I didn’t know it until I saw the file, she said at last.
What do you mean, you didn’t know it? asked the patient.
Her mother said nothing. I don’t understand, the patient said.
Her mother sat forward, ran her fingertips over the ballerina’s legs. Of course, I didn’t either. I … Well, when I found out, you can imagine how I felt—
You?—
—standing there, coming across the fact that your mother was Jewish.
What you felt?
I leafed through the rest of the file, her mother went on. Correspondence, some of it in German, to and from that Bill Ryan person, one letter with a Vatican letterhead. It was more than I could take in, more than I could conceive of. I closed the file. That logo. Catholic Overseas Rescue. Who was being rescued? And from what?
All this took place in the morning. I had to wait all day for your father to come home, eight hours before I could ask him what the hell this was all about. The day seemed to go on forever. You were very fussy, crying over everything. I must have changed your diaper ten times. I couldn’t understand what was the matter with you.
I was a nuisance.
No.
A nuisance. You fell out of love with me just as quickly as you fell in love. Look what you were stuck with: a Jewish baby.
Don’t be silly. You were ill or something. I couldn’t soothe you. You wouldn’t be soothed.
A bother.
No. I paced up and down with you, bounced you up and down, held you, and still you kept on crying and crying until I thought I would go crazy until your father came home.
At last you went down for a nap. At last I heard Father’s key in the door. Before he had his hat off, his coat off, I was asking about you, your mother, Jews, Catholic Overseas Rescue. Rescued from what? I demanded to know.
He was furious. How dare you go into my locked drawer! He threw his briefcase at me; I had to jump back so it wouldn’t hit me. It was very heavy, loaded with papers, and I stood there stupidly for a moment looking at it sprawled at my feet. Meanwhile Father is hollering, How dare you! You stupid idiot. You’ll ruin everything. You stupid cow!
He spoke to you like that? the patient asked.
Yes. He did. In those days. When he was still fresh from the influence of his father and that horrible group.
And then?
Then I followed him into his office, still demanding to know what was going on. He tore off his hat, his coat. He kept shouting, You idiot! No one’s supposed to know. Not even you. He pounded the desk. He bent his chair back. He picked up an ashtray—glass, heavy—and raised his arm to throw it. Not at me! I yelled. And he crashed it to the floor.
Upstairs, you started crying. Wailing.
You’d better go tend to her, Father said.
But I wasn’t going to be dismissed so easily. I went upstairs, checked you, saw you were all right, then picked you up and carried you into the office.
Father eyed me as I came in, but now I had you in my arms, the baby he’d … the baby we went to so much trouble to bring into our lives. I sat down on the side chair, he at the desk, as if we were there for an appointment.
You fussed and whimpered, almost too big to hold in my arms.
I thought she’d have blue eyes, Father finally said.
Maybe too soon to tell, I answered.
They’re going dark, aren’t they? He leaned over and looked at the big bundle in my lap. He gave a laugh, then said to me: They told my father she’d be a blonde. What an ass. He believed it when they told him the child was “pure Aryan.”
(Dr. Schussler gasped.)
Tell me, I said to your father. What are you hiding from me?
He sat back in his desk chair—it had a high back, and he rested his head for a while. Then he reached out his hand to you. He caressed your soft hair, your sweet soft skin, ran a finger over your brow, and looked into your sparkling eyes. You started laughing. He tickled you. You laughed some more. He kissed you. You see, darling, no matter what anyone thought they wanted or didn’t want, there you were. And we fell helplessly in love.
Her mother’s eyes moistened and slowly overflowed, and finally one pendulous tear fell to the edge of her