“Dial 911,” Rebecca said, the vision of Iris running toward her blurred through her tears.
chapter twenty-nine
Rebecca sat in an emergency cubicle at Mount Sinai Hospital, numbly watching a young resident make a small cut next to the needle shaft in her arm. That allowed his tweezers to gain a purchase on the tip of the needle and pull the damn thing out of her skin. He had injected the area with anaesthetic so that her arm, which looked like a pincushion, was as frozen as her brain. She had to give him credit for managing the delicate procedure while she continued to shake from the after-effects of the adrenalin. Long shudders took hold of her body when she least expected it.
The ambulance crew that had brought her in had dropped a few choice phrases to the staff: “little lady caught herself a killer,” “don’t mess with her, she’s tougher than she looks,” “went hand-to-hand combat with a burly six-footer and she won,” et cetera. Every nurse who went by looked in to take a peek at her. The resident chattered on, asking her questions about her adventure, to which she gave one-word answers. She was peeved by his morbid curiosity. Was the ER so dull? she wondered.
She was trying to beat back the image of the burnt body in her office when Dr. Koboy poked his head into the cubicle. His blue eyes crinkled at the edges. “The whole hospital’s talking about you, Doctor. They want to know where you learned to fight.”
She gave him a weak smile. “In medical school.”
“I guess I won’t start any arguments with you.” He gave her a mock grin, concern in the tentative line of his mouth.
She recognized the look and tried harder to smile at his five-foot-two frame. “How’s your patient upstairs?”
“She’s feeling fine. I think she can go home on Monday.”
“I wanted to thank you for seeing her. I know you were doing me a favour.”
“No, thank you for the referral. I’ve never seen Gaucher’s before. Most of them are in the States. They have a much larger Jewish population.”
“What do you mean?”
He gave her an odd look. “You’re more likely to see a Jewish genetic disease where there’s a substantial Jewish population.”
“Jewish genetic disease?”
“I told you it was familial. I thought you knew.”
On the elevator up to Natalka’s floor, Rebecca wondered if she knew. She also wondered who the father had been. Janek may have been a monster, but maybe he was right about Halina. Maybe she was an alley cat.
In the semi-private room, Natalka sat up in the bed closest to the door. Sarah and Halina sat in chairs near-by. When Rebecca appeared in the doorway, Sarah jumped up.
“You look terrible. What happened to your arm?”
Bless her heart, Rebecca thought. She noticed. “It’s a long story.”
Sarah approached her, worry in her eyes.
Rebecca felt her mouth start to tremble and on impulse put her arms out to embrace her mother-in-law for the first time since David had died. A faint whiff of lily of the valley.
Sarah stroked her back. When they pulled away, Sarah dragged an empty chair from the corner and set it down on the opposite side of the bed for her. “Maybe one day you’ll tell me one of your long stories. Meanwhile, sit down.”
Rebecca smiled sheepishly at her and sat down. “There is something about Natalka’s illness,” she said.
There was a general intake of breath.
“No, no. Don’t worry. Nothing bad. Just unusual.”
She observed Natalka, wondering how the news would affect her. She must have been feeling better because she had put her hair up and applied a bit of lipstick.
“Apparently Gaucher’s Disease, which is what Natalka has, is a Jewish genetic disorder. It runs mostly in Jewish families.”
Natalka looked confused. It was Sarah who appeared stricken. Rebecca noticed her mouth open, her eyes bulge. Sarah turned abruptly to Halina beside her and said something to her in Polish. Halina answered in a stiff, insistent tone. Her pale skin turned a mottled red.
“What are they saying?” Rebecca asked Natalka.
Natalka lowered her eyes and quietly said, “Mama says she had Jewish lover.”
“Hah!” Sarah cried. “Is that what she told you?”
Natalka looked from face to face, baffled.
“What was his name?” said Sarah, her voice raised. She glowered at Halina. “There is no name!”
Halina’s eyes darted from woman to woman. “Avram,” she said finally.
“Where did you meet?”
Rebecca had never seen her mother-in-law so upset. She was nearly hysterical.
“On train,” Halina answered. “I met him on train.”
Sarah clamped her fingers onto Halina’s arm. The other woman stiffened but didn’t pull away. “You’re lying.”
Halina shook her head with vehemence. “Avram. Avram… Kiefkevich. He die in war.”
Sarah’s chest began to heave. She looked like she was going to have a heart attack. Rebecca grew alarmed.
“What did my baby die of?” Sarah cried.
“What baby?” said Rebecca. What had just happened? Had she missed something?
Sarah’s fingers constricted on Halina’s arm. “How did she die? You were never clear about that. Did she have fever? Did she cough? Did you take her to the doctor?”
Halina pulled away from Sarah’s grip. “People died in war. Not enough food. No medicine. Babies died. Many babies.”
Natalka said softly to Sarah, “What you are talking about? Please tell me.”
Sarah lifted her head and took a breath. She glanced with distraction at Rebecca, then gazed out the window into the night.
“Near the beginning of the war, in February 1940, my little baby, Rayzele, was five months old.”
Rebecca sat up, shocked. How could that be? David had never told her he’d had a sister. Had Sarah kept this secret for nearly forty years?
“The Germans were killing us. Every day people were dragged from their apartments and taken away in trucks. Or shot right in the street. If we had to die, my husband and I decided we would try to save Rayzele. There were few people we could trust. Halina used to work for my parents in their store. I looked up to her. I trusted her.”
She glared at Halina, whose face trembled, her eyes shut tight.
“I asked her to take the baby. I didn’t think we would survive the war. My husband and I got separated. I was sent to a labour camp outside Leipzig. The Germans were losing. I still remember the bombs dropping on the camp. All women. Ten thousand of us. The German guards took us out and made us walk through the fields. For weeks we trudged through the snow with nothing to eat. A death march in the middle of winter. The war was nearly over, but they wanted to kill us. When someone fell to the ground and couldn’t go on, they shot her.
“One night, I’ll never forget. Hundreds of allied planes flew over us for hours, all night, and dropped bombs on a target in the distance. They just kept coming and coming without stop. They dropped so many bombs they turned night into day, it was so bright. We were on higher ground and we could see the sky lighting up so far away and realized there must be utter devastation there. We thanked God the Germans were finally getting what they deserved. Later, we found out it was Dresden.”
Rebecca felt a twinge in her heart at the name. She understood the retribution, the justice. Yet all the beauty of the ages destroyed. All the hope.
“The whole time I stayed alive so I could come back to Kraków and knock on your mother’s door and ask for my Rayzele back.”
Halina sat perfectly still with her eyes closed.
“When I finally got back to Poland and found your mother… she said my baby had died.”
Natalka gulped in a sharp breath. She turned to Halina.
“Mama?” Her voice was agitated. She said something to her in Polish.
Halina opened her eyes and murmured an answer. A short exchange. More questions, more answers.
Rebecca questioned
Natalka with her eyes.
“She doesn’t say how baby died.”
Sarah stood up abruptly, the chair scraping the floor behind her. “Now I understand why,” she said.
Natalka leaned back in her bed. “I don’t understand anything.”
“She didn’t die,” Sarah said. She glared at Halina with loathing. “Did she?”
Rebecca was awestruck and confused at the same time. David had had a sister. Who had died. Or not.
“What you are saying?” Natalka asked Sarah.
Sarah came to stand near the bed. She put her hand out to touch Natalka’s head.
“What colour was your hair?”
“My hair?”
Rebecca gaped at Natalka’s white hair. She knew what colour the woman’s hair had been because she had examined her in the office. Her pubic hair was orange. She had been a redhead. Like David.
“Oh my God!” Rebecca gasped.
“I don’t understand.” Natalka shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
Halina stood up and began to shout. “You think it was easy? The war destroyed everything for me, too. For first time I had someone. What else I had? Janek leave me because of her. I gave up my own food for her.” She looked at Natalka, tears in her eyes. “Someone loves me. Loves me most. How I can give her up? I take care of her five years. Five years. And then you come back and want I should just give her away. Like cutting out my heart.”
She wiped a tear away. “She make me so happy. And then, after everything, she get sick. And I know God is punishing me. I do everything — everything to bring her here. I cannot fight no more.”
Halina ran out of the room, her hand over her mouth.
“Mama!” Natalka cried. “Mama!”
Sarah had gone pale and wavered where she stood. Rebecca balanced on the edge of her seat, ready to jump to her assistance.
Sarah sat down on the side of Natalka’s bed. Her jaw was set in restraint. She took the younger woman’s hand and drank in her face like a lover.
“How could she be so cruel?” she murmured to the air. “How could she? All these years I thought you were dead. All these years I mourned you.” She stroked Natalka’s hair.
“No,” Natalka shook her head warily. “You are mistaken. How can it be?”
“She can’t even face you. She can’t face me. Because she stole your life from me. She stole all those years we never had together. They’re lost forever.”
Natalka blinked at her. “No,” she said. “You must be mistaken. I’m sorry — so sorry — about your daughter, but has nothing to do with me. Halina is my mother. She is good mother.”
“She stole you. If there is any justice, she’ll be punished in hell.”
Natalka shook her head, pulled her hand from Sarah’s. “No! Stop! Then I am punished, too.”
Sarah touched Natalka’s face with wary fingers. “You were everything to me. I felt… something right away. A connection. I couldn’t explain. When you accompanied me on the piano and I sang… We are connected in the soul.”
Natalka crossed her arms over her chest. “It was someone else. I’m so sorry. But it was not me. Please, you must bring my mother back, tell her it is a mistake. That I love her very much and you have made a terrible, terrible mistake.”
Rebecca watched her mother-in-law’s face go from pale to white. Tears glistened in her eyes, which never left Natalka’s face.
Rebecca didn’t know she was dozing until the doorbell woke her. Her parents had arrived with fresh bagels and egg and tuna salad for a late morning brunch and had left over an hour ago. They’d been worried about her and wanted to see for themselves that she was all right. Afterwards, she had collapsed onto the couch in the den, her arm throbbing.
Holding her bandaged arm close against her waist, she dragged herself to the front door. When she opened it, Edward stood on the stoop holding a plastic container of food. He wore khaki trousers and a grey shirt, a light jacket slung over one arm. His straight sandy hair fell over one ear in a young way that touched her.
He smiled. “I wanted to thank you. The police told me what you did. That Hauer was the one who…”
He couldn’t seem to say it, but it had to be said. “He killed your father.”
Edward looked down, swallowed. “I don’t really understand. He looked so… harmless.”
“You mean he didn’t look like a monster? No horns? He looked like the rest of us. Maybe he was.”
Edward raised puzzled eyes at her.
Or maybe we’re all monsters, she thought. In and out of her memory slid the blackened skin, the charred tweed jacket, arms protecting his chest, in vain. She had been glad. She was a doctor, a self-professed healer, and she had been glad. She was more human than she cared to admit, even to herself.
“Why did he do it?” said Edward.
“Self-preservation. In his own mind. A twisted sense of his own importance.” Too human.
Edward cleared his throat self-consciously. “I’m driving back to Ottawa tonight and Mrs. Woronska gave me all these pierogies… I thought maybe you’d like to share them.” He held the container in front of him.
“Come in.”
“They told me you were injured. How’s your arm?”
“It hurts, but I’ll live.”
Once in the hall he said, “According to Mrs. Woronska’s instructions, the pierogies should be fried in butter. And eaten with sour cream.” He opened the plastic container to reveal a small jar of sour cream lying next to three neat rows of floured pierogies.
She led him into the kitchen.
“You sit down,” he said, “and just tell me where everything is. Large frying pan?”
She pointed him to the cupboard. He opened the fridge and found the butter.
She smiled watching him tend to the food. It gave her a surprising sense of well-being, a man taking charge in her kitchen, the sizzle and smell of the potato and onion pierogies. He put the cover on the pan and turned the heat down.
Sitting across from her at the dark pine table, he reached into the jacket he had hung over the back of a chair. He pulled out the blackened remains of the gold box and set it in front of her.
“The police found this in Hauer’s pocket. They said you told them it belonged to my family.”
She blinked at the box, the corners melted and misshapen, the lapis lazuli covered in soot. “It was so beautiful,” she said. “I wish you could’ve seen it. Have you opened it?”
He nodded, lifted the lid with some difficulty. Inside, the compass lay in a bed of ash. The silver was somewhat blackened, the latitude numbers all but illegible. But it had survived the flames; the needle still pointed north.
“Did you find anything else?”
“Like?”
She opened the lid back as far as it would go and pushed and prodded the way she had seen Hauer do. She stared at the blackened metal.
“It’s no use. There was a hidden compartment under the lid. But the intense heat—it fused the pieces together. The letter must’ve burnt up.”
“Letter?”
“The letter that proves you’re descended from Catherine the Great.”
He gaped at the box. “I thought Dad had made that up for the book. Or at least… that he’d read something into the research that wasn’t there. Like adding two and two and coming up with five.”
“There was nothing wrong with his addition. The letter was from Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams, the English diplomat in your father’s book.”
“I remember him.”
“It said that Catherine the Great and the Polish king, Stanislaw Poniatowski, had a child, Anna Petrovna. In the history books, she died. But according to the letter, she was saved by a mysterious Jewish doctor and taken to a cousin of Poniatowski’s, a Countess Oginska, to be brought up Catholic. The princess was your great-great-great-grandmother. I might be out one or more greats.”
He watched her for more. “It’s not exactly hard evidence.”
She took
his hand. “The little princess had an anomaly called hexadactyly. ‘Hex’ for six. Like your father. Like you.” She spread out his six fingers in her palm.
He stared wordlessly at their hands together, then turned his until it held hers in a soft clasp. He lifted her hand to his lips and for a moment, the sandy-coloured hair falling forward belonged to Michael. He put her hand down sheepishly, but she was moved.
“It doesn’t seem to matter without him,” he said. “I’d give all of it if I could get him back.”
“But it does matter. It’s who you are,” she said. “You have reason to be proud. Don’t hide your light under a bushel. People will want to know you.”
A corner of his mouth twitched. “I don’t want people to be impressed with my ancestry. I want them to be impressed with my talent.”
She smiled. “Your ancestry may open doors for your talent.”
The only sound was the muted sizzling of dough on a low flame. She didn’t want to push, but she couldn’t let the subject drop. “It’s too bad the book isn’t finished. It was wonderful to read. I think other people would enjoy it too.”
He studied her face. “You think I should try to get it published, don’t you?” he said. “Cops said they found some more of the manuscript at Hauer’s place.”
“You’d have to finish it.”
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know if I’m up to it. Though I’ve got all his notes. Tons of notes. He even made notes for the end, I found those. Dozens of books of history and biography. Maybe I could finish it. I owe him that, don’t I?”
“You owe it to yourself.”
It would bring him closer to his father, she thought, but didn’t say. A way of keeping his memory alive. Especially on those dark nights when he might stumble upon an idea he wanted to share and as he was heading for the phone, remembered he couldn’t tell his father. For too long after David had died, she had started off to call him before remembering.
She would phone her own parents later and ask them some frivolous question, just for an excuse to hear their voices.
chapter thirty
Rebecca’s family celebrated the Jewish New Year with a traditional heavy dinner at Flo and Mitch’s house in north Toronto off Bayview Avenue. Rebecca’s sister, Susan, had driven in from Montreal with her youngest son to be with her family. Susan’s observant husband and the two older boys — “the rabbis,” Mitch called them — had remained in Montreal with her in-laws.
Rebecca Temple Mysteries 3-Book Bundle Page 57
