Chapter 34 #2
“Yes, yes.” The senior officer waved his hand, impatient to come to the point of their visit. “Yesterday, when uncovering the ruins of this temple, they happened to find the remains of a body.”
Mira wrinkled her nose in distaste. What had any of this to do with them?
At this, her mother turned toward the window and reached to pour herself a cup from the Moka pot. She added no honey or milk, just sipped it strong and black.
“How terrible,” her mother said, turning back to the visitors. “Why is it you’re here telling us all this?”
The younger officer stood and stuck a hand in the pocket of his uniform.
When he pulled out a small lyre-shaped handheld loom, Mira sucked in a breath.
She’d seen another just like it only this morning, in the box she’d discovered in the sea cave, the box that had belonged to her grandmother.
Zaneta had said she’d had one like it, one she’d lost in the ruins.
Her eyes darted to her mother’s face, but before she could say anything, her father caught her eye.
The shake of his head was almost imperceptible, but Mira recognized in his eyes that look that told her to hold her tongue.
She and her father had communicated in these silent ways her whole life, with her father acting as mediator between his wife and daughter.
Careful, he was saying, don’t make things worse.
This will pass if you swallow your words, stuff down your emotions, and control your tongue.
Mira knew it was her father’s way of trying to protect her from her mother’s unpredictable moods, but it always seemed to her to have been one-sided.
She’d been the one learning to stay calm and bite back retorts while her mother had been allowed to strike with her words; rage and slam doors; or retreat to dark rooms, sometimes for days at a time.
“This was found with the remains. We were directed here, told you might shed some light.”
“Have they been identified?” her mother replied, skirting the issue. “These remains?”
The second officer consulted a notebook he pulled from the same pocket that had held the loom. “Dog tags say Jan Fuchs. German.”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed, and her words were terse. “A German soldier, then. There were many here during the war.”
The senior officer regarded her. “Military-issue weapon with him. Listed as a deserter. But this?” Again, he asked, handing it to her. His actions seemed casual, Mira noticed, but his eyes never left her mother’s face. He was gauging her reaction, the same as she was.
Mira watched as her mother casually turned the small loom over in her hands, watched her swallow hard and measure her words before she looked directly at Mira and said, “I’ve never seen this before.”
Mira’s senses sharpened, and the room seemed to narrow into focus.
Her father’s shoulders relaxed the slightest bit.
The curtains fluttered at the window, and the squawk of jackdaws fussing outside echoed in her ears.
Her mother was lying. It dawned on Mira that the last time officials had been to this house was probably during the war, when they rounded up the families in their community and took them all away.
Not all, she corrected herself. One remained.
Mira knew that much of the story, but with the arrival of this loom and her parents’ reaction, there appeared to be more to it.
Her mother stood in her kitchen, eyes leveled at the officer, her raised, defiant chin devoid of even a trace of a quiver.
Zaneta shrugged and handed back the loom.
Her father said, “You must know, Officers, that this area was—” He paused and chose his words carefully.
Even this long after the war, only a tenuous trust had been forged between the people and the authorities.
“Deserted,” he continued. “It was a largely Jewish community. Hardly anyone remained. I myself saw many of the homes in this area looted, and—if this object is associated with weaving, as you seem to imply—it could’ve been stolen from any of them. ”
The senior officer nodded while the second man jotted notes in his notebook. Daniella, who’d been squirming in her mother’s arms, finally lost patience and let out a shrieking wail. Mira needed to take her home. She wanted to be fed, and she probably needed changing.
“And you, Signora?” the younger officer addressed her. “Can you tell us anything about it?”
Flustered, Mira tried to shush Daniella and busied herself with gathering her things. “I’m sorry, but no,” she said. “All of that was before I was born. I don’t know what more I could say than my mother has.”
The polizia seemed satisfied and mumbled their appreciation as they left. Daniella ushered them out with her high-pitched cries, her face turning red.
“I’ve got to get home,” Mira said, heading out the door after them. “Daniella is about to rival Mount Etna.”
“Of course.” Her father waved her off. “Poor nipotina. Go, go.”
As Mira set off toward home, the polizia car stirred up a cloud of dust as it disappeared down the road to town.
She glanced over her shoulder at her parents’ house and, through the kitchen window, saw her father and mother wrapped in a tight embrace.
Even over the din of the relentless jackdaws, Mira thought she heard the sound of her mother sobbing.