Elise’s heart began to pound as it used to in the past, racing so fast it made her face flush. Yet with the heartbeats, her sense of fear evaporated. She had seen the future.
“Your uncle Roger can only take one of you,” the abbot explained.
“I won’t go to New York without Elise. I promised my mother,” Danielle declared firmly. She took her sister’s hand and dropped the suitcase.
“Danielle . . .” Father Auguste’s voice cracked. “Your uncle can only adopt one of you, and he wants the younger sister.”
Elise could hear her heartbeats. I have to count them for the first time since I was abandoned in the forest, she told herself. Yes, come on, Elise: one, two, three, four, five, six . . . What happened to the silences? Count again, don’t give up, she told herself.
Distracted, concentrating above all on trying to find the silences between her heartbeats, she didn’t understand the rest of what Father Auguste was saying. She was busy calculating the speed the blood was coursing through her veins. She could feel it going up, down, back to the head. A cool breeze blew in through the only window open in the sacristy, bringing with it the smell of rain.
“So Elise will go to Paris tomorrow with Marie-Louise.”
“We’re finally going to Paris?” Elise said, looking joyfully toward her sister.
“May I go now?” was Danielle’s only response, said in a disturbingly unruffled voice.
“Tonight you’ll both be sleeping at the abbey,” said Father Auguste. He stood up and shuffled out of the sacristy.
Marie-Louise tried to understand why Monsieur Duval had chosen only one of them. Maybe he saw Elise as the more vulnerable one, whereas Danielle was ready to fend for herself. The Duvals were immigrants and perhaps too poor to care for them both, she thought.
By nightfall, Danielle had already gone to lie down in what had once been her bed. She took up only a small part of it, leaving more room for Elise, just like when they used to sleep together. She slid the suitcase back under the bed once more.
Danielle felt as if she had been living someone else’s life in Marie-Louise’s house, in the abbey, in this bed that really belonged to her sister. She was the other, the one her uncle was rejecting, when all she had done was to obey the instructions given by her mother, who it turned out was now Elise’s mother. She herself was a dim, nameless phantom, whom nobody wanted. Perhaps even the uncle’s final choice—“Just one of you”—had been Maman Claire’s intention from the start.
She sensed Elise slipping into bed beside her, but avoided the slightest movement and hoped she would fall asleep at once. She couldn’t find any prayers or pleas to help her, because she had just realized that the decision had likely been made by her own mother.
When Elise crawled into bed, she recognized the small purple jewel case that Danielle had put on her pillow. She’s forgiven me, she thought, slipping it into her coat pocket. What did she want a bracelet and a diamond ring for now. She sighed.
Convinced Maman Claire had never ceased watching over them, Elise slept soundly.
Danielle meanwhile was struggling with dreadful nightmares. A voice was telling her that it was not for her to absolve nor pardon anyone. There were no guilty or innocent people. Elise would grow up as her mother’s daughter, her sister. She would protect her until her dying day, wherever she might be. It was “her Christian duty,” she heard Maman Claire’s soft voice say.
The years would go by and Elise would write to her, but Danielle vowed never to open the letters or respond to her calls. Her sister had become her punishment; since she had appeared in her life, Danielle’s world had come tumbling down. Her mother had died protecting this other one. Not her.
She decided that her one final offering would be to keep the box of letters sent back from Cuba and dispatch them again to Viera. She owed that much to her mother and to Frau Amanda.
Elise woke at midnight, safe in Danielle’s arms. She tried to turn around gently so as not to wake her or slip out of her embrace. When she was face-to-face with her, she kissed her.
In the first light of dawn, Danielle saw Elise leave the dormitory hand in hand with Marie-Louise. Before stepping out, Elise turned and could see Danielle lying there motionless, her face contorted with pain and anger. She saw her weeping, and knew they were tears of rage. Closing her eyes, Elise realized this was the last time she would ever see her sister.
It was still dark as they walked to the station, but by the time the train drew in, Elise could see that Marie-Louise had put on a blue silk dress and a brown coat. She had never seen her look so elegant.
They boarded the train in silence and sat opposite one another, in their own worlds. As they sped past newly planted wheat fields, Elise was lost in inconsequential thoughts. She ought to try to sleep, this was going to be a long journey.
This wasn’t the first family she was abandoning, and it wouldn’t be the last. It no longer interested her to see what could be happening in the future. Whatever it might be, she was prepared for it: What more did she have to lose?
Marie-Louise was already dozing. Seeing herself reflected in the train’s dusty window, Elise stared blankly into the beyond as the train began to push forward.
49
Paris was cold rain, dark puddles of water, unlit streetlamps, a muddy river. Displaced bodies running around with nowhere to hide. Bewildered, Marie-Louise stopped to get her bearings. Shadows hurtled past her, and she kept turning around as if an enemy were at her heels.
The city was nothing more than a mass of old, dark buildings. Elise wanted to capture every image, to keep them all in her memory: discarded pieces of furniture, battered lamps, drunkards slumped on street corners. A woman in a hat and high heels bent over a pile of rubble. When they saw her, two children ran to join her. In an attic window, someone had forgotten a red and white flag with the black swastika in the center. Nobody cared. There were no stars in Paris either.
In the taxi, Elise stuck her head out of the window. The Paris drizzle soaked her face. The neighborhood they were heading for was a labyrinth of narrow streets, grim facades, lopsided windows. Marie-Louise was busy steeling herself for the return to the street where she used to live. Raising her chin as high as she could and stretching her neck out proudly, she took Elise’s hand as they left the cab. Weary from their journey, they entered a small hotel. Elise looked on as Marie-Louise talked to an old woman behind the desk. Soon afterward, Marie-Louise turned back to her, frowning, took her hand again, and they went up to their room.
Standing at the window, Marie-Louise looked out on the continuous line of buildings with their big carriage entrances; a district that had once been hers. The sight was too painful, and nostalgia made her take a step back. The movement stirred the room’s quiet light.
They slept in beds separated by a small night table. Elise collapsed onto her mattress with her eyes so wide open they shone like a light in the darkness. She began to foresee a future of clouded happiness. That’s the sacrifice the guilty have to make, she dreamed. Because she had survived, because she hadn’t been able to save Maman Claire, because she allowed Jacques and Henri to leave, because she didn’t hold out her hand to Viviane, because she abandoned Father Marcel. And the next day she was going to be leaving behind the only remaining people she cared for in the world.
They were woken by a hostile brightness. It was time to face the truth, and their anxiety, by now mixed with a distaste for the French capital, only increased. There were no good mornings, no friendly looks. Marie-Louise went out into the street, yet another phantom from the war that the locals glanced at without curiosity. She lacked the patience to stop outside the building where she had once lived, or on the corner of what had once been her café. With one fell stroke she erased the past, hoping that this would make it hurt less. Watching her gave Elise a more precise vision of what was to come.
Walking well away from Marie-Louise’s old neighborhood, they sat on the terrace of an empty restaurant with coffee and
a cream tart.
“Stay where you are,” Marie-Louise ordered Elise, before leaving without any explanation.
Elise stayed out on the terrace surrounded by phantoms who ignored her as they passed by. This was Paris, a city she would never remember.
When she returned an hour later, Marie-Louise seemed to have shriveled. Looking her in the eye, Elise could see she had been crying.
“Albert is not coming back,” said Marie-Louise, slumping into her chair with infinite weariness. “He’s dead. They killed him,” she explained, raising the cup of cold coffee to her lips.
“You’ll be all right. You’re going to escape from this nightmare once and for all,” she went on. Her face was now as harsh as her voice. “Get away, Elise, get out of this sewer as quickly as you can. Paris: What’s left of Paris? Parisians? Luckily you’ll be far away.”
Elise wanted to tell her that she already knew, that her husband had died in a dark, windowless hole, where they robbed him of even the right to breathe, and yet she knew it would have been pointless.
This was her last day with Marie-Louise. She wanted to fling herself on her, hug her, beg her not to abandon her, but she didn’t have the courage. That image was still in the future. For now, they crossed the city to find the building where rescued orphans were gathered. Elise pretended to be resigned to her fate, to accept it calmly, although neither was true.
Best to stay quiet, to follow Marie-Louise without thinking, even when what she really wanted to do was shout at her, drop to her knees in the middle of the street, stop the Paris traffic, and beg her to show some pity. This was her last chance to flee far from everything, from the unknown uncle, from the fate awaiting her.
If Monsieur Albert had survived, perhaps he and Marie-Louise would have adopted Danielle and me. We could have celebrated my twelfth birthday together. No one has ever celebrated my birthday, thought Elise.
She was shuttled around a room packed with howling children. She allowed herself to be led to one corner for her photograph to be taken, to another to be bombarded with questions that she refused to answer. Marie-Louise was her voice, her conscience, her executioner. Documents, letters, forms with signatures and letterheads, a ticket for a ship, a stamp for New York. Her body was in the room, but Elise’s soul had already left and was floating through the air.
It was only when Marie-Louise embraced her that she returned to this desperate corner filled with victims about to embark on a new life.
“Don’t leave me, Marie-Louise. I shouldn’t be here. I’m not like them, I have you,” Elise begged her in one last desperate effort.
“You have an uncle who’s calling for you, my child. I can’t go against that, even if I wished to. How can you want to live with a widow who’s only waiting for the moment when she can join the man taken from her?” She didn’t want Elise to see her weep again. The only person who now deserved to shed tears, whether of pain or hatred, was Elise.
“Maman, don’t abandon me!” exclaimed Elise, in a trance. Moved and frightened, Marie-Louise stepped away from her.
It was then that Elise lost her last shred of innocence. Her childhood was at an end. I’m not the one who should be going on this boat! It should be Danielle! She wanted to shout, but couldn’t.
She saw Marie-Louise moving away among the crowd packing the quayside. She had been abandoned yet again. Not in a forest, as she had dreamed, but adrift on an ocean liner. This was yet another death for her, and with it another of her lives was starting, the one she had already glimpsed in her dreams.
She closed her eyes. When she opened them once more, she saw herself, nameless, on the bow of a ship. In the open sea.
When the war is over, you are to travel to France, to Haute-Vienne. There you must search for the Duval family. Ask for Claire, Danielle, or Father Marcel. Tell them who you are and they will understand.
Your sister may well be an adult, have gotten married and had children. She may not even remember you.
She will no longer be called Lina, but Elise. It’s possible she may reject you at first. Why did it take so long to discover the truth? she’ll ask you. You must insist and show her our letters, all of them, because by then you’ll have received them.
She’ll tell you she has another family and believes in another God. That won’t matter. God is God, and you are her flesh and blood. Promise me you’ll go and look for her.
You are to tell her I loved her with all my life, and that I did everything I could to save her, even though that meant I had to forget who I was, and to make her forget who she was, where she came from.
One day you’ll both go back to Berlin and show your children where our home used to be, our Garden of Letters. Then I’ll be able to rest in peace. And so will your papa, because both of us will always be watching over you.
Promise me that, even if it is only for a moment, you will both wear the gold chains Papa bought for you, with the Star of David. On one star is written your sister’s true name: Lina Sternberg.
The Farewell
New York, April 2015
50
“Mom.” Adele went over to the bed.
Yes, she was a mother, a grandmother, an old woman. She wasn’t on the deck of an ocean liner, or in the middle of a forest begging not to be abandoned.
The first twelve years of my life meant more than all the rest.
My life since has been a sham.
You are the only real thing left, Adele.
The only good thing I’ve done in this country.
She didn’t say all this aloud, or did she? She was almost certain she could still speak.
Can you hear me, Adele?
She gazed around the hospital room. Maman Claire, Father Marcel, and Danielle were all there. This was the encounter she had always been waiting for, the last one, when each of them would appear before her and judge her. Was she dreaming?
“We’re in the hospital, Mom,” Adele replied, reading the question in her mother’s gaze.
Hers was the gentle voice of a daughter who would not condemn her. But Elise needed the opposite: the moment had come to confess, and she wanted neither forgiveness nor forgetting.
In the end, we’re always guilty, she told herself. After all, what is memory but a means of survival? In her one-sided dialogue, Elise shook her head and began to slowly move her lips. Her daughter was there, ready to hold her. To bid her farewell.
“I am guilty of so many things,” she said. Her voice was like an echo.
“You were a child, Mom. You shouldn’t blame yourself.” Adele tried to console her.
Elise smiled. Her daughter’s act of compassion moved her; she was relieved she could hear her.
“You don’t have to worry, Mom. We’ll soon be going home,” Adele continued.
But Elise could sense that time was not in her favor, so hurriedly and with great effort, she spoke: “My arrival in New York on that boat, my life with an uncle and aunt who were unaware there was no blood link between us . . . meeting the love of my life, your birth, and my grandson’s. They were all derived from a fate that wasn’t mine. A life that Danielle should have had. She was the real niece, the French girl, not me, the impostor.”
Adele smiled, but then immediately pursed her lips. Elise was reminded of her mother, who used to tilt her head and purse her lips whenever she wanted to avoid showing she was frightened. This was the first time she had recognized her real mother in her daughter, and this glimpse sent a shiver down her spine.
“You know something, Adele? I’ve lived so many lives, I don’t know which of them is coming to an end now.”
“They’re all yours, Mom. You can be sure of that. Now you must rest, you need it. I’m sure that tomorrow we’ll be able to go home.”
“Wait, Adele,” said Elise, taking slow breaths and grasping her daughter’s hand. “Please. I still have too many secrets on my conscience.” She paused painfully, then began to speak again. “I betrayed the man who saved me in the middle of that fore
st. The man who led me to trust in God, and also to doubt him. The one who comforted me when I most needed it, and gave me hope when everything seemed lost.”
“You were a child. All you said was that there was a dying soldier in the basement. How could you foresee what the Nazis would do? We’ve already talked about this, don’t you remember? Just before I got married, you told me all about what happened in France.”
She stared at Adele, trying to recall her husband’s face. The man with whom she had created a real family when they met in New York, soon after graduating from college.
“Your father was very patient with me,” she said, a silence between each word. “He didn’t want to know anything about my past. In fact, I didn’t have one; I had erased it completely.”
Another needle pierced the thin skin of her arm. What will they be able to find in that thick blood? Every drop they take will show I don’t exist, that I’m a phantom without a name, a shadow. And my soul: where did I leave my soul . . . ?
I abandoned my soul close to seventy years ago, on the far side of the Atlantic, Elise concluded, not looking at the nurse who was struggling to find at least one vein that had not collapsed.
Thoughts flitted in and out of her mind as they slid her body into the scanner where they would discover who she really was. All her lies would come to light.
“Try to relax, and don’t move,” the nurse told her as she monitored her thoughts.
That evening, when Adele came into the room with a bunch of tulips, Elise had collected her things and was sitting by the window, ready to leave the room where they had connected her body to all those cables that tried to read what no one can decipher. Elise stroked the bruises on her left arm. To her they looked like one of the species from the botanical album, the mallows . . . A nurse holding documents, and a male paramedic, were waiting in the doorway with a wheelchair.
Elise kept her eyes fixed on Adele. She needed all the answers.
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