eyes? They are not round, more almond shaped, a bit like Hannah’s own. And Emmy and Becca — they all have the same shape eyes. But most eyes are shaped this way. Maybe it was just because of her cheeks that they looked smaller.

And her lips. She does not usually notice these things. But all the pictures that have been sent show full lips, doubtless colored with a bright lipstick. Were Perla’s lips wide or narrow? Was her mouth large or small?

And her chin. She remembers a sweet little chin, a chin that hurt when it pushed into her arm or her leg. But what would it look like 20 years later? Lost in the flabby skin that age brings along? Or has it grown more defined with age?

Hannah picks up one picture after the other, after the other. As soon as she puts one down, Felix snatches it up. Ernst holds a single picture in both hands, just sits and stares and stares.