The Girl from Krakow (44 page)

“That’s what I thought.”

“I was in the Polish Home Army. They caught me. I wouldn’t talk. They took one fingernail each day. Then they let me go.”

“Very brave.”

“Not really. If I had confessed, they surely would have killed me.” She glanced toward the boy coming up the path toward them, who seemed to be about seven. “And then, he would have had no one.” Rita looked at the woman’s left hand. No ring.

The child had approached and was patiently waiting to speak. “
Mutti
, my sailboat.” The woman reached into the bag beside her and handed the child his toy. “Here you are, Stefan.”

“Thank you.” The child kissed the woman, went off to the pool in the middle of the garden, and launched his craft.

T
here was no doubt. You don’t forget your own child’s face, and it doesn’t change that much from almost three to seven. And then it all came back to her. The courier—the woman to whom Rita had handed over her son. The tilted mouth, the beautiful nails. The nails that had been pulled out, one by one. Rita’s feeling of admiration for the woman was instantly replaced by gratitude. Keeping Stefan, protecting him, raising him, had cost this woman so much. The boy before her was fine-looking and evidently happy. How could Rita ever repay her for what she had done at such expense to herself? The love this woman must have lavished on a child who was not hers. Rita could never pay this debt, but she would have to try. She began thinking how. But the ideas of recompense were flooded away by the urgency that the boy know Rita was his mother. Then came the need to shout his name, search his face for recognition, rush to the sailing pool, sweep him into her arms.

The woman hadn’t noticed the sudden joy in Rita’s face. She had closed her book and begun surveying the toddlers a few meters away. Then she spoke. “My name is Francis
 . . . 
Sajac. My friends call me Frania.” She offered her hand and smiled. “Making acquaintance on a park bench used to be frowned upon before the war. But it’s a different world, isn’t it?”

Before she realized what she was doing, Rita had taken her hand and returned the smile. “I’m Rita Feuerstahl. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” But she was just mouthing the words, her thoughts absorbed by all the wonderful complications of recovering her son. He would have to learn that he wasn’t Stefan Sajac after all. She would have to tell Urs. There wasn’t much he would do, far to the east, with a new family, on the wrong side of a border no one could easily cross. What about Gil? He wasn’t Stefan’s father, had never even seen the boy. Would he be a problem? It didn’t matter. But what about this woman Stefan had just called
Mutti
? She had to remain part of his life—and Rita’s.

She looked at the woman, whose glance had turned to Stefan circling the fountain to tend his sailboat. Then she thought,
This woman, smiling with love for her child, has no way of knowing what she is about to lose.
How would Rita assuage her for the loss she was going to suffer? How could Rita keep her as part of Stefan’s life?

Her new friend interrupted these thoughts. “I’m from Radom. What part of Poland do you hail from?”

How should Rita reply? She had only to mention the town she had sent Stefan from or the town she had sent him to. The coincidence would unravel in a few more questions, and Stefan would be hers again.

Suddenly she realized she could not let that happen. He could not share the joy she was feeling. For Stefan the reunion would first be confusion, and then bereavement for the only protection and love he could really remember. He had been torn from his mother once already. And it was Rita who had done it. She would not take Stefan from his mother a second time. Then she felt again the pain of that loss, sending him away in the hope he would survive. She couldn’t inflict such pain on the woman who had sacrificed herself to save Stefan.

Rita repeated the woman’s question, “Where am I from?”

Then she knew what she had to say. “
I’m from Krakow.” Gesturing
toward her twins playing on the manicured grass, she continued, “Those are my boys. I hope they grow up to be as polite as your son.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo © 2011 Jim Wallace

Alex Rosenberg has written many books about philosophy and science, including the widely reviewed
Atheist’s Guide to Reality
. He teaches at Duke University.
The Girl from Krakow
is his first novel. He and his twin brother were born in Salzburg, Austria, in 1946.