The Things We Cherished (20 page)

Hearing the hollowness in his voice, Charlotte tried to imagine his pain, the guilt of the affair, and the heartbreak he could share with no one. “Afterward, I returned to work and tried to function as well as I could. But I was drinking too much, and things just spiraled downward. I was handling a major trial at The Hague and … I blew it, Charley,” he said, his face falling. “I mishandled a key witness and compromised her testimony, and as a result a war
criminal who had slaughtered dozens of innocents was allowed to go free.”

So that was the story, she thought, as the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. Not just about the baroness, but how he had come to be here. “Of course there was no question of my staying on after that,” he continued. “They let me resign and I was able to get the job at the firm. It’s safer, you know. The stakes aren’t as high.”

At least until now, she reflected. Now someone’s life was in his hands once more. “I stopped drinking too, in case you’re wondering,” he added. She realized then that he had not touched the wine that had come on the tray with dinner.

And what of their initial night together in the attic in Wadowice? She had presumed that the kiss had come as a result of them both being intoxicated. But now, looking back through the haze of the vodka at the events that had transpired, she could not remember him downing a single shot at the dinner party. Suddenly the portrait of the evening shifted, her drunk, him watching bemusedly. “So you see,” he said, “I retreated too.”

“I just feel like such a coward,” she said, speaking before thinking. She had not meant to include him in that characterization.

But he did not seem offended by the association. “Hardly,” he said. “You’re still out there on the front lines, defending people’s lives. The fact that you’ve chosen to do it in Philadelphia and not at The Hague doesn’t make it any less admirable. Perhaps more so, because there just aren’t that many great attorneys willing to do what you do.”

She flushed, flattered by the compliment. “There are, actually,” she protested, thinking of her colleagues back home. There was the usual smattering of tired civil servants of course. But the public defenders with whom she worked were among the most talented legal minds she’d ever known.

“I have to wonder, though, do you ever get bored?”

“No, not at all,” she replied quickly.

“I didn’t mean any offense. It’s just that after traveling the world, doing such exciting work—”

“I like it there,” she insisted. And she really did, she realized, as an unexpected pang of longing shot through her. “There’s my job and home and friends and such.” She found herself speaking in a way that made her solitary life in Philadelphia sound much more exciting than it really was. “I guess I’ve always been a little conflicted. Like I’m torn between my two selves, the globe-trotter—or gypsy, as my mother used to say, though I guess that’s not an acceptable term anymore—and the homebody. I love being here, hopping on a plane, the freedom of going to places unknown where nobody knows me. But the other life is nice too,” she added.

“I know what you mean,” Jack said, surprising her again. She had never thought of him as anything but a world traveler. “Caroline and I talked about settling down together someday, getting a place in Amsterdam on one of the canals.” He looked vulnerable then, the cool exterior stripped bare by his memories.

She wanted to tell him that she understood, but couldn’t find the words. Instead, she reached out and touched his hair, then dropped her hand, interlacing her fingers with his, a communion of the once wounded. It all made sense then—his terseness, the way he seemed to hold himself apart. He was still out in the world, but he’d built such a protective barrier internally that no one could get close enough to hurt him.

But if that was true, then what did everything that had just transpired between them mean? Was it just a fling between two lonely people that had come about as a result of spending too much time together? There was something in the way he looked at her, though, that suggested something more, if that was possible.

Overwhelmed, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, still holding his hand. Rustling sounds awakened her and she rolled over to find the space beside her empty. “I’m going to go back to my place for a shower and a change of clothes,” he said from the darkness above.

“Okay.” She searched his voice for signs of awkwardness but found none. His hand grazed her shoulder and then he slipped out the door.

She dozed off and sometime later was awakened by a knocking. “Mmph,” she managed, standing up and reaching for her clothes. Faint daylight pushed through the curtains. Jack must have returned. Had she overslept? Being a compulsive early riser, she seldom bothered to place a wake-up call or set an alarm unless rushing for a flight. But they had not, she realized, said whether they were meeting here or at the prison, or at what time.

“Jack, I—” she began, pulling open the door. She stopped in mid-sentence, caught by surprise.

There, standing in the hallway, was Brian.

BRESLAU
,
1942

Roger set down his notes and looked out the window, chewing on the end of his pencil, a schoolboy’s habit he had never been able to break. The courtyard below was empty now, but he knew that the men would soon appear. He had gotten used to the quiet routine of the synagogue over the past eighteen months; it had become a timepiece of sorts, marking the hours like the clock on the mantel in the living room two floors below, or the neighbor’s rooster that crowed mornings back home in Wadowice. The men came to worship in small groups in the weekday evenings, with larger crowds on their Sabbath and holidays.

Or they used to, anyway. The change had come quietly at first, and it was so subtle that he might have missed it had he been studying for exams and not looking out the window most days, daydreaming and putting himself in danger of failing out of the university altogether. Attendance had decreased to a trickle and then a handful of men, and the few that did still come moved swiftly through the courtyard to the synagogue entrance, not stopping to look up at the magnificent structure but glancing furtively behind them and ducking inside, afraid to be seen.

From below came a familiar scratching sound. Roger held his
breath, gauging with an appraising ear the nearness of Magda’s footsteps, whether they were growing louder as she climbed the stairs. But they faded again and he heard a door shut as she walked into the kitchen. He exhaled, trying to contain his disappointment.

The dwindling presence of the Jews was not the only thing that had changed in the time since Roger had lived here. The realization that he was in love with his brother’s wife had come swiftly, falling upon him like a sudden weight from above. It had started innocently enough: often in the evenings when Hans was out of town and the study had grown too cold to work, or when he did not dare to leave his light on because the sirens had signaled an air raid, Roger would join Magda in the parlor, reading for class by candlelight while she knitted.

Occasionally one or the other would make a comment and they would break from their respective activities. Their conversation ventured from one subject to the next, minutes bleeding into hours as his reading lay unfinished and she had to redo the stitches she’d dropped while distracted. He didn’t mind the time that seemed to evaporate between them, leaving him working harder and faster at his studies the next day to accomplish all that needed to be done. Those evenings, as they sat across from each other, the Victrola playing softly in the background, were the most peaceful that he had ever known.

It was more than just her beauty that had drawn Hans to Magda, Roger decided as he got to know her better. She had an intelligence and wit about her that in other circumstances might have opened worlds of possibility. Instead she was here, alone in this house, waiting for a husband who scarcely noticed her. He oftentimes found himself angry on her behalf, wanting to fill the voids left by his brother’s absences and inattention.

“Here,” he said one January evening, as they sat at their usual
stations in the parlor. He pulled from behind his back the wrapped brown paper package he’d been hiding and held it out to her.

Magda looked at the parcel uncertainly. He extended his hand further in her direction. “For you.”

Tentatively, she took it and opened the paper with shaking hands. Inside was a small skein of gray wool yarn. “I thought you could use it for knitting,” he said awkwardly, explaining the obvious when she did not speak.

“Oh.” She stared blankly at the yarn, which lay in her lap, and for a moment he wondered, crestfallen, if she did not like it, or perhaps it was the wrong type or color. He had bought it on impulse that afternoon, stopping in a notions store on his way back from the university to see if there was any to be had. He knew from watching Magda knit that she had been unraveling old sweaters to get the yarn she needed.

But perhaps the gesture had been a mistake. Was the gift too forward or perhaps not what she wanted? It had cost him the better part of his spending money for the remainder of the month and he hoped he could return it if it wasn’t right.

But she had picked up the yarn and fingered it gently now, as if making sure it was real. “It’s lovely,” she said, her voice low and hoarse.

It was not that she didn’t like the yarn, Roger realized then. Rather, she was just so unaccustomed to being given gifts, or to anyone noticing what she wanted or needed. His resentment of his brother loomed larger than ever.

A few weeks later, Roger woke one morning to find the same brown paper parcel lying outside the door to his room. He picked it up, puzzled. Had she returned the gift? Unwrapping the package, he found a single mitten, made from the gray yarn.

After he’d dressed, he carried the package down to the kitchen, where Magda was polishing silver. “You left this for me?”

She nodded, not looking up. “You lost one of yours, I think, some time ago.”

“Yes.” He’d made do through the winter, burying his bare left hand in his pocket to keep warm. He held up the mitten, which was just a few shades lighter than his other one. A torrent of emotions washed over him: surprise that she had noticed what he needed, remorse that she had not used the new wool on something for herself. Most of all he was touched by the time and work she had put into making the mitten for him. He had noticed her working on the piece, but he had assumed that it was for Hans.

She looked up then, searching his face for a reaction to the gift. “Beautiful,” he said as their eyes met and held. He cleared his throat. “That is, thank you.”

A troubled expression flickered across her face, then disappeared again. She turned and picked up the silver and carried it into the dining room.

The following evening as they sat together, he glanced up from his work and saw her hands moving gently above the knitting needles, making something new with brown yarn unraveled from a sweater. He was stunned by the familiarity of her fingers, the soft oval shape of the cuticle beds. In that moment he realized that he knew everything about her, each exquisite detail from the curve of her hips to the corners of her mouth, as if they were his own.

“Excuse me,” he said, standing up so abruptly that she stopped mid-stitch. She looked up at him puzzled, needles suspended in the air. Usually neither of them retired to bed until the candle had burned too low to see, at least an hour or two from now. “I’m quite tired.” He felt his way upstairs in the darkness, then sank to the
bed, shaking. What was happening? It was loneliness, he decided, the stress of the war and his studies and the lack of a woman’s warmth. But there were plenty of girls at the university who made clear that they would be only too receptive to his attention if it was forthcoming. No, this was something more. He knew then, even though he had never felt it for anyone before, that he was absolutely in love with Magda.

The next morning, after a long and fitful night’s sleep, Roger awoke before dawn, the renewed realization a cold cloak of guilt against his skin. Magda was his brother’s wife—he could not, would not have feelings for her. After that, he tried to take an interest in other women, actually asking a few out for coffee, one even to a second dinner date. But the conversation always fell flat and he found himself looking at the clock, counting the minutes until he could return to the house. He avoided the evenings downstairs for a time, but eventually he was pulled back to the warmth of Magda’s company.