Danielle Steel - Echoes

Amadea could see it the moment she walked in. Something was wrong. Her mother had come alone. Daphne was at school. Beata hated to waste a visit without her, and deprive her of the opportunity to see her sister, but she felt she had no choice. She knew she wasn't thinking clearly. They were all Germans after all. She was Catholic. No one knew who she was. No one was bothering her. But still, you could never be sure anymore. Her father must have thought he was safe too. She wasn't sure where to begin.

“Peace of Christ,” Amadea said softly, smiling at her mother. It had been a sad week for them. Sister Teresa Benedicta a Cruce, Edith Stein, had left them three days before, to join a convent in Holland. A friend had driven her over the border and her sister Rosa had gone with her, and was going to be staying at the convent too. She had been afraid to jeopardize the other nuns. Born Jewish, she had asked the Mother Superior to send her away to keep the others safe. And it broke everyone's heart to see her go. It was not what they wanted, but what they knew had to happen, for her well-being as well as theirs. They had all cried when she left, and prayed for her daily. The convent didn't seem the same without her smiling face. “Mama, are you all right? Where's Daphne?”

“In school. I wanted to see you alone.” She was speaking quickly, because she knew they didn't have much time, and she had a lot to say. “Amadea, my family's been deported.”

“What family?” Amadea looked confused as she stared at her mother, and they held each other's fingers through the grille. They were speaking in whispers. “You mean Oma's family?” Beata nodded.

“All of them. My father, my sister, my two brothers, their children, and my brothers' wives.” There were tears in her eyes as she said it, and she wiped them away as they spilled onto her cheeks.

“I'm so sorry,” Amadea said softly, confused. “Why?”

Beata took a breath and plunged in. “They're Jewish. Or they were.” By now they were probably dead. “I'm Jewish. I was born Jewish. I converted to marry your father.”

“I never knew,” Amadea said, looking at her with compassion. But she didn't seem frightened, nor did she seem to understand what it meant, or could mean to her, to all of them.

“I never told you. We didn't think it was important. And now it is. Very important. Maybe I was afraid … or ashamed. I don't know. No one has bothered us or said anything, and all my papers say I'm Catholic. I really don't have any papers, except the identity cards I've had since your father died. There's no evidence of it anywhere, and your birth certificate says that Papa and I were both Catholic when you were born, and we were. Our marriage certificate even says I'm Catholic. But it's there, somewhere. My father told everyone I had died. He wrote my name in the book of the dead. The person I was then no longer exists. I was reborn when I married your father, as a Christian, a Catholic. But the truth is, you're half Jewish, and so is Daphne. And I'm fully Jewish, as far as the Nazis are concerned. If they ever find out, you will be in danger. You have to know. I want you to be aware of it so you can protect yourself.” And the others, Amadea instantly thought to herself, remembering what Edith Stein had just done, to protect them all. But she was fully Jewish, and known to be. Amadea wasn't, and she was a nobody. Nobody knew or cared who she was. And her mother said there was no evidence of their heritage, or their Jewish relatives. Still, it was good to know.

“Thank you for telling me. I'm not worried,” she said quietly, looking at her mother, and kissing her fingers. And then she thought of what Edith Stein, Sister Teresa Benedicta a Cruce, had said before she left about the potential risk to others by association. “What about Daphne, Mama?”

“She's safe with me. She's just a child.” But so were the other children who were being deported and sent to camps. The difference was that they were fully Jewish. Daphne wasn't. But there was admittedly some small degree of risk. As long as no one bothered them, and didn't unearth anything from the distant past, all would be well. And how likely was it that they would? Even going to Switzerland seemed a little hysterical to her now. They had no reason to run away. It was just unsettling knowing what was happening to the others.

“Mama, Sister Teresa Benedicta told us about something before she left. It's a beautiful thing. It's a train run by the British to rescue Jewish children before they get sent away to work camps and deported. The first one left on December first, but there will be others. They are sending German children to England until this insanity stops. Only children, up to the age of seventeen. And the Germans are allowing it. It's legal. They don't want Jewish children here anyway. What about sending Daphne to be sure that she's safe? You can always bring her back later.” But Beata instantly shook her head. She wasn't sending her daughter away. There was no need to. And going to stay with strangers in England could be dangerous too.

“She's not Jewish, Amadea. Only half. And no one even knows that. I'm not sending her unprotected to a foreign country with God knows who, like an animal on a freight train, to stay God knows where. It's too dangerous for her. She's just a child.”

“So are the others. Good people will take them into their homes and take care of them,” Amadea said gently. It seemed a wise opportunity to her, but not to Beata.

“You don't know that. She could be raped by a stranger. Anything could happen. What if these children fall into the wrong hands?”

“They're in the wrong hands here. You said it yourself.” And then Amadea sighed. Maybe her mother was right. There was no real danger to them for the moment, and they could see how things went. There was always time to send her away later if something came up. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was better to just keep their heads down, keep quiet, and let the storm pass. Sooner or later it would.

“I don't know,” Beata said, looking worried. It was hard to know what to do, what was right. There was blood in the air, but it wasn't theirs for now. All she had wanted was to warn Amadea, so she could be aware. She was safe in the convent. Edith Stein was a different story. She was fully Jewish, known to be, and had been something of a radical and an activist, not so long ago. She was exactly the sort of person the Nazis were looking for. Troublemakers. Amadea certainly wasn't that. And as the two women sat looking at each other, thinking, a nun knocked at the door, and signaled to Amadea that their time was up.

“Mama, I have to go.” It would be months before they saw each other again.

“Don't write to Daphne that I was here. It will break her heart not to have seen you, but I wanted to see you alone.”

“I understand,” she said, kissing her mother's fingers. She was twenty-one, but she looked considerably older. She had grown up in her three and a half years in the convent, and her mother could see it now. “I love you, Mama. Be careful. Don't do anything foolish,” she warned her, and her mother smiled. “I love you so much.”

“So do I, my darling.” And then she confessed with a sad smile, “I still wish you were at home with us.”

“I'm happy here,” Amadea reassured her, feeling a tug at her heart. She missed them both at times, but she was still certain of her vocation. In four and a half years, she would take her final vows. There was no question of that. She had never doubted it once since she'd been there. And then as her mother got up to leave, “Merry Christmas, Mama.”

“Merry Christmas to you,” her mother said softly and then left the little cell where they visited, divided by the wall with the narrow grille.