Martha glanced at Delphine over Kitty’s head. “My advice would be to do the one thing you do have control over—which is to go ahead and marry the man you love.”
There was no time for a wedding dress to be made, so Kitty wore the outfit she had designed for the Christmas party.
“Do you think it’s a bit shocking, getting married in red?” she asked Martha.
“Well, it’s unusual.” Martha smiled. “But it’s not a church service, so I’d say anything goes. And it’s such a gorgeous dress.”
“Charlie hasn’t had a chance to buy a ring. I’m going to see if I can find anything in the weaving shed that we could use.”
“Have mine.” With some difficulty, Martha twisted the ring off her finger.
“Oh, I couldn’t!”
“Why not? I don’t need it anymore.”
“But it’s . . . it’s gold. It must be worth . . .”
“It’s not worth that much.” Martha waved away her protests. “Arnie won it in a game of cards. If it fits you, you’re welcome to it.”
“Well, if you’re really sure . . .” Kitty slipped the ring on and held out her hand for Martha to see.
“It goes really well with your engagement ring. You have such lovely hands—those long, slim fingers! I have to say, it looks much better on you than it ever did on me.” It was strange, the sense of relief that parting with the ring gave her. She hadn’t felt able to relinquish it before now: to put it away in a drawer would have been a depressing thing to do. But to give it away to someone who really needed it made her heart feel light.
Kitty and Charlie had just one night together as a married couple before he left for Bremen. Martha had offered Kitty the chance to travel with him as far as the coast, but she turned it down.
“I don’t think I could have borne it, standing on the quayside, waving him off,” she said when she arrived back at Seidenmühle the day after the wedding.
“It must feel strange, coming back to all this,” Delphine said. “Probably makes it all seem a bit unreal?”
“It does.” Kitty opened her bag and fished out a folded piece of paper. “All I’ve got to prove it happened is this. I have to apply to the army for a new identity card: Mrs. Katya Lewis—doesn’t that sound strange?”
“Where will Charlie go when he gets back to the States?” Martha asked.
“His family live in San Francisco,” Kitty said. “But he’s not sure how long he’ll stay there. He wants to go to college on the East Coast. There’s a business course he’s interested in at a university in New York. It begins with C—I can’t remember the name.”
“Columbia?”
“That’s it.”
It was a strange thought, Kitty in the not-too-distant future, walking streets that had once been so familiar to Martha. Perhaps they would be near neighbors one day, when the relief work was over and Martha’s job came to an end.
It was something she tried not to think about—what would happen when that time came. The idea of going back to New York filled her with dread. She didn’t know what she would do, where she would live. The truth was, she found it almost impossible to imagine a future beyond the gates of the camp.
CHAPTER 27
In the first week of May, four hundred new DPs arrived to replace those who had boarded the train for Poland in April. They had been living in a camp in another sector of the American zone. As more DPs returned to Poland, some camps were closing and the remaining inmates were sent to those that, for the time being, would remain active. Seidenmühle, it seemed, was in it for the long haul.
It wasn’t easy, settling the newcomers in. They had neither wanted nor expected to move camps. Like all the DPs in the occupied territories, they nurtured dreams of a better life, and it was a depressing business to find themselves tacking up blankets and piling up suitcases to create makeshift living spaces.
Two days after the new DPs arrived, Martha was collecting the mail from the guardhouse when she saw a farmer’s cart pull up outside the gates.
“I didn’t think we were expecting a food delivery today.” She glanced at Corporal Brody, who was already tucking into the bread and marmalade she had brought him.
“We’re not.” Reluctantly he put down the food and stepped outside to ask what the farmer wanted. The reply came from a voice she recognized. Her heart almost burst through her ribs as she darted outside. When she called out his name, all that emerged was a rasping whisper.