Shattered Crystals, Mia Amalia Kanner [cat reading book txt] 📗

“People died inside that cave.”

Over the short-wave radio, we heard reports of fierce fighting on the beaches of Normandy and the struggle for control of villages near the coast. So many thoughts went through my mind. I remembered the beaches of St. Malo in Brittany, not far from where the Allied armies landed. I had found those beaches so peaceful. Now tens of thousands of soldiers were fighting on these French shores. What mattered was that the American and English soldiers were on French soil at last. I was sure now that we would win.

Hitler had expected the Allies to land at Calais and had ordered concrete fortifications built there. That was logical strategy because Calais was closer to England than any other port in France. Countless Jewish men had died during the construction of the seawall, and my husband would have been one of them if not for his extraordinary escape. How many more would die before it was over? How much longer?

The wealthy and beautiful young Madame Dreyfus was not as fortunate as I was. The Nazis had killed her husband. Watching her fatherless little girl toddle blissfully around the lawn on the side of the house, I thought of Lea with longing. Now that certain victory was only a matter of time, I found the wait almost unbearable. I snapped at the slightest provocation, unable to do such simple tasks as sewing an even hem on Michelle’s dress.

August, 1944 was a crucial time. The Allied Armies were getting closer to Paris. Allied troops had landed on the Mediterranean coast of France near Cannes on August 15 and began to fight their way north. Throughout the Occupied Zone, French Resistance fighters reclaimed towns and villages.

Even before the Allied Forces marched on Paris, Limoges was liberated. No doubt now remained that the Nazis would be defeated. There was no reason for me to lie awake at night, but I did. Exhausted after a sleepless night, I struggled with the laundry in the morning and let the potatoes burn in the afternoon. The conviction that one day I would be reunited with my three daughters had sustained me during my worst times in France. Now I wanted my children back.

I had assumed Sal and I had only to make the request, and Lea would be returned to us within a day or two. Or if she were not brought to us, we would be told where to go to pick up our daughter. It was not so simple.

There was much good news. Rabbi Deutsch was free. When the Germans evacuated Limoges, French police simply opened the doors of the jail and everyone walked out. Sal visited the newly freed Rabbi Deutsch soon after.

“Thank God that we have lived to see this day, Rabbi,” Sal said. “Please forgive me; I know you just came out, but already I need your help. I want my daughter back.”

Working the night shift on the railroad freed Sal during the day, and he spent his time trying to locate the whereabouts of our daughter. Following a lead from the rabbi, Sal visited a member of the Resistance Movement in the city. The man referred him to someone else. Day after day, he was passed from one man to another, to a third and a fourth, always with the frustrating words, “It takes time; you must be patient.”

I passed the days waiting anxiously. Why was it so difficult? How many convents were there in Haute Vienne? What was wrong? It went that way for more than a month. And then, at last, they found her. A letter came instructing Sal to be at the Limoges railway station in two days to meet Lea.

I waited at the farm. Long before they were due, I was standing on the veranda. I looked past the approach to the estate toward the avenue. The road that had been blocked with trees felled by the Maquis was cleared now. The remaining trees, so tall and full, hid the destruction. The avenue looked as majestic as ever.

I spotted Lea and Sal, two small figures in the distance. I moved down the steps and quickened my pace as they came nearer. The child broke away, and we ran toward each other. Then I was holding my daughter in my arms, hugging, kissing, and stroking her, unable to form any words but murmuring joyful sounds, Lea squeaking happily, “Mama, Mama!”

Sal caught up with us, and we walked to the house, Lea between us, holding each of us by the hand. “Is that your house?” she asked. “It’s very big.”

“It is not mine, but you will stay here with me,” I said. “This is where I work.”

“It looks like a nice house,” she said.

I noticed that Lea was limping. “What happened to your leg, sweetheart?” I asked.

“It’s not my leg. It’s my foot,” Lea answered.

In the big kitchen, while Lea drank fresh milk and ate warm bread, spread thick with butter, the story came out.

“There was a nail in my shoe that dug into my heel,” Lea said. “Only I thought it was a stone, or maybe my sock wasn’t straight. But my foot kept hurting even after I pulled up my sock.” She licked the butter off a second slice of bread. “After a few days, my heel was all swollen, and I showed it to the nun. She found the nail and pulled it out. She said my foot was infected.” She looked up at me and said, “Can you fix it, Mama?”

“We’ll make it better,” I said. I got up and kissed Lea lightly on the top of her head. She was seven-and-a-half years old. My darling looked exactly the same as when she had been spirited away in the ambulance more than two years before, her face round, her skin pale, the dimple still erupting in her chin when she smiled.

Her face, her arms and her legs were streaked with dirt. “I’m going to give you a bath,” I said. “We have a big wooden tub. Papa will bring it outside and fill it with water. Then you can soak and splash as long as you like.”

Warmed by the afternoon sun, Lea stood on the grass, ready to climb into the round tub. It was then that I discovered that my child’s entire body was utterly filthy. I started to wash Lea’s short-cropped hair and made another discovery. The child’s head was infested with lice. I would get rid of them. She was back. How good it was to be able to take care of her!

I begged precious cans of petrol from Monsieur Meyer, and for the next two weeks, I washed Lea’s hair with it every day. I took Lea to the village doctor, who lanced the wound on her foot.

Over the next few weeks, as the wound slowly healed, Lea spoke sometimes of the two years she had been away. “The nuns shaved my head,” she said, while I used a fine comb on her hair. “I don’t know why.”

Another day, while I darned Sal’s socks, Lea said, “The nuns taught us how to sew. She said, ‘When you hem, pretend you’re walking with one foot on the pavement, the other in the gutter. Stitch up and down, girls, up and down, up and down.’”

I took a needle from my sewing box and said, “How nice. Show me,” but Lea had become engrossed in her drawing. She would talk about something that happened only once, saying a few words, then become lost in thought, oblivious to her surroundings. It seemed as if by telling me what had happened, she was giving her memories away to me.

One rainy afternoon, when I thought Lea was totally engrossed in matching dominoes, she suddenly looked up and said, “Liselotte was bigger