Midnight Train to Prague - Carol Windley Page 0,123

an assault. Or real armies. A seemingly insignificant diplomatic incident, and it could begin. Right now, at this moment, in some country that hadn’t yet been named, a tyrant could be taking office. If it had happened once, it could happen again. Who could assure her that the death camps, the forced-labor camps, now belonged to history?

Every morning she woke with a sense of panic. At first, she wasn’t even sure where she was. Then the room took on its familiar shapes, and light appeared at the window, and she knew she was in bed, in the castle, and her husband was better and had come home, and they were going to have a child.

Was this too much good fortune for one woman? What if the gods became jealous? She said this once to Rozalia, who told her: “Look, if you are going to be constantly afraid that something bad will happen, then do this: break a dish, break a matchstick. The bad luck will have had its moment, and you will feel better. If you can’t let go and trust life, what is the point, Natalia?”

For the child’s sake, she had to be cheerful, Rozalia said. The baby would not arrive in a perfect world, but Natalia had to make it seem nearly perfect, a good place, with music, games, sunlight, people who loved him. They all had to keep this in mind, Rozalia said, but especially Natalia, because she was the mother, and it was her responsibility, and besides, it would make her happy too.

But it was Rozalia who decided they had to leave Hungary. As soon as Miklós was well and after the baby was born, they were going somewhere else to live. She pored over an atlas. It had to be a country where she could speak the language. It had to be in Europe. Germany, she said; the west of Germany. She had no intention of subjecting herself to Communist rule, not in Hungary and certainly not in East Germany.

Only a few days later Natalia got a letter from Beatriz, who exultantly passed on the news that her house in Zehlendorf remained legally her property. Rozalia said, “That’s settled, then. We will live in your mother’s house. Do you see how everything comes together, Natalia, when you have a little faith in life?”

Chapter Twenty

Franz slips an arm around her neck. She leans slightly, adjusting his weight on her hip. He’s warm from running around and pedaling a shiny red toy car, a gift from Beatriz. Natalia kisses him, kisses his damp hair; he pushes her away and protests, Mama, don’t.

Franz, where are we? she asks. Buenos Aires, he says. And where is Buenos Aires? Argentina. And whose house is this? Oma’s house, Franz replies, and wriggles down out of her arms and runs to the open French doors to find Oma, who never insists he’s sleepy and needs a nap. Natalia plucks a peach from an espaliered tree that Beatriz swears is the same one that grew here when she was a girl. Are the trees in this garden immortal? Beatriz is as pretty and youthful as when she left Berlin fourteen years ago, in 1938. Prettier, even, with a luster, a glow bestowed on her by the southern sun. Her blond hair shines, her skin seems transparent; her eyes are the same intensely clear blue, and she pays great attention to fashion and wears the latest styles, dresses with three-quarter-length sleeves, tiny waists, full skirts nearly to the ankle. Scarlet lipstick, heels, a clutch purse. What have you done to yourself? Beatriz asked, frowning, when she met them at the airport in Buenos Aires. She arranged appointments for Natalia with hairdressers, cosmeticians, manicurists. Beatriz knew that even people like her daughter had suffered in the war, but the way suffering went deep into the body, into the soul, that had obviously shocked her.

Beatriz’s former caretaker, Dom, is now her gardener. He lives in Buenos Aires with his wife, Maria, who is Beatriz’s cook. Maria’s sister, Desirée, is the housekeeper. Five mornings a week they travel together on a tram to Beatriz’s villa in Palermo. On Fridays, Desirée slips though an iron gate in the garden wall and cleans house for a neighbor, Professor Lucien Dray, whose entire family, including his elderly parents, were deported from France by the Nazis to Auschwitz and were killed. Every Sunday the professor is Beatriz’s guest at brunch. He and Miklós talk about books and the weather, annual rainfall