A Sparrow in Terezin

by Kristy Cambron

  “Yes. I will.”

  “I hoped that’s what you’d say.” He swallowed hard and nodded. “And I know, even more now, what it means to hear you say it.”

  “I won’t let them win. And I won’t give anything else back. These children deserve it,” Kája breathed out, the frozen air forgotten now that she had something new to hope for. “So we will help you. When do we begin?”

  He extended the stack of tickets again and offered, “Is tomorrow soon enough?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Sera left her suitcase by the door and melted into one of the cushy chairs by the fireplace. Sophie eased her tired body into the chair opposite her.

  The furnishings in Sophie’s apartment were exactly as Sera remembered: quaint and Parisian, in floral shades of primrose and violet. The mantle still boasted the rows of antique frames sheltering black-and-white photos, so many that it looked like they might fall off the edge if one were touched. An old typewriter still sat atop a desk in the room’s far corner.

  She looked around, finding such warmth in her old friend’s presence.

  “I’m sorry to drop in like this,” she said, and laid the box of pearls on the side table.

  “When you called me after your wedding to let me know that William had some legalities to work through, well . . . I wondered if you’d eventually show up at my door again.”

  “It’s different this time. I’m not hunting for a painting.”

  “No, you are not. You’re running.” Sera’s head popped up and she met Sophie’s eyes, which were curiously arched high above the outer rim of her glasses. “This is life talking, isn’t it? Real life. Love is a messy business.”

  Sera nodded. “It is.”

  “And you are wondering about your William, hmm? Those stuff-shirt lawyers are telling you stories, causing you to have doubts about him.”

  “I didn’t have doubts, not at the beginning. I thought I knew him. I had more than a year to learn who he was. But as time has gone by, I realize he’s been keeping things from me.”

  “Ah.” Sophie settled into a chair. “So he hasn’t been perfect. And you are now forced to believe in the William you know, not the William you thought you knew.”

  Sera felt a reluctant smile find its way to her lips.

  It was endearing, how this woman could distill down all of her troubles, all of the hurts and misunderstandings into one, reliable truth.

  “It’s something like that.”

  “Sera, do you remember when you came to see me last? You were searching for the ending to a story. A painting, rather, and the meaning behind it.”

  “Of course I remember. Adele and Vladimir,” she replied, and instinctively looked to the photo of the happy couple beaming out with smiles from the front of the mantle. “Theirs was a story of beauty. It was heartbreaking, but beautiful because they fought for each other, held nothing back. After everything that’s happened now? I’m not sure I understand a love like that.”

  “I think you do, if you look deep enough.”

  “But, Sophie, I’m pregnant.” She tipped her shoulders up in a soft shrug. “And I’m scared.”

  The old woman smiled and nodded. “Of course you are. Every mother-to-be is scared. That’s what this is all about, whether you know it or not.”

  “You’re not surprised, then.”

  “No. I am not.” Sophie shook her head. “Couples have babies, Sera. I had two myself. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  Sophie’s response created the first smile Sera had managed in quite some time.

  “Sera.” Sophie held out a knotted hand to point at the mantle. “Do you see that photograph, the large one in the back?”

  “The one of the bride?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Go and get it. Bring it here to me.”

  Sera obeyed.

  She was ever so careful as to not disturb the other photographs. But she retrieved it, taking the 11 × 13-size frame in hand, and walked back over to kneel at Sophie’s side. She presented her with the portrait and only then realized she’d seen the face before.

  “Is that—” Sera ran her finger down the edge of the frame. “That’s the missing journalist, right? The one who became your teacher in Terezin. You sent me the newspaper article about her.”

  “Kája was her name.” Sophie took the frame and with gentle, lovingly aged hands, ran fingertips over the bride’s image. “She was beautiful, wasn’t she?”

  “She was, yes.” Sera agreed, nodding.

  “A remarkable woman. And not so unlike you, my dear. She, too, had a journey to endure. She had love, yes. But she also had strength—more than even she knew at the time. She was the woman who gave me my life back while in Terezin, but she also became the parent who took me into her life for the rest of it. She adopted me.”

  “And she saved you.”

  Sophie nodded. “Yes. She did.”

  “How?”

  “It’s not as you might think—she didn’t wield weapons. She didn’t fight off the German army. In fact, she befriended an officer with the SS. She found good in a Nazi. Would you believe that?”

  “Not if you hadn’t just told me.”

  “She saw the good that was deep down in him, when he couldn’t even see it himself. For him and the children of Terezin, she was the teacher of hope. She refused to judge with the harshness of life around her. She had courage that to this day astounds even me.”

  “How?” Sera leaned forward, arching her neck so she, too, could look at the beauty in the portrait.

  “She boarded a train to Auschwitz because she was willing to give her life for mine. I never had to walk that lonely road from the train tracks to the crematorium. I shudder to think of the children in my little Terezin schoolroom who did. They were Jews. They were the walking wounded with me. And I’ve wondered in years since: Why did I survive and they did not?”

  “And what was your conclusion?”

  “That God was not saving me”—she pointed to her chest—“but I survived because Adele and Kája allowed him to work through their lives. It is all about the choices we make. Do you know, my dear Sera, that if I had walked off that train in Auschwitz, Adele would have had to watch as her violin played me to my death. Remember that the Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz had to play for those walking to the gas chambers? I would have been there and she would have seen me. The girl she and Vladimir had given up everything for would have died anyway, only it would have been right before her eyes. Wouldn’t that have crushed her spirit beyond repair?”

  “Oh, Sophie.” Sera’s heart ached with the thought. “Thank God for both of you it didn’t happen.”

  “So you see how many lives were changed by my adoptive mother? Kája allowed God to use her. And she saved me from the train because of it.”

  “How, Sophie? How did she save your life?”

  With the faintest hint of a smile, Sophie turned the frame over in her hands and pulled the cardboard backing open. She pulled it free and with a soft smile, turned over a sheet of paper that had been concealed in the frame behind the portrait.

  “Because she gave me this.”

  Sophie handed Sera a painting, obviously by a child’s hand.

  It was masterful in its simplicity. There was a clock, a tower of sorts, standing tall against a watercolor blue sky. And there were birds, tiny little winged birds that dotted the sky around it, weaving in and out of the renderings of fluffy white clouds.

  “She gave you a painting?”

  She chuckled under her breath. “No. She gave me a story. She told me about a clock—a very big one. And you know what it was that I painted because of it?”

  “No.”

  “Look there—in the sky.” She pointed at the tiny flecks of faded watercolor wings. “Do you see? She gave me hope. She gave me a story with wings so I could fly.”

  “A story? You think that’s what I need to hear?”

  “Mm-hmm. You’re welcome to stay and visit, of course. But a
fter you hear this, I’m not sure you’ll want to be anywhere else but home.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  December 21, 1943

  Terezin

  Kája heard the noise in the front schoolroom long after the children had left for the day. It was soft and barely discernable, but she instinctively knew what it was.

  Crying.

  She walked from the supply room down the length of the hall and pushed the door open just wide enough to peek in. She was thankful that the hinges were silent for once.

  Sophie sat there alone with her tiny shoulders slumped, her back to the door. The length of her body shook with soft, heartbreaking sobs, one for each breath, as the tiny hands covering her face muffled her cries.

  Kája’s heart constricted at the pitiful sight.

  She stepped through the door and closed it behind her. Sophie quickly dried her eyes on her sleeve. She tried to cover the show of emotion, as if it were shameful somehow to be discovered crying in their empty schoolroom. She moved to the edge of her stool, almost like a wounded animal ready to flee.

  “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Kája whispered. “I heard something and came in to see if someone needed help.” She took another step closer. “Can I help you, Sophie?”

  She shook her head, bobbing her short hair in a wave against her delicate chin.

  For so many months, she’d not been able to crack the surface of a relationship with the girl. Kája had taken her into the attic room, clothed her and cared for her and fed her from the rations Dane brought to the school. She’d taught her with the other children, always hoping that little Sophie would show the tiniest spark of interest in the books or the paintings and drawings that the other children created. She was a dutiful helper, but always for the benefit of the other children at the school. Sophie had remained withdrawn.

  Kája sat on the wooden bench next to her and folded her hands in her lap.

  “How can I help you?” She leaned in low, whispering close to Sophie’s profile. “Is there something you want?”

  Sophie turned to her and with tear-stained cheeks nodded. She reached out and in tiny fingers clasped the cross necklace that had fallen down out of the collar of Kája’s dress.

  “I want to know about him.”

  Surprised, Kája asked, “You know what this is?”

  Sophie nodded. “He loves children, doesn’t he?”

  Kája felt a smile burst forth on her face and nodded.

  “Yes. I believe he does.”

  “And what does he say about children who die?”

  Kája certainly couldn’t have guessed that some of the first words Sophie spoke on her own would be about this, but she inclined her head and quietly asked, “You’re thinking about your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  She walked over to the art box on the shelf and took it down.

  “I’d like to tell you a story. It’s about a clock—a very big one.” She smiled and began taking supplies—paper, paint, and brushes—and began laying them out on the table. “There is an old town square in Prague, where I lived as a girl. And in this square is a very old, very important clock.”

  “What does it do?”

  “Well, it tells time. But more than that, it holds a secret. A wonderful story about God’s people—the Jews, and Jesus, and how he cares for every child. Would you like to hear it?”

  Sophie dried her tears with the back of her palm and nodded.

  “Good. That’s what I hoped you would say,” she whispered, and patted her cheek. “But before I do, I wonder if you could do something for me? I’d love it if our class had a painting of yours to add to our collection. So as I tell this story, I wonder if you’d help me and paint what it makes you feel. Try to create what you imagine the clock looks like and what you’d see if you were standing with me beneath it.”

  Kája opened one of the jars of paint and reaching out, handed her a paintbrush.

  “Do you think you can do that for me?”

  Sophie took the brush in hand.

  As Kája began her animated tales about the skeleton, the moving figures of the sun and moon, and how the little sparrows turned the insides of the tower, something changed in that schoolroom.

  Sophie stopped crying and her hands came alive.

  They moved with the dexterity of a master, as a painter who owned her canvas and gave herself up to the picture she was bringing to life. With tears still wet on her cheeks but resolve and strength somehow pouring out of the brush, she listened. And moved. And created with a passion that sparked and hope that caught fire.

  “Can you tell me about him, about Jesus?” Sophie asked, still occupied with putting paint to canvas with her soft, intentional movements.

  “What do you want to know?” Kája’s tears were soft and battled their way from the corners of her eyes.

  “What did he suffer?”

  “Much. He suffered very much.”

  “Did he die for us?”

  Kája nodded and bit her lip on emotion. “Yes, Sophie. He did.”

  “He was a Jew.”

  “He was, just like us. And if he were here right now,” she noted, watching as Sophie painted a trail of light blue spanning the sky behind her clock tower, “he’d be suffering. He’d be crying for what we do to each other.”

  Sophie dotted the sky with tiny birds, soaring overhead.

  “If he were here right now . . .” Sophie set the paintbrush aside and her voice trailed off.

  Kája knelt down until her face was level with Sophie’s and with gentle hands wiped the tears from her cheeks.

  “Darling, he is here. He sees. He knows our pain. And for every single sparrow that has fallen in this place, he has cried too.”

  Sophie buried her face against Kája’s chest and they held each other, crying in the silence of the room. And for a time, all was forgotten. The constant threat of transport trains melted away . . . the memory of walking to a graveyard faded . . . and the pain of loss was cleansed.

  When Sophie’s cries finally softened to tiny hiccups against her shoulder, Kája released her. She looked at the lovely painting with its large clock and wonderfully sunny sky. And with a stubborn notch to her chin that would have made Liam proud, Kája took it and crossed the room.

  With a clothespin, she hung the painting on the twine next to the other children’s art. They stood in reverent silence, looking at the beauty they’d created together.

  Sophie reached out and clasped her hand.

  Kája turned and, hopeful, asked, “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes.” A tiny, unexpected smile peeked out from the corners of her mouth. “I am so very hungry.”

  As she placed a small portion of bread in Sophie’s hand and watched her so innocently eat, Kája made a vow. She had no way of knowing whether they’d make it out of Terezin alive. More than that, she wasn’t sure of ever seeing her Liam again. If her life could mean anything now, she pledged to do whatever God asked of her in defense of the children of Terezin, even if it should take her own life to do it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Sera dropped her bags at the door and grabbed up the first thing she saw, which happened to be a spatula from the counter in the loft’s kitchenette. She held it up in front of her and proceeded with quiet steps through to the back corner of her San Francisco loft.

  The noise continued. A clanging first, and then a shout, followed by nondescript murmuring.

  Sera had been walking slowly, cautious that someone had broken into the loft, until she heard William grumbling under his breath. She came around the corner to the bookshelf-lined reading nook in the back of the loft.

  William was kneeling there with his back to her, crouched over a box of white wooden slats and parts that had been strewn about the floor. She smiled and bit her bottom lip over the instant hitch of emotion that caught in her chest.

  Her husband was trying, and failing miserably, to put a crib together.

  She set the spatula do
wn on a side table and cleared her throat to get his attention. He turned, saw her, then leaned back on his heels and threw his hands up in mock defeat.

  “Well. The truth is out. Never let me try to fix anything myself or it will be a total disaster.”

  “I can see that.”

  He stood and dusted off his hands on his jeans, walking toward her. “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

  Sera scanned the dimly lit loft that she’d been slowly but surely preparing to be an art gallery.

  So that’s what was different. She’d been so fixed on the noise that she hadn’t even looked around. She and Penny had left for London in such haste that the loft had been in a state of chaos—boxes and crates stacked all around Sera’s furniture purchases. It hadn’t looked like much more than an oversized storage room. But now the sight fairly took her breath away.

  In the days she’d stayed on with Sophie in Paris, William had made them a home.

  She turned round, surveying the room with her hand over her heart.

  A new table and chairs had been unpacked and set in the far corner, ready for family dinners. There was a sitting area off the kitchen, in which the couch and chairs now occupied space opposite the fireplace. There were two tall bookcases lined with her collection of art books and his of theology. She guessed that the back room could have been turned into a master bedroom for them.

  And where they stood, the reading nook had been touched by a sweet sense of magic that only a new baby could bring.

  There was a changing table boasting the glow of a tiny lamp in the corner. And opposite, a rocking chair with a blanket and stuffed bear, and a shelf with books nearby. The parts of a crib were strewn on the floor around the husband who was standing in the midst of it all, keenly watching her reaction to what he’d done.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Will . . . it’s beautiful. Of course.”

  He raised his hands palm up, offering, “I wanted to have it all put together before you came home.”

  When she moved to ask, he read her thoughts.

  “Penny told me you were on the way back.” He tilted his head to the baby furniture. “I had no idea what to buy but thankfully she schooled your clueless husband in the art of outfitting a nursery. And apologies.”