The Diplomat's Wife(60)
“Act as if you know me,” she whispers close to my ear in crisp, accented English. “I need to tell you this now, because once we are in the car you must assume that our conversation is being listened to, possibly recorded. I’ve been sent to get you. I know why you’ve come and I’m here to help you.” I am too surprised to respond. Renata pulls me away from the group. “Come, we have a long drive ahead of us.” I notice for the first time a black sedan like the one that had picked me up at home parked to one side of the plane. She leads me to it and opens the rear door. Inside, she leans forward and says something to the driver, then sits back and removes her hat, revealing a tight cap of dark hair. Her cheeks are pockmarked, scars from past acne, but her features are striking, her eyes a deep chocolate-brown. “How was your flight?” she asks in a loud voice as the car begins to move. I realize that she is making small talk for the benefit of whoever might be listening.
“Fine,” I reply.
She pulls out a pack of cigarettes and holds it out to me. I shake my head. “You’re lucky that the weather wasn’t worse,” she remarks, taking a cigarette from the pack and lighting it with a sleek silver lighter. “We’ve had some early snow.” She cracks the window open so the smoke wafts away from me.
Neither of us speak further as the car turns from the airport out onto the main roadway. I peer out the window. In the distance I can just make out the pine-covered Bavarian mountains silhouetted against the pale gray sky. I shiver, drawing my coat closer. How could so much evil have come from such a beautiful place?
“Cold?” Renata asks. I shake my head. “We’ll be at the border in a few minutes. I brought your paperwork from the embassy. Do you have your passport?”
I nod, pulling it from my bag and handing it to her. Simon gave it to me last night with the papers. It was like the others I had seen at the Foreign Office—its cover is black instead of the usual deep red, and the word diplomatic is engraved across the front. But when I thumbed through it, I was surprised. Its issuance date was eight months earlier and its pages were worn and stamped. “We want you to appear as a seasoned cultural attaché,” Simon explained. “So as not to arouse suspicion.” Amazed, I studied the stamps from dozens of places I had never been, trying to memorize them in case I was asked.
The car climbs one hill for several minutes, then another, without seeming to ever descend again. Soon we reach the border checkpoint. Renata rolls down her window. “Guten tag,” she greets the lone border guard in German as she hands him our passports. He does not answer as he thumbs through them, then peers into the car. My breath catches. Will he question me? But he only nods, then stamps the passports and hands them back to Renata. It is like I am someone else, I muse, as the car begins to move once more. Suddenly, I think of Emma. After she escaped from the ghetto to Jacob’s aunt, she had to assume a whole new identity as Anna, a non-Jew. And to make matters worse, she had to go to Nazi headquarters every day to work for the Kommandant. At the time, I had been so disdainful: how could she become close to a man like him? It must have been so difficult for her, wondering if at any moment her secret might be discovered. I wonder if she is well, if she and Jacob were able to escape. Perhaps if I can find Marek, he will have news of them.
As we climb above the tree line, the snowcapped peaks break into full view. I feel a tug, remembering the first time I woke up in Salzburg and saw the mountains. We are north of Austria, I know. Salzburg and the palace are several hundred kilometers away. But I cannot help thinking of Dava. I tried to write to her once after Simon and I were married, enclosing money to repay what she lent me. But the envelope came back undeliverable. I read in the newspaper a few months later that many of the displaced persons camps closed, all of the residents relocated to new countries. I wonder where she is now.
“We still have several hours until we reach Prague,” Renata says sometime later. “Feel free to nap, if you’re tired.”
“I’m fine. I slept on the plane. And I’ve grown used to getting less sleep since my daughter was born.” I feel my insides grow warm as I think of Rachel.
“How old is she?”
“Eighteen months. Do you have children?”
Renata shakes her head. “I was pregnant once, but I lost the baby. During the war.”
“I’m so sorry. Maybe you can try again.”
She clears her throat. “Thank you, but I’m afraid it is impossible.”
Uncertain what to say, I look out the window once more. Soon we reach a small town. The houses remind me of those in my own village, set close to the roadside with long sloping roofs. As we near the center of town, the car slows to let a group of schoolboys cross the road. At the corner sits a house with bright blue curtains. A flash of recognition surges through me: we had curtains that very color in my childhood home in the village. I still remember my mother painstakingly dyeing the material and sewing them, my father shaking his head at the audacity of a color so bright. For a second, I imagine that the house is my parents’, and that if I walked up to the door and knocked, I might find my mother inside baking. Then the door opens and a heavyset woman, her gray hair in a thick bun, walks out carrying a broom. Noticing my stare, she eyes the sedan warily for several seconds, then turns her back and begins sweeping the porch. The car begins to move, passing a crudely dressed man atop a horse-drawn wagon, its carriage full of cut brush. Suddenly the village seems foreign and ancient, something out of a long-forgotten dream.