She apologized to Natalka for being thus occupied, but the younger woman insisted she could entertain herself and that it would be a relief to have some time to just sit and read.
The first student stood near the piano as Sarah helped her warm up her voice. She plunked out a key on the piano for the young woman to begin. Fifteen minutes of vocal exercises.
“Feel the muscles in your mask area,” Sarah said. “It’s the sinuses that resonate.” Sarah placed her thumb and forefinger on both sides of her nose beneath her eyes.
Sarah scrutinized the woman’s posture. “Raise up your sternum. That frees your lungs to take in more air. Drop your shoulders. Stand like a dancer.”
Sarah was drinking some water in the kitchen when the second young woman let herself in the front door. Sarah smiled at Natalka on her way into the living room.
When the last student left, Sarah sank onto the sofa, drained as usual after an afternoon of lessons. She was getting old. Who was she kidding? She was old.
Natalka called in from the kitchen. “You would like some tea?”
“I would, thank you.”
Natalka brought in a tray with a teapot and two mugs, depositing it on the coffee table. She poured Sarah some tea, then sat down on the other end of the couch with her mug.
“You are very good teacher,” she said, a new respect in her face. “Strict, but in kind way. You discipline, but you do not — how to say — you do not make the person small.”
Sarah smiled, a little embarrassed. “Thank you, I’m flattered.”
“My mother always encouraged music from when I was very little. She loves music, but she is not musician. She listens, she appreciates, but she doesn’t feel it in her bones. Like we do.”
Sarah felt very warm inside, to have a musician of Natalka’s stature include her in “we.”
“Do you give lessons?” she asked her.
Natalka sipped at her tea. “I had students before I got sick. Now I see I miss it — to share what you love with people that appreciate. I could not get through this without my music. When I am very depressed, I start to play and then it’s better.”
There was a kinship among musicians, Sarah thought. The connection she felt moved her to say to this almost stranger what she would’ve liked to say to Rebecca but never could.
“I lost my husband five years ago, then my son,” Sarah said. “There’s nothing worse than a parent outliving a child. I didn’t think I would survive it. Of course, I couldn’t sing. When your body is the instrument, you cannot sing if your soul is sick. The two are intricately connected. I was afraid I would never sing again. Then one day I heard Kathleen Ferrier sing one of those tragic English love songs in her contralto, and my heart opened up again. I realized the world was still beautiful. Music still caught at my throat — you know what I mean. None of that changed. Only I had changed.”
Animation lit Natalka’s small, oval face. “I understand completely. Everything for me changed also. Only music not changed. This I like — you can read notes on page of music and play on piano, then next person can read same notes and play same thing. This is structure, it is a comfort. If only other things are so reliable.”
Sarah had dialed Rebecca’s number several times that day to find out how she was, but no one answered. It was late in the afternoon before her daughter-in-law picked up the phone.
“I was starting to worry about you. Everything all right?”
“I was at Michael’s house. I met Edward.”
“His son?”
“I wanted to see if he was all right.”
How had Rebecca gotten so close to a man she had just met? She rarely showed such concern for her mother-in-law.
“And was he?” Sarah said, trying to keep the censure out of her voice.
“He was upset. But surviving. We talked about his father’s manuscript. I made a copy if you want to read it after I’m finished.”
“So you’re enjoying it.”
“It’s very exciting. It sounds like the eighteenth century was tolerable if you were an aristocrat. Tonight I’m going to read about an English nobleman named Sir Charles. It’s taking my mind off everything. How are you feeling, after yesterday?”
Okay, make me feel guilty, Sarah thought. “I’m a little sore. I pulled muscles I didn’t know I had. How about you?”
“A little sore.”
There was an awkward pause, the kind between two people who scrupulously avoid unknown territory lest they poke a sore spot.
“Did Halina come back?” Rebecca asked.
“No.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Natalka wouldn’t let me.”
“Aren’t you worried?”
“Of course. But I don’t think calling the police will solve anything. I think she’s gone of her own free will, so what would be the point?”
Rebecca breathed into the phone. “I just don’t understand any of it. Nothing about this whole business makes any sense. She’s left her daughter at a crucial time. Doesn’t Natalka have an appointment to see the specialist this week?”
“Wednesday. I’ll take her if Halina doesn’t come back,” Sarah said. “It’s at Mount Sinai?”
“Yes. It’s Dr. Koboy. I’ll speak to you before then.”
Halina did not come back on Sunday. There was still no word from her on Monday.
The early sun slanted through the patio doors in the kitchen and lit a halo around Natalka’s white hair, swept up into a chignon. Sarah stared at her, wrapped her hands around the coffee mug without lifting it.
“Does your mother know anyone else in Toronto?”
Natalka sipped at her coffee. “No.”
If she were worried about her mother, she didn’t show it. “Did she say anything about where she was going?”
Natalka gave a small shrug, watching her coffee intently.
“What about the Polish Consulate?” Sarah said, desperate. “Did she ever mention the Consulate?”
The younger woman snapped to attention, her head angled on the slender stalk of neck. She looked away quickly, giving the impression of trying to remember. “I don’t think so. Not sure.”
“Well, it’s the only place I can think of,” Sarah said. “I’m going to drive over there and see if she’s contacted anyone.” She felt she needed to do something, but sensed a tension rise between them.
Sarah brought out the Toronto phone book and found the Consulate General of Poland. It was an address on the Lakeshore. Unfamiliar territory, but she would find it.
She poured her coffee down the sink and looked over at Natalka, still sitting at the kitchen table. “Are you going to come?”
The woman observed her thoughtfully. “No,” she said. “And if you go, you must be careful what you say. Not make them suspicious.”
“Suspicious of what?”
“If you say Mama gone, they think she wants to defect.”
Sarah stopped moving, focusing all her attention. “Is that a possibility?”
Natalka blinked. “No, no. My daughter is still in Poland… Would be trouble.”
With misgivings Sarah drove down Bathurst to the Gardiner Expressway and got off at Lakeshore Road. A grey layer of cloud had expanded to fill the horizon. By the time she parked the car on a side street off the Lakeshore, a soft rain was misting the air.
She strode quickly under her umbrella, approaching a large mansion that housed the Polish Consulate. The elaborate wrought iron gate in the front was locked and a sign pointed her to the side entrance. She walked along the fence that stretched the length of the building. Finally she came to a narrower gate that must once have been meant for tradespeople and servants. This swung open. Was she doing the right thing? Why hadn’t Natalka come?
Still under her umbrella she stepped along a narrow walk all the way to the back of the mansion until she reached the rear entrance. Opening the door, she was astonished to find herself at the end of a long line of people waiting to approach a wicket.<
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All signs were printed in Polish. Sarah felt her muscles go tense. Though there were two wickets, almost everyone lined up in front of the window beneath a sign that read, “Drop off documents.” Only three people stood before the other window, where the sign read, “Pick up documents.”
She excused herself to manoeuvre around the line of people standing near the door and stepped toward the other wicket.
The people standing at each window spoke loudly in Polish to the female attendants who sat behind a glass partition looking bored and impatient. Their responses were inaudible from where Sarah stood. The men and women standing around her murmured in Polish to their companions. Her neck felt like a board. It had been over thirty years since she’d been surrounded by people speaking Polish, and it was unsettling. The words themselves sounded sweet to her ears, but the memories of other speakers, the betrayals —
“My niece is joining the Felician Sisters,” a woman in the next line was saying to her friend. She wore a shapeless brown raincoat around her ample body. Her grey hair was permed into tight curls.
“Little Jadwiga? Really?”
“I begged my sister to forbid her, but the poor girl is very plain and will never attract a man.”
Sarah glanced at the large wart on the woman’s cheek and suppressed a smile.
“Then maybe it’s for the best. At least she’ll do some good. I hear the Sisters help the poor.”
“She wants to work with children. Probably never have any of her own.”
“You know, the Sisters have a nice house downtown. She’ll be taken care of.”
An elegantly dressed woman in an olive green linen skirt and jacket stepped up to the next wicket. Unlike the others, she had spoken her request in a low voice while Sarah had been distracted by the conversation of her neighbours.
“Can I please see your documents?”
The woman passed her papers under the glass.
“This is not enough. You need the proper documents.”
“But I have everything I’m supposed to.”
“Not approved!” The attendant shoved her papers back.
“But why?” The woman’s voice had risen, plaintive now.
“This stamp not correct.” The attendant gestured to someone out of sight.
A door Sarah hadn’t noticed before opened beside the wickets and a tall, spectacled man appeared. He stood aside waiting for the woman to enter. She hesitated a moment, looked at the people behind her in line, and stepped slowly through the door.
The man in front of Sarah picked up his documents from the attendant and marched away. It was Sarah’s turn.
The middle-aged blond woman stared at her with blank eyes. “Prosze Pany?”
Sarah began speaking in English. She hadn’t planned to, couldn’t help the English words that escaped her mouth.
“I’m looking for a friend who arrived from Poland last week. I thought maybe she came here. If I tell you her name —”
“I’m sorry but we can’t help you,” the woman said in heavily accented English. “We are not here for that.”
“I’m concerned about her because she didn’t leave an address where I can reach her. So if she did contact you —”
“We don’t keep names on file like that.”
How could she make this woman take her seriously, make her understand?
“Look, she’s an important person in the Party. She works for Orbis. All I want to know —”
The woman’s eyes took on some light. “Wait a minute.”
She turned away toward someone out of Sarah’s line of vision, in the direction of the same door behind which the elegant but paper-less woman had vanished. Some muttering in Polish too low to hear, not meant to be heard.
The hairs on Sarah’s arms began to bristle. An uneasiness she couldn’t explain settled on her like scratchy wool. She remembered Natalka’s warning, the alarm in her posture. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
The mysterious door on the other side of the wickets began to open. Before the blond attendant had turned her head back to face her, Sarah bolted through the line of people and out the back door.
Sarah groaned and turned over in her sleep. It had been a gruesome few days, and her bed would have been a welcome respite if only her mind would stay where her body was. But she began to fall, fall through the decades into Ulica Miodowa, the narrow canyon between buildings that leaned toward each other to listen to her breathing. You won’t find them here, the voices murmured. Long gone. Don’t you know anything? they snickered. Over here. Come over here. She glided toward the voices, such familiar voices, across Ulica Dajwor, past darkened shops, under the bridge, following a high brick wall to where an iron gate slowly opened.
You’ve finally found us, they laughed. She drifted through the gate, such a familiar gate, and then she saw them: gravestones heaved and pitted like crooked teeth, Stars of David emblazoned on their granite chests, telling her — telling her —
With tremendous effort she willed her body around. The stars twirled above her head, changed places in the great bowl of sky as she turned and floated out the gate.
Through Ulica Szeroka, the wide square, empty now, where the ghosts of Jewish merchants echoed on the cobblestones in front of the ancient buildings. The shades of horses and wagons, clip-clop, clip-clop. Rayzele in her arms, weeping, sighing. The reddish hair in a downy curl on her forehead. Baby hair. Hush, little sweetheart. They won’t find you. I’ll never let them find you.
No more than a turn of her head — she’s in Ulica Grodzka and… Rayzele, where is Rayzele? Darkness all around like ink. Drowning in shadows. Where is my little darling? Everything black. But there, what is that? A light up ahead. Above a door. A soft weeping.
She glides toward the door, so familiar, she knows that door, but it won’t stay still. The closer she comes, the further it retreats. It’s shrinking. She must reach the door, she must. She pushes herself. If she could only go faster the door would stop. But it keeps shrinking, threatens to dissolve into the dark. Her heart is racing, flying, she cannot go on, the door is just out of reach.
Rayzele! she cries out.
And there, suddenly looming above her — the door. The familiar old wood, thick, cold. She pushes it. It yields. The towering door creaks open. Her heart beats in her ears, rattling, drumming in her ears. A shank of light filters into the black street, too bright for her to look at. She averts her eyes like Moses before the bush that burns: But she must look. She must. Though it is painful to behold, she pushes the door further. The wedge of light grows, a spreading triangle. Her eyes close tight from pain, but she must look.
When she opens her eyes, she is awake and thirty-four years have swept by.
chapter fifteen
Sir Charles
For King and Country
August 18, 1746
Our grasp on life is tenuous. If anyone doubts it, let him stop at Tower Hill during the hour of execution. Although I travel to London for Parliament often enough, the Tower never fails to impress, especially the White Tower, some ninety feet high to the battlements. It’s built of dark, rough-hewn ragstone, the corners and windows of which are edged with finely cut pale Caen stone. The four turrets are topped with onion-shaped caps that glisten in the August sun.
Henry Fox and I chat as amiably as if we are still in Holland House, where Lady Caroline is, no doubt, telling cook what she wants served for dinner. As members of government, we are placed in the Transport Office next door to the two rooms that have been prepared for the two unfortunate Lords in view of the chopping block. The crowd hums in the distance, making us raise our voices.
The air is tense with anticipation. I have never been good at waiting and feel the need of a little mischief. I whisper to Fox, “If you had been born a Scot, dear Fox, would you have followed the Bonnie Prince into Culloden?”
Fox swivels his bewigged head around to ensure that no one has heard me. But the din of the mob beyond has veiled my words. “You
are a dangerous friend, Sir Charles. I will consider the question as a sign of bad nerves, in light of what we’re about to witness. Though I can’t satisfy your morbid curiousity as I am sure that neither of us would ever’ve had the bad taste to be born a Scot. Wales is bad enough.”
I snicker at his reference to my birthplace. “You avoid the question, Fox,” I murmur. “Would you still give allegiance to our Hanoverian King, or would you bow down to the handsomest prince who ever took breath? Even if he is a Papist? Have you heard the song of late about the Bonnie Prince? ‘Speed bonnie boat like a bird on the wing…’” I sing it under my breath. “Now that’s a real British king! No matter that his mother is Polish and he lives in France.” I watch Henry for reaction — but he knows me too well — there is none. A bit of a sigh, a slight tremble of the powdered curls at my whimsical treason.
“A prince in exile is always more appealing than the king who rules,” he whispers. “A distant Stuart can be as romantic as a lost love. But let him set foot on English soil and raise his banner, and watch how quickly the fairy dust falls away. What will be left is a flesh and bones bully who will like nothing better than to invite the Pope to join him by the throne. No, I will stay with the king I know. King George is our rightful and legal sovereign, even if he speaks English with a German accent.”
“Then you admit he favours Hanover above us,” I say.
“I admit nothing whilst we sit ten yards from the scaffold that holds the block. Ask me again in Holland House after we’ve drunk some port.”
It is a full year since the Young Pretender, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, set up his standard in Glenfinnan and took possession of Edinburgh. There were months of panic while the rebel army advanced through England triumphant and unchecked. People could scarcely believe what was happening. I, myself, voted in Parliament to allow some Dukes and Lords to organize special regiments for service against the rebels. We need hardly have worried for they are a contentious lot and by Christmas had descended into quarrelsome parties.
And now it has come to this. The squaring of accounts.
Rebecca Temple Mysteries 3-Book Bundle Page 40
