Briar Rose (15 page)

"Good. He can be there."

"Josef will be happy to see you this evening, my children," Father Stashu said after hanging up the phone. "But he is an old man, and rather frail, so do not tire him too much."

"We won't," Becca promised.

"And if you go out the way I show you, you will come to a beautiful part of the Narew River.

Even on such a grey day, it will

have its own brightness. And its own peace. That peace ... it is almosta miracle, considering. .."

For a moment he was silent. Then he looked at the ceiling. "I cannot forgive them, you know. I can love them but I cannot forgive them. But then-I do not have to. I am not God."

They followed his instructions and came to a place where the river was gentle, glassy, and winding past patches of trees, the dark trunks thrusting out from the banks. On the other side of the river were more fields, and the town church spired up past a barrier of trees. To their right was a great field, surrounded on Aree sides by

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trees, on the fourth by the river. Odd stone walls marked o rectangular building sites. There were no buildings.

"Listen " Becca said.

Magda listened. "What is it? I hear nothing."

"Exactly," Becca said. "Isn't that odd?"

The two of them listened for a while to the silence. Then, speaking, they got back into the car and drove away.

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'As he walked through the castle, he marveled at how many lay asleep: the good people, the not-so-good, the young people and the not-so-young, and not one of them stirring. Not one. "

""at is stirring Gemma?" Becca asked as they walked through the Three County Fair. She felt very grown up because it was her flrst time going to the Fair in the evening. There was so much to see, she had scarcely paid attention to the beginning of the story.

But as she and Gemma waited for their turn on the Ferris wheel-Shana and Syl already on their second loop around-Gemma had started Briar Rose to keep Becca from becoming overev-cited.

But that word . "What is stirring, Gemma? Like stirring the soup?

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With a spoon~ Why would they have soup spoons when they were sleeping?

Why would they want to be making soup when they're lying down? I don't get it. I don't . . . "

Her voice, in her excitement, had kept rising.

"Stirring means moving about, waking up, " Gemma said, holding tight to her hand.

"Then why not say that? Why not say, 'and not one of them moving about. Not one of them getting up? Why say stirring. That's like soup, Gemma. That's silly. And Sleeping Beauty isn't a silly story. "

"No," Gemma said, her voice suddenly quiet, thoughtful; her eyes far away though she was really staring at the Ferris wheel "Not a silly story

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"Then why say stir, Gemma?" Becca asked again.

Gemma didn't answer this time, but simply pulled her along in waiting chair where fear and anticipation so mingled with the who the rocking seat being lifted, that the story was forgotten as Becca c

"Oh, Gemma, A Gemma-look at the sky!"

They sat in the lounge, fresh coffee in their cups, and waited without speaking for Josef Potocki.

Becca thought about the ride back from Chelmno, with the day darkening around them: first a grey mist off the Narew, then the clouds closing entirely over the sky, and at last a steady drizzle which accompanied them the rest of the way. Neither had wanted to explore the city in that rain and they had rested in their room, reading books. Becca's book was a history of Poland and she had been surprised to find the name Potocki as one of the aristocratic families known in southern Poland since the thirteenth century.

"Do you think our Josef Potocki is of royal blood?" she asked, her voice a sudden intrusion into the silence of their room.

"We have no royalty in Poland anymore," Magda said shortly.

Then she laughed. "Anyone can shorten his name or change it. You see princes and castles everywhere."

"That schloss . . ." Becca began.

"If that was your grandmother's castle, she was from a very poor family indeed," Magda said.

7bey were both silent for a long moment, then Becca said suddenly, "You think I am foolish about this quest? My sisters think it's crazy."

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there, like so many of the aristocracy." Magda smiled. "Co dinner time."

Dinner had hardly interested either of them and they had at their food. The coffee and cake were the only things Bec eaten with any gusto. The wait in the lounge, fresh coffee cups, seemed endless.

"What time is it?" Becca asked, not for the first time.

"He said eight o'clock. It is but half eight," Magda an

"'The past has been waiting for fifty years or more, Becca.

hour more or less. . ." She laughed. "I sound like Auntie to you are older than L"

Becca returned the laugh. "You're right. I'm being a goo

"Goose? How is this a goose?"

"Goose, ninny, el stupido, nitwit .

"Ah, I know nitwit. I had a boyfriend who was Ameri would slap his hand to his head so . . ."

She demonstrated.

a nitwit/ he would say. So a nitwit is a goose. A nine-y?"

"Ninny."

"Good, I learn more English. And El stu

"El Stupido. Not English exactly. Spanish. Well, not rea

"I will keep goose, I think," Magda said. She slapped her her head. "Such a goose!"

They both laughed uproariously.

"It is good to hear such laughter on a night like this."

was smooth, cultured, with British intonations, a bit hig with age. "Are you the two young women looking for j tocki?" There was a self-mocking undertone to it. A tall, stepped into the little bit of light thrown by the table lamp.

prominent high cheekbones that gave an oriental cast to and a perfectly straight nose. His mouth was large and mo firmer than his age demanded. He leaned on a silver-headed stick. The hand holding the stick was livered with spots, real indication of his years, but the grip seemed very firm

"Yes," they spoke together, and Magda was quick to i them.

He sat down in the one chair left and, with an easy hand, signaled to the waiter. Coffee was brought to him at it was clear he was a well-known figure at the Brda.

"So you wish to know about Chelmno?" he asked, The W

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said the word, it was almost a curse, but one spoken so often that the very familiarity had leached out its power to damn.

"Yes," Becca said. She leaned forward. "At least I think I do. You see, my grandmother may have come from there."

"Was she Jewish?" Potocki asked. "I do not ask this with any imputation. I merely ask, you see."

"Yes," Becca said. "She was."

"Then she could not have come from that place." He said it simply.

,,May I tell you what I know?" asked Becca.

"Please proceed." He took a sip of the coffee, put it down, then sat back in the chair, the wings of which nearly obscured his face.

Becca spoke quickly about Gemma, about her death, about the papers with the name of Gitl
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Mandlestein, about the single word

Kulmhof that had led her all the way to Poland. "And I have photographs of her as she was in the refugee camp in Fort Oswego.

And other things."

"May I see the pictures?" Potocki's voice was now somewhat brittle and suddenly tired. Becca realized that he must have replayed this same sort of scene many times with many travelers searching for loved ones. His hand reached out. It shook a bit with age.

Becca slipped one of the photographs from the folder and handed it across to him. "The child is my mother. The photo is dated 1945, as you can see. That is really all I know."

He took the picture and settled back against the chair, and though she could see the hand with the photo, she couldn't see his face. She waited for some reaction, but when it came, it was not at all what she'd expected. There was a soft odd sound, a shu-shu-shu. After a second Becca realized that he was sobbing quietly.

Leaping from her chair, Magda bent over him, speaking rapidly in Polish, then calling for the waiter to bring something-a glass of water, perhaps, or a towel.

Potoki took a linen handkerchief from his pocket and leaned forward. The handkerchief had entwined initials in dark blue. He dabbed at his eyes. "The dead," he said. "The dead come back to life so unexpectedly." He looked over at Becca, as if studying her face, "Of course-I should have seen it at once. You are her. Ksiqiniczka."

Becca felt her hands begin to tremble. Suddenly she saw it all. The 128

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initials on the handkerchief were JMP, just like the ring. She passport picture of the man from the folder and stared at could she have not seen. It was Potocki, very young handsome. She wondered that none of them-her mother a and she-looked at all like him. Taking a deep breath and w hands to be still, she said at last, "So, you are . . . yo grandfather." She was stunned by the simplicity of it all.

the ring from her pocketbook and held it out to him.

He began to chuckle then, and then to laugh, not a grea a laugh but a very sedate and frail laugh.

Putting the han up to his mouth and then to his eyes again, he shook his he no, no, child, that is not possible." He spoke to Magda q

Polish and Magda, too, laughed and sat back down in her

"He says, Becca, that the ring is his, but. . ." The laugh for a moment. "But he cannot possibly be your grandf is ... he has always been ... I do not know how to s English." She turned to Potocki and shrugged.

"I do not make love to women," he said simply, "thou loved many as friends."

"You're gay?" Becca said with sharp surprise.

"The American expression is so . . ." he shrugged w smile. "In my life gaiety has not been the dominant factor.

certainly~in your word-gay. It was why the Nazis inte

Even with my family connections. I cannot possibly be y father. But I knew your grandmother."

"And my grandfather?"

"And your ... grandfather. They were with me."

Becca drew a deep breath. "In Chelmno? In the cam

"In the woods. We were partisans. It is a long story. To tonight. This shock has tired me. Come to my house tom

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I will tell it to you."

He rose and Becca could see that both his hands were

"Forgive me my lack of strength. I look forward to to He bowed slightly and reached into the breast pocket of

Taking out a silver card case, he held it to her. "Open this My hands are too stiff. The card has my address. I will at eleven. For lunch of course." He bowed to Magda as w of you are expected. You are, I am sure, not like most you and will be on time."

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Becca took the card, and he returned the case to his pocket. Then, bent over his stick, he walked away from them and the doors seemed to open magically before him. Becca knew there were doormen and waiters doing the actual mechanics, but she liked the thought that-like the thornbush in Gemma's story-the doors were parting because he was some kind of prince.

"Well!" Magda said when he was gone, "there is an ending to your fairy tale."

"Or at least a middle," Becca said. Then, she added, "I hope he doesn't die in the night."

"I think," Magda said, suddenly quite serious, "that there is a man who will not let death take him by the hand until he has finished what he has begun."

I think you are right," Becca answered as solemnly.

Josef Potoki's house was made of brick and stone and had been built in the middle of the last century. When they rang the bell, the door was opened by a plump, pleasant-looking woman dressed in a conservative dark dress with white piping around the collar, She spoke only Polish, so Magda explained.

"He is waiting for us in the drawing room. Drawing room~ This is right?"

The room was a combination of living room and library. There was a fireplace with a fire spitting sparks and just settling down.

Three stuffed chairs in a semicircle around a table by the hearth sat like a welcoming family, Potoki was already in command of the one closest to the fire.

"Come in, come in, my young friends. The story is a long one, so you must make yourselves comfortable. We will have a fight lunch, and tea around four, and dinner-if the story is stiff ongoing-in here. In the dining room if I have finished by then. Do not worry.

It is not dull, It will not be a bore. Some of it will be about your grandmother. Not all. She is only a part of a very large tale, as you will see. But I will try and stick as close to her part as I can.

Ksi~niczka. Ksiq;iniczka. You are so like her indeed. Tell me, did e have a good life, child?"

Becca sat down on his right, in a chair with a floral pattern of red and gold. "I think so. She had the one daughter and three grand-11

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daughters. She worked hard. I ... we ... all loved hei much. We lived together, all in the one house."

"A large house?"

"A very large house, sir."

"Ah . . . she would have liked that. And did she n again?"

"Again?"

He smiled. "She told you nothing then."

"All she ever told us was the story of Briar Rose."

Potocki looked inquiringly at Magda, who reeled

Polish sentence. Then he turned and smiled again. "TI La Belle au Bois Dormant." His French was flawless. I u

"I don't," Becca said.

"You will. You will." And without further introducti(

the promised story, telling it with a practiced economy, only a storyteller and not one of the main characters.

CASTLE

The thirteenth fairy, her flngers as long and thin as straws, her eyes burnt by cigarettes, her uterus an empty teacup, arrived with an evil gift.

-Anne Sexton, from "Briar Rose (Sleeping