She continues walking.
“We were all very close,” she says to the air in front, and it is difficult for Stefano to gauge whether she is telling the truth. “He loved her like a sister, like a friend, as I have already told you.”
“Does he remember much about his childhood, about the war?”
“Sometimes. He might suddenly ask a question, like where are his shoes. And sometimes he might bring up something from the past. A memory that he describes that goes away just as quickly.”
He rushes forward to open the pen gate for her.
“What was she like?” He does not need to say her name.
“I think I am too tired to answer any more questions,” she says, reaching for the other bucket he puts forward. “I’ve hardly had any sleep. Perhaps you are enamored with her yourself. You would not be the first.”
“I have offended you. Please forgive me. Do you believe she will come back one day?”
“I think Monique will do whatever it is she wants. Like she has always done.”
She brusquely walks past him to cross the pen.
“I will be over shortly to finish the work,” says Stefano.
“You don’t have to do that,” she calls over her shoulder. “It wouldn’t have surprised me if you’d left this morning. I thought you would be running halfway to Italy by now after witnessing my husband’s strange ways.”
She turns, and she is smiling all of a sudden, almost laughing.
“What is so funny?” he asks.
“All of us. Crazy, lost people here beside the river. And now you, like everyone, are curious about Monique. You are just like all men really. I thought you were different. That is what amuses me.”
She is smiling and confident, but there is madness there, he thinks, from time alone, from the horrors of war. He is thinking of the girl from the portrait. She is right at least. He is enamored but more curious about her life here, about their lives before the war, about the relationships that were here beforehand.
“Then you don’t know me at all,” he says.
She lingers slightly, looks at his feet, and then at a point on his shoulder, before finally resting her eyes on his again.
“You should have left, not been seduced by Erich’s talk of trains.” She turns away, leaving him wondering if there is something more she isn’t telling him, that she is too frightened to tell, or whether it is merely her continued bitterness toward her neighbor, or if, perhaps, she herself wants Stefano gone.
As he walks back to Erich’s house, he passes the window to see Monique’s portrait on the wall. He wants to study it again. He wants to know her. He wants time to finish another letter in his pocket. She is sending messages from far away, and sometimes it feels as if she were talking only to him.
He is alarmed to find Michal inside Erich’s house, sobbing into the cushions on the couch.
“Michal, what is the matter?”
He lifts the boy to sit up, but the boy covers his face with his arm.
“Are you injured?”
Stefano gently pulls the arm away to see his swollen eyes.
“Maminka,” he says, and he reaches for his basket.
Stefano sits down next to him and pulls him close, so that Michal’s head rests against his chest. The child’s hair has traces of smoke and earth, and Stefano breathes it in and says a prayer now, a change of heart, for the mother who is perhaps still lying in a field.
They are together in this, both here without their mothers. And Stefano instinctively puts his hand on the boy’s head before he has had time to think about the action. He feels the soft fine hair, and strangely, thinks Stefano, he needs the boy as much as Michal needs him. The child is perhaps keeping him level, less bitter, more tolerant.
“You are missing your mamma, yes?”
The child’s face is burrowed into the front of his shirt.
“She is probably watching you now. She is probably very proud that you can fly a plane.”
The child’s sobbing turns into sniffs.
“Michal, I believe we found each other for a reason. Can I trust you with a secret?”
The little boy sits up and looks up at him, wipes his eyes with the backs of his hands to get a clearer view of Stefano. He nods. He is used to keeping secrets.
“I need you to be my soldier. A special soldier with a secret task. Can you do that?”
He nods again. “With a gun?” he asks.
“No gun, but with information that is sometimes far more powerful.”
23 March 1942
Dear Papa,
This is a difficult letter for me to write. Forgive me. It has been so long since I found the strength. I feel that I am doing a great wrong by saying anything, by putting pen to paper, yet if I don’t, I become like everyone else here. Afraid, paranoid puppets while days turn into nights and nights turn into nightmares.
I promised myself long ago that I would be like you and be strong, but I do not think I carry your fortitude or valor.
As a result of the decision I felt forced to make, I am in Vienna with my husband, Erich.
Things were not right in Berlin when I left there. I was relieved at least when the train left the station and I watched Berlin’s buildings disappear from view. Yvonne and Max were there to say goodbye. I would not describe them as loving, but they have been somewhat kind to me, and I feel pity for Yvonne, whose legs ache with disease. Rosalind was there, too, stoically telling me I had made the right decision, but even as she said these words, I could tell there was a lack of sincerity. But who am I to judge, since I deceive them all about this marriage.
Before I was married, I must admit to you, Papa, that I was not taking war quite as seriously as most. Not that I didn’t care about our soldiers being killed; quite the contrary. I cried dreadfully and carried bad news in my heart for days, especially for those I knew, but I suppose in my mind to cope with everything was to fight against Berlin’s new laws and voice my support to anyone about those more vulnerable. I was losing friends because of ridiculous laws that told them they were no longer allowed to call themselves German. But I cannot change my feelings.
Emmanuelle, who was forced to wear a yellow-star patch on her arm, and her family were sent away, and our little friendship group fell apart. There were no safe places for them. She and her family were forced to leave most of their belongings in their apartment and took only a few bags, and they were lucky to have those. They were told that new towns had been created for them, but it doesn’t make sense that they have to live elsewhere. Emmanuelle asked me to keep an eye on Alain. She had not seen him in the week prior, and she was sad that they could not say goodbye. Since the African show was canceled, many of the acrobats and performers like Alain have struggled to find work. He was, however, lucky to secure factory work for almost a year after that, and after his application to join the Wehrmacht was denied.