Love and Treasure Read Free Page A

childlike nod of submission that made his heart ache.
    “I guess I need a new plan,” she said.
    That was when she started to cry. Softly, for a long time, saying nothing about the grandfather she would soon be losing or the husband she had already lost. He patted her on the back and then, when she showed no sign of stopping, went to try to find her a box of Kleenex. He had forgotten to restock. He considered bringing her a roll of toilet paper, then remembered that in his bedroom he had a drawer full of old linen handkerchiefs, ironed flat. As he peeled one off the stack, he saw in the drawer a little pouch of worn black velvet. He hefted it, remembering with a faint pang the weight of it against his palm. At one time thecontents of the pouch had been a kind of obsession. Now the velvet pouch was just one of the things stuffed into his dresser drawers. He wished there was a way to help Natalie understand the flimsiness, the feebleness, of objects, of memory, even of emotions, in the face of time with its annihilating power, greater than that of Darius of Persia or Hitler of Germany. But she would just have to live long and lose enough to find out for herself.
    He feared what Natalie might do after he died, with no job to distract her. He imagined her sitting alone in the midst of a Maine winter, growing ever more depressed, losing the last of the spark that had made her the delight of his life. He weighed the cinched pouch of velvet in his hands for another moment, then took it with him back in the kitchen. He handed her a handkerchief and then, as she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, tipped the contents of the pouch into his palm. He caught hold of the gold chain. The gold-filigreed pendant dangled. It bore the image, in vitreous enamel, of a peacock, a perfect gemstone staring from the tip of each painted feather.
    She flinched when she saw it, as if it were not a pretty little art nouveau bauble but something hideous to contemplate.
    “Ugh,” she said.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “I wish I’d listened to you. You didn’t want me to wear it at the wedding, and I did anyway. And now I’ll think of him every time I look at it and feel ashamed.”
    “That hardly seems fair. After all, I had this necklace long before you and Daniel were even born.”
    “Did you buy it for Grandma, or did she inherit it?”
    “Neither. It was mine.”
    “It wasn’t Grandma’s?”
    “No.”
    “Are you serious? Why did you tell me it was hers? That’s the only reason I wore it!”
    “I never told you it was hers. Why would I tell you that, when it wasn’t?”
    She narrowed her eyes, trying to remember.
    “Huh,” she said, as if to concede the point. “Well, whose was it? Your mother’s?”
    “No.”
    “So whose?”
    “Well, that’s the thing. I don’t know.” He could see theglimmer of interest in her eyes, a revival of the spark that had, until recently, always flickered in the eyes of Natalie Stein. He was going to feed that small fire with whatever tinder came to hand. “That’s why I need your help.”

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    THEY FOUND THE TRAIN PARKED on an open spur not far from the station at Werfen. When they pulled up to the siding in their jeeps, Captain Rigsdale jumped out with a show of alacrity, but Jack hung back, eyeing the train. More than forty wagons, both passenger and freight. The nature of the cargo was as yet undetermined, but in this green and mountainous corner of the American Zone, a string of boxcars was never something Jack felt eager to explore.
    Fencing the train were enemy troops uniformed in ragged khaki. They carried FÉG 35M rifles, but they had flagged their right sleeves with strips torn from white bedsheets, and they displayed no apparent satisfaction with their prize. By the side of the rails, a woman crouched over a wooden bucket filled with soapy water, wringing out a length of white cotton shirting. Two small boys took turns leaping from the door of one of the passenger cars, marking the