Chapter 42 Ada #2
“I told no one the true reasons for my actions, not even Aleida,” Mrs. De Vos continues.
“I could accept her resentment, even her hatred, if it meant she didn’t have to feel guilty, to feel as if her very existence forced me into the choices I made and what I suffered.
Now, despite knowing the truth, she has never forgiven me.
Instead she dramatizes her past, speaks of hunting war criminals, all for attention and sympathy.
And if you indulge her, you encourage her to linger in resentment.
My wish is for her to live a good life—the life I did everything to give her, even if she will always hold my choices against me.
All because I acted as any mother would to protect her child. ”
Let me be the first to say I’ll be damned. Who is the real Ada Worthington-Fox? Will we ever know? My thanks to Constance
de Vos for her openness and honesty in this exclusive interview.
It’s no wonder Miss Worthington-Fox is such a skilled actress; she’s been putting on a show ever since she came to Tinseltown.
Ada grips the paper, fights the urge to weep for Aleida, for Ada, for whomever she has become, and for all those she has driven
away. And then, as she reads the piece again—portraying her as resentful, bitter, unreliable—all grief is driven away by a
fierce, pulsing anger, sending her to the guesthouse, where she pounds her fist against the door until it opens.
“Why, Mother? Why did you do this?”
For so long, Ada has accepted her mother’s efforts, has not questioned her changed loyalties, perhaps because she fears the
truth. She fears Ingrid is right, has always been right. Whatever the truth is, it’s time Ada faced it.
Mother glances at the article in Ada’s hand.
“After that scene at your hearing, how else was I supposed to encourage the public to overlook your transgressions? Now at least they know your mother is willing to be honest. And since you insist on pursuing this war crimes case, I had to put a stop to it. No one will listen to a girl desperate for attention, and if that’s what it takes to encourage you to forget about all this, then it’s my responsibility to help you do so. ”
She stands in the doorway, regarding Ada with a steely frown, not bothering to invite her inside. And suddenly Ada has no
idea what is true and what is not. During the war, perhaps Mother did what Ada had done: acted. Or perhaps she was never a
repentant fascist, simply a fascist.
“We could have fled, joined the resistance, anything that didn’t require aligning ourselves with the enemy. You didn’t have
to become his mistress to protect us.”
“How does one determine which choice is the right one? Is there a right one? Or is there only survival?” Mother places her hands on Ada’s shoulders. “A mother only has one choice,
a choice that defies reason: to protect her child. Survival is not rational. It simply must be done.”
The article is published; Ada can’t change that. And here, standing outside the guesthouse, she can’t comprehend anything—who
her mother really is, why she did what she did, why she gave this exclusive to damage Ada’s credibility. If she wants to reconcile
with her daughters, this is not the way.
“I’ve done all I can to rebuild this family, and now you and your sister will make peace and forget this nonsense about hearings
and trials and war crimes cases. Or shall I tell Ingrid of how you resented her for leaving Arnhem, therefore you discarded
every letter she sent to the ballet school? Assuring you of her safety, desperate to know of yours, imploring you to write
back . . . yet you never did.”
Why would Mother tell Ingrid such lies? Then, as understanding crashes over her, Ada can’t speak. Mother didn’t; she couldn’t
have. Upon their reunion, Ingrid insisted she had written—letters that, they concluded, never reached Ada.
Or perhaps she simply never received them.
“All those years, you knew Ingrid was alive? You took the letters she sent me?”
“You helped her run off with that boy, then lied about it. I had to teach you both a lesson.” Her scowl shifts into a pitying
scoff. “Honestly, dear, Gregor was the SS and Police Leader. Mail is simple enough to intercept. Did you really expect to
deceive me?”
Suddenly Ada feels as she once did when dancing center stage, when the music’s crescendo overtakes her as she pushes her body
to its limits, smiles despite how every jump and turn pummels her muscles, unites her pain with the beauty of movement. Then,
after she takes her final curtsy, she is left with the ugliness the beauty has left behind. The sore muscles, the bloody,
blistered, calloused feet, the mental and emotional fatigue.
Once again, the pain and emotion unite inside her and emerge through movement. Through her hand delivering a single, precise,
hard slap across her mother’s porcelain cheek.
The smack of palm against flesh gives way to Mother’s startled cry as she takes an unstable step back, then Ada is shouting,
furious and desperate and unable to be anything except what she is: a girl who lost the most important person in her life
when neither was truly lost at all.
“You knew and never told me, never told her! Your own daughters, how could you?” Then she sinks to her knees as her shrieks
give way to sobs. “I thought she was dead . . . I thought she was dead . . .”
Dietrich had contacts everywhere, of course. Mother probably had him looking for anything connected to Ada, to the dance school,
to whatever might lead her to Ingrid. Because of course she suspected Ada’s involvement, given how close the twins were.
A closeness that was ripped away for six long years. Mother made sure of that.
A cool breeze sweeps over them, chilling the moisture on Ada’s cheeks. Mother takes her chin. Ada blinks past her blurred vision, stares from the flaming mark on Mother’s cheek to the cold steadiness of her gaze.
“Make amends with your sister and pull yourselves together. We must work toward the betterment of our future, darling, and
I can’t be the only one putting forth an effort.”
This woman is not the mother Ada wanted, not the mother she thought she had; this woman is the mother Ingrid had, and so much
worse. The urge to be sick nearly overtakes her as Mother maintains her firm grip a moment longer, then releases her and slams
the door. Ada stays on her knees in the grass, unable to move. All this time she has been wrong, fooled. Utterly fooled.
As for making amends with Ingrid, after the way they turned on each other, what if it’s not possible?
The betterment of our future, Mother said.
Right now, the only thing in Ada’s future is a trial.