A Feather on the Water(58)

On the day she left the camp, Jadzia had looked very different from the young woman who had burst into the office demanding a translation of the note from the army base. She had cut off her beautiful blond hair. The short spiky style made her look more like a child than a woman—especially as she had lost so much weight after giving birth. But, thanks to the care given to her by Delphine and Father Josef, she was well enough—both physically and mentally—to start a new life. She would never forget what she had done, but they had given her the strength to cope with the guilt and the grief.

Not all the single mothers had left the camp. Dr. Jankaukas had married Anka in the chapel in the woods and was planning to adopt Mikolaj, her little boy. They were living in one of the vacant cabins, while Wolf had moved into the other, sharing the place with the other young medical auxiliaries. It was easier for Delphine to have them close by, and she looked after them the way a mother would.

Having the children next door had helped Martha learn some Polish. In the evenings, they all sat outside together. Sometimes Aleksandra would come by with little Rodek, and Martha would bounce him on her knee or give him his bottle. These nights reminded her of her grandma’s house in New Orleans, when all the neighbors gathered on their stoops until darkness fell.

Her new language skills meant she relied less on Stefan’s assistance in the day-to-day running of the camp. She hated distancing herself from him, but it was the only way to keep her feelings in check.

Martha’s days never had much of a routine—life in the camp was far too unpredictable for that. The one constant was going to collect the mail, which arrived at eleven o’clock each weekday morning. This morning, a bigger pile than usual had been dropped off at the guardhouse. She riffled through the letters as she made her way back, hoping to see Arnie’s familiar scrawl. She had written to ask him for a divorce.

“Anything interesting?” Kitty looked up as Martha stepped into the office.

“Just the same old same old.” Martha dropped the mail onto the desk. “And a few letters for the DPs.”

Kitty began to sort them into piles. “There’s one here for Father Josef.” She picked up the envelope, studying the postmark. “It’s from Vienna.”

“What?” Martha went to see.

“Can I take it to him?” Kitty was already on her feet.



Kitty found Father Josef in the hospital. He was sitting at the bedside of a man whose leg was plastered up to the thigh.

“He won’t be much longer, I don’t think,” Delphine said. “They’ve been chatting for ages—about football, of all things. Can you believe a man can spend his days chopping down trees but breaks his leg kicking a ball around a field?”

“I just need to ask him what’s in this.” Kitty held out the letter. “I know I should have waited for him to have picked it up himself, but . . .”

Delphine nodded. “You must be on pins. I’ll go and get him.”

Father Josef stood up before Delphine reached him. He grasped the edge of the bed for support, then made his way slowly across the ward.

“Come,” he said when Kitty showed him the envelope. “Let’s go and open it outside.”

They sat on the low wall in front of the hospital. The priest tore open the flap and slid the letter out. Kitty could see the insignia of the bishop’s palace embossed in the top right-hand corner of the paper—but she could only guess at what the few lines of black type contained.

“I’m afraid the apartment block where your parents lived was destroyed in a bombing raid in 1943.” He turned to her. “They might not have been living there, though. It says that many of the apartments were empty when it happened.” He turned the paper over. “They’ve located a person who might have information. They have a name, that’s all. Someone called Clara Schmidt—a former employee at your parents’ business.”

“Yes,” Kitty breathed. “I remember Clara; she wasn’t called Schmidt, but I suppose she must have got married. She would have been about sixteen or seventeen when I left. She lived above the shop.”

“Well, she doesn’t live there now. I’m afraid the shop was destroyed, too.”

“Do they know where she is? Can I write to her?”

Father Josef handed the letter to Kitty. It said that a woman from a church in the Vienna suburb of Floridsdorf had responded to an appeal made from the pulpit for information about the Blumenthals. She knew nothing of their whereabouts, but gave the name of Clara, who had lived with her for a while in 1941 after the apartment was destroyed. Unfortunately, the letter went on, the forwarding address the woman had given was of no use: Clara must have moved on again. But further attempts would be made to trace her.

The words blurred on the page as Kitty stared at them. “Clara,” she whispered. “Where are you?”

“There has to be a way to find her,” Father Josef said. “If the Church draws a blank, we could try placing an advertisement in one of the newspapers.”

“But what if she died? What if the next place she went to was bombed?”

“I know it’s hard, but try to be patient.” He took the letter and folded it back into the envelope. “Is there anything else you remember about her? Did she have relatives in another part of the city?”

“Her mother lived with her—I don’t know of anyone else. And they went to a church called Saint Leopold’s in Alexander-Poch-Platz; I remember that.”