A Feather on the Water(74)

“But no one can steal the memory of your love for them.”

Delphine’s eyes ranged over the buildings beyond the fence, at the watchtower with guards lolling against a wooden balustrade, at the soot-blackened chimney in the far distance. “That’s true,” she whispered. “But it doesn’t mean they deserve to be forgiven.”

“It’s a strange word, forgiveness,” he said. “I never really understood it until I studied Greek at the seminary. The Greek word in the Bible—aphiemi—means ‘to set free.’ When I heard that, I suddenly grasped what it was all about: forgiving is about freedom. It’s not just about pardoning the wrongdoer—it’s about releasing yourself from the power of what they did to you. Forgiving someone sets you free.”

“Do you really believe that’s possible?” She searched his face.

“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.”

For a while, she went silent. Then she said: “I don’t think I’m strong enough to do that. But I am glad I came here. Just standing here makes me feel closer to Claude and Philippe: it makes me believe that I will see them again.”

He nodded. “You’re stronger than you think. You’ve already shown how strong you are.”

“Have I?”

“You could have stayed in Paris, hidden away, nursing your grief. But you didn’t.” He was looking at the wreath tied to the fence, at the holly berries, vivid red against the twisted foliage. “It’s what defines a person, the way they deal with life’s unfairness. And when you see your husband and your son again, you’ll be able to tell them all about Seidenmühle, about what you do, every single day, to make their lives count.”





CHAPTER 22


It was snowing again when Martha went to pick up the mail. For a whole week, the temperature hadn’t risen much above freezing. In the Frankfurt area, there had been a big dump of snow. The major had called to say that there would be no more transports to Poland this side of Christmas. Martha was glad. She hated the thought of her DPs heading off to a place where life was likely to be harder, not easier, than at Seidenmühle. Her DPs. She rolled her eyes. She was doing exactly what the major had warned her against. Identifying with them, thinking of them as family. But how could she help it? She had been living alongside these people every day for more than four months. She had witnessed their pain, their grief, and—occasionally—their joy. She had become godmother to a Polish baby, and she had fallen in love with a man whose language she could barely speak.

On her way back to the office, she sifted through the letters. It was something she always did as she walked. If, by some remote chance, there was a letter from Stefan, she needed to know before she reached the office. She couldn’t face making that discovery in front of anyone else.

That last night in the camp, they hadn’t talked about keeping in touch. In the brief snatched moment under the trees, she hadn’t thought to ask if he would write. But she longed to know that he was safe, that he hadn’t been marched off to some terrible prison camp in Siberia for the crime of having lived in the West. She was riven with guilt every time she thought about him searching the ruined city of Warsaw for his missing wife and child. It had been more than a month since he’d gone, but her feelings for him refused to subside. She hated herself for wanting him to be free, for imagining him writing to tell her that his search had been in vain. She told herself that if she truly loved him, she would be happy to receive news of a reunion with his wife. But the voice inside her head hissed that she was incapable of such selflessness.

There was no letter from Poland. Martha drew in a breath and blew it out. Nor was there anything from America. She had addressed her most recent letter to the bar that had been Arnie’s second home—but there had still been no response. As she shuffled the envelopes in her hand, she saw one addressed to Kitty that was postmarked “Bruxelles.” Martha started walking faster. She prayed that it contained good news.



Kitty ripped open the envelope and pulled out the letter. Martha could see that it was handwritten, not typed. And there looked to be at least three sheets of paper. Whatever this person had to tell Kitty, she’d clearly taken a lot of time and effort over it.

“Would you like me to leave you alone?”

“No—it’s okay.” Kitty was scanning the first page, her expression unreadable. Soon she was on to the second sheet.

When Kitty laid the last sheet down on top of the others, the only change in her face was a narrowing of the eyes, as if she were pondering the answer to something unfathomable. “What does she say?”

“I’ll read it to you.” Kitty’s voice gave no hint of what she was feeling.

“‘Dear Miss Bloom,’” she began, “‘I read your letter with great interest and enormous sympathy for the situation in which you find yourself. The information you were given is quite correct: I was the representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in China for two and a half years—from May 1941 to December 1943. I lived in Shanghai at the organization’s headquarters and oversaw the aid program to the Jewish refugees who had sought sanctuary in the city.

“‘What you are longing to know, of course, is whether I encountered your parents during that period. I have to tell you that their names are not familiar to me. But you should not be disheartened by that—there were approximately eighteen thousand Jewish refugees resident in Shanghai during my time there, so you will understand, I’m sure, that I could not have known everyone by name.’”