For
the
first
time
she
smiled.
I
reached
for
her
hand
and
she
let
me
hold
it.
I
thought
to
myself,
well,
if
only
I
were
an
Estonian.”
“So
now
you
understand
why
I
can’t
marry
you.”
Sadly,
I
did
understand.
In
middle
school
and
high
school
I
was
friendly
with
a
boy
named
Gati
Lacis,
who
had
been
born
Latvia.
His
father,
Arturs,
owned
a
chocolate
factory
in
Riga,
but
during
the
Second
World
War
the
family
lost
everything.
Arturs
was
the
super
of
an
old
four-‐story
apartment
house
on
my
block.
One
day,
Gati,
who
was
then
12
or
13,
asked
me
to
come
down
the
basement.
One
of
his
chores
was
shoveling
coal
into
the
furnace.
He
explained
that
if
it
wasn’t
done
on
a
certain
schedule,
the
heat
would
go
off
for
the
entire
building.
Shoveling
coal
looked
like
fun,
so
Gati
let
me
try
my
hand
at
it.
It
wasn’t
any
harder
than
shoveling
snow.
Over
time
Gati
and
I
grew
apart,
and
when
I
moved
from
Brooklyn
to
“the
City”,
as
we
called
Manhattan,
we
lost
touch
completely.
Years
later
I
heard
that
he
and