blouse. She looked down at the perfectly round spot in the white of the silk.
You’ll bring me a tissue, dear?
Thank you, darling, her mother said, after dabbing at her wet spot, then handing her daughter the crumpled tissue for disposal.
But you still haven’t told me what he said.
Her mother sighed. You see, sweetheart, at that moment I wasn’t sure I wanted him to go on. There we were, our little family, you being the delight that you were. And I wasn’t sure … but yes, I did ask him to go on.
So here is the whole story, dear. As quickly as I can tell it. The Church took in all sorts of children during the war, not all of them Catholic. While they were under the Church’s protection, most of them were baptized—they considered it a religious duty, evidently, though to me it seemed highly impertinent … Well. Never mind that.
In any case, she went on, all of the Jewish babies were baptized—immediately. And when the war ended, the Church was afraid their families would come looking for them. Some archbishop had made the decision: The Jewish children were not going back, even if their parents came for them.
So I was stolen! said the patient, already looking toward the end of the story.
Will you wait, dear! You wanted the whole story, and here it is. The Jewish children were not going back, even if their parents came for them. And especially if it was only aunts and uncles or distant relations looking for them. Or worse, there were community organizations and religious congregations—synagogues—looking for the Jewish children who had been given to the Church for protection. And they wanted them back, to send them to Palestine. You can understand how that wouldn’t necessarily be in the best interests of the children, giving them to organizations that would send them into Palestine, a contested zone. You know, the British were trying to keep the Jews out, to please the Arabs; and there were bombings, and terrorist actions. Certainly no place for an infant. You can understand why the Church wouldn’t want the babies to go there, can’t you? The archbishop said if by chance a child had not been baptized for some reason, it could go back. But no baptized Jewish child was to be given back. Period.
So I was stolen! said the patient. My mother probably died in a concentration camp, and the damn Catholic Church stole me away before any of my relatives could find me!
No, no. Father told me you were … given up in a displaced-persons camp. A D.P. camp, they called it. So this had to be after the war, after the camps were freed. So whatever happened, your birth mother didn’t die there, in a …
Concentration camp. Can’t you even say it? Concentration camp! But is it supposed to be some kind of relief—that she didn’t die in one?
Yes, dear. I would think so. Some relief. Your mother survived the war, she was in a displaced-persons camp, probably having great difficulties, and she gave you up to the Church so you would have a better life. You weren’t stolen. Father promised me you weren’t one of the stolen babies. At that time, no one was trying to get you back.
At that time? You mean someone came for me later?
No, darling. No one ever came for you.
And then her mother looked away.
I can’t describe it, the patient said to the doctor. The emptiness I suddenly felt. The sense of being abandoned—it’s always there. Part of being adopted is the knowledge that you were given away by someone. Abandonment is always in the background, a sort of platform that all the other feelings are stacked on. But now … It wasn’t a feeling but an actual fact. My mother dropped me off at the church and never came back. No one … no one ever came for me.
So I was abandoned, I said to Mother.
Surrendered, dear, she said.
Then she sat quietly, only gazing off through the window. Jim Bracket had turned off his porch light, and now the world outside the room was completely black. The wind was down, and the leaves only trembled a little now and then. I felt as if a blanket had been thrown over my head and I’d already breathed in all the air that was under it. I thought I might faint—although I’ve never fainted in the whole of my life. But now I suddenly understood how women really might just