“Yes. But then it got worse. They moved the Jews into a ghetto, by the rail tracks. Took their apartments, jewelry, everything. They had to wear yellow Jewish stars sewn to their clothing always. And the Germans destroyed a big Jewish cemetery and took the gravestones for construction materials. And then Stemma’s father was taken, to work. Her sisters’ husbands were taken too. Then one night, the German officer boarding in their house got drunk and told Stemma and her sisters to leave before it was too late. Before they were deported. Stemma’s sisters are all married and didn’t want to leave their husbands. But they sent Stemma here. And she doesn’t know what will become of them.”

“That’s horrible. Absolutely horrible.” Sarah chewed on her nails. “I wish we could do something.”

“Me too.”

“At least we have the Italians, right?” They’d known the Italians for centuries on Corfu, from the Venetian era, and the Italians had re-conquered Corfu a few years prior. Bombs had rained down on the Jewish quarter, and Sarah and her family had fled to bomb shelters. But eventually life had carried on as normal.

“We have the Italians. Yes.”

“So the Germans can’t come here.” Sarah balled her fists and willed Rachel to agree, vehemently so.

But instead her friend looked off vacantly toward the candelabra perched atop the bimah. “Sarah, now I’m afraid the Germans can come anywhere.”

*  *  *

When services concluded, the men congregated around the bimah to drink coffee and ouzo. Sarah waded through the dispersing congregants toward her mother, kissing cousins and aunts and uncles along the way.

“Mama, I’m going to have lunch at Rachel’s. She invited me earlier in the week.”

Sarah saw her mother hesitate. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Roza, but her mother disapproved of Roza’s marriage outside of the Romaniote community.

“You are not permitted to be with that Matathias.” Matathias was Rachel’s older brother, as handsome as his sister was beautiful, and he had never given Sarah a second glance. With her riotous red hair, Sarah certainly didn’t meet the conventional Corfiot beauty standards.

Sarah groaned and gazed around, to be sure Matathias wasn’t privy to this conversation. He’d probably laugh hysterically at the prospect. Anyway, she had her eye loosely on Solomon, her sweet, serious Romaniote school friend, who’d once pulled her from the barreling path of a donkey cart. His family happened to be the wealthiest Jews in Corfu. They owned half the real estate in town—an unimpeachable prospect for her mother. “There’s absolutely nothing between me and Matathias.”

“Be sure there isn’t. You have plenty of cousins who are suitable marriage partners. You will marry a Romaniote Jew. That is your destiny.”

“I know.”