Echoes

15

THE PRIEST FROM BEATA'S PARISH CAME TO SEE THE Mother Superior at the convent two days later. He had heard it from Beata's maid, who had come to him in tears. She had been out when it happened. The neighbors had told her what they'd seen. He thought Amadea should know. He wasn't sure why they had been taken, but he knew they had. Before coming to see her, he had done some quiet checking himself. According to his sources, Beata and her youngest daughter had been taken to the marshaling station outside Cologne. Normally they kept people there for weeks or even months. But there had been a train leaving for Ravensbrück, the women's camp, that afternoon, and they were put on it. They were already gone.

The Mother Superior listened in silence to what he said, and impressed on him the importance of his silence. But she knew that in a very short time, others would know. There were people in the parish who knew that Amadea had become a Carmelite six years before. There was no question in her mind that this was a very serious situation, and after thinking about it, once the priest had left, she opened a drawer, took out a letter, and made a single call. Beata had sent her a letter with a name and a phone number months before. It was for an event such as this. Without panicking unduly, or giving in to hysteria, Beata had tried to anticipate the worst. And now the worst had come. It was hard to believe they had been lucky for this long. Or so very unlucky in the end.

After she hung up, the Mother Superior bent her head in prayer, and then sent for Amadea. She had been working in the garden, and she looked happy when she walked in.

“Yes, Reverend Mother?” She couldn't imagine why she'd called her to her office. She was still looking slightly disheveled from her work in the garden.

“Sister Teresa, please sit down.” She took a breath, and hoped that God would help her find the right words. This was no easy task. “As you know, these are hard times. For everyone. And God makes choices for us that we don't understand. We simply have to follow His paths, without questioning His ways.”

Amadea looked at her, suddenly worried. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Not at all,” she said, reaching a hand across her desk and taking Amadea's hand in hers. “I have some very hard news for you. Someone denounced your mother. She and your sister were arrested two days ago. They were sent to Ravensbrück yesterday. That's all I know. They were all right when they were last seen.” But they both knew that the two women were unlikely to stay that way. Ravensbrück was a women's camp where the women were worked to death, and dropped like flies. No one returned. Amadea could hardly breathe as she heard the news. Her mouth flew open, and no sound came out. “I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. But now we must decide what to do with you. Whoever denounced her knows about you. And if not, someone does. I do not want you at risk here.” Amadea nodded in silence, and then thought instantly of the others. But all she could think of now was her mother and sister, and how terrible it must have been for them, how frightened they must have been. Daphne was only sixteen. She had been Amadea's baby since she was born. Tears rolled silently down her cheeks as she clutched the Mother Superior's hands, and the older woman walked around her desk and took her in her arms, as Amadea was engulfed in sobs. She couldn't even imagine it, it was so awful. “They're in God's hands,” she whispered. “All we can do is pray for them now.”

“I'll never see them again. Oh, Mother…I can't bear it…” She couldn't stop crying as the Mother Superior held her.

“Many survive.” But they both knew most didn't, and there was no way of knowing if Beata and Daphne would be among the lucky ones. And Daphne was so beautiful, God only knew what they would do to her. It didn't bear thinking.

The Mother Superior was thinking of Amadea now. She was her responsibility. And she couldn't send her to Holland as they had Sister Teresa Benedicta. Holland was occupied, and her presence in the convent there was already putting the sisters there at great risk. They couldn't take yet another danger in. Besides which, they'd never get Amadea across the border. Sister Teresa Benedicta had gone to Holland before the war began. Everything was different now. There was no way of getting Amadea out, which was why she had made the call she had. She had no other choice. He had agreed to come within the hour.

“I am going to ask you to do something very difficult,” the Mother Superior said sadly, “for your sake, as well as ours. I have no other choice.” Amadea was still too overwrought over what she had heard about her mother and sister to absorb much more, but she nodded and turned sad eyes to the older nun. “I am going to ask you to leave us, just for now. If you stay here, it could put the whole convent at risk. When this is over, when life is normal again, you will come back. I know you will. I have never doubted your vocation for an instant. Because of that, I am asking you to do this. You will still be one of us, even in the outside world, wherever you are. Nothing will change.” She had professed her temporary vows four times so far. She was due to do so again in two months. She was two years away from final vows. And this was yet another blow. She had lost her mother and sister, perhaps forever, and now she was being sent away. But even in her distraught state, she knew it was the right thing. It was a sacrifice she could make for them. As the Mother said, she had no other choice, nor did they. Amadea nodded her head.

“Where will I go?” Amadea asked in a broken voice. She had not been outside the convent walls in six years. She had no place to stay, nowhere to go.

“Your mother sent me a letter several months ago. With the name of a friend. I called him a few minutes ago. He said he would be here within the hour.”

“So soon?” She knew without asking who it was. He was her mother's only friend, and she had told Amadea as well to contact Gérard Daubigny if something went wrong. She had even said he had money for her. But she couldn't put them at risk either. She was a danger to everyone. “Will I be able to say goodbye to the others?” The Mother Superior hesitated and then nodded. It would have been too cruel to her and to them otherwise. She rang the bell after that, which warned the sisters that something important had happened, and they were to gather in the dining hall. They were all there when Amadea and the Mother Superior walked in. All the familiar faces, all the nuns she had worked with, lived with, and loved for so long. The young ones, and the older ones, even the ones in wheelchairs. It was agonizing for her thinking of leaving them. But the Mother Superior was right. She had no choice. Wherever she went, to whichever convent, or if they kept her here, she presented a danger for the others. She loved them too much to do that to them. She had to leave them. But as the Mother Superior had said, she knew she would come back one day. This was the life she wanted. This was her home. She knew with utter certainty that she had been born to be a Carmelite, and serve God, in whatever way He chose.

Mother Teresa Maria Mater Domini offered no explanation. She said nothing. Even knowing the circumstances of Amadea's departure could be dangerous for them. If the police came afterward, they knew nothing. And the fact that she had left exonerated them. If anyone paid a price, it would be the Mother Superior and no one else. Amadea simply moved along their ranks, hugging and kissing each one of them, and saying “God bless you, Sister” softly to each one. It was all she said, but watching her do it, they all knew she was going, just as they had known when Sister Teresa Benedicta had left them three years before.

It took her half an hour to say good-bye to them, and she did not return to her cell to pick up her things. She had nothing to take with her. She had brought nothing and would leave with nothing. And now she had to go back out into a world she no longer understood and hadn't seen in so long. A world in which her mother and her sister no longer lived, where she had no home, and no belongings, and no one. All she had was her father's friend, and as she waited in the Mother Superior's office for him, he arrived, with grave eyes. Gérard Daubigny walked into the office and took Amadea gently in his arms.

“I'm so sorry, Amadea,” he whispered. It was beyond thinking that Beata and Daphne were gone. And given what he had heard of the camps, he thought it unlikely they would survive. But he said nothing to her of that now.

“What will I do?” she said softly to him, as he looked at her. He had forgotten how beautiful she was, and she was more so now. Even in her sadness, there was a luminous look to her, a great depth to her eyes. She seemed to be lit from within, and he could see she was a deeply holy person. It seemed a tragedy for her to come out, and a great loss to her, along with the others she had just sustained. He had no idea how she would adapt to the world after so long. The Mother Superior was worried about that as well. Amadea looked shell-shocked as she looked at him.

“We'll talk about that tonight,” he said quietly. They had much to talk about. They had opened the convent gates for him, and he had driven his car behind the convent walls. He wanted her to lie on the floor of his car, with a blanket over her, so no one would see her leave. No one would suspect that he was leaving the convent with one of the nuns. And if they came for her at some point, the Mother Superior could simply say she was gone. She owed them no more explanation than that, nor would she offer one. By then she herself would have no idea where Amadea was. Although they would keep her constantly in their prayers until she returned.

“You must dress now,” the Mother Superior reminded her. Amadea disappeared into the robing room a moment later. She felt as though she were peeling her skin away as she took her habit off. Each piece of it was like a part of her, and she stood alone in the room, looking at it carefully folded on the table. They had left a coat and shoes and dress for her, a small ugly hat, and some underwear.

None of the clothes fit when she put them on, but it didn't matter to her. Nothing mattered. Her mother and Daphne were gone, in God's hands now, wherever they were, and she was leaving the place where she had sought refuge six years before, where she had lived and worked and grown. It was like leaving the womb, as she buttoned the dress that was too short for her, with the shoes that were too tight. She had worn sandals for six years, and it felt strange to wear shoes again. She was surprised to find how thin she was, as she put on normal clothes again. She had had no sense of it in her habit, and her hair was shorn as it had been for six years. She felt like a monster in the ugly outfit, after the simple beauty of her habit. She longed to put it on again, and wondered how long it would be before she came back to them. She could only pray now it would be soon. She had no desire to go back into the world, in fact, she would have done anything possible to avoid it.

Gérard was waiting for her in the courtyard, standing anxiously beside his car. He wanted to get back to the Schloss as soon as possible. He had already spoken to Véronique about it, and she was in full agreement. It was something they could do for Beata and Antoine who had been good friends to them, although this went beyond the bounds of friendship. But this was about more than that. It was about what was right, and so much these days wasn't. In fact, nothing was.

He was standing talking quietly to the Mother Superior, and the others had gone back to work. No one saw them as Amadea got into the car and lay on the floor in the back, as he put a horse blanket over her, that smelled of the stables, but it was a happy memory for Amadea. Before he covered her, she looked at the Mother Superior for a last time, and the two women's eyes met and held.

“God bless you, my child. Don't worry. You will be home soon. We'll be waiting for you.”

“God bless you, Mother…I love you…”

“I love you, too,” she whispered, as Gérard gently covered her, thanked the somber-looking nun, who stood watching him, as he backed slowly out of the courtyard, and drove to the Schloss without stopping. He drove at normal speed, as though he were doing nothing special, and kept his eye on the rearview mirror. They had given him a large basket of fruit and vegetables, to explain why he had come there. But no one followed him. They were not going to go to great lengths to look for a young nun. And even if the police came to inquire about her, they would soon forget about her. She was no great danger to them, and they knew it. Nor were Beata and Daphne, but once they were denounced, the Gestapo had no choice but to do something about it. In Beata's case, there was money and a house to be taken. Amadea had nothing except the clothes she had on her back, and the rosary beads the Mother Superior had given her as she left the convent.

He drove into the courtyard of the Schloss and around to the back of the house. It was lunchtime, and no one was around. Everyone was either eating or busy, when he escorted Amadea to their bedroom. Véronique was waiting for her there, and as she took the young woman into her arms, they both sobbed for all that had been lost, all the horror that had happened. Gérard quietly locked the bedroom door. He had already told the maids that his wife had a sick headache and no one was to disturb her. They had a lot to talk about. A lot to figure out. But for now, Amadea had to recover from the multiple shocks she had sustained that morning. She had lost everything. Her mother. Her sister. And the convent. She had lost the only way of life she had known for the past six years, and all the familiar people and landmarks of her childhood. She cried as though her heart would break, and had, as Véronique Daubigny held her.