A Feather on the Water(93)

“They never talk about the past when they’re with me.” Martha was looking straight ahead, her eyes fixed on a tree stump beyond the porch. “And I try not to say anything that might upset them. That’s why I started playing that game with them: it makes it easier to avoid difficult conversations.”

“It is hard when they ask me questions,” he said. “When we came to the camp, they saw children with a mama and papa. They wanted to know why. Then Lubya asked me where her mama had gone.”

“What did you say?” Martha whispered.

“I told her she has gone to be an angel.” She could hear the tremor in his voice. In one swift movement she slid across the bench and wrapped her arms around him. She felt the thud of a stifled sob rising from his chest.

“Sorry, sorry.” He mumbled the words into the side of her face.

“Don’t be,” she murmured. “It’s good for you to let it out.”

“I want to tell you all of it. But . . .”

“It’s okay.”

The shrill whistle of the kettle took him away from her. It was a few minutes before he came back with the coffee. He set the cups down on the planks in front of the bench, then pulled something from his pocket.

“This is the photo Lubya had by her bed when she lived with the nuns.”

Martha took the black-and-white snapshot from his outstretched hand. It was a wedding photograph. Stefan and his bride were wearing the type of traditional embroidered clothes she had seen at the camp weddings. A circlet of flowers framed the pretty smiling face of a girl who looked about the same age as Kitty.

“Her name is Krystyna.”

Martha wondered if he was using the present tense because his wife still felt like a part of his life. Looking at the picture, she couldn’t help being reminded of the image that had been on her bedside table throughout her childhood. Like Lubya, it had been her only link with her parents. But unlike Stefan’s daughter, Martha had always known that there was no chance of either of them coming back.

“She’s beautiful,” Martha said, handing the photo back. “How old were you when you got married?”

“I was twenty-four. She was twenty.” He sat down beside her and bent to pick up his coffee. “I didn’t see her face for four years—until Lubya showed me this picture.”

“You’ve been through so much. These past few months must have been agony.”

He was staring across his cup. A curl of steam clouded his chin. “First, when I got back to Warsaw, I thought they had both gone to Auschwitz, like so many Polish people. Then I found out what happened at the Zaluski Library. I asked myself, where was Lubya when this happened? I tried to find people who lived where we lived. I thought maybe she went to some house nearby. But no one knew. Then I remembered the plan of the box. I went back in the night, so nobody would see me, and I dug in the ground.”

“I can’t imagine how you must have felt, finding out that Lubya was alive.”

“First time, I didn’t find anything. I went back and tried again. The ground was so hard. It started to snow. I lay down. Thought maybe I would die. Then I felt like Krystyna came to me. She pointed to a tree. I started to dig—then I found the box. I shone a torch on the letter . . .” He closed his eyes as he let out a breath.

“That sounds like a miracle,” Martha said.

“It seemed like that to me. And when I went to P?ock, to the nuns, and they fetched her, and she knew who I was . . .” He broke off, staring at his hands. “When she showed me the photograph from the wedding, I had to turn away from her, so she wouldn’t see me cry.”

Martha felt tears prickle the backs of her eyes. The raw emotion in his voice tugged at her heart. It brought back what Delphine had said to her, months ago, before he’d boarded the train for Poland: His heart is split in two. That might have been true once, when he didn’t know what had happened to Krystyna. But now . . .

“Stefan,” she whispered, “I have to ask you, why did you come back here?”

He didn’t answer at first. She could hear him breathe in and out, as if he were weighing what to say. “I want to be with you.” He didn’t look at her when the words came out. He was staring at the trees beyond the porch, as if someone were hiding there, listening. “But when I heard Lubya ask if you were going to be her new mama, I thought I’d done wrong. It was like I was trying to replace Krystyna. I was putting what I want before what Lubya thinks and how she feels.” He turned his face to her. “And I don’t know how you feel. I shocked you when I came back. I asked myself, why would she want someone like you? I have nothing—and I brought two children with me.”

“You really think material possessions matter to me? Or the idea of looking after someone else’s children?” She bit her lip. “I thought you knew me better than that.”

His eyes searched her face. “But I think maybe you have somebody else. You don’t wear your ring anymore.”

“Oh, Stefan!” She shook her head. “I gave my ring to Kitty when she married Sergeant Lewis.” She took his hand in both of hers. “There is no one else.”

“What happened to your husband?” He held her gaze.

“I don’t know where he is. I should have told you—I’ve been trying to get a divorce. But he hasn’t answered my letters.”