Pam Jenoff - The Ambassador's Daughter

A cat slips quietly around the base of the chair before jumping up and folding itself into Krysia’s lap. I’m surprised—I’ve seen almost no pets since we’ve been back in Paris, none of the poodles and little terriers on leashes that littered the parks before the war. There are the strays, of course, animals too large and mangy to have been anyone’s pet for long, hurrying busily between the rubbish piles in the side streets. But there wasn’t enough food for the people during the war, much less animals, and it was a mercy I’m sure to put one’s beloved pet to sleep rather than let it starve. Some were probably eaten.

Through the floorboards comes a lively, unrecognizable tune from a gramophone. “I’m so sorry to intrude,” I apologize again.

“Not at all. Artists are a bit reclusive, but back home in Poland there are none of these formalities. Guests are always welcome at a moment’s notice.”

Relaxing somewhat, I take the cup she offers. “I hadn’t seen you. And then I heard that you were sick.”

She waves her hand dismissively. “Just a bad cold. These things get so exaggerated.” But there are circles beneath her eyes that suggest something more. She takes a sip of coffee, savoring it with relish. Coffee, like so many things, was scarce during the war, the ersatz mix of ground nuts and grains hardly a substitute.

My body goes slack with relief. “I was worried.” The fullness of my voice reveals my concern.

“It’s good to know that someone might notice if I dropped off the face of the earth.” She smiles faintly, her tone wry.

The cat hops across into my lap, purring low and warm. “She doesn’t like most people,” Krysia observes approvingly.

We drink our coffee in silence. Something about her absence and her tired expression do not make sense. I take a deep breath, then dive in. “Krysia, I wanted to ask you about the young women in the park.”

She blinks. “How do you know about that?”

“When you left Wilson’s reception, you went to the park….”

“You followed me then, too?” she asks, cutting me off.

“No. That is … I was curious where you were going and why.” I falter. “I guess I did follow you.”

“And I should ask the question—why exactly?” She has a point. We’ve spoken twice, spent a few hours together—hardly the kind of intimate friendship that warrants such probing questions.

“I was concerned.”

“You were curious,” she corrects. I was both, I concede inwardly. Of course I wanted to know what she was doing, understand her mystery. But I feel a certain kinship to Krysia, more so than I should for a woman I’ve only just met.

“Years ago I had a child,” she says, her voice a monotone. I stifle my shock. Whatever I had expected Krysia to say, it wasn’t that. “I was twenty-two when I got pregnant.” Just about the age I am now, though I cannot fathom the experience. “Old enough to make my own choices. The father—it wasn’t Marcin back then—was long since gone.” I struggle not to reach for her. “My parents wanted me to have it taken care of, to avoid the scandal that would have devastated them socially. I made the appointment and even went. I couldn’t go through with it, though. I had the baby.” Her voice cracks slightly. “But I was too afraid to try to raise her on my own. So I gave her up.”

Her. I remember the young women skating. One had been taller than the rest, with chestnut hair not unlike Krysia’s. She continues, “I go to the park each week to see her. Just once a week. Any more would only raise suspicion.”

“Have you ever spoken to her?”

She shakes her head. “I have no wish to intrude and complicate her life. I’ve tried to do the right thing—letting her go when I couldn’t support her, keeping an eye out for her safety. Yet it all gets twisted somehow. I mean, I had to give her up. But I can’t just abandon her, can I, and go on as though she doesn’t exist and this piece of me isn’t out there in the world?” She sounds lost, no longer confident and strong but a child herself somehow. Krysia is caught in a kind of purgatory, unable to leave the child but unable to be with her.

“She’s no longer a child. Perhaps if you spoke to her now, you could explain.”

“There are some doors that are not meant to be opened.” Her tone is firm.

I recall the girl, so similar to Krysia, except that she was slight, a thin slip of birch beside Krysia’s oak. “She looks well cared for.”

“The people who adopted her are good folks,” she agrees. “A bit more materialistic and less cultured than I would have wanted. But there’s time for that later, perhaps a year abroad, study at the Sorbonne.” She sounds as though she is planning a future that she will somehow be a part of, though that, of course, is impossible.

“Perhaps,” I soothe. I have no idea if she is right, but it is what she needs to hear. “Perhaps you’ll have children of your own. More children,” I add as she opens her mouth to protest that the girl is her own.

“Having Emilie nearly killed me.” Emilie. I do not know if that is the child’s actual name by her adopted parents, or just one Krysia uses in her mind. “She’s seventeen. But she hasn’t settled on a suitor that I can tell, I think because she is still studying.” There is a note of pride in Krysia’s voice, as if through her estranged child she could correct the mistakes of her own youth.

“I’ve never told anyone.” Underlying her voice is a plea that I not judge her choices. “I don’t know why I’m telling you.” Because I caught you, I want to say. But she could have lied to me, made up a story about the girls in the park. No, there is something about me that she trusts almost instinctively. I’ve always had that way about me, that makes people want to talk and share.

“What about your parents?”

“There was a time they would not speak to me. Now we’re civil since we’ve put all that behind us.” She places heavy irony on the last two words, as though acknowledging that it is anything but in the past.

“This week she didn’t appear at the park. Listening to the others, I learned that she’d been taken ill.” I understand then Krysia’s absence, the circles beneath her eyes that came not from her own sickness but worry about her child. “It was the worst thing in the world. I wanted to go to her in the hospital but, of course, I couldn’t. So I’ve been in church, praying almost nonstop for her recovery.” No, madly liberal, communist Krysia was not religious. It was the helplessness and despair of a sick child she could not be with that had literally brought Krysia to her knees. “She’s turned the corner now and is recovering.”

Yet Krysia still prayed. “When I didn’t see you for a time, I thought maybe I had said or done something to offend you,” I say, changing the subject. Then I stop, realizing how insecure I sound.

“Not at all. I’m glad to know you. I have Marcin, of course, but I’ve forgotten how pleasant the company of another woman can be.”

I nod. “Me, too.” I am not comfortable in the company of women. I dislike their gossipy talk and the way they eye one another as if in constant competition. But Krysia is different somehow. For a minute I consider sharing Ignatz’s request that I help provide information. But Ignatz bade me not tell her about our conversation, almost as if he considers her too vulnerable and weak to be trusted. I do not want to bother her now, while she is so worried about Emilie.

She picks up some knitting needles and yarn beside her. Her hands are so often in motion, playing the piano, knitting—like two birds she needs to keep occupied so they don’t fly away.

“So have you made any decisions?” she asks abruptly.