A Feather on the Water(103)

That evening, Delphine came back to the cabin to find Martha sitting outside, staring into space.

“I thought you might have gone back with Stefan and the girls,” Delphine said. “It’s such a lovely evening. Wolf wants us all to go into the woods and make a fire to cook our sausages on.”

Martha’s head didn’t move. She looked as though she hadn’t heard a word that Delphine had said. Delphine smiled. “Dreaming about America? Everyone’s talking about it. I think Dr. Jankaukas is wishing he hadn’t already been accepted for Venezuela.”

“Well, it’s a good thing he has.” Martha’s voice sounded strangely quiet. There was an unexpectedly somber quality to it. “They wouldn’t let him into the States.”

“What? Why not?”

“Mikolaj is not his son.” Martha was staring at the ground in front of her feet. “They’re not allowing anyone with a child who is adopted.”

It took Delphine a moment to grasp the significance of these words. “Oh, Martha . . .” In a single, swift movement, she was beside her, crouching next to the chair. “Stefan . . .”

Martha nodded. When she spoke again her voice was hoarse. “He can’t take Halina. I . . . I don’t know what we’re going to do.” She shook her head. “I’m going to have to go back without him. Go to Arnie and beg him for a divorce. Then I’ll have to find some way of getting back here so we can get married.”

“Couldn’t Kitty do something? Could she go to Arnie’s place with a lawyer?”

“She already suggested it. But I’d have to be there to sign the papers—if he agreed to a divorce. And I’m so afraid that he won’t.” She raked her hair with her fingers. Delphine could see that her hand was shaking.

“There has to be another way.” Delphine slid her arm around Martha’s shoulders. “It’s not as if Halina would be any kind of burden on the US taxpayer; she’d have you and Stefan to support her.”

“I went over and over it,” Martha murmured. “There’s no loophole in those discriminatory clauses.”

“What exactly does it say?”

“That no adopted child or stepchild is to be allowed entry. No child who is not the son or daughter of an applicant will be granted the legal right to residence in the USA.”

“Hmm.”

“What?” Martha tilted her head toward Delphine.

“No adopted child of an applicant?”

Martha nodded, a frown creasing her forehead.

“But there’s nothing in the rules to stop you taking her to America.”

“Me?”

“You could adopt Halina yourself. As an American citizen, there’d be no problem with you taking her home when you leave Germany. I take it Stefan hasn’t formally adopted her yet?”

Martha was gazing at her, open-mouthed. “No . . . he . . . I . . . Oh my God, you’re amazing!” The last few words were muffled by the folds of Delphine’s uniform as Martha grabbed her in a bear hug.



Martha jumped in the car and headed off to find Stefan.

As he spotted her coming along the path through the trees, he put his finger to his lips. The girls were already asleep inside the cabin.

He searched her face as she whispered the solution Delphine had come up with.

“I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself,” she said.

“You really believe they will allow this?” His eyes were shining.

“There’s no reason why not.” She glanced across at the door of the cabin. She could see the girls, lying side by side in bed. “I wish we could tell them—they’ll be so excited.”

“Tomorrow.” He smiled as he bent to kiss her.

She pulled him to her. His skin was warm. His lips breathed the hope her words had rekindled in his heart. She took that breath into herself. He was life. And he was hers.





CHAPTER 34


By the end of September, the camp was beginning to look empty. The biggest single exodus came on the day when the families of the men who had left to work in the mines in Belgium were permitted to go and join them. Martha and Delphine followed the convoy of trucks to the station at Fürstenfeldbruck. When everyone was on board the train, they went from carriage to carriage, kissing and hugging the women and children.

The hardest goodbye was to Aleksandra and Rodek. The little boy who had been born in the back of Martha’s car was now two years old. His mother had dressed him in an adorable sailor suit made at the Seidenmühle sewing class. Martha wished Kitty could have seen him. How amazed she would be at the change in him.

“Our godson,” Delphine murmured, as Aleksandra held Rodek up to the window. She squeezed Martha’s arm as the train began to pull away. “I don’t suppose there’s much chance of us ever seeing him again. But we gave him a good start in life, didn’t we?”

Martha nodded, too choked up to reply. She made herself smile as the happy faces receded into the distance. She pictured the scenes of joy that would follow the arrival of the train in Belgium. So many families about to be reunited at what would be the start of a new and, hopefully, better life. This, she reminded herself, was why she had come to Germany.

As the train disappeared from view, Martha had a sudden vision of Kitty, not much older than some of the children bound for Belgium, waving goodbye at a station in Vienna. It was almost impossible to imagine how Kitty’s parents must have felt, sending their only child off to an unknown land, wondering if they would ever set eyes on her again.