Echoes Page 0,43

baby in a basket beside her, Antoine whispered a silent prayer of thanks for the miracle they had shared. Amadea. She was loved of God indeed and he prayed she always would be.

6

AMADEA DE VALLERAND WAS NINETEEN MONTHS AND TEN days old when the war finally ended in 1918. She was blond and blue-eyed and tall for her age, and the delight of her parents and the Zubers. Maria knew that as soon as the war ended, the young family who had lived with them for two years would move on, and she would be sorry when they did. But they couldn't stay in Switzerland forever. Once their own countries were back on their feet, the Swiss would no longer offer them asylum.

By Christmas 1918 Antoine and Beata had had endless discussions as to whether to go back to Germany or France. His family was firmer than ever that they would not welcome his Jewish wife in Dordogne, and their half-Jewish daughter. They had been brutally unkind about it. It made no difference to them that Beata had converted and was now a Catholic. As far as they were concerned, she was a Jew, whether or not she had converted. Their doors remained closed to Antoine. And Beata had fared no better. Letters sent separately to both her parents were returned just as the earlier ones had been. And she got the same result when she wrote to Brigitte. She wondered if by now she too had had a baby. Beata was open to the idea of having another one, and they had done nothing to prevent it. She was surprised that so far nothing had happened, since Amadea had been conceived so quickly. But for the moment, they were happy with Amadea. She was running everywhere, and chattering a mile a minute in her own language. The Zubers were enjoying her as much as any grandchild, and already knew how much they would miss her when they left.

In the end, it was February when Antoine received a letter that made the decision for them as to where they would go. A friend of his from Saumur, the cavalry academy where he had trained in the military, wrote to him and said that he had bought a splendid Schloss in Germany for pennies, and it had remarkable albeit crumbling stables. The friend's name was Gérard Daubigny, and he wanted to rebuild them. He was going to restore the Schloss for himself and his family, and he wanted Antoine to take charge of the stables and do whatever he deemed necessary to rebuild them, fill them with the finest horses money could buy, hire trainers and grooms, and run them. He knew that Antoine was an incomparable horseman and an equally talented judge of horseflesh. He knew about the injury to his arm, and Antoine had assured him that it didn't hamper him. He was able to use it adequately, although it had never healed completely. As a result, he was even more adept with his right one, enough so to compensate for his crippled left arm.

Coincidentally, the Schloss Gérard had bought was near Cologne, and although Beata's family had shown no sign that they would welcome them, it was always possible that if they lived nearby, they might relent eventually. And perhaps in time, some rapprochement could be encouraged. But the proximity of the Wittgensteins did not influence Antoine's decision. The salary Daubigny offered him was irresistible, and it was a job he knew he would enjoy. There was supposedly a lovely house on the grounds, which Gérard offered him. It was big enough for all three of them and several more children. Antoine accepted the offer by the end of February, and agreed to arrive at the Schloss in early April. It gave Antoine time to wrap things up at the farm, and do all he could to help Walther. The home the Zubers had given them for more than two years had literally saved them. Without them, Antoine and Beata wouldn't have survived the war, or certainly not together, nor would they have been able to marry when they did, or provide a home for Amadea. Both of them had been left penniless when their families banished them. And now, the job Antoine had been offered in Germany would save them.

Beata spent many nights before they left the farm teaching Antoine German, although his employer was French. But the grooms and trainers he would have to hire and