Echoes Page 0,58
Beata slipped a piece of paper into her mother's gloved hand. It had her address and phone number on it, and as soon as she had given it to her, and saw her mother close her fingers over it, Beata disappeared into the crowd and left. She didn't wait to see her father this time. All she could do now was pray that her mother would be brave enough to call. Beata wanted desperately to see her and hold her and talk to her again. More than anything, she wanted her to meet the girls.
It was an agonizing two days. By sheer coincidence, Amadea answered the phone when it rang. They were just leaving the table after dinner, and Beata had just asked Daphne if she wanted to play a game. Amadea had noticed that her mother seemed much better these days, and was making more effort to engage them, or emerge from her long depression after Antoine's death.
“There's someone on the phone for you,” Amadea told her.
“Who is it?” Beata asked, momentarily forgetting the call she was expecting, and assuming it was Véronique. She had been asking Beata for months to make a dress for her for their Christmas party. She thought it would be good therapy for her. But Beata had been avoiding her. She hadn't sewn now in years, not since Antoine's death, except once in a great while, something simple for the girls. She no longer had any interest in making evening gowns or serious dresses. And she no longer had the need financially.
“She didn't say who she was,” Amadea explained, as she took Daphne upstairs, and Beata walked to the phone.
“Hello?” Beata answered, and her breath caught when she heard the voice. It hadn't changed.
“Beata?” she whispered, afraid someone might overhear. Jacob was out, but everyone knew she wasn't allowed to speak to her daughter. She was dead.
“Oh my God. Thank you for calling. You looked so beautiful at the synagogue. You haven't changed.” After seventeen years, they both knew that wasn't possible. But to Beata, she looked the same.
“You looked so sad. Are you all right? Are you ill?”
“Antoine died.”
“I'm so sorry.” She sounded genuine. Her daughter had looked destroyed. It was why she had called. She couldn't turn her back on her any longer, no matter what Jacob said. “When?”
“Six years ago. I have two beautiful little girls. Amadea and Daphne.”
“Do they look like you?” Her mother smiled as she asked.
“The little one does. The older one looks like her father. Mama, would you like to see them?”
There was an interminable silence, and then she answered finally, with a sigh. She sounded tired. Things were difficult these days. “Yes, I would.”
“That would be so wonderful.” Beata sounded like a girl again. “When would you like to come?”
“What about tomorrow afternoon, for tea? The girls would be home from school then, I assume.”
“We'll be here.” There were tears rolling down Beata's cheeks. This was what she had prayed for for years. Forgiveness. Absolution. Touching her mother again. Just once. Holding her. A moment in her mother's arms. Just once.
“What will you tell them?”
“I don't know. I'll figure it out tonight.”
“They'll hate me, if you tell them the truth,” Monika Wittgenstein said sadly. But just as Beata wanted to see her, Monika wanted to see her own child again. And these days bad things were happening. Jacob was afraid that one day it could happen to them, too, although Horst and Ulm said that could never happen. They were Germans, not just random Jews roaming the streets. They said the Nazis were after the criminal element, not respectable people like them. Jacob didn't agree. And they were all getting old. She needed to see her daughter again. Needed to. Viscerally. Like a part of her heart that had been taken from her and needed to be restored.
“They don't have to know the truth. We can blame it on Papa.” She smiled. They both knew her father would never relent. There was not even the remotest possibility that Amadea and Daphne would meet him. But Monika felt he could no longer force this tragedy on her, too. She could no longer do it to Beata or herself. “Don't worry. I'll figure it out. They'll be excited to meet you. And Mama …”—she nearly choked on the words—“I can't wait to see you.”
“Me too.” Her mother sounded as excited as she did.
Beata thought about it all that night, and in the morning, at breakfast, she said that