bank reported you. Come with us now.” Beata was shaking from head to foot, and Daphne screamed.
“Daphne, don't,” Beata shouted to her. “We'll be all right.” She turned back to the officer then. “May we bring anything with us?”
“You may bring one suitcase each. You are being deported.”
Beata had already packed the bags. She went to get hers, and told Daphne to bring the bag they had just packed in her room. Daphne looked completely panicked as her mother took her in her arms and held her tight.
“We have to do this. Be strong. Remember what I told you. I love you. We have each other.”
“Mama, I'm so scared.”
“Come now!” the officer shouted, and sent the two men to get them. A moment later, Daphne and Beata were escorted out of the house, carrying their bags, their fate and destination unknown.
15
THE PRIEST FROM BEATA'S PARISH CAME TO SEE THE Mother Superior at the convent two days later. He had heard it from Beata's maid, who had come to him in tears. She had been out when it happened. The neighbors had told her what they'd seen. He thought Amadea should know. He wasn't sure why they had been taken, but he knew they had. Before coming to see her, he had done some quiet checking himself. According to his sources, Beata and her youngest daughter had been taken to the marshaling station outside Cologne. Normally they kept people there for weeks or even months. But there had been a train leaving for Ravensbruck, the women's camp, that afternoon, and they were put on it. They were already gone.
The Mother Superior listened in silence to what he said, and impressed on him the importance of his silence. But she knew that in a very short time, others would know. There were people in the parish who knew that Amadea had become a Carmelite six years before. There was no question in her mind that this was a very serious situation, and after thinking about it, once the priest had left, she opened a drawer, took out a letter, and made a single call. Beata had sent her a letter with a name and a phone number months before. It was for an event such as this. Without panicking unduly, or giving in to hysteria, Beata had tried to anticipate the worst. And now the worst had come. It was hard to believe they had been lucky for this long. Or so very unlucky in the end.
After she hung up, the Mother Superior bent her head in prayer, and then sent for Amadea. She had been working in the garden, and she looked happy when she walked in.
“Yes, Reverend Mother?” She couldn't imagine why she'd called her to her office. She was still looking slightly disheveled from her work in the garden.
“Sister Teresa, please sit down.” She took a breath, and hoped that God would help her find the right words. This was no easy task. “As you know, these are hard times. For everyone. And God makes choices for us that we don't understand. We simply have to follow His paths, without questioning His ways.”
Amadea looked at her, suddenly worried. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Not at all,” she said, reaching a hand across her desk and taking Amadea's hand in hers. “I have some very hard news for you. Someone denounced your mother. She and your sister were arrested two days ago. They were sent to Ravensbruck yesterday. That's all I know. They were all right when they were last seen.” But they both knew that the two women were unlikely to stay that way. Ravensbruck was a women's camp where the women were worked to death, and dropped like flies. No one returned. Amadea could hardly breathe as she heard the news. Her mouth flew open, and no sound came out. “I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. But now we must decide what to do with you. Whoever denounced her knows about you. And if not, someone does. I do not want you at risk here.” Amadea nodded in silence, and then thought instantly of the others. But all she could think of now was her mother and sister, and how terrible it must have been for them, how frightened they must have been. Daphne was only sixteen. She had been Amadea's baby since she was born. Tears rolled silently down her cheeks as she clutched the Mother Superior's hands, and the older woman walked around her desk and took her in her arms, as Amadea was engulfed in sobs. She couldn't even imagine it, it was so awful. “They're in God's hands,” she whispered. “All we can do is pray for them now.”
“I'll never see them again. Oh, Mother…I can't bear it…” She couldn't stop crying as the Mother Superior held her.
“Many survive.” But they both knew most didn't, and there was no way of knowing if Beata and Daphne would be among the lucky ones. And Daphne was so beautiful, God only knew what they would do to her. It didn't bear thinking.
The Mother Superior was thinking of Amadea now. She was her responsibility. And she couldn't send her to Holland as they had Sister Teresa Benedicta. Holland was occupied, and her presence in the convent there was already putting the sisters there at great risk. They couldn't take yet another danger in. Besides which, they'd never get Amadea across the border. Sister Teresa Benedicta had gone to Holland before the war began. Everything was different now. There was no way of getting Amadea out, which was why she had made the call she had. She had no other choice. He had agreed to come within the hour.
“I am going to ask you to do something very difficult,” the Mother Superior said sadly, “for your sake, as well as ours. I have no other choice.” Amadea was still too overwrought over what she had heard about her mother and sister to absorb much more, but she nodded and turned sad eyes to the older nun. “I am going to ask you to leave us, just for now. If you stay here, it could put the whole convent at risk. When this is over, when life is normal again, you will come back. I know you will. I have never doubted your vocation for an instant. Because of that, I am asking you to do this. You will still be one of us, even in the outside world, wherever you are. Nothing will change.” She had professed her temporary vows four times so far. She was due to do so again in two months. She was two years away from final vows. And this was yet another blow. She had lost her mother and sister, perhaps forever, and now she was being sent away. But even in her distraught state, she knew it was the right thing. It was a sacrifice she could make for them. As the Mother said, she had no other choice, nor did they. Amadea nodded her head.
“Where will I go?” Amadea asked in a broken voice. She had not been outside the convent walls in six years. She had no place to stay, nowhere to go.
“Your mother sent me a letter several months ago. With the name of a friend. I called him a few minutes ago. He said he would be here within the hour.”
“So soon?” She knew without asking who it was. He was her mother's only friend, and she had told Amadea as well to contact Gerard Daubigny if something went wrong. She had even said he had money for her. But she couldn't put them at risk either. She was a danger to everyone. “Will I be able to say goodbye to the others?” The Mother Superior hesitated and then nodded. It would have been too cruel to her and to them otherwise. She rang the bell after that, which warned the sisters that something important had happened, and they were to gather in the dining hall. They were all there when Amadea and the Mother Superior walked in. All the familiar faces, all the nuns she had worked with, lived with, and loved for so long. The young ones, and the older ones, even the ones in wheelchairs. It was agonizing for her thinking of leaving them. But the Mother Superior was right. She had no choice. Wherever she went, to whichever convent, or if they kept her here, she presented a danger for the others. She loved them too much to do that to them. She had to leave them. But as the Mother Superior had said, she knew she would come back one day. This was the life she wanted. This was her home. She knew with utter certainty that she had been born to be a Carmelite, and serve God, in whatever way He chose.
Mother Teresa Maria Mater Domini offered no explanation. She said nothing. Even knowing the circumstances of Amadea's departure could be dangerous for them. If the police came afterward, they knew nothing. And the fact that she had left exonerated them. If anyone paid a price, it would be the Mother Superior and no one else. Amadea simply moved along their ranks, hugging and kissing each one of them, and saying “God bless you, Sister” softly to each one. It was all she said, but watching her do it, they all knew she was going, just as they had known when Sister Teresa Benedicta had left them three years before.
It took her half an hour to say good-bye to them, and she did not return to her cell to pick up her things. She had nothing to take with her. She had brought nothing and would leave with nothing. And now she had to go back out into a world she no longer understood and hadn't seen in so long. A world in which her mother and her sister no longer lived, where she had no home, and no belongings, and no one. All she had was her father's friend, and as she waited in the Mother Superior's office for him, he arrived, with grave eyes. Gerard Daubigny walked into the
