‘Did you ask yourself that in the dream?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘A dream is only a dream, dear friend.’
‘I suddenly realised it was a train full of people being deported to the camps. I don’t know how I knew this.’
‘How old were you when you were watching that train?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe the same as now. Or younger. I snatched that bit of paper with a rapid, agile movement.’
‘What was written on it?’
‘I didn’t read it. I pushed it hurriedly into my pocket.’
‘And when did you read it?’
‘After the train left and the SS and their rifles had disappeared. I was alone again but the poppy was still there, a fantastic red colour basking in the sun.’
‘And what did it say on the paper?’
‘I didn’t think about that. I was focused on the poppy. It seemed such a clear, unabashed sign of life that it made me happy. I wanted to pick it but when I went near it moved aside as though it didn’t want to be picked.’
‘And the bit of paper? Weren’t you curious at all?’
‘I was distracted.’
‘So when did you read it?’
‘I’ve completely forgotten.’
‘Completely?’
‘Completely.’
‘So you never read it?’
‘Later I did. Years later.’
‘Years passed in your dream?’
‘I knew my body had changed and matured and my walk had become less bold and secure. The paper was still in my pocket.’
‘So in the end, even years later, you read it. And what was written on it?’
‘“I’m here”, that’s what was written, “Emanuele”.’
‘Was it signed?’
‘Yes, it was signed.’
‘“I do not know if I was Tzu dreaming he was a butterfly or the butterfly dreaming he was Tzu.” That’s what Chuang Tzu says, and it seems to fit the case. The dream tells me nothing about the survival or otherwise of your Emanuele.’
‘But I know he’s waiting for me somewhere. And I’m here to find him. If you can help me, Hans, I’ll be grateful; if not let’s just say goodbye.’
‘All right. I’ll help you. Give me more facts. His family name, the date of his disappearance, a photograph, whatever you have.’
‘His family name is Orenstein. His father Karl was an industrialist, his mother Thelma Fink an actress. I have no photographs of them, only one of Emanuele as a child.’
‘We must search the archives, Maria Amara, but where did your own unusual name come from? I’ve never heard it before.’
‘My mother wanted to call me Marlene after her favourite actress, Marlene Dietrich. My father wanted me to be Mariuccia after my grandmother. They argued for a bit, then settled on Amara, which was the name of a little newborn bear in a caravan with Togni’s circus, which had just stopped at Rifredi. It was in all the papers. It seemed a strange name, but also easy to say, so they settled on Amara.’
‘Your grandmother Mariuccia must have been unhappy.’
‘My name was registered as Maria Amara but they immediately started calling me just Amara. For my father, choosing such a strange name was also a way of cocking a snook at the fascists who only approved recognisable names, connected with the saints and above all, Italian. But on official documents I’m still Maria Amara Sironi.’
‘Tomorrow morning at eight we’ll go to the police where it seems they have some recently discovered camp registers. Agreed?’
‘Agreed.’
Hans moves away. She hasn’t even asked him where he lives. Does he have a telephone? She is on the point of calling him back but he has already turned the corner.
Amara sets off down Estery Street. The pavement is wet, but the grey stones are shining now in the fresh sun peeping out from behind thick, heavy clouds. The houses she passes smell of pork and boiled cabbage.
She touches the letters crushed into her shoulder bag. They are heavy, but she carries them everywhere. Every now and then she likes to pull them out and read them again. There is also the exercise book with its closely written pages in pencil, the handwriting light and meticulous but also distorted and full of crossings-out, as if written propped on bare knees when the writer was not at all well. A black school exercise book with squared pages. Something always leaps out from the letters to surprise her, like a novelty. The certainty that he is alive somewhere stays with her. She absolutely must find him! The dream comes back to her mind, bright and clear. The scrap of paper was addressed to her and carried a precise request: come on, look for me, find me, I’m here, I’m here, but where are you?
12
Hans ought to be at the corner of the market square; he phoned her at the hotel in the evening to make the appointment, but she sees no sign of him. Perhaps he’s forgotten. Poor Hans whom she privately still thinks of as the man with the gazelles. But why ‘poor’? He has the air of a slightly damaged young man, though basically robust and healthy. Hans, the man she met on the train, the man with a sad past, the man saved from the Nazis by the foresight of a loving mother. While Emanuele who if he had stayed in Italy would probably have escaped the death camps, was deliberately taken to Austria by an optimistic and patriotic mother. Who was blind, utterly blind.
It’s just eight and the roller shutters of the shops are still closed. Amara’s light footsteps echo on the wet pavement of Plac Nowy. The sky is opening over a city getting ready for work. Who knows how many families are sitting at table behind those misted windows over a breakfast of milk and barley coffee, toasted hard bread and home-made jam. Amara had tea in the empty dining room of the Hotel Wawel where a waitress in black stockings and lilac slippers, her maid’s cap perched crookedly on curly grey hair, had served her unceremoniously with a spoonful of fresh yoghurt and tinned fruit in syrup.
But Hans is crossing the square towards her. She recognises his lean, happy walk. He walks like a youngster, she thinks, smiling to herself. Like a man who knows where he’s going, not afraid of tripping and falling, advancing happily on a new day.
They shake hands without a word. Then, guided by Hans, they cross Miodowa Street and make their way to the police station where he has made an appointment for them.
‘The Germans call it Krakau, the Poles Kraków. It has been the capital of the region of Lower Silesia since the fourteenth century. Doesn’t it make you think of the croaking of crows, this name stuffed with k’s? Kra kra … you can almost hear them. But no, It was founded by King Krak,’ explains Hans, walking beside her and giving her arm a friendly squeeze. ‘They say that in the reign of King Krak a dragon infested the banks of the river. An enormous dragon that ate all the animals in the pasture, destroyed the crops and often even attacked people and tore them to pieces. He had a particular taste for virgin girls, so to keep him in a good mood the villagers would leave a naked girl each month in front of the cave where this revolting beast had his lair.’
Amara half-closes her eyes to savour the story. She loves being guided through a story. She cuddles up mentally in a corner of her body like when she was little, and listens in bliss.
‘The king was fed up with this nuisance so he issued a proclamation promising half his kingdom and his daughter in marriage to anyone who succeeded in suppressing the dragon. Knights came from all over the kingdom and beyond to kill the monster and marry the princess. But the dragon was very strong and very clever and had lots of heads and legs, and scales so tough that no lance could pierce them. When he was hungry he would whip out his long rapacious tongue and grab an animal or a man by the waist, flicking them deftly into its mouth where he would crunch them up with teeth as sharp as knives. People would throw pikes and javelins at the dragon and attack him with swords and knives and hurl enormous rocks, but no one could get the better of him.’