Case White by Thomas Sullivan

Author:Thomas Sullivan [Sullivan, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical fiction, Thriller
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2014-10-05T04:00:00+00:00

“Pisanki!” cry the children, rushing for the wooden bowl containing hard-boiled Easter eggs.

“I did this one – see the stag?” Zbigniew boasts.

“Grazyna’s is the best,” asserts Bogdan.

“No fighting!” Prakseda warns, leveling a finger. “Let Grandmamma choose first.”

Helena Gerlak – Grandmamma – waves the honor aside. “Without my glasses I can’t even see the designs.”

“Take the brown one, Grandmamma,” advises diminutive Jagna, who boiled that particular egg in onion skins.

Zofia is accorded a similar choice, followed by Henryk and each of his four daughters in descending order of age – Prakseda, Lutka, Cecelia, Maria – then the three husbands and unmarried Feliks, and finally, the eight children. Nineteen in all. Henryk rumbles the prayer. Loaves of hot babka, a sweet yellow bread, are brought out. A plump chicken follows, goat’s cheese, cold sour milk, cherry vodka, a wine which Feliks says was “made in Hungary but aged in Poland,” and suddenly there is a knock at the door.

“It’s Father Ledochowski,” Helena predicts as Feliks goes to answer.

But the young man who edges in beside Feliks with his pant cuffs tied in the manner of bikers is a stranger.

“Telegram for Lutka Krantz,” he reads from the envelope.

The long table falls silent.

“People up the street said it must mean here,” the young messenger chirps hopefully.

Aunt Zofia’s eyes weigh heavily on her niece, and Lutka rises like a sleepwalker to accept the telegram, after which Feliks gives the delivery boy a slice of babka and closes the door. The shudder of the bike frame is audible against the crackle of the fire. Something fragile in the way Lutka holds the slip of paper as she reads demands interpretation, and when it flutters to the floor and she bursts into tears, the pang of raw sympathy that flashes round the room misses no one.

Aunt Zofia, having brazenly read over her niece’s shoulder, pushes Lutka into her parents’ bedroom and slams the door. An indecisive moment follows before the general rush to recover the telegram. Prakseda has it, raising it above all hands before slowly lowering it to eye level and reading aloud: “‘REGRET TO INFORM YOU HUSBAND DIED SATURDAY LAST IN AFTERMATH OF EXPLOSION YOUR APARTMENT -- stop -- DEATHBED WISH WAS FOR BABY TO BE NAMED AFTER MATERNAL GRANDFATHER -- stop -- FUNERAL TUESDAY 2 PM ST JAMES CHAPEL BERLIN.’”

Behind the closed door, Zofia has her niece by the arms as she whispers urgently, “Of course he isn’t dead. I sent the telegram. I had to surprise you and hope you’d cry. And so you did. Wonderful crying, and no acting at all. Now it’s struck everyone at once, so it comes out right and not twisted along the way. And you can be sure the messenger alerted half the village trying to find Lutka Krantz – he is the father, isn’t he? You never answered me.”

“Yes.”

“No matter. You and Josef were married, and when you found out you were pregnant, you came home to rest a few months. You were going to break

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