The American Lady(146)

It wasn’t good for Marie to be buried here—she belonged in Lauscha. The thought stirred somewhere at the back of Wanda’s mind, but it was all happening in such a hurry that it never quite became conscious. Perhaps . . . if Mother had been there with her, or Johanna—they would never have allowed . . . But there was nobody else here, and Marie’s body was deposited in the stone wall.



Wanda’s departure was quick and dramatic. The count and countess shook Wanda’s hand stiffly. To her astonishment, the count had even ordered a coach to bring her to the station with her luggage and the baby—she would never have imagined that he would be so “considerate.” He even rode along with her. At the station he helped her find the right train. Wanda took her seat with Sylvie in the compartment where the count had reserved two places.

She stared out the window, her eyes blank. Although the train moved very slowly, she noticed nothing of the grandeur of the Alps passing by. After the exertions of the last few days she was more tired than she had ever been in her life. Every thought was an effort, yet the dreadful feeling that she had done something wrong never left her.

How could she have allowed them to bury Marie in Genoa? Shouldn’t she have insisted that Marie be cremated, so that she could take her ashes back to Lauscha? It would certainly be very complicated to try to arrange that from Germany. Wanda expected yet more recriminations from the others when she got home, for she had not even been able to telegraph and tell them that Marie was dead. But how could she have put such a terrible event into a few short words? The whole thing was so dreadful that she hadn’t even sent a telegram to Richard.

And then there was another worry that was much more pressing.

A few minutes earlier, the conductor had come by to tell the passengers that they were approaching the Italian-Austrian border.

What if the border patrol saw something wrong with Sylvie’s papers? What if everything she had done in the last few days ended in failure because some stubborn official’s suspicions were aroused when he saw a young woman with a baby in her arms?

Wanda glanced at the baby, asleep on the seat next to her in a bassinet. How she clenched her little fists as though to fight against the whole wicked world! Yet no force in the world could protect her against fate . . .

Beautiful, stubborn Marie was dead.

Wanda shut her eyes and waited for the pain to pass. If she grieved for Marie now, she would never stop crying. She had to pull herself together, put off her grief, or she at least had to try. She took a deep breath. She just had to do her best to keep Sylvie safe. That was all she could do.

Should she wake Sylvie when the officers came into the compartment? Men didn’t like crying babies so perhaps the passport inspection would be over more quickly? But perhaps it would draw the officers’ attention to the young mother with her child. Wanda tried to look at her reflection in the mirror, but the morning sunlight made it difficult. She knew, however, that even with makeup and a more grown-up outfit, she still wouldn’t look much older. An older woman traveling with a child might not be so conspicuous. But she was traveling on her own, without family or a servant, and her passport would soon reveal that she was unmarried . . .

Wanda bent over and looked into the bassinet every few minutes. The little one was asleep. Everything seemed to be all right; her cheeks were rosy pink but not too flushed. There were tiny crescents of shadow beneath her eyes cast by her eyelashes, which were astonishingly thick for a newborn—Marie’s daughter was an exceptionally beautiful baby.

So far she had been the perfect traveling companion; she had fallen asleep almost as soon as the train got moving. When she woke up, Wanda gave her a bottle of the milk that the wet nurse had expressed for her and changed her diaper just as the wet nurse had shown her. But she didn’t know whether she would be able to make the baby hush if she began to cry.

She mustn’t think so much. One thing at a time. Everything had been all right so far.

Her hand trembled as she took her own passport from the bag along with Sylvie’s papers. How she had had to bluster and threaten to get her hands on those papers!

All she had wanted to do after the burial was sit in a corner and cry until she could cry no more. Instead she had threatened the count that she would make Marie’s discoveries public until, at last, he had given way to her demands. Secretly she was rather surprised. Why didn’t he try to get the book from her? Why didn’t he try to buy Wanda’s silence some other way? She didn’t like to think what else he might have tried . . . In the end she suspected that the count was already in so much trouble that he didn’t want to be burdened with a motherless newborn baby girl on top of everything else.