Echoes

27

THE TIME THAT RUPERT WAS GONE SEEMED INTERMINABLE to Amadea. At first she had been anxious and worried. Then she had told herself he would be fine. And after two weeks… three…four… she began to panic. She had no idea how long the mission was meant to be for. By the end of October, she knew something was wrong. Unable to contain herself any longer, she called the office of the Secret Service. They took her information down and said they'd get back to her. An officer called her back a week later. By then it was November. They said very little to her, and didn't tell her where he was, but they did say they hadn't heard from him “in quite some time.” Without actually saying it, they conveyed to her that he was out of contact, and was missing in action. She nearly fainted when they told her, but she put a good face on it for the children. She had to. They had already lost one set of parents, she didn't want them to think they had lost Rupert, too. Not until they knew. Amadea had never prayed so hard in her life. She was doubly glad now that she had told him she loved him. At least he had known. And she knew that he loved her. What they did about it, if they would even have the opportunity to, remained to be seen. The Secret Service had told her they would call her back if they heard anything. They didn't.

To keep from losing her mind entirely, she came up with an idea to entertain the children. She told them she thought Papa Rupert would be delighted if they surprised him by forming their own orchestra. She got them all instruments, and she played the piano with them so they could all sing for him. They were a long way from professional, but they had a wonderful time with it. And she enjoyed it too. It gave them a project to work on. And after a month of practice, they sounded pretty good.

They were playing a song one night, as Rebekka sat on her lap in the wheelchair. She was tired and sucking her thumb. She had a cold and didn't want to sing. And as they listened, she turned to Amadea with a grumpy look. “Stop tapping your foot, Mama. You're bumping me.” Amadea stared at her, and one by one they stopped playing. The ones in the front row had heard her, and the others wanted to know what had happened, and why Mamadea looked that way.

“Do it again, Mama,” Berta said gently as they all stared at her feet while she tried. Ever so gently she could tap her feet, and even move her legs a little. She had been so busy with them, and so worried about Rupert, she hadn't noticed the improvement.

“Can you stand up?” one of the twins asked her.

“I don't know,” she said, looking scared as they stood all around her, and Josef held his hands out to her.

“Try. If you can blow up a train, you can walk.” He had a point. She stood up very slowly, by pushing herself up on the arms of the wheelchair, and took a single step toward him, and nearly fell. Johann caught her. But she had taken a step. Her eyes were wide, and they were all watching her with excited expressions. She took another step, and another. In all she took four, and then said she had to sit down. She was shaking all over, and felt weak and faint. But she had walked. There were tears running down her cheeks as they all laughed and smiled and clapped their hands with excitement.

“Mama can walk!” Marta shouted with sheer glee. And after that, every day, they made her practice. They played music. And she walked.

By the beginning of December she could walk slowly across the room with one of the bigger boys to hold on to. She was still unsteady on her feet at times, but she was making consistent progress. The bad news was that there was still no news from Rupert. None. They hadn't pronounced him dead. But they seemed to know nothing. And as Amadea wasn't his wife, she had no right to know. He had been gone for nearly two months, and she knew instinctively that the mission had never been intended to last that long. She wondered every night if he was wounded as she had been, and no one knew where he was. Or in a camp somewhere. If he had been found in a German uniform and discovered as an enemy agent, he would have been shot. A million terrible things could have happened, and she had thought of them all.

Two weeks later, not knowing what else to do to distract them and herself, she celebrated Chanukah with them. They had been celebrating Christmas since they'd been in England, but she said that this year they would do both. They made dreidls out of paper, and they taught her how to spin them. And they taught her Chanukah songs. She loved knowing that the Hebrew letters on the dreidl said “A great miracle happened here.” Their little band was doing very well, and she was walking slowly but surely.

The children were standing all around her as they lit the candles on the second night of Chanukah, as Rebekka looked up and gave a gasp.

“Are we celebrating Christmas early this year?” There was a festive air in the room, although the children were quiet as she lit the candles. It brought back bittersweet memories for many of them. Amadea looked up at the sound of his voice.

“No, Chanukah,” she said calmly, and then gasped too. It was Rupert. All the children screamed and ran to him, and Amadea walked slowly toward him as he stared at her.

“You're walking,” he said with a look of wonder and disbelief. His arm was in a sling, but the rest of him looked fine though deathly thin. He had made his way across half of Germany on foot for the past two months, and had managed finally to meet up with the Resistance in Alsace. They had airlifted him out of a little village near Strasbourg. It had been a harrowing three months, for her as well. He just stood there and held her in his arms. “I never thought you'd walk again,” he said honestly.

“Neither did I,” she said as she nestled in his arms. She had been desperately afraid she would never see him again. “I was so worried about you.” He knew she would be, but there was nothing he could do. It had been difficult and frightening, even for him, but the mission was a success.

“I had to come back after what you said when I left.” He hadn't forgotten, nor had she. They had much to say and decide now, especially Amadea.

“Papa! We have a band!” Rebekka was shouting at him, and the others told her not to spoil the surprise. After she let the cat out of the bag, they played two songs for him, and he loved it. They were up till nearly midnight, and told him about Amadea celebrating Chanukah for them.

“You seem to be going backward in history,” he teased her after they went to bed, and they were sitting holding hands by the fire. It felt like a dream having him back.

“I just thought it was important for them to have a piece of their history left intact and restored to them.” It seemed strange, but it meant something to her, too. She could imagine her mother doing the same things as a child. And so many had died for being Jewish, it was a way to honor them now, too. It was as though she could hear their voices, not just her own, as she read the prayers.

“I'm not going to lose you again, Amadea. I walked halfway across Germany to come home to you. You can't leave me now,” he said seriously. Her eyes never left his.

“No. I can't. I know that now. I knew it before you left, that's why I told you that I love you…” She looked sad for a moment then as she held his hand. But she knew now that she belonged here, with him, and their kinders, whichever ones stayed in the end. “I always thought I'd go back to the convent,” she said sadly. But too much had happened. Too many people, too many lives, too many people she had contributed to killing, even if she had done it to save others. And now she wanted to be here with him. But it no longer seemed wrong. It seemed very right. And the only choice she could make. She could never have left him, although the convent and all it had meant to her would remain forever in her heart. It had been a difficult decision, but she felt pleased and relieved with the end results. While he had been away, she knew more than ever how much she loved him.

“I was so afraid you'd go back, and I didn't want to interfere with what you wanted,” Rupert said kindly.

“Thank you for respecting that.” She looked at him with eyes full of love. She had been so sure that she would always be a nun, and now she was his, in all the ways she had never dared to dream.

“I would have let you go if it was really what you wanted, and it made you happy… but that seems like a long time ago. Now, I couldn't bear it,” he said as he pulled her close to him and held her. So often in the past three months, he had been so desperately afraid that he would never come home to her, and she had been afraid of the same thing. Finally, after all they'd been through, they both knew this was right. They had both crossed lifetimes to get here, lost people they loved, stared death in the face too many times. They had earned all that they had found.

He carried her up the stairs that night after they put the lights out. She still couldn't walk stairs easily, but she would in time. They hesitated on the landing, and he kissed her, and then with a shy smile she said good-night and he laughed. This was not Paris and the peach nightgown. This was real life. They both knew what had to happen, and that it would soon, in the right way, at the right time. They had the rest of their lives.