Authors: Marlena de Blasi
Tags: #Birthmothers, #Historical, #Historical - General, #Guardian and ward, #Poland, #Governesses, #Girls, #World War; 1939-1945 - France, #General, #Romance, #Convents, #Historical Fiction, #World War; 1939-1945, #Nobility - Poland, #Fiction, #Illegitimate Children, #Nobility, #Fiction - Historical
Amandine (34 page)
Right then, right there where the cobbles of the village begin, where the beaten-earth path ends. Having awakened, searched for Solange, she has come to the village to find her. Solange, from her place in line along the trench, faces the square. She sees Amandine, she hears Dietrich.
The gunfire Amandine thinks is part of the play. The pageant. She looks to where the players fall. She sees Solange drop delicately into the trench, the ice blue dress billowing around her.
Amandine thinks,
Ah, look how beautifully she falls. I told her she would be just as beautiful as the ballerinas in
Swan Lake,
and there she is, the dying bird. Look at her, my Solange
.
The guns are still then, and the acrid white smoke clears.
The play is over. How well the townspeople play their parts, so still they are in that hole. Like the just-killed birds the hunters would leave on the scullery table in the convent, the brown-and green-feathered birds lolling warm and soft, one or two still writhing. Yes, it’s the end of a play. She’ll get up now and see me. Come running to me
.
The villagers are still singing. They sing in French while Dietrich sings in German.
Tous deux, Lili Marlène. Wie einst, Lili Marlène
.
The record ends, the needle scratches round and round, the bells in the steeple ring six, and a north wind scuttles low along the cobbles as the squad points its guns downward, turns in formation to leave the square. Others shovel dirt into the trench.
Now Amandine is confused.
Why are they throwing dirt on top of the players? Solange is dead
.
Barefoot in her tulle skirt and Solange’s yellow sweater, the pussy willow wreath raveled in her curls, she runs to the trench, pummels a soldier about his stomach.
“Pourquoi? Pourquoi?”
Another soldier scoops up the strange creature, quickly throws it down so that Amandine lands on her back, kicking, screeching. A village woman from the watching crowd pushes forward to retrieve her, holds her fast. Amandine burrows into the blue nankeen breast of the woman as she rocks her, whispers comfort. Amandine leans back to look up at her. Her tiny open hands she places upon the wide, wrinkled cheeks of the woman and looks into the chasms of horror that are her eyes.
“Madame, pourquoi?”
The woman pushes Amandine’s head back to her breast, holds her more tightly, asks, “Who are you?”
“I am Amandine, madame.”
“And, and was your mother, was your mother …?”
“No, madame, not my mother, my Solange.”
“And where is your mother, sparrow girl?”
“I don’t know, madame.”
CHAPTER XXXV
April 25, 1941
Krakow
Darling Janusz
,
I am leaving Krakow tomorrow. After ten months of waiting for permission from the latest residents of the Czartoryska palace to examine Matka’s things, I was informed two days ago that I would be expected there this morning. Though I was prevented from entering no part of the place, two soldiers accompanied me at all times. I was sickened by the state of things, bullet holes in paintings, mirrors shattered, draperies pulled from their cornices, furniture piled into corners save the pieces on which they must lounge during their leisure. The smell. Two of Matka’s trunks were still in the dressing room on the third floor and seemed untouched. I sat on Matka’s little blue velvet hassock, where I would sit to watch her prepare for her grand soirées and, with the two soldiers
standing guard at the door, I looked through piles and boxes of papers. She must have saved every scrap, every letter, every bill, every record. There were two boxes of my drawings, beginning from when I was three. Several hours into the search, I sensed it was an empty one. I proceeded, though, probing, scouring, ransacking. But there was nothing. About the baby there was nothing at all
.
Bajka and I will leave for Germany and Switzerland as soon as Vadim can find petrol. I’d been convinced to travel alone by train, but I have since been discouraged, mostly by the colonel. I will say no more so that perhaps the censors shall deem this innocent enough to be sent on to you. Pray for my mission, as I do for yours
.
I love you
,
your Andzelika
May 21, 1941
Geneva, Switzerland
Darling Janusz
,
Many adventures on the road for Bajka and me. Without our Swiss passports.… I shall be reticent about the details. We traveled first to the Black Forest, to Friedrichsbad. You will recall it was in a villa there that Matka and I stayed for seven months and where the baby was born. No longer a clinic, the servant who came to the door claimed it had never been, that it had always been the private estate of a family from Cologne. At first I thought I’d mistaken it, that the place where we stayed must have been another, and so we asked everyone we encountered or whose attention we could capture, but the answer was always the same. No such clinic existed now nor did it in anyone’s memory. After days of this, a woman who worked in the hotel where we stayed and who’d heard us talking approached us, told us that there had indeed been a clinic in the area. When she described to Vadim
how to find it, it turned out that it was, of course, the same place I’d remembered from the beginning. The woman in the hotel told us that SS and Gestapo used it as a meeting place. What she didn’t say, but intimated with gestures and rolling eyes, was that it is used as a trysting place
.
We then proceeded to Switzerland to search for the clinic where Matka had brought the baby for surgery. In a way, this turned out to be a much simpler assignment, since the directors of the first clinic on our list contacted every other clinic and private hospital and even public hospital to which Matka might have taken her. Even a list of specialists who might have been consulted or who might have examined and treated the baby were contacted. After two weeks I was told by the clinic director who guided the inquiry that, under Matka’s name or any of the other names I suggested she might have used, there were no records. Once the official search was put aside, this clinic official sat me down and told me that he doubted the baby had ever been brought to Switzerland. He said that, apart from both private and public documentation of patient information, there is always someone who will recall a case, especially the death of an infant. As I described Matka to him, he assured me that someone would have remembered her and come forth by now. I asked him if he would be kind enough to keep circulating the plea for some word, but when he patted my hand and nodded, I knew that he was patronizing me. I knew that if Matka had taken the baby to Switzerland, the information—even if she had requested privacy—would have been disclosed to me now that she is dead. And so the second stone wall. We shall make our way into France and, I hope, to Paris. There seems no reason to return to Krakow
.
I may soon have a rather grand surprise for you. This time one that will please rather than torture you. All I shall say now is that Colonel von Karajan is helping me
.
God keep you safe
,
your Andzelika
June 10, 1941
Krakow
Darling Janusz
,
As it turns out there was magnificent reason to return to Krakow. I am writing to tell you that you are a father. (Oh dear, as I write this I see my faux pas since I said previously that Colonel von Karajan was helping me. Well, it is not that sort of help that he provided.) But you are indeed a father. What the colonel accomplished (with untold hazard to himself) was to save a twenty-one-month-old boy who had been (here I shall refrain for obvious motives of fear). His name is Aleksy, and he is as blond and beautiful as you. But that’s only half the news. There is also Eljasz, who was one year old a few days ago. He is less healthy than Aleksy seems to be, very thin, but still there is something fierce and even brave in his eyes. Healthy, thin, fierce, they are our sons, they have been saved and they are ours. “Friends” of von Karajan are preparing papers for them. As soon as Vadim can find enough petrol (von Karajan is working on that as well), we’ll be on our way back to Paris. I asked him (von Karajan) to not stop at two. He will find us more, I know he will. This is the best way for me to … Ah, how to explain this feeling? I believe that adopting these children is the best way for me to become her mother. Our little girl’s mother. Can you understand that?
Bajka helps so much to care for them, but I must tell you that I am already a jealous and possessive mother. I hold them both at the same time and, can you imagine this? Aleksy caresses Eljasz and coos to him, and the three of us fall asleep together. Loving them makes me feel closer to you. And to her
.
Please write to tell me that you are happy
.
with our love
,
your Aleksy, Eljasz, and Andzelika
July 1, 1941
Paris
Darling Janusz
,
The boys and I and Bajka fare well. When they sleep, we are either sewing nappies from hotel towels or washing the soiled ones or queuing for rations or begging the hotel kitchen for a few vegetables or fruits before they transform them into some wartime abomination. We always have eggs and milk and even cheese, and both boys seem to thrive. Eljasz is walking and running, and Aleksy shadows him so fervently. I am trying, though, to help Aleksy to understand that he must not worry so for his brother. Character is character, though, and Aleksy, I think, has one very like yours
.
The colonel writes that there is a nine-year-old boy who witnessed and was very nearly victim of an “event” in Bydgoszcz a while back. I wonder if you’ve heard about it. I shall not say more about it here, but the colonel says that his “friends” are trying to save this boy. Of course I said that we would take him. I don’t know his name. It seems that the colonel has business in Paris, so that he will accompany the boy, bring him here to me. Three sons, my love. Perhaps another daughter next
.
all my love
,
your Andzelika
July 9, 1941
Paris
Sergiusz is his name, your third son. My darling Janusz, I am at a loss to tell you how dear he is. Certainly his suffering shows, he is timid and sensitive, rarely speaks except when spoken to. But even after two days, I see him gaining confidence with our little tribe. Bajka adores him, too, and
thus we have become rivals in our desire to care for him. He loves music and says he studied the piano from the time he was four until… His parents were killed early on, and it was his older brother who cared for him, the same older brother who he saw shot in Bydgoszcz. His life from that day… I shall wait to say more
.
When will this war end, my love?
your Andzelika
CHAPTER XXXVI