The Snow Gypsy(8)

Her father’s death—just three years after that gift had been given—had brought more than one kind of grief to the family. Within days of the funeral, the bailiffs had arrived, demanding settlement of vast debts Rose and her mother had known nothing about. The house and most of the contents had had to be sold. Esther and Rose had gone to live in a rented cottage in Berkshire, near the place the Royal Veterinary College had moved to when the Blitz began.

By the time Rose had graduated, her mother was seriously ill. There had been no question of applying for jobs. She had cared for her mother and spent what little free time she had writing the book that had been published just before her mother’s death.

Rose glanced out the window, across Bloomsbury Square, at the blackened shell of a once-grand house. Coming to live in London had been her way of making a fresh start. She had thought that moving to the city would help her to move on from losing her mother. It had worked—for a while. Her new job had been exhausting but rewarding, and her boss was open minded about the possibility of herbal treatments for animals. But outside working hours she found city life stifling. She longed for greenery and wide-open spaces. On days off she would get as far away from the capital as she could on a train or a bus, taking Gunesh for long walks, whatever the weather. It hadn’t helped her put down roots in her new home. Eight months on, there wasn’t a single person in London she felt close to.

She walked through to the bedroom, where Gunesh was curled up on the rug next to her rucksack. On the bed lay two maps of Spain—one that showed the whole country and one larger-scale version, of the region of Andalucia. She had spent endless hours poring over these maps in the years since Nathan had left England. The second map was held together with tape, so often had she unfolded it, running her finger along black dots on mountain ranges, wondering which of the hundreds of villages could be the one her brother had described in his letter.

She’d spent whole days in the British Library, going through reference books on Spain, searching for something to go on. But like the inquiries she’d made to the International Red Cross about Nathan, there was nothing. She felt a desperate need to talk to people who knew the terrain and the country personally. But going directly to Spain was not sensible. Andalucia was the size of Ireland. She could end up wandering around for months. She needed a signpost—some clue as to where to start her search. Going to the Gypsy fiesta in France offered the opportunity of talking to people who had lived through the Spanish Civil War and had been on the same side as Nathan. It seemed like her best chance.

She slid the maps into the front pocket of her rucksack. The only things left to pack were the photographs. One of Nathan and one of each of her parents. It was impossible to look at the faces without welling up. Her mother, plump cheeked and smiling, so different from the frail, broken person she had become at the end. Her father, staring boldly at the camera. He had gone to France nine months into the war, believing that his Turkish passport would keep him safe. But he was a Jew first and a Turk second. The neutrality of his native land had not saved him when the Nazis arrived in Paris.

Nathan’s picture was very different from her parents’ images—not a formal studio shot but a photo Rose had taken herself at the old house in Cheshire. Nathan had been out riding, about to jump off his horse in the stable yard. He looked so young and full of life. It was impossible to believe that he, too, could be dead.

There was another face she had tried to picture in the years since Nathan had been missing. The face of the unborn child he had written about in that last letter. A child who would be seven or eight years old now, if he or she were alive. She couldn’t help imagining what it would be like to have a niece or nephew. To be part of a family again. How wonderful that would be.

She slipped the photographs into her wallet, trying to steer her mind toward the practicalities of traveling to France. She mustn’t allow herself to fantasize about finding Nathan and his child. She must prepare herself for whatever this search might reveal. To put an end to the not knowing—that was why she had to go on this journey.





Chapter 6

France: May 20, 1946

Lola crept out from underneath the sheets. She shivered as her feet found the rough wooden planks of the wagon. The early mornings were chilly in the Pyrenees, even this late in the spring. She could hear a magpie—its mocking rattle competing with Cristóbal’s gentle snoring. She glanced at the child. Nieve was still sound asleep, her arms stretched out above her head like a dancer. The peacock shawl was wrapped around her left wrist. It was frayed at the edges now and peppered with moth holes, but the child refused to go to bed without it.

Lola reached across her to retrieve her own woolen shawl that was tangled up in the blanket Nieve had thrown off. She covered up the sleeping child before pulling back the curtain that screened the bed. There was Cristóbal, lying on the pile of sacks that served for a mattress, his mouth open. She thought how innocent he looked when he was asleep.

She made her way to the front end of the wagon, trying not to make it creak. Slipping her bare feet into her boots, she lifted a flap of canvas and eased herself onto the dew-soaked grass. She could see signs of life from the others camped nearby. A wisp of smoke from a fire bought back to life from the night before. A man’s shirt and some underclothes hung out to dry on the branches of a hawthorn bush. A gray-muzzled dog cocking its leg against a moss-covered tree stump.