Echoes

9

FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS, BEATA'S MOTHER CAME TO VISIT them once a week. It became a tradition and a ritual that Beata came to count on, and for each of them, a precious gift. Beata and Monika got to know each other in ways they never had when she was young. She was a grown woman and a mother now, with children of her own, and both of them had suffered inordinately and grown wiser with time. Monika had even approached Jacob once and tried to get him to relent about their daughter-she said she had seen her on the street with two young girls-and his eyes were instantly fierce as he looked at her.

“I don't know what you're talking about, Monika. Our daughter died in 1916.” The subject was closed. He was made of stone. She never dared to bring it up again but contented herself with their visits, as did Beata. She no longer hoped to see the others again. Having her mother back in her life was enough. She was grateful for that.

Her mother brought her photographs. Brigitte was still beautiful, and she was living at home again, with her children. Their mother was worried about her, said she went to too many parties, stayed in bed all day and drank too much, and she wasn't interested in her children. All she wanted was another husband, but most of the men she went out with were married to someone else. Horst and Ulm were both doing well, although one of Ulm's children was frail and often sick, and Monika worried about her. She had a problem with her heart. And during the years of their visits, she developed a deep attachment to Beata's girls. Amadea thought her grandmother was interesting and intelligent, but she never quite forgave her for allowing Jacob to banish their mother. She thought it was cruel, and hung back from her grandmother as a result. But Daphne was young enough to fall unreservedly in love with her. She loved having a grandmother as well as a mother and sister. She didn't remember her father, and hers was an entirely female world. As was Beata's. She had never looked at another man since Antoine died, although she was still beautiful. She said that the memories of the years she'd spent with him were enough to last her a lifetime, and she wanted no one else. In 1935, two years after the visits with her mother began, she turned forty and her mother sixty-five. They were a great comfort to each other. The world had become a frightening place, although it had not touched them. Yet.

Amadea often spoke with outrage over the growing anti-Semitism in Germany. Jews had been banned from the German Labor Front, and were no longer allowed to have health insurance. They could no longer obtain law degrees, and had been banned from the military. It was a sign of things to come. Beata feared it would get worse before it would get better. Even actors and performers had to join special unions, and were rarely given work. The signs of the times were increasingly frightening.

Monika spoke to Beata about it quietly one afternoon when they were alone, before the girls got home from school. She was worried about Beata's papers, and even the children's. Even though she knew that Beata was now Catholic and had been for nineteen years, she had nonetheless been born Jewish and the girls were half Jewish. She was afraid it could make trouble for them if things got worse. Poorer Jews, and those without power and connections, had been shipped off to work camps for the past two years. Although Jacob insisted it could never happen to them. Those being sent away were “marginals,” or so the Nazis claimed. Convicts, criminals, loiterers, Gypsies, unemployed, troublemakers, Communists, radicals, and people who couldn't support themselves. But now and then people they knew remotely were caught up in it. Monika had a cleaning woman whose brother had been sent to the camp at Dachau, and subsequently her entire family was sent away, but admittedly her brother was a political activist, who had printed leaflets against the Nazis, so he had brought it on himself and his family. But still, Monika was deeply concerned. Little by little, Jews were being squeezed out of productive society, singled out, and hampered at every turn. If things got worse, she didn't want anything to happen to Beata and the girls. And Beata had thought of it herself. They had no one to protect them and, if trouble happened, nowhere to turn.

“I don't think they'll cause problems for people like us, Mama,” Beata said quietly. Monika always worried about how thin she was too. She had always been slight, but in recent years she was wraithlike, and without makeup her face was startlingly pale. She had worn black and no other color since Antoine's death. And overnight, it had turned her into a seemingly much older woman. She had closed her doors to the world, and all she had in her life now was her children. And at last, her mother once again.

“What about the children's papers?” Monika asked with concern.

“They don't really have any. All they have are student cards with ‘Vallerand’ on them, they were born Catholic. I'm Catholic. Our parish knows us well. I don't think it ever occurs to anyone that I wasn't born Catholic. And since we came here from Switzerland, I think some people think we're Swiss. Even my marriage certificate to Antoine shows that we were both Catholic when we married. My passport expired years ago, and the girls never had any. Amadea was a baby when we came back, and she came in on mine. No one's going to pay any attention to a widow with two daughters with a noble French name. I'm listed everywhere as the Comtesse de Vallerand. I think we're safe, as long as we don't draw attention to ourselves. I worry more about the rest of you.”

Everyone in Cologne knew the Wittgensteins and that they were Jewish. The fact that they had banished Beata two decades before and listed her as dead would protect her in a way, and her mother was grateful for that now. The rest of the family was far more visible, which was both good and bad. They assumed that the Nazis were not going to single out a family as respectable as theirs to persecute. As many were, they were convinced that it was the little people, the loose ends of society that they were after, as Jacob said. But anti-Semitism had certainly become the order of the day, and both her sons admitted that they were concerned. Both Horst and Ulm worked at the bank with Jacob, who was thinking of retiring. He was seventy years old. In the photographs Beata now saw of him, he looked distinguished but ancient. She worried that in disappointing him, she had contributed to his looking so old. Unlike her mother, he looked older than his years. Amadea refused to even look at the photographs of him. And Daphne said he looked scary. Their Oma wasn't.

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 been 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.