Only the Beautiful, page 26
The lobby is nicely appointed, with tall ceilings, stylish rugs, and smartly upholstered furniture. Holly garlands and Christmas wreaths decorate the walls, and a large lighted fir tree sits in one corner of the lobby. The hotel desk clerk, a young woman in a red wool blazer, smiles and wishes me a good afternoon.
I’d thought about what I would say as I drove. The little fib is going to be easy. Rosie is almost like family. Amaryllis makes it nearly so.
“Good afternoon,” I greet the hotel clerk in return. “I’m looking for a relative who worked here and with whom I lost contact during the war. I was stuck in Europe, you see, and unable to stay in touch with her. Now that I’m home, I would very much like to find her.”
I am counting on the deprivations of the war to win me some sympathy, and I can tell that they do.
“I’d be happy to help if I can,” the woman says kindly. “What is the name?”
“Her name is Rosanne Maras. It would have been the fall of 1940 when she started her job here. I don’t suppose she is still employed at the hotel?”
“I’m afraid there is no one by that name currently working at the hotel, but I can ask the manager. He’s been here longer than me. If you want to take a seat, I’ll inquire for you.”
I thank her and sit down in the lobby. Five minutes later an older, gray-haired man comes out from an office located behind the reception desk. I start to rise, and he motions me with a smile to keep my seat. He chooses an armchair across from me.
“I’m Douglas Brohm,” he says, his smile widening, “manager of the Pacifica.”
“Helen Calvert.”
“So you’re asking about a former employee, Rosanne Maras? She’s a relation of yours?”
“Yes. I’ve been overseas. The war made it difficult to stay in touch.”
“It was quite a while ago when she worked at the Pacifica. Might I ask if you are aware of how she came to be here?” Mr. Brohm says this cautiously, as though a relative of Rosanne Maras will surely know that.
“Yes. She came to you from the Sonoma State Home for the Infirm.”
He nods, satisfied, it seems, that I know the finer details of Rosie’s history. “Yes, we were happy to participate in that release program for a number of years.”
“So, did she stay here for a while after being fully released from the state?”
“For a time. She resigned in 1943. I checked her personnel file before coming out to see you.”
“And do you know if she quit to take another job elsewhere, perhaps?” I hear the longing in my voice. I see in Mr. Brohm’s expression that he hears it, too.
“She did not say where she was going. She was quite cordial when she quit, though. Thanked me and the staff for giving her the chance to make something of herself.”
“Did she stay in contact with any of the other staff that were here at the time?”
“As I recall, she did not. I can ask the head of housekeeping if she is aware of anyone having been in contact with Rosanne over the years, but my guess is no one has. I have not heard her name mentioned since the day she left, until today. Rosanne was a good worker, but she kept to herself. Again, I’m very sorry.”
“I am, too.” I sigh. “Do you know where in Petaluma she was living when she worked here? Might she have had roommates or a landlord who she stayed in touch with?”
He hesitates before answering. “Sorry, but I don’t think I’m at liberty to divulge an employee’s personal information to someone I’ve just met. I take it none of your other family members have stayed in touch with her?”
“No. It’s . . . it’s complicated with my family.”
“I see.” He stands, signaling he has nothing else to offer me.
“May I leave you my phone number in case your head of housekeeping might know where Rosanne went when she left here?” I ask. “And would you be willing to contact the landlord of the last residence you have on record and inquire about Rosie? I know it’s a lot to ask. I wouldn’t trouble you if it wasn’t important. That person can just call me, then, if they have been in contact with her.”
“I can have one of the clerks look into this for you.” He reaches into the breast pocket of his suit coat and removes a hotel business card from a little brass case. He hands it to me. “Jot your name and telephone number on the back of the card there. If we hear that anyone might have information for you, I will call you.”
I write down George and Lila’s phone number and hand the card back to him. My frustration seems to keep me pressed to the chair, and I rise as if burdened by the weight of it.
“I can see you had hoped for better information about your relative, and I’m sorry I can’t provide it, but I can tell you when she left here she seemed happy,” Mr. Brohm says.
The heaviness in my chest lessens a bit. “She did?”
“Yes. Happy enough for me to remember it, Miss Calvert. I hope you can take some comfort in that.”
“Thank you for telling me. It actually means a great deal.” I shake his hand, leave the hotel, and return to the Studebaker to head back to San Francisco.
* * *
• • •
I spend the next two days alternating between feeling like I’ll never know what has become of Rosie Maras and nursing the hope that I will.
I check the local and regional phone books in the downtown library, looking for a Rosanne Maras to no avail. I place calls to directory assistance in Los Angeles and San Diego and Sacramento. No Rosanne Maras is listed.
I call the Sonoma County social services office and ask for Eunice Grissom, the name on the letter I found in Celine’s file cabinet, not knowing if she’s still a social worker employed there. She is, but she offers me no more than what I already know: Rosie was released from county oversight on her twenty-first birthday.
“I’ve not heard from her,” the woman tells me. “And it’s not likely that I would have. She wasn’t under any obligation to keep me informed of her whereabouts.”
“Do you know where her baby was placed? Or perhaps what kind of family adopted her?” I ask next.
“Even if I did, I couldn’t tell you,” Mrs. Grissom says.
I’d figured as much.
“Can you tell me if Rosie was agreeable to her daughter being adopted? Can you tell me that?” I ask.
“I’m not telling you that, either.”
“She wasn’t, was she? That’s why she named her. Rosie wanted to keep Amaryllis.”
“Rosanne Maras was seventeen, homeless, and with no means to support herself. It doesn’t matter if she did or didn’t.”
“It matters because Amaryllis will be the only child Rosie will ever have.”
Mrs. Grissom is quiet for a moment. “So you know about the procedure she had done at the institution.”
“I do. Dr. Townsend told me all about it.” I suddenly don’t care if I burn a bridge here. This woman will be of no help to me. “And she didn’t have it done. It was done to her.”
Mrs. Grissom’s tone changes when next she speaks. “I didn’t make that decision. I wasn’t consulted.”
“But you knew they did that sort of thing when you took her there, didn’t you? My sister-in-law knew. And how could Celine have known unless you told her?”
“Look, I do the best I can with what I am actually able to do. Try doing my job and see how well you can make the laws work perfectly for the people under your care. I have to go. I’ve got far more to do today than time to do it.”
“Wait, please. Just answer that one question,” I say. “Please?”
She huffs. “Which one?”
“Did Rosie want to give my niece up for adoption?”
The woman pauses a moment before answering. “She didn’t. She wanted to keep her baby. But that was impossible. You know that, don’t you?”
“I would have taken her.”
“But you weren’t here. I need to go.”
Before I can say anything else, the line falls dead.
For hours after we hang up, I console myself with the knowledge that at least when Rosie left Petaluma, she seemed happy. Somehow, despite what happened to her, she found contentment.
When I strike out with the county, George offers to consult a partner in his firm who practices family law about getting the court order.
“But it might take time and effort to convince a judge you’re Amaryllis’s aunt with no proof of paternity,” he tells me. “And even if we get the order and are able to learn which receiving home the baby was sent to, the adoption records are most likely sealed. Your being Amaryllis’s biological aunt won’t matter then. The child will be her adoptive family’s legal daughter.”
“I know,” I tell him. And I do know. Yet I yearn for assurance that Amaryllis is safe and loved and cared for. It’s likely that some family in Northern California or south of San Jose or somewhere in the vastness of San Francisco is happily raising Amaryllis. But I want to know it for fact, not just hope it.
As George and Lila are in no hurry for me to start looking for my own place, I unpack most of my belongings into one of the bedrooms on the third floor and begin using the other room as a little sitting area so that I can have time to myself at the end of the day, and also give my friends some time alone as well. They tell me not to rush to look for a job, and to use this time during the holiday season to conduct my search.
I find that I get along quite well with George and Lila. If I’d stayed in the Bay Area instead of moving to Europe, I might’ve found the man of my dreams here and married him, and my husband and I and George and Lila would have been couples who took their children to the circus together and had dinner parties and celebrated the holidays together just as I was celebrating with them now. I don’t regret the life I’ve led, but I’m acutely aware that if I’d made different choices, my life would have had a far different trajectory, and not only my life but other lives, too. So much would be different at this moment if I had stayed.
On the last day of the year, I summon the courage to give Celine a call to wish her a happy New Year and to apologize for how we ended things on Christmas Eve.
“Why are you really calling?” she says calmly after I’ve done both, rightly guessing I’ve an ulterior motive in phoning her. “Do you honestly think we have more to say to each other?”
“It’s New Year’s Eve and the perfect time to bury the hatchet, don’t you think? I am really sorry that I upset you and then left without saying good-bye.”
“What do you want, Helen?”
I pause before answering, even though there is no point now in beating around the bush.
“I just want you to sign an affidavit that Truman was the father of Rosie’s child. I’ll never mention this again to you, Celine. Or anyone else. Ever. I promise.”
She laughs lightly. “You must be mad. Why on earth would I do that?”
“Because it will allow me to find out what receiving home my niece was sent to.”
“Your niece.”
“Rosie had a little girl.”
She pauses, but only for a moment. “I’m not signing any such paper, and I’ll swear to anyone who asks that I have no idea who fathered that tramp’s child.”
“Please, Celine? I’m begging you.”
“I don’t care if you crawl back here on your hands and knees to get it, Helen. No.”
“All I want is to know my niece is all right, that’s she’s living a happy life.”
Again Celine laughs. A mirthless guffaw. “I don’t give a damn what you want. Do you actually think I’d drag my family’s reputation through the mud for what you want?”
“No one has to know. It’s just for one judge in one courtroom.”
“Don’t call me anymore, Helen.”
“Celine—”
But the line clicks off. She is gone.
I set the handset down hard, despite knowing it had been a long shot thinking Celine would want to help me.
I can only hope that George and his partner will be able to craft a compelling argument without her help.
That evening, George and Lila invite several friends over, and I find myself enjoying the festivities more than I thought I would. We play charades and Parcheesi and eat oysters on the half shell. There is dancing and singing and card games. It is the most joyous I have felt since my happiest days in Vienna.
The following day, the three of us get up late. We are enjoying coffee and leftover Parker House rolls from dinner the night before when the telephone rings. George comes back to the breakfast nook after answering and tells me the call is for me.
“It’s a Mr. Stuart Townsend,” George says with a smile. I spring from my chair to pick up the receiver on the telephone table between the kitchen and dining room.
“Hello, Stuart,” I say. “Please tell me you have news for me.”
“I do,” he replies. “I figured I could sneak into the offices unnoticed this morning with it being New Year’s Day. There’s no one on the first floor except me right now. I found the name of the receiving home where Amaryllis was taken. It’s called Fairbrook Children’s Home and it’s in Oakland. Do you want the address?”
“Yes, yes!” I fumble for a pencil and a piece of notepaper. He speaks the address and I scribble it down. “Thank you so much for this, Stuart.” My voice starts to break. “I really am so very grateful.”
“You’re . . . you’re welcome.”
I hear emotion in his voice, too.
“Did you happen to find out if Rosie is still working at that hotel?” he asks.
“She left that place some years ago.”
I tell Stuart about my visit to the Pacifica and my conversation with Mr. Brohm.
“I’m beginning to think I’ll never find out what became of her, but the manager said she seemed happy when she left, Stuart. There is that.”
“All right,” he says, but I can tell it isn’t all right.
“What is it?” I ask him. “Why is it so important to you that I find her? What is it that you are sorry for?”
He is quiet for a moment. “Rosie and another resident had a chance to escape when I was on security detail,” he finally says. “I ruined it for them. I blew my whistle.”
“Weren’t you just a boy?”
“I had just turned fourteen. The other resident got away, but Rosie had just given birth and she couldn’t run. I don’t know if Rosie would’ve been able to make good her escape, but she might have had a chance if I hadn’t blown the whistle. I wish I hadn’t. She was a nice person. And smart. I didn’t think she belonged here, and I’ve always wished I had done things differently.”
“All of us, at some point in our lives, wish for a way to go back in time and make different decisions. I wish for it, too. You have no idea how much.”
We are both quiet for a moment.
“Do you want me to let you know what I find out about Amaryllis?” I ask him.
“I would. Please write to me at the university, though. Don’t try to call me here.”
He gives me his address.
“I’ll stay in touch,” I say. “Thank you, Stuart. So very much. And happy New Year.”
“Same to you.”
When I hang up, I consider, only for a moment, calling the Fairbrook Children’s Home right then. But I want to see the place, want the people who run it to see me. I want to see for myself what kind of environment my infant niece was placed in, and I want its managers to see for themselves what kind of person I am. I want them to meet me, not just hear my voice. I want them to want to help me.
I know I’m not going to be given the name of the family who adopted Amaryllis or the address where they live. But I am hoping compassion will win out and I’ll be told in general terms about the couple who chose her. Took her home. Gave her their last name.
And yes, I want the people who run this children’s home to decide it might be wise to contact this family and let them know their adopted daughter has an aunt who just learned of her existence. What if Amaryllis is wondering where she came from? What if she is troubled, as any eight-year-old might be, by not knowing? Maybe Amaryllis desperately needs to know the mother who bore her wanted very much to keep her but couldn’t. I can give Amaryllis that assurance. I can tell her a lot about her mother if given the chance.
I’m fully aware that the adoptive family may not want anything to do with me. It’s possible they haven’t even told Amaryllis she is adopted. But what if the opposite is true? What if they have?
I walk back into the kitchen. “May I borrow the Studebaker tomorrow, George?” I ask. “I need to go to Oakland.”
29
Before . . .
MAY TO JUNE 1940
When I returned to the Maier house from my unsuccessful trip to Am Steinhof, the older children were not yet home from school, and Martine, who’d been given a sedative, was asleep in her bed. The friend whom I’d phoned to come for Martine, a fellow officer’s wife named Therese, had called for the family doctor, and he had just left after supplying additional calming pills for Martine, should they be needed. Therese had also learned that Johannes had been contacted by the Viennese field office overseeing the transfer of disabled children to Am Steinhof and was now arranging to be granted several days’ leave. Therese had spoken to him on the telephone.
“What did he say? Can he get her back? Is that why he’s coming home early?” I asked Therese. We were standing in the Maier kitchen as Therese made us both a cup of tea.
“I don’t know that he can get her back,” Therese said doubtfully.
For several seconds, I couldn’t make sense of her answer. Of course he could get her back. Of course he could.
Couldn’t he?
