Love Has The Best Intentions (13 page)

The starkness of the office furnishings were
reflected in the wooden chair which bit sharply into the backs of
my knees, a crucifix hanging behind the desk the only ornament on
the glaring, white walls. France seemed more than an ocean away
from Kansas, it was a war-torn world where English was rarely
spoken and the triumph of victory had blurred into the reality of a
chaotic economy and a list of the dead.

“No one will adopt him because of the mixed
parentage. A German mother and a French-Jewish father; c’est
impossible!” A despairing gesture emphasized the hopelessness of
the case, the strong, almost masculine hands erupting from the
sleeves of the habit like the inquisitive head of a prairie dog
popping out of his hole.

Attempting to share the feelings of unreality
which had engulfed me for so many months. I stemmed the tide of
lament with a question. “You’re quite sure that his mother won’t be
back?”

“I have written many letters—many letters and
no replies. She lived in Hamburg. I was told the bombing there was
very heavy. The War has disrupted postal communications, but the
last three letters were returned. After her husband died, she left
France because her parents urged her to move back home. Already in
Germany, even before this, this,” the speaker hesitated, groping
for an image graphic enough to describe the occupation of France,
“This desecration of our soil with German boots, there was a
persecution of the Jewish people. Hilda feared her baby’s blood
would subject them to difficulty with the government.”

The nun sighed, remembering a mother’s
anguish over abandoning an infant who represented the last tie with
a husband, the only glimmer of light on the darkness of a Nazi
horizon. Hastily dismissing the unpleasantness, she continued. “But
he is handsome and healthy, and already very quick at his
lessons.”

I was aware that Sister Theresa was speaking
so urgently because she was afraid. Afraid that this
must-be-wealthy-because-she’s-an-American woman would leave without
solving the problem, solve it by removing another mouth to feed
when funds were so scarce. The woolen material of my best dress
chafed across my shoulders.

The directrice continued to sing the child’s
praises, while, unheeding, I turned to glance at the empty chair
beside me. David should be sitting there, spruce and handsome in
his blue uniform, smiling as he had when he waved good-bye to me at
the train station. But because a burning plane had gone down into
the cool waters of the English Channel, the chair remained
vacant.

“May I see him?” I cut into the babble of
assurances about the quality of the food and care given each child,
my level tone concealing the painful squeeze in my chest which made
it difficult to draw a breath.

The nun allowed an expression of immense
relief to whisk across her scrubbed features and glanced at the
clock. An important plateau had been reached; I could almost read
her thoughts. It would have been much easier to refuse the child
without having to watch him taste the possible rejection.

She rose. “Come, they will be at their
recreation.”

Sister Theresa whisked me out of the barren
little room and into a dark corridor as though afraid her visitor
would change her mind summarily and sail back to America. Dropping
little personal tidbits behind her like the bread crumb trail left
for Hansel and Gretel, the nun led the way. “He was only three
months old when his mother left him with us. His birthday is in
December. He will be six.”

The gray and white robes whispered over the
stone floor, worn smooth by the passage of many tiny feet. I could
not shake the sensation of participating in a play, as though
another woman inhabited my body, spoke confidently in response to
questions. My only acting experience had been in the town pageant
two years ago and in the trauma of confronting friends and
neighbors across the stage, I had forgotten my speech. I needed
David at my side to throw me the lifeline of my next cue; his
letter had placed this burden upon me. Each phrase of that letter
was burned into my memory; I could recite it word for word, close
my eyes and see his scrawls across the tablet page.

“Darling Jenny, the strangest and most
wonderful thing happened today! Our jeep broke down in a town near
Vichy and we had to wait hours for the parts from the base. I heard
children laughing and looked over a stone wall and into an
orphanage play yard. The orphanage is run by Catholic nuns and they
invited us in. There was one baby lying in a basket on the grass,
chuckling at a secret joke. I went over to share it with him and
one of the sisters who spoke English told me that the baby’s mother
had left him and moved back to Germany. His father was a Jew who’d
been killed in a car accident a few months after the baby was born.
He had the most startling blue eyes, Jen, just like mine. I held
him for a long time and he fell asleep. I know we promised my
father that we’d have lots of grandsons to help run the farm, but
it wouldn’t hurt to get a head start on our family. If his mother
doesn’t come back, his life will be very hard because of his mixed
heritage. I fell in love with him, Jen, he was so trusting and
brave. When the parts for the jeep came, they had to pry his
fingers away from my uniform lapel, but he didn’t cry. I promised
him I would be back after the war to get him and left collateral to
reassure him. When we wed, you promised to give me your heart. I
left half of it in those clutching baby fingers. His name is
Simon.”

The remembrance of David’s earnestness plus
the fact that it was the last letter received before the somber
telegram, which began, “The War Department regrets...” filled my
eyes with tears and I blinked them away. Ever since I had first
realized that David wasn’t coming home with a duffel bag slung over
his shoulder and a crooked smile on his dear, familiar features, an
anger mixed with a throbbing loss filled my being.

David’s parents had been wonderful, never
once revealing the sorrow generated from allowing David’s new
bride, a constant reminder of his absence, to remain in their home.
Determined to make a new beginning, I had continued in my teaching
job at the school, tutoring pupils at night whenever possible,
saving with the grim obsession of a miser.

An announcement over the potato soup one
evening of my intention to sail to France and adopt Simon had
startled Mother Holverson into dropping a platter. The thick china
had splintered over the floor, while the words held inside for many
months poured over the confines of the dam of reserve.

“No, Jenny! That’s just foolishness! How can
you take on that responsibility? You’re still just a child
yourself! How will you live? Do you expect to stay here? People
will talk, say that it’s David’s child you’ve brought back. He’s
part German, isn’t he? There will be hard feelings from the
neighbors, everyone knows someone who was killed... Foolishness,
foolishness! A child! Jennifer, you must reconsider. Think of our
position...”

Think of my pain! Was that the anguished cry
beneath the torrent of rambling words? A grandmother’s dreams for
David’s family had already been destroyed; she could not bear the
thought of loving and losing another child.

David’s father had said nothing, his
weather-seamed features remaining non-committal. When the news came
of David’s death, Father Holverson’s reaction had been to walk out
to the field to finish plowing after comforting his two women.

David had inherited his father’s gift of
acceptance; compassion ran still and deep within Father Halverson.
When I went up to my bedroom after helping to wash the supper
dishes, there was a rusted soup can on the dressing table. It was
filled with silver dollars and a few gold pieces, Jonathon
Holverson’s retirement money, formerly buried in the safeness of
the back yard by the well house instead of entrusted to a bank,
unearthed as a mute testimony of his support.

There was much to do and no time for tears.
Three months later found me clad in one of the dresses I had
stitched together after the day’s chores were done, numbly trailing
the authoritative figure of the directrice into the soft May
sunshine, my quest almost at an end. The long days spent on the
ship, the indifference of strangers and the sleepless nights were
forgotten in the anticipation of meeting Simon.

There were over twenty children playing in
the huge fenced-in area, rapid French shattering the pace, voices
raised in shrieks of glee and anger as they fought over battered
toys and hurtled themselves about in the joyous abandon of
youth.

My strained nerves flinched at the uproar;
although accustomed to the chatter of classroom, I realized that I
had been mentally prepared for rows of sweet orphans singing
rounds, with a spotlight on a baby lying in a basket on the grass.
A golden haze should surround the children, with perhaps a
sprinkling of violets to add color to the scene. But Simon was no
longer a baby and this wasn’t one of the musicals I had loved to
attend on David’s arm; there would be no bright and happy ending
filled with song.

A child with a smudged face tore past in
pursuit of another taunting sprite, dodging around my stiff,
apprehensive figure with arrogant ease.

The directrice halted her brisk stride and
surveyed the surging, healthy rabble with pride. I spotted Simon
first, my gaze drawn to an aloof island surrounded by a turbulent
sea.

He stood by the wall, his hands busy in the
rhythmic action of tossing a ball against the stones and catching
it. He held himself proudly, a short and sturdy five year old,
bouncing a ball.

The boy, my boy, turned with a defiant air as
we approached. Simon had already discovered that life would be
hard, that he would be scorned and called names, his parents
reviled as German lovers—Jew lovers by the older children. His
parentage was a dark stain on his record, blotting out any
possibility of adoption. I could sense the hopeless despair which
filled him.

Awaiting rebuke for not joining in with the
others, Simon studied my hesitant figure standing behind the
directrice with a defensive curiosity which I understood. So far,
he had only been viewed by potential adoptive parents with pity or
revulsion—not love.

“Simon, this is Jennifer Holverson. She’s
come all the way from America to see you!” The nun’s voice carried
the magic word over the roar which was instantly switched off as
children spun to eye my foreign looking skirt and coat, the
straight fall of wheat colored hair to my shoulders.

Murmurs of awe, “America!” were audible from
the older children. Simon waited in stony silence, refusing to
raise hopes that might be dashed, ignoring, I suddenly realized,
the wisps of daydreams that had so often clothed him with two
parents and a loving home.

I couldn’t take my gaze from the dark
features that must have been his father’s legacy, the startlingly
blue eyes which had captured David’s attention.

Noting the sullen air of the rebel, I was
suddenly flooded with the realization that this would not be easy.
We shared many hidden scars, those of loneliness, helpless anger
and fear of what the future might bring. He carried German blood in
his veins, and I was jolted by a surge of white-hot fury at those
who had murdered my David.

Loving Simon would mean abandoning the anger
which still gripped my spirit at the shattering of a sparkling
future, the betrayal of my own dreams. Mother Holverson had been
right—I hadn’t thought this mad project through. My only goal had
been to see David once more in the person of Simon, fulfilling
David’s promise to an infant in order to selfishly find peace.

Sensing my withdrawal, Simon turned back to
his solitary game. The thud of the ball had a desolate sound which
echoed in my already aching heart. I remembered David’s laughing
words on paper that he had entrusted a portion of my heart promised
him on our wedding day to Simon’s keeping. Perhaps this division
was responsible for my inability to heal those wounds of grief and
despair or to look to the future with hope.

Suddenly, it was as though David’s strong arm
was around me once more, his tender support sweeping away my
uncertainty. Raising Simon would be difficult. It would mean laying
aside my sorrow and self-pity, placing Simon’s welfare first,
forgiving the legacy of hatred which he would bring to the peaceful
farm. Buy my days were barren and meaningless without David. Part
of my soul had been buried with David on foreign soil, the rest was
clutched in the grimy fingers of the boy before me.

“I would like to adopt Simon. Please start
the paperwork immediately.” My voice sounded loud and confident,
conveying the promise to the listening ears of the boy’s tormentors
that he was wanted, that wonders would be accomplished and he would
go to America.

His body stiffened at the words; disbelief
struggled with hope across his features. Revealing a desperate
yearning for acceptance, Simon took a hesitant step nearer his
rescuer and paused. The universe had shrunk around us, walling off
the curious stares of the children and the shepherding nuns.

Intense blue eyes locked with the brown gaze
of a woman from Kansas, a silent message passing between us as I
extended my hand.

“I need you, Simon,” I confided softly. “You
see, you have half of my heart.”

THE END

Short and
Sweet

Ever since my father announced that he had
enrolled in clown college, the words, “I have a surprise for you”,
ties my stomach into the knots first formed when he chaperoned my
fourth grade Halloween party. I remember cringing while watching my
parent demonstrate the proper technique of bobbing for apples. His
hairy legs stuck out from under a sheet toga, a vegetable grater
hung on a cord around his neck and he wore a name tag reading
“Alex”.