The Snow Gypsy(62)

“What does he mean?” Rose pushed the note across the table for Zoltan to see.

“It’s a romería—a sort of pilgrimage they have here in August,” he replied. “There’s a little shrine on top of the Mulhacén called the Ermita de la Virgen de las Nieves. It was put there by a traveler who got caught in a summer blizzard sometime last century. The storm was closing in, and the only thing he could do was pray. He begged to be saved, if he was worthy. According to the story, he saw a vision of the Virgin Mary, and he promised to build her a shrine if he came through the storm alive.” Zoltan shrugged. “So now, on the anniversary of the storm, people come from all the villages down the valley to climb up to it.”

Our Lady of the Snows. The name had an ethereal, magical quality. Rose wondered if it had been in Lola’s mind when she named Nieve. Perhaps she had even walked past the shrine on that long, desperate trek over the Sierra Nevada.

“When they get there, the priest performs an outdoor communion service. I went to watch last year. It’s very cold up there—even on a sunny day. Sometimes, even in August, it’s blowing a gale—but they do the pilgrimage whatever the weather.”

“It’s strange to think of my brother doing that,” Rose said. “He was never interested in religion. I suppose it would have been an opportunity for him to meet Adelita without drawing attention to himself.” If Nathan had written that note in August, the relationship would have been going on for at least eight months by the time of his last letter home. If the pregnancy had happened early on, the birth of the baby could have happened as early as April 1938. Rose picked up the photograph, gazing into the big dark eyes. Although the girl was smiling, there was an indefinable sadness about her.

As if she knew.

Knew what? The image began to blur. Rose almost felt that if she stared at it for long enough, the answer would come through some sort of telepathy. She blew out a breath. If only that could be true.

“You said they wanted to get to France,” Zoltan said. “Do you know when they were planning to do that?”

Rose shook her head. “He sent this last letter in March 1938. All he said was that things were going badly and they needed to get out.”

“This is going to be hard for you to hear.” He pressed his hands together, steepling his fingers. “There were people from Spain in the camp I was in. Men like your brother, who managed to cross the border into France, were rounded up by the Germans when they took control of the country. There were women, too. Mauthausen was where all the Spanish prisoners were taken.”

Rose’s throat felt as if it were closing over. She groped inside her bag for the photograph of Nathan. “This is my brother.” Her voice sounded croaky. She watched Zoltan’s face intently, terrified of what she might see, but just as afraid of his covering up to spare her feelings.

“No.” He looked up, holding her gaze. “I never saw him.”

“And what about her?” Rose laid the images side by side on the table.

Zoltan shook his head. “I don’t know. The women were in a different part of the camp.”

“There would be records, though, wouldn’t there? I know her first name and roughly how old she was.”

“The Nazis destroyed all the records when they knew the Allies were coming,” Zoltan said.

Rose stared at the faces in front of her. Part of her was relieved that Zoltan didn’t recognize Nathan. If he wasn’t in the camp, there was a chance that he had escaped somewhere else, that he and the girl and their child were still alive. But if that were true, where were they?

“I don’t know what to do,” she breathed.

“You need to talk to Maria—she knows everyone around here. I’d take you to see her now, but she’s gone to Granada to visit her sister.” Zoltan stood up. “Let me get you something to eat.” He went over to the fire and unhooked the pot that had been hanging there when Rose first entered the cottage. “The Alpujarre?os call it puchero de hinojos. Fennel stew. Would you like some?”

Rose didn’t feel like eating, but it seemed rude to refuse the steaming bowl he set down in front of her. And when she put the spoon to her mouth, the taste was as good as the smell.

“Maria gave me the recipe,” he said when she complimented him. “I wasn’t much of a cook when I came here—I had to learn fast.”

“Why did you choose Spain? When you were liberated, I mean.”

“I couldn’t go back to Hungary.” He stared into his soup, his spoon midway between the bowl and his mouth. “Too many bad memories. I was a partisan, like your brother—we carried out guerrilla raids against the fascists when they took over my country.” He huffed out a breath, glancing at the spoon as if he’d forgotten he was holding it. “I wanted a new start—somewhere far away from all that, somewhere far away from people, too, if I’m honest.”

“I can understand that,” Rose said. “You must have seen the worst things human beings are capable of in Mauthausen.”

The muscles of his jaw tightened, as if he’d decided not to let out whatever he might have been about to tell her. Instead he said, “Would you like more coffee?”

Rose watched him as he filled the kettle. Hardly surprising, she thought, if, just like Jean Beau-Marie, he wanted to keep the horror of what had happened in the camp locked up inside. But he wasn’t completely like Jean—he didn’t have that aura of melancholy following him like a dark cloud.