A Feather on the Water(70)
Kitty looked up. “We could have vodka. I bought a bottle in Poland. I’ll go and fetch it.”
When she disappeared upstairs, Delphine said: “Do you think there’s any chance of the army helping her?”
“I don’t know,” Martha replied. “I didn’t know what else to suggest. It could be months before the Red Cross starts putting lists together.”
“Found it!” Kitty called from the bedroom. She came down the stairs, holding it out for them to see the Polish writing on the label. “I nearly got arrested when I bought it.”
“What?” Martha glanced at her, perplexed.
Kitty told them about the incident with the Russian soldier. By the end of the story, Martha’s stomach was in knots. Kitty’s experience gave credence to the ugly rumors that had been circulating since the Russians had taken control of Poland. If this was how they treated an aid worker, what fate awaited men like Stefan if they stepped out of line?
The next day, it had stopped snowing, but the temperature had dropped below freezing in the night. Martha crunched her way to the office. The air smelled of woodsmoke. The potbellied stoves in the blockhouses were being stoked up. Thank goodness she had been forewarned about stockpiling logs for the winter. If the weather continued like this, the camp might be snowed in before Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving. After all these months in Germany, she was still thinking like an American. These people had probably never heard of it. She thought of Arnie. Would one of his drinking buddies invite him over for turkey and pumpkin pie? Or would he spend the holiday alone, with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s for company?
There had been no reply to the letters she’d sent. Either he didn’t care about getting a divorce, or he was no longer living at the apartment. The familiar pang of guilt went through her as she imagined him being unceremoniously evicted. But that might have happened even if she’d stayed. He wouldn’t let her get a job, and the work he’d been getting on construction sites after he came back from the war was sporadic. She’d had to pawn her winter coat to pay the rent the month before she left.
Delphine had asked her why she still wore her wedding ring. When Martha had first arrived in Germany, it had been something to hide behind. She wasn’t sure if she could get it off now, even if she wanted to.
She remembered how the gold had caught the sunlight the first time she had touched Stefan’s face. She had wanted him so much. The glint of it had magnified the guilt that desire had caused. Where was he now? It was the first thing she thought of every morning when she opened her eyes. She pictured him wandering along streets full of rubble, searching, always searching. What would he do if there was no one to be found?
She tried to put him out of her mind as she unlocked the door to the office. There were people waiting for passes. Kitty would be along to take over later, but the poor girl was still unconscious—hardly surprising after that long journey back from Austria. It wasn’t only the passes Martha needed to attend to: there were supply lists to be drawn up, and she must find time to call the major about the possibility of sending a wire to China.
When the ledger was open on the desk and the rubber stamp ready to be inked, she went to the door. “Dzień dobry, kto pierwszy?” Good morning, who is first? Her Polish was improving. She could go about the camp on her own now, able to greet people and hold basic conversations. But how she longed to turn back the clock, to those early days at the camp when Stefan had been her shadow.
Delphine followed Wolf and the others along the path to the hospital. The trees looked like images from a Christmas card, their branches dusted with snow. One of the girls stopped to make a snowball, but the missile disintegrated before it reached its target. Then they all joined in, grabbing handfuls of snow and stuffing them down the backs of coats or rubbing them into each other’s hair.
It was good to see them laughing. Sometimes—usually in the evenings when they were together—one of them would give a glimpse of what their lives had been like before Seidenmühle. They would mention a parent or the name of a sibling, the place where they had grown up, some favorite food they remembered eating. Delphine had learned from her years of nursing that someone who had suffered an emotional trauma needed to be allowed time to reveal it. Trying to get them to talk about it before they were ready was likely to make them retreat still further into silence.
One thing that had surprised her was the way they had responded to Kitty. She’d brought her sketchbook to show them one evening and had offered them paper and pencils to have a go themselves. Each one of the children had soon become engrossed in drawing. What they produced had been harrowing to look at: pictures of houses on fire with stick figures fleeing in all directions, skies full of planes with bombs dropping out of them, and the one Wolf had drawn: black swastikas sprouting like stalks of wheat from a field scattered with bodies oozing blood.
Disturbing as these images were, the children were clearly eager to take part in what soon became Kitty’s regular art sessions. It was obviously a form of therapy, a way of expressing what they couldn’t bring themselves to talk about.
Her own attempt at therapy was the visit to Dachau she had arranged—she’d go in a few days, on what would have been her thirtieth wedding anniversary. She had kept putting it off, but it was time. The mental image of it constantly hovered like a specter on the edge of her consciousness. She dreaded what it would feel like to stand outside the barbed-wire fence, looking in. And yet it was something she had to do. If Claude had died of natural causes and had been buried in one of the Paris cemeteries, she would visit his grave. So, she had fixed the date with Father Josef. They would borrow Martha’s car and he would drive her there—so long as there was no more snow in the meantime.