I I refused to let my son disappear into oblivion as if its existence had never counted. In 1972, I finally had a serious lead. An old administrator of Vertmart had agreed to meet me. He lived in a retirement home in Strasbourg, consumed by illness and guilt. When I entered his room, I saw an emaciated old man, his eyes pressed down, hands trembling.
He told me looked at it for a long time before speaking. You are corn rock? Yes, sit down. I sat down. My heart was beating so so loud that I was afraid he would hear it. I remember the Adler family, he said slowly. They were at privileged, close to the regime. They have received several children during the war, children of programs special.
I tightened the stitches to keep myself from tremble. Where are they now? They went to Austria after the war, Salzburg, I think, but I don’t know if they are still there. He gave me a name street, a neighborhood. It was more than that that I had in 29 years. I have it thanked. He looked away, unable to meet my gaze.
I left for Salzburg the month next. I was sixty years old. My hair was almost completely gray. My hands trembled constantly cause of artitis. My knees caused pain at every step. But I went there. The train journey has lasted for hours. I watched it parade the landscapes out the window, the mountains, forests, villages.
I thought of all those wasted years, all this time when my son was growing up without me somewhere, maybe a few hundred kilometers only. Did he look like me? Had he inherited my eyes, from my mouth? Did he know that he was adopted? Did we have him talk about me? I found an Adler in Salzburg telephone directory.
Hans Adler. I wrote down the address in my worn notebook, the one where I had written hundreds of names over the years. Then I walked to this house as we walk towards a precipice knowing we’re going to jump anyway. It was a good bourgeois house maintained with a flower garden. Of roses climbed along the facade.
A children’s swing was installed under a large chain. Everything exuded normality. Peaceful life. quiet happiness. I rang the bell. The seconds that followed were the most long of my life. Then the door open. A man in his thirties of years stood there. Brown hair, dark eyes, marked features. My heart stopped. It was him. I knew it.
Every cell in my body knew it. I recognized something in his face. A resemblance to my mother, with Séverine, with myself perhaps. “Yes,” he said in German with a hint of impatience. I couldn’t manage speak. The words got stuck in my throat. I looked at him, unable to look away. I was looking for traces of me in him, of my sisters, of my family gone.
Are you doing well ? he asked his tone changing, becoming restless. I I looking for someone, I finally managed to say in my German hesitant. A man born in June 1943, adopted by the Adler family. His face changed instantly. Any color left him. A shadow passed into his eyes. He took a step back. For what ? I took a deep breath.
I have gathered all my courage because I am his mother. The silence that followed was unsustainable. He looked at me as if I was a ghost from his past to haunt him. His hands were tense on the door frame. Its breathing accelerated. Then slowly, without a word, he stepped back and closed the door. I stood there on the porch.
legs trembling, the heart in pieces. I heard voices inside. A woman who asked what was happening passed by, he who answered something that I couldn’t understand. I have waited maybe 10x minutes, maybe an hour. Time no longer had sense, but the door did not open. Finally, I left a letter in the mailbox. A letter where I explained everything, which I was, what happened, why I had come.
I left him the address from my hotel. Then I came home and I cried for three days. He doesn’t didn’t want me. He didn’t want know. I had been traveling for almost 30 years old, crossing borders, saved every penny, pursued every track and now that I finally had it found, he rejected me. But I don’t couldn’t give up. Not now, not after all this way.
I am came back the next day, I rang the bell, no one responded. I came back on two days later, same result. I left other letters, photos of me young people, a photo of Séverine and d’Aurore, camp documents, everything that I had kept during all these years. The 5th time it opened. He looked exhausted, deep dark circles under the eyes, the hollow face.
“What do you want from me?” he asked, his voice almost breaking pleading. “Nothing,” I replied. gently. I don’t want to take anything you. I just want you to know that you you were wanted, that I didn’t have you abandoned, that I was torn from you, that not a single day of my life have I stopped to think of you. He closed his eyes.
A tear rolled down her cheek. They got me said my mother died during the war, that I was an orphan, that my biological parents had indope in a bombing. I know, I whispered. I know this what they told you. They lied to me. Its voice trembled with anger and pain melee. Yes, he opened his eyes and told me looked, really looked for the first time.
