“He didn’t come to the station to see me off. I think he’ll find someone else.”
Martha thought she’d probably had a lucky escape. But Kitty didn’t need to hear that—she already had more than enough heartache to deal with.
“Who’s that?” Someone was tapping at the window. Kitty got up. “It’s Mrs. Grabowska from the sewing school.”
Martha went to open the door. Mrs. Grabowska came in, beaming. Kitty chattered away with her for a few minutes, then, with a little bow to Martha, the woman left.
Kitty was smiling. “She wanted to know where she could get fabric to make a wedding dress. The couple whose baby was born in the back of your car are getting married.”
“Oh, how lovely!”
“It’s going to be next Saturday—the mother should be out of hospital by then. Father Josef’s going to baptize the baby at the same time. And you’ll never guess what . . .”
“What?” Martha shook her head.
“They want you and Delphine to be godparents.”
CHAPTER 13
That evening, Martha went to the hospital. Aleksandra was lying down, her face as white as the pillow. In a cot beside the bed, her baby, wide awake but making no sound, was opening and closing his little mouth. Martha leaned in to look at him, watching a bubble form between his lips. He was so perfect. It seemed incredible that this tiny new person had started life on the back seat of her car.
Aleksandra opened her eyes, smiling when she caught sight of Martha. She murmured something in Polish.
“May I pick him up?” Martha mimed cradling with her arms.
The girl nodded.
Martha’s hands trembled as she went to lift him out of the cot. He was so light in her arms, his skin so delicate and transparent that she could see the blue veins at his temples. She’d held babies before when she’d visited families on the Lower East Side. But he was so much smaller—probably because his mother hadn’t had enough to eat when she was carrying him.
She turned away, not wanting Aleksandra to see the tears prickling her eyes. His pale fragility brought back agonizing memories—images she’d shut away in a dark, silent corner of her mind. She swallowed hard. She could see through her tears that his eyes were fixed on her face. There was a curious depth to those eyes, as if he knew what she was thinking. His mouth turned up at the edges. Was that a smile? Surely he was too young for that. And yet . . . Martha felt a surge of something she couldn’t name as she gazed down at him. And when she laid him back in his cot and walked away, she felt different. Lighter.
Martha was nervous about the christening.
“Why?” Stefan said when she told him.
“I’m worried I’ll get the words wrong,” she said. It was true—there were a lot of responses she would have to make, in Polish. It was a big responsibility. But there was another reason why Martha felt uncomfortable. She hadn’t been in a church since she was a teenager. Grandma Cecile had gone every Sunday, but that had been as much about business as spirituality. Her grandmother had earned a living making cassocks and surplices for choristers, and it was her close connection with the church that had secured a place for Martha at the best school in the neighborhood. As soon as that was accomplished, Grandma Cecile stopped making a fuss if Martha said she didn’t want to go to Mass.
“I can help you.” Stefan opened the door for her to get into the car. “We can practice what you have to say.”
They were going to the army base to pick up medical supplies for the hospital. Martha had planned to drive there alone, but when she read through the list Delphine had given her, she realized she was going to need help.
It was fun, rehearsing with Stefan. She hadn’t brought the written responses with her—Stefan seemed to know them by heart. When she asked him how he knew all the words, he told her that, before the war, he’d stood as godfather to his niece and nephew.
Martha longed to ask him about where these children and their parents were now. Had they survived the war? Had he been searching for them in the Red Cross lists? But she and Stefan had established an unspoken pact. Martha never asked him about his family and he never asked about her life before the camp. He’d never commented on the fact that she was Mrs. Radford—nor had he questioned why she was living half a world away from her home. If he ever wondered if she was a wife or a widow, he didn’t let on.
“There’s going to be a party after the church service.” She slowed down as she drove over a bridge with chunks missing from its walls.