by Bina Bernard
She looked skyward, hoping for a sign that he could hear her. She saw dark clouds massing in the sky, and thought about their frequent phone calls.
“Tata, I don’t like the way that cough sounds. Stop smoking!” she urged for the umpteenth time.
“It’s nothing. Just a cold,” he insisted. “Bad weather makes my throat raspy. Don’t you worry about me.” Stefan never wanted to burden Lena. He longed to see her happy again.
“It’s not fair, Tata,” Lena lamented whenever they spoke. “How could a mathematics professor at the University of Warsaw who had no interest in politics be killed during a student demonstration he wasn’t even aware of?” She was still in shock over Ryszard’s death.
Stefan had worked to ease her pain. Now with him gone, there was no one to even try.
From the moment he set his eyes on her, Stefan’s thoughts had always been for Lena’s welfare. At the orphanage both Stefan and Helga marveled at how lovely she was. Her pale skin and delicate features made Lena look more like a porcelain doll than a flesh-and-blood child. Since Helga didn’t think that she could have a child of her own, she agreed to take Lena in.
“She has my blue eyes. Her hair’s the same as mine, and almost as curly,” Helga said proudly the day they brought Lena home. On the basis of their looks, Helga and Lena easily passed for mother and daughter. At first, she seemed to enjoy fussing with Lena’s clothes, and braiding her hair, but as Stefan lavished attention on the child, Helga became critical.
“Don’t spoil her,” she admonished her husband. “If you get her used to having everything her way, she’ll expect life to be like that, and be really disappointed,” Helga warned.
Helga’s father had doted on her the same way Stefan doted on Lena. When Helga was a child, every day her father came home from the Gymnasium where he taught Romance languages, and German literature, the two of them played a game of hide and seek.
“Where’s my little Duchess? I can’t see her anywhere. Where should I look for her? I hope she didn’t decide to run away. I would be so sad if she left. I have to find her,” her father would shout as he vainly searched under the table and behind a door, under a pillow. “She has to be here to get the special present I have for her!”
As soon as he mentioned a present, the game was over. Helga would come out of her hiding place and jump into her father’s arms, asking, “What did you bring me, today, Tata?” Actually, it never mattered what the present was. It was only important that her father was home.
When she was seventeen, her perfect world blew up. One afternoon when she arrived home from school her mother was crying.
“They took your father to the hospital. He was coughing up so much blood,” her mother told Helga. Three weeks later, he was dead. It was TB that killed her father, and it killed the life Helga cherished, as well. While she, her mother and ten-year-old brother still had their house to live in, now there was no money coming in. Rudolf had no life insurance and her mother had no profession to return to. But after years of making all of Helga’s clothes, she was an experienced seamstress and secured a job in the tailor shop next door to the bakery where Stefan worked. She was grateful to Abraham Rothman for giving her the job, but Helga thought it was demeaning for her mother to be working for a Jew. With her brother too young to work, the family struggled to make ends meet for the year Helga stayed in school. But Helga’s mother insisted she finish high school, just as her father would have wished. Once she graduated, there was no talk of her going to the university. Helga became the cashier in the bakery Stefan’s uncle owned.
Long before he had the courage to say anything to Helga beyond, “Good morning,” and “Good night,” she became the unattainable goddess of Stefan’s dreams. He was awed by her. She was beautiful, but also a high school graduate whose father had been a respected teacher. No one in his family had even finished high school.
“You don’t need to go to school to bake bread,” his father told him. Stefan didn’t disagree with his father. But now he feared that his lack of education would keep him from someone as fine as Helga. How could such a person of high quality become interested in me? Stefan asked himself. So for a time, he worshiped Helga from afar without any hope of anything more. She was aware of Stefan’s interest and enjoyed seeing the power her smile had over him.
When Stefan finally summoned enough courage to ask Helga to tea, she happily agreed. From her perspective, Stefan wasn’t a bad catch. His financial prospects were good. His uncle had no children, so ultimately the bakery would belong to Stefan. As the owner of a business he could take care of her and her family. And he wasn’t bad to look at either. Stefan was tall and straight, with an athletic body. But best of all, he obviously adored her. Helga’s mother encouraged the match.
“He is a wonderful man, Helga. He may not be a dreamer like your father, but he’s a hard worker and will take good care of you,” she told her daughter. Helga agreed with her mother’s assessment, but she always believed that Stefan was below her station.
They were married three days before Helga’s twenty-first birthday. She would have preferred a trip to Düsseldorf where her father had family, but Stefan and Helga settled on a brief honeymoon at a small hotel overlooking the mountains in Zakopane. When they returned home, the newlyweds moved in with her mother and brother, and Stefan became the head of their household. Her mother willingly vacated her bedroom so Helga and Stefan could have the largest room. Helga still worked at the bakery, but now she felt like an owner’s wife, even if she wasn’t one yet. Since they no longer needed the meager wages her mother earned as a seamstress, she stopped working at the tailor shop. When Uncle Józef died, Helga was certain her life would finally right itself.
But instead of the bakery going to Stefan as everyone expected, it had to be sold to pay off Uncle Józef’s gambling debts. Helga was inconsolable. It wasn’t enough for her that Stefan still had a job with the new owner who promoted him to head baker. She had counted on Stefan owning the bakery. There was no prestige in being the wife of the head baker. From then on Helga’s disappointment tainted their marriage. But Stefan continued to think he was the luckiest man in the world, because a woman like Helga had taken him as a husband. The only thing he still wanted was to become a father. That proved to be an elusive dream until Lena came into their lives.
After Lena had been with them for six months, Helga became pregnant. Stefan was delighted at the prospect of being the father of two. But not Helga.
“Stefan, we can’t afford two children! Now that we’re going to have a child of our own, we have to send Lena back to the nuns,” she insisted.
Not wishing to upset his pregnant wife, Stefan reluctantly went back to the convent to explain their new situation to the Mother Superior. She was not happy and urged him to reconsider.
“Stefan, Lena is a lovely child. She deserves a caring family. I saw the love in your eyes the day you and Helga took her. How can you take that love away now? It would absolutely break her poor little heart to lose another family.”
“Believe me, Holy Mother, I don’t want to give Lena back. It’s Helga. Now that she’s finally pregnant, she doesn’t think we can afford two children. I don’t make that much in the bakery.”
The Mother Superior bowed her head and she folded her hands as in prayer.
“You remember when I first told you I had a little girl for you, I said she was special?”
Stefan nodded.
“I know you’re a religious man, Stefan. I think God sent Lena to us, to test us. We have to protect her. I think that’s what God wants us to do.”
Stefan nodded in agreement, but he didn’t really know what he was agreeing to.
“The man who brought Lena here was a doctor. He told me Lena’s mother was his patient. As she was dying, she asked him to find a home for her daughter, because Lena’s father was in the Underground and could not care for her. I didn’t ask for any more information than he offered. I didn’t want to force him to tell me li
es. But I suspected that Lena was Jewish and that he brought her to us to save her life.”
“Oh, my God!” Stefan exclaimed. “Lena is a Jewish child?”
“I don’t know anything for sure. I only have my suspicions. Lena has never mentioned her family. She never said a word about her life before she came to us. It was probably good that she did not dwell on the past. We tried to provide a happy life for her. You can give her the future she deserves. Of course it is possible that at some point someone from her family may come looking for her. But the way things are going in this war, that’s not very likely. I think God wants you to take care of her, Stefan.”
He already loved Lena and he wanted to keep her, but Stefan also knew the danger was real. It was common knowledge that the penalty for harboring any Jew was death. For him, saving Lena was worth the risk. He knew Helga would not feel the same way. More than likely Helga would say, “What have their kind done for us? Why should we stick our necks out for a Jewess?”
“I want to keep Lena. I really do. But what should I tell Helga? I can’t admit we’ve taken in a Jewish child. Helga will fear being arrested. She didn’t want to keep her even without the danger.”
“You don’t have to tell her about my suspicions. After all, that’s all they are. Tell Helga I’ve convinced you to keep Lena temporarily, until her family tries to get her back. Nothing more.” She smiled deviously.
“What if somebody was to report us to the authorities claiming we are keeping a Jewish child?” Stefan asked.
“Why would anyone suspect that Lena is anything but what she looks like—a perfect Polish girl? Nobody could prove that she wasn’t. It would be different if she were a boy. Girls don’t get circumcised,” Mother Superior said, shocked at her own candor.
Stefan mulled over the pros and cons as he rocked in his chair. While he didn’t like the idea of deceiving his wife, he wanted to keep Lena. He finally decided that withholding the truth from Helga was all right since he was doing it with the Church’s blessing.
“We’ll keep her!” he announced forcefully to the Mother Superior.
The Holy Mother breathed a sigh of relief, crossed herself and kissed her rosary.
To seal their clandestine pact, Stefan lurched across the desk to shake her hand and in the process almost knocked over an inkwell.
“I think overall Helga has enjoyed having Lena around,” Stefan said, trying to reassure himself that he’d made a wise decision. “Once the baby comes, Lena will be a great help. I’ll remind Helga how responsible she is. Besides, having two children is twice the blessing. God will take care of us,” he said with a new assurance.
Once he agreed to keep Lena, the Mother Superior brought out the inlaid mahogany box left with her for the child.
“I decided to hold onto this until I was sure you were keeping Lena,” the Mother Superior explained.
Not a Pandora’s box but it did hold some treasures: a gold pendant encrusted with garnets and a matching bracelet, several gold coins, and five hundred złotys. Also in the box were two photographs, one of two little girls, another of the same two girls with a blonde woman in her late twenties who looked very much like Lena. But nothing inside to identify her family, no names, no address.
Stefan realized the inlaid box and its contents—minus the photographs—was the perfect carrot to win Helga over. He put the two photographs in his shirt pocket before he returned home.
Knowing how much Helga loved getting presents, as he opened the front door Stefan called out, “Helga, I have something for you.” He set the elegant box on their rickety kitchen table and waited for her reaction.
Helga stared at it for a moment, then wiped her hands on her apron before gently stroking the smooth surface.
“It’s so beautiful. Where did you get it?”
“From the Mother Superior. Open it. What’s inside is even better.”
“Why? Why did she give it to you?”
“For keeping Lena.”
Helga glared at her husband. “You were supposed to tell her we can’t keep her,” Helga said angrily. “We have our own child . . .” Her voice trailed off as she started to examine the contents of the box.
Stefan said nothing. He watched Helga survey each treasure separately. She held up the antique pendant, put it against her neck, and checked her reflection in the window.
“Very beautiful. Where did the Mother Superior get this?”
“The man who brought Lena to the convent left it with her.”
“This jewelry is Lena’s! That’s hardly a gift for me,” Helga said bitterly. “She must come from rich people.”
“I don’t think four-year-olds wear such fancy jewelry. It’s for you for being her mother. At least until someone from her family comes to get her. That’s all I agreed to,” Stefan assured his wife. “We keep Lena until someone comes for her.”
Helga seemed to be mesmerized by the contents of the box. As she sat at the kitchen table fondling the pendant, Stefan could feel her coming around.
“If we keep Lena until her family shows up, all this is ours?” Helga said, when she finally spoke.
“Yes.”
“Okay, then, we’ll keep her until they come. I’ll try to be a good mother to her ’til then,” Helga said. Tapping the smooth surface of the box, she added, “Maybe her rich relatives will reward us when they come?”
Almost against her will, Helga grew fond of Lena. At night when she put her to bed, she’d read the same stories her father used to read to her. She even taught Lena the poem, “My Little Duchess,” that her beloved father had written for her sixth birthday.
When Lena recited the poem after she’d memorized it, Helga was so pleased she rewarded Lena with a green velvet dress, which she had made herself, carefully duplicating the lace collar and smocking of the dress Lena had outgrown, but now stored in the bottom of her clothing chest.
Lena’s eyes lit up when Helga unveiled the new dress.
“Thank you so much . . . Mama.” As grateful as she was, it was still hard for her to call Helga “Mama.” She knew that was expected, even without Stefan’s prodding. When she modeled the dress, he applauded.
Everything changed between Helga and Lena once Rudi was born. His was a difficult birth, and he was a sickly child. Helga had named her son after the father she adored, hoping he would grow up to be the image of his namesake. When it became evident that Lena would always outshine him, Helga took her disappointment out on Lena.
Rudi is our flesh and blood; Lena is only another mouth to feed, Helga told herself to justify withdrawing from her. Still, she never mentioned sending Lena away again.
Stefan’s devotion to Lena only grew. He more than made up for what his wife withheld. He encouraged Lena to study hard and urged her to do something important with her life. He made it possible for her to think she could become a doctor.
While Lena appeared to be fully functioning, grief heaped upon grief numbed her senses. As she and her son walked silently toward the cemetery gate, a young boy approached them.
“Dr. Malińska, I have a message from Father Tadeusz. He would like you to stop by the Rectory on your way home.”
“Thank you,” Lena told the boy, but hearing the priest’s request made her wince. It intensified her feeling of guilt for not attending church regularly.
“Go back to the house and tell Grandma I’ve gone to see Father Tadeusz,” Lena told her son, and briskly headed up the hill to the church.
CHAPTER
7
New York, May 1976
BACK IN HER OWN APARTMENT, Hannah looked around almost expecting to see some evidence of the turmoil stirring inside her. So much in her life had changed in the course of one weekend, it was hard to believe there was no visible sign of the sea change she’d undergone. Nothing seemed different, yet everything was different.
Hannah wished she could talk to Robert. Calculating he was airborne somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, west of California, she knew he was out of h
er reach.
It was late. She only had time for a quick nap before the alarm would go off at 7 a.m. But her mind was reeling. Good feelings and bad memories kept colliding in her head. Her father’s new tenderness was coupled with a fair amount of sadness when she thought about the special moments they had missed out on. Her wedding was a case in point.
Hannah remembered how distraught she had been the week before the ceremony. She’d been standing in front of the mirror trying on her tulle veil when Molly called.
“I don’t think your father will be able to come to the wedding, Hannah. And I can’t leave him alone.”
“He won’t come because Robert is not Jewish. Is that it? When did he become such a rabbi?”
“It has nothing to do with Robert’s religion, believe me.”
“Then why won’t he come?”
“It’s . . . it’s his heart,” Molly said.
“Maybe the great Dr. Harry Stone should get a second opinion,” Hannah yelled into the phone. She would have cried if her rage were not in full force. “It’s my wedding for God’s sake! I should be able to count on my parents to come to their only daughter’s wedding!”
“Calm down Hannah, please. He may be better by next Sunday. We’ll see. . . .” her mother said softly before hanging up.
The morning of the wedding as she was getting dressed, Hannah still didn’t know if her parents would be there to give her away. She never told Robert.
If they don’t show up, I’ll tell him my father had a stroke. Who knows? Maybe it will be true!
Hannah finally breathed a sigh of relief when she arrived at The Arts Club across from Gramercy Park and spotted her parents talking to the judge who was to officiate. She could see Harry was out of sorts. His face was drawn. He tried to smile as Hannah approached, but he avoided her eyes.