The Chilbury Ladies' Choir(93)
How wrong could I have been! As we approached the door, I felt Silvie’s cold little hand touch my arm, holding me back. I looked back to her quizzically, but she put her finger to her lips. “Shh.”
“I know,” Mama was saying. “I honestly don’t know how to break it to her. Let me read you what he says.” She coughed slightly, then came the sound of paper unfolding—a letter. “?‘We are sorry to say that Silvie’s parents have been found. For the last few months they were hidden in a neighbor’s barn, the Dornaks’.”
I looked at Silvie, and she nodded, whispering, “They’re our friends. I played with their daughter.”
“?‘But they were found, the Dornaks taken out and shot dead as punishment.’?”
Silvie’s eyes dropped from mine to the floor, her face as white as a sheet. With all this information flying at us through the open door, I decided to make our presence known and took her arm forward. But she held me back angrily, giving me such a hard look that I didn’t dare.
“?‘Her parents were taken to a work camp for Jewish people in northern Czechoslovakia. There is no mention of her brother.’?”
For a haze of a moment, Silvie’s face looked translucent, as if she was a pale ghost of a child here from antiquity, and then—quick as a wisp—she turned and fled. Out through the hall, through the kitchen and side door, and out into the wide open space of nature, the emerald and amber of late summer enveloping her, a tiny figure under the vast blue sky. In a few strides she was gone, into the thicket, into the wood, like a small creature under perpetual attack.
We spent the rest of the afternoon looking for her.
The first places I looked for Silvie
She wasn’t in the stables, cuddling up with Amadeus
All the horses were still there, so she hadn’t galloped off somewhere
She wasn’t at the dam in the stream, or by the beehives
She wasn’t at Old George’s bush in Peasepotter Wood
Mama and Venetia had hurried into the village to get help, and by the time I returned home, exhausted and worried, a group of ladies were being debriefed by Mrs. B. on the front lawn.
“Today we have a vital mission,” she began, marching up and down in front of them. “Our task is to find this defenseless young girl, who has been placed in our care, before the day is out. We need to show her that although she has lost one family, she can depend on us, her new community, to look after her, to protect her from those Nazi brutes.” At which point she threw a menacing look toward the coast. “And to show her that there are still some places where good, decent people welcome her into the fold.”
A round of “hear, hear” followed, as Mrs. B. began shouting orders, as if advancing into battle. “I’ll cover Peasepotter Wood with you, you, and you”—she pointed at various women who stepped forward—“and the rest of you comb the fields. Mrs. Quail, you take a group toward Dawkins Farm, and Mrs. Gibbs, you take a group over to the west side of the village. We’ll reconvene here at half past four for tea.”
With that, everyone disbanded, and I was left standing, hands on hips and still out of breath, with Venetia looking at me with a puzzled expression.
“There’s got to be a way to work out where she’s gone,” she said quietly, almost as if she was talking to herself. “Let’s think this through, Kitty. Where would you go if you were her?”
“The stables. But I already checked there.”
“Let’s put ourselves in her shoes.” She took a step closer. “You’ve just found out that your parents are still alive and in a camp. You’re at once overwhelmed that what you’ve been dreading—that they’re dead—hasn’t happened, and yet more afraid than ever that it might be coming next. Your baby brother is gone. The cornerstones of your world are on the verge of collapse, and this would be such a massive catastrophe that you’re unsure if you’ll survive.”
“I’d want to run away and find Mama,” I said. “It would be unbearable to stay, sit still, simply waiting for more bad news.”
“Exactly,” Venetia said. “I’d want to go to her, too.”
I began to cry. It was just too much. Poor Silvie, the ridiculous horror of the choices she has to make. She must be thinking she can either stay here and possibly never see her family again, or risk her life making it back across Europe to be with them. What a decision to make!
“She’d have gone to the train station,” I muttered between sobs. “Although I’m not sure she’d know where to go, or what to do, or where to get money for the fare. She’d have to go through London, of course.” My forehead creased in thought, the nuance of a clue coming to me. “Tom!” I exclaimed. “He comes from London. She would go to him for help.”
Without another word, I turned and set off, darting straight past the wood, skirting around the edge of the orchard, and down the hill, spreading my arms open wide to balance myself, like a swallow swooping down into the valley.
As it was a Thursday afternoon and everyone would have been busy in the fields, the hop pickers’ huts were deserted, the usual bric-a-brac of prams and firewood lying dormant in the central scrub, a game of cans kicked to the side. A wind blew through. It was like a ghost town. How strange that within a few hours forty or fifty people would be back, chattering and singing, ready for the evening.