She always brought them little presents, which delighted them. Over time, she had given Beata a few small pieces of her jewelry. She couldn't give her anything important, for fear that Jacob would notice. She told him she had lost the small things, and he chided her for being careless. But he was often forgetful now, too, so he didn't scold her too much. They were both getting old.
The only real concern Beata had about their Jewish origins was Amadea's desire to go to university. She was desperate to study philosophy and psychology, and literature, as her mother had wanted to do before her, and wasn't allowed to by her father. Now it was the Nazis keeping Amadea from it. Beata knew that if Amadea tried to go to university, they would discover she was half Jewish. The risk was too great. She would have to show not only her birth certificate, which was benign and showed both her parents to be Catholic at the time of her birth in Switzerland, but she would have to show papers as to her parents' racial origins. Antoine was no problem, but that was the only instance in which Beata's birth as a Jew was likely to surface, and Beata couldn't let that happen. She never explained it to Amadea, but Beata was adamant that she didn't want her going to university. It was too dangerous for them all, and the only way in which Beata could imagine their being put at risk. Even as a half-Jew, Amadea would be in serious trouble, as Beata had discussed with her mother. So Beata was intransigent about it. She told Amadea that in troubled times, a university was not the place to be, particularly for a woman. It was full of radicals and Communists and all the people who were getting into trouble with the Nazis, and being sent to work camps. She could even be caught in a riot, and her mother refused to let that happen.
“That's ridiculous, Mama. We're not Communists. I just want to study. No one's going to send me to a work camp.” She couldn't believe her mother was being so stupid. And to her own ears, Beata sounded like the echo of her father.
“Of course not,” Beata said firmly, “but I don't want you tossed in with those kinds of people. You can wait a few years, if that's really what you want, until things settle down. Right now there is too much unrest all over Germany. I don't want you in danger, even indirectly.” And there was no question, applying to college would put her in great danger, but not for any reason she suspected. Her mother didn't intend to tell her she had been born Jewish, and that Amadea and her sister were half Jewish. It was no one's business. Not even theirs. She was adamant that the girls didn't need to know. The fewer people who knew, the safer it kept them, as far as she was concerned. No one in their world knew that Beata had been born Jewish. Her complete isolation and banishment from her family for nineteen years had in effect kept it a secret, and certainly none of them looked it, least of all Amadea, with her tall blond blue-eyed Aryan looks. But even Beata and Daphne looked Christian, although their hair was dark, but their features were delicate and fine and their eyes blue, in just the ways people associated with Christians, given their stereotypical views of Jews.
Amadea had been arguing about the university issue for months, but her mother remained rigid, much to their grandmother's relief. It was bad enough worrying about her other children who were openly Jewish, without agonizing over Beata and her daughters, too. And as was all too evident, without Antoine, Beata and the girls had no one to protect them or take care of them. Beata and her children were alone in the world, in part due to Beata's grief over losing her husband, and their having lost both their families decades before, which in the end had made her reclusive. She had no ties to anyone, except the girls, and the Daubignys whom she saw rarely. It was a lonely life for her. And the strife between her and Amadea over not allowing her to attend university was considerable. It put Amadea and her mother into pitched battle and fierce opposition, but Beata was relentless. There was no way for Amadea to disobey her, since her mother held the purse strings. Beata had suggested that she study on her own, until things calmed down in the schools. She would be finishing her school in June, two months after she turned eighteen. At not quite ten, Daphne had years to go, and still seemed like a baby to her mother and sister. She hated it when Amadea and her mother argued, and complained about it to her Oma, whom she adored. Daphne thought she was pretty, and she loved her jewelry and elegant clothes. She always let Daphne go through her handbags and play with the treasures she found there, like powder and lipstick. She let her wear her jewelry while she was there, and try on her hats. Monika was as elegant as ever. Beata no longer cared, and Daphne hated the dreary dresses and constant black her mother wore. It looked so sad.
Amadea was about to turn eighteen, when her grandmother failed to come for her weekly visits for two weeks in a row. She managed to call the first time, and told Beata she wasn't well. The next time, she simply failed to show up. Beata was worried sick, and finally dared to call her. A female voice she didn't recognize answered the phone. It was one of the maids, who returned and said that Mrs. Wittgenstein was too ill to come to the phone. Beata spent the next week in an agony of concern over her, and was immensely relieved the following week when her mother showed up. But she looked extremely unwell. She was deathly pale, and her face had a grayish cast to it, she was having difficulty walking, and seemed frighteningly short of breath. Beata lent her a strong arm as she led her into the living room and helped her to sit down. For a moment, Monika could hardly breathe, and then seemed better after a cup of tea.
“Mama, what is it? What does the doctor say?” Beata asked, with a look of deep concern.
“It's nothing.” She smiled valiantly, but was unconvincing. “It happened a few years ago, and it went away after a while. It's something with my heart. Old age, I guess. The machinery is wearing out.” But sixty-five did not seem so old, and Beata thought she looked ghastly. If things had been different, she would have spoken to her father about it. Monika said he was concerned too. She was going back to the doctor the following day for more tests. But she said she wasn't worried. It was just annoying. But she looked a lot worse than annoyed. This time, when she left, Beata walked her all the way out to the street to make sure that she got there safely, and hailed a taxi for her. Her mother always came in a cab, so their driver could not tell Jacob where she'd been. She trusted no one with their secret, for fear that her husband would stop her if he found out. And he would have been livid with her. She had been forbidden to ever see Beata again, and he expected his wife and children to obey him.
“Mama, promise me you'll go back to the doctor tomorrow,” Beata said anxiously before her mother got into the cab. “Don't do something silly like cancel the appointment.” She knew her mother.
“Of course not.” Monika smiled at her, and Beata was relieved to see that she seemed to be breathing easier than she had when she'd arrived. Daphne had given her an enormous kiss when she left, and Amadea a distracted hug. Monika looked at her daughter for a long moment before she got into the waiting taxi. “I love you, Beata. Be careful and take care of yourself. I worry about you all the time.” There were tears in her eyes as she said it. She hated the fact that her daughter had been shunned for nineteen years, like a criminal to be punished for unpardonable crimes. In Monika's mind, between people who loved each other, there were none. And Beata always looked so sad. Once Antoine died, she had simply lost too much.
“Don't worry about us, Mama. We're fine.” She knew they were both overly concerned about her origins and the girls' papers. No one had ever questioned them about it. “Take care of yourself.” Beata hugged her again. “And remember how much I love you. Thank you for coming.” She was always grateful to her for visiting them, particularly now, when she didn't feel well.
“I love you,” Monika whispered again, and put something into Beata's hand. Beata didn't know what it was, as her mother slipped onto the seat of the taxi. Beata closed the door, and waved to her as they drove off. She stood watching the cab disappear into the traffic for a long time, and then looked into her hand, at what her mother had left there. It was a small diamond ring that she had worn all her life, and had be
en a gift from her own mother, who had received it from hers. It was traveling down the generations, and when she thought of her mother's hands, Beata always thought of that ring. It touched her deeply as she slipped it onto her finger next to her wedding ring, and then it made her shiver for a moment. Why had her mother given it to her now? Perhaps she was sicker than even Beata realized, or maybe her mother was just worried. She said she'd had the same problem before, and it had gone away. But Beata worried about her all that night.
When she got up the next day, on a whim, she decided to call her, just to make sure that she was all right and still planning to go to the doctor. She didn't trust her to keep the appointment. She knew how much her mother hated doctors, and how independent she was. It was always awkward calling her, and Beata had only done so a few times in the last two years. But she knew her father would be at the office. And after nineteen years, there were no servants left in the house who would recognize her voice.
She dialed the number nervously, and noticed that her hands were trembling. It was always upsetting calling there, and this time a man's voice answered. Beata assumed it was the butler, and asked for her mother in a businesslike voice. There was a long silence in response, and then he asked who was calling. Not knowing what else to do, she gave Amadea's name, as she had before.
“I regret to inform you, madame, that Mrs. Wittgenstein is in the hospital. She collapsed last night.”
“Oh my God, how awful…is she all right? Where did they take her?” She sounded distraught and not businesslike at all. The butler gave her the name of the hospital, but only because she sounded so distressed about it, and he assumed, whoever she was, that she wanted to send his employer flowers. “She can only have visits from her family,” he said to make sure she didn't try to visit her, and Beata nodded.
“Of course.” A moment later she hung up, and stared into space as she sat next to the phone in her hallway. She didn't know how, but she knew she had to see her. What if she died? Her father couldn't possibly refuse to let her see her mother in extremis. He just couldn't. She didn't even stop to dress properly. She just put a black coat over the black dress she was wearing, jammed on a hat, and grabbed her handbag and ran out the door. Within minutes, she was in a taxi, heading toward the hospital, to see her mother. And as they drove there, without thinking, she touched the ring her mother had given her the day before. Thank God she had seen her, she thought to herself, praying that her mother would recover.
She made her way into the hospital, and a nurse at the front desk told her which floor and which room to go to. She was in the best hospital in Cologne, and there were nurses and doctors and well-dressed people everywhere. Beata realized that she looked less than elegant in the haphazard clothes she wore, but she didn't care. All she wanted was to see her mother and be there for her. And as soon as she got off the elevator and turned into the first corridor, she saw them. Both her brothers and her sister and her father, standing in the hallway. There were two women with them that she didn't recognize, who she assumed were her sisters-in-law. Feeling her heart pound, she approached the group. She was within a foot of them, before Brigitte turned and saw her, and looked at her with wide eyes. She said nothing as the others noticed her expression, and slowly they each turned to see Beata, as did, finally, her father. He looked straight at Beata and said nothing. Absolutely nothing, and made no move toward her.
“I came to see Mama,” she said in the terrified voice of a child, wanting to reach forward and hug him, and even beg his forgiveness if she had to. But he appeared to be made of stone. The rest of her family stood in shocked silence, watching her.
“You are dead, Beata. And your mother is dying.” There were tears in his eyes as he said it, for his wife, not his daughter. He looked icy toward Beata.
“I want to see her.”
“Dead people do not visit the dying. We sat shiva for you.”
“I'm sorry. I am truly sorry. You can't keep me from seeing her,” she said in a choked voice.
“I can and I will. The shock of seeing you would kill her.” She realized how pathetic she must look in her old dress and coat, and her hat slightly askew. All she had thought of was getting there quickly, not how she looked. She could see in the faces of her sister and brothers, and even the women with them, that they felt sorry for her. She looked like what she was and had become, a misfit and an outcast. Her father did not ask how she knew that her mother was in the hospital. He didn't want to know. All he knew was that the woman who had been his daughter was dead as far as he was concerned. The one standing before him was a stranger, and he did not want to know her.
“You can't do this, Papa. I have to see her.” Beata was crying, and his face was immovable, just as it had been when she left them. If anything, he looked harder.
“You should have thought of that nineteen years ago. If you do not leave, I will have you removed by the hospital.” She looked and felt like a madwoman as she stood there, and she could easily imagine her father having her thrown out. “We do not want you. Nor would your mother. You do not belong here.”
“She's my mother,” Beata said, convulsed with tears.
“She was your mother. You are nothing to her now.” At least Beata knew that was not true. The past two years of weekly visits had proved it, and she was so grateful they had had that, and that her mother had come to know and love her children, and they her.
“It is so wrong of you to do this, Papa. She would never forgive you for it. Nor will I.” This time she knew she wouldn't. What he was doing was too cruel.
“It was wrong of you to do what you did. I have never forgiven you,” he said without remorse.
“I love you,” Beata said softly, and then looked at the others. They had not moved or said a single word. She saw that Ulm had turned away, and Brigitte was crying softly, but held out no hand to her. And none of them tried to convince their father to let Beata see her mother. They were too afraid. “I love Mama. I have always loved you. All of you. I never stopped loving you. And Mama loves me, just as I love her,” Beata said fiercely.
“Leave now!” Her father spat the words at her, looking as though he hated her for tugging at his heart. It was impossible to fathom what he felt. “Go!” he shouted at her, pointing down the corridor from where she'd come. “You are dead to us, and always will be.” She stood looking at him for a long moment, shaking from head to foot, defying him as she had once before. She was the only one who would. She had done it the first time for Antoine, and now for her mother. But she knew there was no way he would allow her into her mother's room. She had no choice but to go, before they physically threw her out. She looked at him one last time, and then wheeled around and walked slowly down the hallway with her head down. She turned to look at them one last time before she strode around the corner, and when she did, they were all gone. They had gone into her mother's room, without her.
She was crying as she rode down in the elevator, and sobbed all the way back to her home. She called the hospital every hour through the afternoon to inquire about her mother's condition, and at four o'clock they told her. Her mother was dead. Beata sat staring into space as she set the phone down. It was over. Her last tie with her family had been severed and the mother she loved was gone. She could still hear the echo of her mother's voice the day before. “I love you, Beata.” And then she had hugged her tight. “I love you too, Mama,” Beata whispered. And she knew she always would.
10
BEATA ATTENDED HER MOTHER'S FUNERAL THE NEXT DAY, and observed it from a distance. She wore a fur coat, a good black dress, and a beautiful black hat Antoine had bought her before he died. She knew her mother would have been proud of the way she looked. And on her finger, she wore her mother's ring. She would never take it off again. Ever.
Beata sat riveted as she listened to the prayers, and prayed with them. According to Jewish tradition, Monika had to be buried within a day, and was. Beata followed them to the cemetery, and stood far away from them.
They didn't even know she was there. She was like a ghost, watching them, as they each poured a shovel of dirt onto her mother's coffin after they lowered it into the ground. After they left, she went and kneeled beside the grave, and put a small pebble beside it, as a gesture of respect, according to tradition. She didn't know what she was saying, until she heard herself saying the Our Father. She knew her mother wouldn't mind. She stayed for a long time, and then she went home, feeling dead inside. As dead as her father said she was.
Amadea looked at her sadly when she got home, and put her arms around her. “I'm sorry, Mama.” She had told the girls the night before, and they had cried. In their own way, they each loved their grandmother, although they had always had conflicted feelings, particularly Amadea, about the way their grandparents had treated their mother for marrying their father. It seemed wrong to them, and Beata agreed that it was. But she loved her mother anyway. And even her father. They were her parents.
Beata went to her room early that night, and lay on her bed, thinking back to all that had happened, and her early days with Antoine. It was a lot to think about, and absorb, a lifetime that had been worthwhile, though hard. She had paid a high price for love. Losing her mother reminded her that she had no one left now but her daughters. Her father had made that clear. Her whole life was them. She had no life of her own.
It was a month later in June when Amadea took her breath away, yet again. She heard the news as one more death blow to her heart. In some ways, it was like losing her mother, except that at least Amadea would be alive.
“I am going into the convent, Mama,” Amadea said quietly, on her last day of school. Nothing had prepared Beata for the announcement her elder daughter made. She looked at her as though she had been shot, but Amadea's eyes were steady and calm. She had been waiting to announce this decision for months, and had grown more certain every day. There had been nothing hasty or frivolous about the choice she'd made.
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