She handed over the flowers with a twinkle in her eye and climbed back onto her bicycle. The attached cart was filled with more flowers destined for others in the village who would soon be smiling as broadly as Marielle.
Marielle took the bouquet into the winery kitchen to find a vase large enough for the dozen long-stemmed roses that she discovered under the layers of cellophane and yards of ribbon. The roses were a deep burgundy with petals like velvet. Tucked deep in the center of the bouquet was an envelope with her name on it, scrawled in Maria’s hand. But inside the envelope was the printed copy of the wire itself, with the order for the roses and the text of the message. Her hand trembled as she unfolded the yellow sheet of paper and read what it held.
Dear Marielle,
Happy Valentine’s Day! Although such frivolities are discouraged, I thought that a gift of flowers for you alone (and not simply in memory of your dear father) would be a way to brighten what has been a dark winter for you. Your note reminded me of the many hours I spent at your side during the harvest and how much I miss your curiosity and drive and tenacity. I have framed the painting you gave me and it hangs in my office at the clinic—a constant reminder of the woman who painted it and what she sees every day. It links me to you. Forgive me if the roses are inappropriate—a gift that should come from a lover rather than a friend. I thought of making up some excuse about florists only having roses today, but the truth is, I asked for roses.
Yours,
Tomas
Marielle read the note over and over, her eyes leaping from one phrase to the next. Were these the words of a friend, or of one who wished to be more than a friend? Why had he chosen St. Valentine’s Day to send the flowers if he only intended a gesture of friendship? Why was she feeling such turmoil? She wanted with all her heart to simply enjoy the lush and lavish burst of color and not agonize over its meaning. She was shocked by how quickly her perception of Tomas had changed when he had written her after Max’s death and understood her so clearly. Had she been denying to herself her own feelings toward him? Had those feelings only been allowed to blossom after he had left and no longer was a man whom she employed—a man who was a thousand kilometers away? Marielle didn’t know what to do with her feelings.
She brought the vase into the office and placed it on her desk, where its emphatic presence filled her sight and she could inhale its rich scent.
When Anita returned, she stopped in the office and saw the bouquet.
“Who are these from?”
“Tomas Marek.”
Anita looked at Marielle with curiosity.
Marielle shrugged. She wasn’t ready to admit her wonder at what was happening between her and Tomas.
“A belated condolence,” she explained. “I’ll send him a thank you note.”
That evening Marielle struggled with her feelings and her response. She was surprised by her longing for Tomas, a longing that had been muffled through the winter by the strain of Max’s deteriorating condition and death. She had been so preoccupied with the impending loss of her father that she had not recognized her sense of loss after Tomas’s departure. She had been lonely during the winter, but she thought it had been because she had left friends and colleagues behind in Frankfurt. Her life, now dictated by the demands of the land, the seasons, no longer intersected with lives driven by urban commerce. Even though Frankfurt was only 50 kilometers from the Rheingau, it had become increasingly rare for her friends to come to visit. Evenings spent laughing over a glass of wine as a release from the pressures of business were no longer a part of her life. But she realized that she didn’t miss those evenings at all. She realized that what she missed were Tomas Marek’s hands—gesturing in the dim light of the fermentation room as he explained a concept, or cradling a cluster of grapes in the autumn sunshine, or brushing against hers as he gathered up the papers strewn across her desk.
She tried to imagine him in Warsaw, composing his note to her late in the evening after he had returned home from the clinic and spent an hour reading to Magdalena before putting her to bed. She saw his hands again, gently moving a strand of Magdalena’s hair away from her face as she slept, pulling the comforter up around her shoulders to ward off the chill in the poorly heated apartment. She saw his hands loving and protecting, and longed for them to love and protect her.
The longing was impossible to fulfill. It stilled her own hands, and she found she could not write to him at all.
The next morning, she sent a brief wire assuring him that the flowers had arrived, that they were beautiful and that she was deeply moved by his words and his gift. She didn’t want to appear ungrateful for what had been an extraordinary expense for him. She was overwhelmed, in fact, by the extravagance of what he had done and said. But she held in check her hope that the longing she felt was shared by him.
She spent the day impatient and irritable, thrusting crates of empty bottles out of her way when two days before she had stacked them in the courtyard exactly where she had wanted them. She broke the pen she was using to fill out some order forms when she pressed too hard, splattering ink across the page and onto her shirt. In the kitchen at midday, she slammed cupboard doors and tore open a package of noodles, spilling most of them on the floor.
Anita, as if dealing with an unruly toddler, said nothing and retrieved her dustpan and whisk broom from the closet and began sweeping up.
“I’m sorry, Mama. Let me clean up the mess.”
“It’s nothing, almost done. Why don’t you put the water on to boil and I’ll finish.”
“I can’t seem to do anything right today. Everything, even the slightest inconvenience, is annoying me.”
“When you were younger, you used to act like this when you had to make a choice about something and were afraid.”
“Afraid?”
“Afraid of taking a risk. When you were learning to walk, you couldn’t quite bring yourself to let go and take a step. But it made you so angry that you would throw your toys. You wanted so much to go, but a part of you always held back. Cautious. Tentative. Your frustration was so palpable. Like it is now.”
Marielle looked at her mother.
“What is holding you back, Schatz? Are you afraid he doesn’t love you as much as you love him? We never truly know another’s feelings. It’s like the leap of faith you had to take this fall with the vintage. Trust your instincts, even when you don’t have all the data. And believe me, any other woman who received a bouquet like you did yesterday would consider that all the data she needed.”
“How did you know?”
“I knew before he left here in November. You may not have recognized it in yourselves, but when the two of you were together you radiated. I saw him watching you when you weren’t aware of it. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
“It’s hopeless, of course. That’s why I’m so paralyzed. He’s in Warsaw. I’m here. If I let myself love him—open up the Pandora’s Box of my emotions—we are only setting ourselves up for heartache and disappointment.”
“If you ask me, the Pandora’s Box has already been opened, and if you try to stuff your feelings back in you will just face more days like today filled with anger and frustration.
“Your father and I were separated for years during the war. Months went by with no word from him. But our love survived. You’ll find a way.”
“What should I do?”
“I can’t tell you that, Marielle. But you will know. Be still and listen—to yourself and to him.”
The next day, her answer came in the form of another wire from Tomas.
“Come to Warsaw for Easter,” it said.
And she did.
Chapter 8
April 1976
Her bags were filled with gifts. A doll and picture books for Magdalena; stockings and well-made gloves for Tomas’s mother, Halina; handkerchiefs and a merino wool shawl for Nyanya, the nurse who had cared for Tomas as a child and now looked after Magdalena;
and food for the Easter meal—ham and oranges and cheese and fresh peas. She also brought some of Anita’s plum preserves and cookies that she had baked herself the night before she left and packed between layers of waxed paper in a tin.
The train ride was long and complicated, across West Germany, into Czechoslovakia through Prague and then north into Poland. At border crossings in the middle of the night she woke to the insistent knocking of guards on her compartment door. Flashlights flicked from her papers to her face and the chilling sense that she could be denied entry or worse if she answered the gruff, rude questioning of the border guards incorrectly.
Exhausted, she arrived in Warsaw two days after her departure from Frankfurt. She washed her face in the lavatory with the trickle of water that was left, re-braided her hair and put on some lipstick as the train pulled into the Central Station. She made her way down the platform seeking Tomas’s familiar face but seeing only strangers.
At the end of the platform, she put her bags down and waited. There was a grayness to the building and the faces surrounding her. Soldiers with Kalishnikov rifles slung over their shoulders patrolled the main concourse. In contrast to the hectic pace of the Frankfurt station, travelers moved more slowly and there were far fewer than she had expected to see. There were one or two food stalls selling sausages and one aqua blue cart offering orange juice mixed with seltzer served by a kerchief-bedecked older woman who rinsed out her glasses in a dishpan filled with murky water and then reused them. A newsstand was the only other sign of commerce. There was no florist or restaurant. The space was cavernous, but remarkably empty.
She was startled when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she murmured as she turned toward him.
She took in his gaze, his dark eyes ringed by circles of fatigue, his skin no longer showing the effects of six weeks in the open autumn air but reflecting the same gray-tinged pallor she had seen on others in the station. She reached up to touch the face that she had been imagining for weeks as his hands encircled her shoulders and he bent to kiss her.
At first, he offered her the platonic continental greeting of a kiss on each cheek. But the proximity of their bodies, the sensation of his cheek against her skin and the memory of his scent as he leaned in toward her caused her to move closer into the circle of his arms. The tension of the long journey began to loosen and her body softened, molding itself to the contours of Tomas’s angular frame.
He was thinner than she remembered as he pulled her even closer, wrapping his arms tightly around her. His lips moved from her cheek to her mouth and she felt as if he were breathing life into her, not only reviving her after the exhausting journey, but also filling her up after the emptiness and loss of the winter.
He did not stop kissing her. After her mouth, he kissed her eyes, her neck, her fingertips. A smile lit her face and he laughed out loud.
“I can’t believe you are here and in my arms.”
“I can’t believe it either. I don’t recognize myself right now. I feel like a madwoman or an addict.”
He lifted her. She felt the strength in his arms and placed herself in his care, allowing him to carry not only her body but her spirit.
“My mother and Magdalena are waiting at the apartment. I’ll have to let you go long enough for them to satisfy their curiosity.”
He gathered her suitcases and led her to the street and the trolley.
She sat by the window and at his urging looked out at the city instead of at him. He held her hand, his long fingers entwined with hers, gently stroking as if to convince them both that their presence together was real, confirmed by the evidence of touch, skin, pulse.
They changed trolleys twice before arriving at his apartment block on the outskirts of the city. There was no elevator and he carried her bags up the narrow staircase to the sixth floor. Vestiges of cabbage and onion permeated the stairwell. They passed others descending the stairs and Marielle was aware of the blatant glances sweeping over her from her head to her shoes. Everything about her looks and her clothing screamed “Western economy.” She had noted as she watched from the tram that even the young women were dressed drably in shapeless clothing. She had never considered herself overly concerned with style, but her well-made skirt and sweater and especially her shoes had drawn excessive attention.
She wondered if she would be causing Tomas difficulty as so obviously a Western woman.
When they arrived at the landing she stopped worrying about the impact of her clothing. She could hear the chatter of a young girl, querulous and insistent, behind one of the doors, and a much older voice answering her.
Tomas placed his key in the lock.
“Papa!”
Marielle stepped back as Magdalena leaped into his arms. She peeked over Tomas’s shoulder at Marielle and stared at her, then whispered into Tomas’s ear. He whirled around with Magdalena still in his arms and welcomed Marielle into the cramped hallway of the apartment. Standing at the end of the hall by the kitchen was an older woman, her head shrouded in a cotton scarf, her house dress covered in an apron, her back bent with years of physical work. She nodded at Marielle but did not smile when Tomas introduced her as Nyanya.
Magdalena continued to demand her father’s attention, pulling at his shirt and babbling away in a staccato-paced recitation. They moved down the hall together and to a door on the left that led to the living room. Two sofa beds lined the walls and a dining table and chairs filled the opposite end of the room by a lace-curtained window that looked out over the city. In the distance, Marielle could see the looming tower of the Palace of Culture. At the table sat a tall woman in her fifties, who despite her simple skirt and blouse, had an elegant bearing. Her dark hair, with no sign of gray, was pulled back into a French knot.
She rose and stretched out her hand to Marielle.
“I am Halina Marek, mother of Tomas, sister of Janosch, who tells me many things of your family and your vineyards,” she said in German. “My sympathy at the loss of your father. Janosch had great respect and love for him.”
Marielle took her hand and returned the firm grasp, knowing that Halina, while gracious, was measuring her. Marielle had no doubt that Halina, like her own mother, had recognized the depth of Tomas’s feelings. She was acutely conscious of her position as an intruder in this house full of women—all of whom had their own special connection to Tomas. She wondered if he was equally aware, or oblivious to the impact of her presence here.
She glanced around the cramped space and wondered if she and Tomas would find the privacy to explore further the physical closeness they had tasted at the Central Station. Perhaps she should have insisted on booking a hotel when he had first suggested that she come. She hadn’t wanted to impose on their hospitality; now she felt even more the disruption that her visit was causing.
But her concerns were postponed by the noisy bustling of Nyanya, who marched into the room with a steaming soup tureen.
“Zupa!” she declared, depositing the bowl firmly on the table and gesturing for everyone to sit.
After the meal, Marielle distributed her gifts. Magdalena became absorbed in dressing and undressing the doll; Halina expressed appreciation for her thoughtfulness and Nyanya clucked over the shawl but was more thrilled with the food. She told Marielle through Tomas that she would now be able to prepare a feast with what Marielle had brought.
Marielle offered to help her, a gesture that was noted but refused by the old woman. She did allow Marielle to carry the packages into the kitchen and Marielle then understood that it was Nyanya’s domain. The narrow room had barely enough space for one person to work. In one corner was a bed that had been the old woman’s since she had arrived from the countryside thirty years before to care for the infant Tomas. Under the bed were all her worldly possessions, stored in salvaged cardboard boxes and fastened with saved string.
Tomas and Marielle spent the afternoon in the park with Magdalena, who per
sisted in her reluctance to talk to Marielle. When prompted, she had whispered a barely audible “Dziekuję” for the gifts earlier in the day. Marielle waited on a bench and watched as Tomas pushed Magdalena on the swings and caught her as she slid countless times down the slide. She took pleasure in observing Tomas with his daughter. His affection for her, expressed in small gestures of tenderness, caught in Marielle’s throat. She thought of his hands earlier that day, grazing her softly as he led her out of the station, caressing her on the tram, lifting her firmly to bring her level with his eyes and his longing. She had no idea when or how she would feel his hands in such intimacy again. She knew she wanted that—and more. She also knew that the devotion she was witnessing between Tomas and Magdalena, a devotion she understood to her core, closed off even the glimmer of hope she had that she and Tomas might have a future together. Tomas would never leave Magdalena. And the regime would never allow Magdalena to leave Poland with Tomas.
Marielle bit her lip and forced back the tears that were too close to the surface. She would not mar the three days she had on her visa by wallowing in what was denied to her. She got up from the bench and found a piece of chalk by the edge of the playground’s asphalt surface. Kneeling, she sketched out the boxes for hopscotch and then searched the bare ground for a flat stone.
Curious, Magdalena watched her. Marielle offered the stone to her but she shook her head and hid behind Tomas. Tomas took the stone instead and tossed it on the first square. He began hopping, much to the amusement of both Magdalena and Marielle. When he missed, he handed the stone to Magdalena and she began to play. But when her turn was over, she handed the stone back to Tomas.
“Nie!” He shook his head and pointed to Marielle. “It’s Marielle’s turn!”
Marielle held her breath, half expecting the girl to throw the stone on the ground and stalk away. But something in her father’s tone clearly warned her that was not acceptable. She reluctantly held the stone out to Marielle, and Marielle smiled at her.
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