“I can’t believe it—ten o’clock already. We ought to—”
Miriam had set down her pencil; she, too, had been working steadily for the past hour. But she hadn’t drawn a gown, nor a design for embroidery, nor anything Ann might have expected.
A group of people stood around a table, their faces indistinct, though the details of the room about them were rendered with some care. A man at the head of the table held a cup, his hands raised high. The men were all wearing hats, which was strange as they were indoors.
No—not hats. Caps. Small, round caps on the crowns of their heads. She stared at the picture Miriam had created, and somewhere in the background she could still hear the news on the wireless, and then she knew. How had she not known, before?
“Is this your family?”
“I think so. I wasn’t sure when I started, but . . . yes. It is them.”
“They’re Jewish. You’re Jewish.”
“Yes.”
Ann tore her gaze from the picture, and she saw how Miriam was frozen in place. How the color had leached away from her friend’s pretty face.
“I didn’t mean to have it come out like that. I was just surprised. Really, that’s all.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ann asked, gentling her voice.
“I couldn’t. Not to begin with. I couldn’t be sure.”
“That I wouldn’t hold it against you?”
A nod.
“But you must know by now that I would never—I mean, I honestly don’t. Oh, I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s all right,” Miriam said, and perhaps it was wishful thinking on Ann’s part but it did seem, just maybe, that she’d stopped holding herself quite so stiffly.
“It’s only just— Oh, no. How many times have I fed you bacon since you moved here? Why on earth didn’t you say anything? I feel awful.”
Miriam smiled, only a little, but it was enough to dispel some of the gloom that had crept into the kitchen. “I did not mind. My parents were not religious people. We broke all the rules when I was young.”
Ann looked at the picture again. “Who is the man holding the cup?”
“My grandfather. When I was little, before Grand-Mère died, we went to their house every Friday. For le d?ner de chabbat. The Sabbath, I think you say? He is saying the blessing. Le kiddouch. The cup holds wine that we would share, and after that we would wash our hands and Grand-Père would break the bread, and we would each take a piece and dip it in salt. And then our Sabbath dinner would begin.”
“Your grandmother’s Friday-night chicken?” Ann asked.
“Yes. She made it every week.”
“But didn’t you make it for me on a Saturday? I don’t know much about Jewish people, but I thought you aren’t allowed to do things on Saturday. Like use the cooker and so on.”
“I know. Grand-Mère would have been so upset with me for breaking the Sabbath. I—”
“The stories in the papers, and those dreadful newsreels? That’s what happened to your family.”
“Yes.” Miriam’s gaze was directed at the picture, but Ann felt sure she was seeing something else.
“How did you survive if they did not?”
“I hid. I . . .” Miriam shook her head, slowly, definitively, and a single tear began a lonely trail down her face.
It took every particle of strength Ann possessed to stifle the instinct to leap up and embrace her friend. “I’m sorry. I won’t ask again. Only . . . if you ever feel like telling me I should love to hear about them. Your mum and dad and your nan. Your grandmother, I mean. She must have been a very good cook.”
“She was. She and my mother both.”
After wiping her eyes, Ann folded her handkerchief back on itself and passed it to Miriam. And then she turned her attention back to the picture of the Sabbath dinner. “What’ll you do with this?” she asked after a moment. “Will you turn it into a painting? I know you said you don’t know how to draw, but it’s very good. It’s so good I don’t want to look away.”
“Thank you. I was thinking I might try to make an embroidery of it. Not at all like the sort of thing we do at work. I mean as they once did long ago. For the walls of the great castles and places like that.”
Of course. What better way for Miriam to express herself than through thread and fabric? “I think those were woven, but I know what you mean. Have you ever seen pictures of the Bayeux Tapestry? You could make something like that. Stitches and appliqué work on a backing. I’ve got yards and yards of plain linen from Milly’s parcels, and it’s too good to waste on dish towels.”