Albert Blum had no answer for her then. And now? Another year, gone. His wife and sons, still missing. And Claudette is learning Italian with a suitcase in her hand.
THE SUN is halfway to the horizon when the first Jews reach the trailhead. Many are accompanied by soldiers who’ve traded army backpacks for Jewish toddlers. Santino Cicala has tried to do the same, but the first little girl he picked up wailed with fright. Santino set her down, accepting the mother’s apology with a shrug and a grimace. A second attempt went just as badly. At nineteen, Santino Cicala is built like a dungcart—broad and low to the ground, and ugly enough to scare a bat.
Leaning his carbine against a rock, he lies back on fragrant crushed weeds and closes his eyes against the sunshine. Birdsong. Rustling leaves. Take away the Wehrmacht, he thinks, and a nap would be irresistible … A girl’s voice rouses him. "Duno thinks he’s so smart!" he hears without understanding her. "Just because he learned a few words from the carabinieri! I already know more than he does."
A gentleman with her says something in French, and the girl replies in Italian, "Sono, sei, è, siamo, siete, sono. Uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque. Piacere, signor! Mi chiamo Claudia Blum. Pleased to meet you, sir, I am Claudia Blum. Io sono di Belgium."
"Belgio," Santino corrects, on his feet and brushing bits of dry grass from his uniform. "Tu sei di Belgio—"
Startled, she stops and stares at him. Green eyes, he thinks, thunderstruck. She is tall, with hair like copper wire. He looks down, away, anywhere but at her. "Piacere, signorina. Cicala, Santino," he says, introducing himself. She manages to smile politely. Hoping to draw attention from his face, Santino points to his boot. "Italia?" he prompts. She nods dumbly. "Io sono di Calabria," he says, pointing to the sole just west of the heel.
Her face lights up. "That’s where you’re from? Siete di Calabria?"
"Si! Molto bene!" Slinging his carbine over a thick shoulder, Santino takes the girl’s bag in one square hand and turns his attention to the gentleman. "Signor Blum?" The old man nods. Santino gestures for his valise. "Prego, signor. My pleasure!"
The gentleman hesitates, but the girl encourages him to hand over the suitcase, burbling, "Molte grazie! Tante grazie! Beaucoup di grazie, Signor Cicala. Was that your name? Am I saying it right? We are so tired! You can’t imagine! How do you say ‘tired,’ Papa?"
"Siamo stanchi." Albert hands over his bag. A gap-toothed smile transforms the homely soldier into a gigantic six-year-old. Charmed, Albert touches his chest. "Blum, Alberto," he says. "La mia figlia: my daughter, Claudia. Mille grazie, Santino."
With nothing to carry, the Blums can manage the pace the soldier sets: climb half an hour, rest five minutes, then climb again. The sun is almost to the horizon when they hear a low rumbling in the distance. "Just what we need!" Claudette says sourly. "A thunderstorm!"
"We’re not made of sugar—we won’t melt!" her father says with breathless cheer.
Santino sets the suitcases down and flexes his cramped fingers. Artillery, he thinks. Three minutes’ rest this time.
FAR BELOW, JUST east of town, Rivka Brössler sits alone, admiring a sunset made glorious by low clouds first gilded, then enameled with Fabergé colors. "The best view in Sainte-Gisèle!" her grandson Duno told her once. "Do you like it, Oma?" Rivka waved her hand, as though flicking at a fly. It was too much trouble to answer.
Not even the most charitable of her descendants ascribe her present state to age alone. True, she’s retreated from the world more decisively since the Brösslers left Vienna, but even as a young mother, Rivka always seemed distracted. Long ago, her family left the Ukraine for the opportunity and relative safety of Austria; they were better off, but something was always reminding Rivka of home.
Her youngest son, Herrmann, grew up in Vienna, embarrassed by his mother’s Slavic vowels and awkward syntax. Now, when she speaks at all, it is in Ukrainian, a language Herrmann never learned.
"She’s gone back to the Ukraine in her mind," a doctor from Holland told the Brösslers. "Think of it! No one left alive who calls her by her first name. Such loneliness, to be only Mother, or Grandmother, or Frau Brössler, but never Rivka again. You are sad to see her this way, but she’s happy in her memories. Sit with her," he advised. "Keep her company. Enjoy her contentment."
Everyone thinks she’s senile, but Rivka knows she’s not. She’s tired, that’s all. Tired of Herrmann and Frieda quarreling, of the grandchildren making noise. Tired of new places, new languages. People coming and going, with their names and opinions and rules and demands. Life is one damned thing after another, Rivka decided when they left Austria behind. To hell with it.
Since moving to the Jewish nursing home last spring, Rivka has spent the greater part of every day sitting out on this arcaded wooden balcony waiting for the sunset. Tonight, the air is soft. The scent of roses rises from a nearby garden. Best of all, there’s a big storm coming. Rivka settles down happily, listening to booming thunder. She’s always enjoyed the drama of a nice storm.
She sneaks a look over her shoulder at the clock. It’s past time, but no one’s come to bully her into bed. Watching the lightning, she feels like a naughty child, thrilled to stay up late, and like a child, she falls asleep although she’d rather not. Memories blur into dreams, and back again. Who was that girl in the dream? Cousin Natasha! Now, what brought her to mind?
When Rivka wakes again, it’s to the sound of footsteps. She doesn’t see the soldier enter her room, her attention caught instead by the people running in the streets, just beneath her balcony. "Natasha, look!" she says, before she can stop herself. Now I really am senile! she thinks.
She smiles and shakes her head at her own foolishness, which spoils the soldier’s shot. "Scheisse," he swears irritably. Averting his face from the fountaining blood, he presses the gun barrel to the old Jew’s skull, and finishes the job.
A paleoanthropologist known for work on cannibalism and craniofacial biomechanics, MARY DORIA RUSSELL is the author of The Sparrow and Children of God, which have earned her a number of awards and have been translated into a dozen languages, and A Thread of Grace. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio, with her husband and their son. Her website is www.MaryDoriaRussell.info.
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1996 by Mary Doria Russell
Reader’s Guide copyright © 1997 by Mary Doria Russell and The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Ballantine Reader’s Circle and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.ballantinebooks.com/BRC
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-90649
This edition published by arrangement with Villard Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
Villard Books is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
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eISBN: 978-0-345-51088-4
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