22. The Monastery

Chapter twenty-two

The Monastery

"Many girls came here during the war," the Mother Superior sits across from us in her small office. She's about sixty or older, wearing a black dress, habit, and black-rimmed glasses. I look at the large, simple, silver cross pendant around her neck. It's hard for me to concentrate. I'm so tense.

"We're looking for a girl named Rebecca, about nine years old," Father Nicholas tells her. I look around at the small office. A simple wooden table, a large wooden cupboard by the window that's facing the yard, and a simple wooden cross hanging above her head. Everything is so quiet here. I can't hear the children.

"I don't think a girl named Rebecca came here, but that shouldn't worry you," she smiles at me. "Many girls came here with pseudo names and fake identity cards, you see, the Germans…"

"So, could my Rebecca be here?" I ask her.

"We will do what we always do when parents come looking for lost children," she looks at me. "In a few minutes, they will finish class and go to lunch. Before that, we will line them up, and you will walk among them and try to recognize her, or she will recognize you."

"I hope so," I whisper.

"Me too," she smiles at me. "And if not, there are other monasteries that hid children during the war. You mustn't despair."

"Thank you," I tell her, feeling my stomach churn with tension.

I hear the scutter of feet in the corridor outside the door, "Here, they have finished studying. We will go soon," she says. I'm so afraid to stand up and see the girls. What if she's not here?

"What's with this teddy bear? It's a little girl's toy," I hear shouting in the corridor.

"It's not a bear. It's a girl bear," someone replies, and I hold my breath, feeling dizzy.

"It's a teddy bear, and now it's mine," the first girl shouts outside the door.

"I apologize," I think I hear Mother Superior say. "They can sometimes be a bit wild," and then I hear shouts and crying voices and someone wailing outside, "She stabbed me with a pencil. She wounded me."

"It's okay, I'm sorry," I say to the Mother Superior, get up, walk to the door, and open it. My heart is pounding, and I think I'm going to faint. I go out into the corridor and look at the two girls fighting. The bigger one with golden hair is standing there, crying, and the other is slightly shorter than her with wild brown hair. She holds on to a torn raggedy bear with button eyes – one eye small and the other one big – in one hand, and a pencil in the other. Rebecca, my Rebecca.