Shadow Sister
Shadow Sister, Novel in Progress
A bombing in Jerusalem August 9th, 2001 unexpectedly reconnects a young American woman and her family to familial Jews in Berdichev, who disappeared when Germany invaded the Ukraine in 1941.
In August 2001, when Mara and her estranged twin Rebecca discover that their mother, Anne, on her first trip to Israel, has been badly injured in a terrorist attack in the heart of Jerusalem and that their paternal grandmother, Beila, is missing, they take the next plane to Israel. Mara and Rebecca meet their father in the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, and nervously watch their artist mother improve enough to leave the ICU but not yet well enough to return home to her life in Seattle. When their beloved grandmother Beila turns up, injured, confused and calling for Vera, her baby sister, Mara is shocked. She never knew her Nana even had a sister. Reluctantly, their father tells them that two-year-old Vera was left behind in the Ukraine in 1922, when the rest of his family—his mother, father, uncles and aunt—immigrated to America. Great Aunt Vera would have been 21 years old when the Nazis invaded Berdichev in June 1941. Exactly Mara and Rebecca’s age.
Mara and Rebecca’s personal evolution as young women—both with secrets in their young lives—what they value and thought they believed as sisters and reluctant Jews is challenged by the violence wreaked on their mother and grandmother, the hope and fear they encounter between Israelis and Palestinians. Mara becomes obsessed with unearthing what really happened to their great aunt Vera and determining the fate of those Jews left behind in Berdichev. Rebecca maneuvers to return to college and her pre-med studies even though the bombing in Jerusalem and revelations of a great Aunt unravels Rebecca’s carefully constructed map of her life. She returns to school on September ninth. To the horror of all, including Israelis, terrorist-piloted airplanes tear into the Twin Towers killing thousands of Americans from all faiths, origins and walks of life.
Vera's survival during the German invasion of Berdichev is the historical thread and backdrop to Mara and Rebecca’s contemporary story of rupture and healing. Vera escapes Berdichev by train with her aunt and uncle on rumors of the German invasion. Separated in the middle of the night from her family, the train stops again in the forest. When a railway worker pulls Vera off the train to rape her, the single mother with young children sleeping near Vera gets off too and kills the man with a stone. When the train leaves them in the forest, their journey for survival begins. Though audacious, Vera declares herself a healer after she finds Aunt Anna’s herbal medicine journal in Anna’s bag. In exchange for treating a young farmer’s wife from miscarrying, Vera finds them shelter on a potato farm cooperative. But the husband discovers they are Jews and the Nazis’ invade the Ukrainian countryside, taking the young mother and one of her children. Vera is torn. Find the young woman who saved her life or return to Berdichev, on foot, to see if her own family has returned. Vera’s discovery of what the Nazis are doing to the Jews—shooting them without provocations—forces her to choose family. When she reaches Berdichev, she discovers her aunt and uncle are back but refuse to leave again. With the bombing of Berdichev, Vera flees with the Red Army on her heels, in a journey across central Asia to Uzbekistan until the war ends.
The historical narrative of Vera's survival during the German invasion converges with the contemporary story when Mara discovers an artifact her great Aunt Vera has donated—a hand-drawn herbal medicine journal—to the holocaust museum in Israel. Through research and serendipity, as so often happens, Mara discovers that her great aunt Vera—her injured and confused elderly grandmother Leila had a baby sister, Vera— who may be living in Israel under a different last name, upending these two young American women and their family. By novel’s end, Mara and Rebecca begin rebuilding their relationship with each other, including with what it means to be a Jew. They return home with guarded hope and a larger vision of their place in the world and their own imperfect lives.
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