Mrs. Tuesday's Departure: A Historical Novel of World War Two (10 page)

“I want Mila here with us,” I said. “I’d feel better knowing she was with us instead of strangers.”

“But in doing so, you may be endangering her as well as yourself and Anna,” he countered.

“Nana, you can’t do that.” Mila reached for my hand and I put down my work to give her a brief squeeze.

“What can we do?” I looked at Deszo, but he didn’t lift his attention from the page. “After all, how much longer can the war go on? The Allies are coming and I’ve heard that the Russians are close to our border. Certainly the Germans can’t be bothered with rounding up Jews now.”

Deszo looked up at me and held out the notice. “What further proof do you need?”

I pushed the paper away and got up from the table. “I can’t believe this. What will they do? Register the Jews
and then what? Send them home?”

I picked u
p
the potatoes, carried them over to the stove, and dropped them into a pot of water. I took out a frying pan and began cutting the kielbasa into rough chunks, letting them fall into the pan. “Mila, please go set the table for dinner.”

I waited until she’d left the room before turning to Deszo. “Are the rumors true? Will they send them away to labor camps like they did in Poland?”

“Natalie, they don’t come back from those labor camps.”

“No, it can’t be. I’ve heard people say that they’ve gotten letters from families sent there.”

“Those are rumors,” he said. “They’re not true.”

I wiped my hands on a towel and looked around the room for something, I couldn’t remember. I felt helpless and overwhelmed.

“I have some contacts through the university,” he continued. “People sympathetic to helping the work of the consulates. Let me speak with them. I’ll contact you tomorrow. In the mean time, do not let Mila leave the apartment. She should not register. Tell anyone who asks that she has left with her parents.”

We ate together in the dining room. Mila had set the table with white linen and candles. Anna came to the table wearing a simple gray wool dress, her hair once again pulled back into a neat bun. 

Deszo sat at the head of the table with Anna on one side of him and Mila on the other. In spite of all that had happened today, they had a lively conversation, Deszo asking Mila about her studies, Anna about her poetry. It was clear that he had decided not to dwell on the realities we faced. At least not during our meal together. I picked at my food and looked out the window at the last flurries of snow.

“I feel inspired,” Anna said picking up her glass of wine. “I’d like to make a toast, to my return to the University and to Deszo’s return to my life.”

“I’ll make coffee,
”
I said.

“Let’s have it in your study, in front of the stove,” Deszo suggested.

I nodded and cleared the plates from the table. Mila offered to help, but I shook my head.  “Perhaps you could interest Deszo in a game of backgammon.”

I piled the dishes in the sink and put the kettle on to boil. I went to the window next to the stove and looked out on the alleyway below. The snow had stopped and where it had fallen there were puddles of ugly black slush. In a strange way I was glad the beauty I’d witnessed in the park was gone. The Germans didn’t deserve to see our city in its full beauty. They deserved what they brought with them, filth, cold, and despair.

My fingertips brushed against the windowpane. Yes, I recalled feeding the birds when we were young. I remembered the verse our housekeeper had quoted. It was about faith, the hope in the unseen. It was my memory not hers. I am the bird feeder. I was the one who sat by the window that day and waited for the birds that never came, not Anna.

I went back to the sink and picked up a crust of bread from one of the plates. Tearing it into tiny pieces, I remembered that two days ago, March 19th, the day the Germans had finally come, was a Sunday. I hadn’t gone to Mass. I hadn’t even thought of it. Now as I rolled the bits of bread into tiny balls, I was hungry for communion, for the evidence of God’s presence. And then I thought of Anna’s question in the dean’s office. Were we meant to be God’s helpers now? Was that part of faith, the willingness to step into the unknown and simply believe that God would be there with us? Would I be called on to do that for Mila? Or for Anna? Would I be able to take that step into thin air and believe that God will be with me no matter what?

A sliver of cold air sliced the warmth of the kitchen when I opened the window.  Opening my hand, I laid the crumbs in a careful row on the ledge. Then I closed the window, went to the stove and took the kettle into the study, to join the others.

At home, Mrs
.
Tuesday
took off her coat, put on her slippers, warmed a cup of consommé, and settled into a chair in the living room. She placed the package on the table next to two leather journals and a stack of typed pages. She checked her watch and waited.

The grandfather clock chimed eight o’clock, there was a knock on the door, and a key turned in the lock. Mrs. Tuesday watched the door open and smiled as her granddaughter came in.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said as she bent over to kiss Mrs. Tuesday. “I was at the library.”

“There’s coffee in the kitchen, pour yourself a cup and come sit with me.”

Mrs. Tuesday watched her granddaughter come back into the living room. She was tall; her brunette hair fell halfway down her back and over her shoulders. She looked like the typical college student, jeans, turtleneck, boots, and eyes tired from late nights of studying but glittering with the optimism of youth. She sat cross-legged on the couch and sipped her coffee.

“Are you well Grandma?”

“I’m fine, maybe a little touch of the flu,” Mrs. Tuesday said unconsciously touching her chest. “How are your studies?”

Her granddaughter rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why a writer has to take biology and calculus.”

Mrs. Tuesday chuckled, “They will make you a better writer. How is your novel coming?”

“I made the changes you suggested last time and I’ve brought you three more chapters to read.”

In the corne
r
of the study, Mila dozed, curled in the arms of a green velvet wing back chair. It was well after midnight. I stifled a yawn, ignoring the resistance of my stiff joints as I pushed myself from my chair. A disappointed cry from an interrupted dream escaped Mila’s lips as I roused her from her sleep and guided her out of the study. She stopped in front of the doors leading to the living room.

“I want to see their room,” she said, leaving my side and entering the room. She turned on a lamp, illuminating the room that had been converted into a bedroom for Ilona and Bela. The bed covers were tossed on the floor, there were clothes scattered around the room as though they had packed in a hurry. Mila walked around the room, picking up her mother’s clothing, folding it and placing it on the bed.

“Mila you haven’t mentioned your mother.”

Mila kept her back to me and continued folding the clothes. “I think of her all the time.”

I too had thought of Ilona, wondering if she’d safely made it to Switzerland. Wondering if her heart ached with the abandonment of her only child. “I can’t explain what she did. But I know that she loves you.”

Mila cringed. “Nana were you surprised that she left without me?”

“Of course,” I said, although the truth was that I wasn’t surprised. I’d hoped, no more than that, I’d prayed that just this once, Ilona would put her daughter first.

“I’m not,” she said, picking up one of Bela’s jackets and then throwing it down. “I don’t know why she doesn’t like me. I tried to stay out of the way, I tried to be a good student…” Mila turned to me; her features were contorted with hurt and frustration. She held her mother’s sweater in her hand and then lifted it to her nose and inhaled deeply. “I miss her, Nana.” She dropped the sweater on the bed and looked up at me. “Maybe she will send for me.”

Isn’t that the greatest tragedy? When someone rejects us, no matter how they abuse our love, we hope against reason that somehow they will come back to us. I knew from the look on Ilona’s face as the train left the station that she did not intend to ever see her daughter again. But I wouldn’t tell that to Mila. Instead, I walked to Mila and embraced her. “We will find out where she is and then contact her. I’m sure that once she’s found a new place to live, maybe when this terrible war is over, I’m sure she’ll send for you.”

Mila and
I
left the room, stopping to turn out the light and close the door behind us. We went to her room and while Mila got ready for bed, I sat in my usual chair and picked up the book of Anna’s poetry that Mila had been reading the night before.

Mila turned under the covers and propped herself up on one elbow. “Nana, I must go to a safe house.”

“Not yet.”

“If the Nazi’s find me here, you and Anna will be taken away too.”

“Then we’ll have to keep you well hidden.”

“But what about Anna?”

“I’ll speak with her again.”

“She can’t help herself, Nana.”

Anna’s insanity was enough to make her dangerous, but not enough to make her harmless. I shivered with guilt at the thought.  Would I have to choose between my sister and my niece?

I turned off the light, closed Mila’s door, and walked down the hall to my study. Anna was sitting next to Deszo on the sofa, holding his hand, leaning against his shoulder. When I walked in, she looked up at me with half-closed eyes and a smile conveying the satisfaction of a cat. Oddly, Deszo’s expression showed acute discomfort his cheeks flushed as he slipped his hand out of Anna’s clasp.

“I’m going to bed now,” I said. “Deszo, thank you for your help today.”

Deszo got up from the couch.  “I should go.”

“No stay!” Anna protested. “Natalie leave us.”

I turned from them and Deszo followed me to the door.

“Deszo, wait!” Anna hurried to his side, grasping his arm as if to pull him back to the couch. “Spend the night here, with me.”

Deszo’s cheeks reddened further and he gently pried her fingers from his arm. “I have to go home now. I’ll see you again.”

Anna smiled demurely and lifted her face to kiss him on the cheek. “Our next meeting will be more private.” She lowered her voice and whispered, while looking at me. “And intimate.”

Deszo followed me down the hall to the front door and I helped him into the sleeves of his camel hair coat. The tender caress of its nap contrasted with its weight as it left my hands and lifted over his navy wool jacket. I brushed my fingertips across the seams of the shoulders and shivered with the awareness of his masculine scent.

Deszo turned and clasped his hands to my face. His hooded blue eyes searched my face and he smiled, sadly. “Natalie, come to my office tomorrow. I’ll have more information for you.”

I shook my head. “Not the University. Can you come here?” 

Deszo looked dow
n
the hall toward the study and frowned. “I can’t come here. Anna will believe I’m coming for her.” His fingers traveled down my neck and rested on my shoulders.

My cheeks reddened now. “That would be understandable from what I saw.”

“Natalie, I want to help you. Not resume a relationship with Anna.”

I took a step backwards, out of his grasp.  “Max would be grateful for your help.”

“Of course.” Deszo’s smile faded for an instant and then returned. “Meet me at the café across the street from the University. At four o’clock.”

He turned and reached for the door. Instinctively I bowed my body toward it. As he stepped outside, he turned and pulled me into his chest. His arms ran up my back, one hand holding my neck other tilting my head back.

His lips lingered just a moment too long for a chaste kiss of old friends. He pressed just a bit too hard.

Gasping, I pulled myself away from him at the same moment I heard someone clear their throat in the stairway. I turned and saw an Arrow Cross
soldier
staring up at us with an embarrassed smile. He was a young boy, seventeen perhaps, with red hair cut close to his scalp. I clutched the edge of the door.

Deszo put his arm around my shoulders pulling me into his side. The squeeze of his fingers silenced me.

“Good evening,” the
soldier
said with a tip of his cap. “Sorry to bother you. We heard there were Jews living in this building and…”

Deszo cut him off with a growl, “I’ve been wondering when you’d get around to searching here.”

The young
soldier
stiffened. “Sir, we’ve been making a thorough search of every building, but…”

Deszo released my shoulders and reached into his coat pocket, withdrawing a pen. “What’s your name Private?”