A Feather on the Water(87)

“Sorry it’s not champagne,” Delphine said, as they came through the door. “Oh, Kitty, what’s the matter? What’s happened?”

The two women listened in horrified silence as Kitty told them.

“I don’t know what to do. He says the army chaplain at the base could marry us, but it would have to be the day after tomorrow. Charlie’s due to catch a train to the coast the next day, and he sails the following morning.” She buried her face in her hands.

“You still want to marry him, don’t you?” Martha’s hand was on Kitty’s shoulder.

“Yes,” she mumbled. “But how can I?” She lifted her head. “He says it would be a while before I’d get official permission to join him—a few months, maybe. But what if my parents managed to get out of China during that time? Where would they go?”

“Do you think they’ll want to return to Vienna?” Delphine bit her lip.

“I don’t think so. I saw what it was like.”

“Would they want to live in America,” Martha said, “if you settled there with Charlie?”

“I think they’d be happy anywhere, so long as we were together. But would they be allowed in? It’s not as if they’re his parents—it might be different if they were. In the eyes of the immigration people, they’d be foreign refugees, just like our DPs. They’re banned from entering the States, and who knows if that ban will ever be lifted?”

“What does Charlie say about your parents?” Delphine reached across the desk for Kitty’s hand.

“He says they’d be welcome to come and live with us whenever they get out of China.” She shook her head. “He even offered to get his mother to write to the authorities in Shanghai—she speaks Chinese, and he said it might speed things up. But . . .” She heaved out a sigh that made her lips quiver.

“The problem is, at this moment, you have no control over what happens in China. You don’t have time to wait for any letter to Shanghai.”

“I know. So, what do I do?”

Martha glanced at Delphine over Kitty’s head. “My advice would be to do the one thing you do have control over—which is to go ahead and marry the man you love.”



There was no time for a wedding dress to be made, so Kitty wore the outfit she had designed for the Christmas party.

“Do you think it’s a bit shocking, getting married in red?” she asked Martha.

“Well, it’s unusual.” Martha smiled. “But it’s not a church service, so I’d say anything goes. And it’s such a gorgeous dress.”

“Charlie hasn’t had a chance to buy a ring. I’m going to see if I can find anything in the weaving shed that we could use.”

“Have mine.” With some difficulty, Martha twisted the ring off her finger.

“Oh, I couldn’t!”

“Why not? I don’t need it anymore.”

“But it’s . . . it’s gold. It must be worth . . .”

“It’s not worth that much.” Martha waved away her protests. “Arnie won it in a game of cards. If it fits you, you’re welcome to it.”

“Well, if you’re really sure . . .” Kitty slipped the ring on and held out her hand for Martha to see.

“It goes really well with your engagement ring. You have such lovely hands—those long, slim fingers! I have to say, it looks much better on you than it ever did on me.” It was strange, the sense of relief that parting with the ring gave her. She hadn’t felt able to relinquish it before now: to put it away in a drawer would have been a depressing thing to do. But to give it away to someone who really needed it made her heart feel light.



Kitty and Charlie had just one night together as a married couple before he left for Bremen. Martha had offered Kitty the chance to travel with him as far as the coast, but she turned it down.

“I don’t think I could have borne it, standing on the quayside, waving him off,” she said when she arrived back at Seidenmühle the day after the wedding.

“It must feel strange, coming back to all this,” Delphine said. “Probably makes it all seem a bit unreal?”

“It does.” Kitty opened her bag and fished out a folded piece of paper. “All I’ve got to prove it happened is this. I have to apply to the army for a new identity card: Mrs. Katya Lewis—doesn’t that sound strange?”

“Where will Charlie go when he gets back to the States?” Martha asked.

“His family live in San Francisco,” Kitty said. “But he’s not sure how long he’ll stay there. He wants to go to college on the East Coast. There’s a business course he’s interested in at a university in New York. It begins with C—I can’t remember the name.”

“Columbia?”

“That’s it.”

It was a strange thought, Kitty in the not-too-distant future, walking streets that had once been so familiar to Martha. Perhaps they would be near neighbors one day, when the relief work was over and Martha’s job came to an end.

It was something she tried not to think about—what would happen when that time came. The idea of going back to New York filled her with dread. She didn’t know what she would do, where she would live. The truth was, she found it almost impossible to imagine a future beyond the gates of the camp.