The Sweetness of Forgetting (60)

“That is my mother and me,” Monsieur Haddam says softly. “And your grandmother. The day she left. The last time I ever saw her.”

I nod, but I can’t seem to speak, because I can’t look away from the bulging belly in the photograph. There’s no doubt that my grandmother is pregnant. She gazes into the camera with wide eyes that broadcast extraordinary sadness, even in grainy black and white. Alain sinks down beside me on the couch and stares at the photo too.

“She knew that if she was taken to one of the camps, she would be killed as soon as they found out she was with child,” Monsieur Haddam says softly after a moment. “She knew she had to protect herself in order to protect the baby. It was the only reason she let Jacob separate her from her family.”

“My God,” Alain murmurs.

“But what happened to the baby?” I ask.

Monsieur Haddam frowns at me. “You are certain that the baby was not your mother?”

I nod. “My mother was born a year and a half later to my grandfather, Ted, not Jacob.” I turn to Alain. “The baby must have died,” I say softly. Even saying the words aloud horrifies me.

Alain hangs his head. “There is so much we do not know. What if she does not wake up?” he murmurs.

His words send me hurtling back from a past we can’t understand to a present we can’t control. But we can control whether we leave for the airport on time. I look at my watch and stand up.

“Monsieur Haddam, I’m sorry, but we have to leave,” I say. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

He smiles. “Young lady, you do not have to,” he replies. “Knowing that Rose lived, and went on to have a happy life, is thanks enough for a million years.”

I wonder, in that moment, whether my grandmother’s life was happy. Had she ever let go of the sadness she must have felt when she believed she’d lost Jacob and her family forever?

“Please,” Monsieur Haddam says, “tell your grandmother that I think of her often. And that I thank her for helping me to believe in finding love. She changed my life. I will never forget her.”

“Thank you so much, Monsieur Haddam,” I murmur. “I’ll tell her.”

He kisses me on both cheeks, and as I follow Alain, Henri, and Simon back out to the street to hail a cab to the airport, I find myself wondering whether this is why Mamie sent me here. I wonder whether somewhere deep down, she wanted me to hear the story of her first love, and of the lost child she gave everything to protect. I wonder whether I’m supposed to learn something about love from all of this.

Or perhaps it’s too late for me. Alain and I are silent on the way to the airport, both of us lost in our own worlds.





Chapter Sixteen



Anise and Fennel Cookies



INGREDIENTS

2 cups sugar





4 eggs


2 tsp. anise extract

3 cups flour, plus extra for rolling

3 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. anise seed

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

1 Tbsp. fennel seed

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a medium bowl, using a hand mixer, beat sugar, eggs, and anise extract until well blended.

3. Sift together 3 cups flour, baking powder, and salt, then add to the egg mixture, approximately one cup at a time, beating after each addition.

4. Add anise seed and make sure mixture is well blended.

5. In a separate, shallow bowl, mix together confectioners’ sugar and fennel seed.

6. Flour hands lightly and roll tablespoon-sized lumps of dough into balls. Roll each ball in confectioners’ sugar mixture, making sure it’s well-coated, and place on greased cookie sheets.

7. Bake for 12 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes on baking sheets, then remove to wire racks.





Rose

Something was terribly wrong, and Rose knew it. All afternoon, she had been sitting in front of her television, watching daytime reruns of programs she knew she had seen before. But it didn’t matter; she couldn’t remember the plots anyhow. She had grown very tired, and back in her room, she realized she could no longer feel her body. Then, everything had gone black.

The world had still been dark as night when they came for her, the people from the home. She heard them saying unconscious and stroke and barely hanging on, and she wanted to tell them that she was fine. But she found that she could no longer use her tongue, nor could she open her eyes, and it was in this way that she realized her body was failing her, just like her mind was. Perhaps it was time.

And so she let go and drifted further into the past. As the ambulance sirens sounded in the distance, as the doctors shouted and gave orders from very far away, as the small voice of a child cried near her bed, she released her grip on the present and let herself float, like jetsam on a wave, back to a time just before the world fell apart. There were voices then too, in the darkness, just as there were now. And as the present disappeared, the past came into focus, and Rose found herself in her father’s study, in the apartment on rue du Général Camou. She was seventeen again, and she felt as if she had a crystal ball and no one believed her.

“Please,” she was begging her father, her voice hoarse from endless hours of fruitless persuasion. “If we stay, we will die, Papa! They are coming for us!”