The crowd at the Los Angeles bookstore is bigger than I thought it would be with the memoir having been out six months already. The manager, pleased with the turnout and the sales this evening, isn’t surprised.
“There’s no waning lack of interest in your book,” he murmured to me just before I rose to speak, and when the last chair had filled. “If anything, it’s gaining in popularity. I’ve sold dozens upon dozens of copies, and not just tonight. People are drawn to your book. They want to know how an ordinary person just like them was able to do something extraordinary. It’s inspiring, Miss Calvert. That’s why they are here.”
I imagine he is right. They want the story of the rescue. What draws people when I speak about this book is not the tagged-on plea I give to consider what is happening all over America in state institutions. They come to hear the tale of smuggling disabled children—the few that I could—out of Nazi-occupied Austria. They come to hear about Wilhelm, who survived, and Brigitta, who did not. I still have much work to do to bring audiences pastthe point of saying, “Isn’t it awful what happened over there?” to “Something awful is happening right here.”
I’m proud of the book, and glad it is not a work of science or politics or sociology. I am an expert on none of those things. The publisher didn’t want a book exposing the evils that lie in wait on the eugenics road, anyway; they wanted a story about what I did—with help—to save a handful of victims of intended Nazi cruelty. I gave them that, but I was also allowed to share, in the last chapter, how my wartime experience changed me, how the focus of my life was transformed when I returned home to America and learned what had become of another girl I cared about, a girl who had the ability to see beyond the confines of this world every time a sound fell on her ears, a girl who was also a victim of the quest for perfection, albeit to a lesser degree.
The audience claps heartily when I am done speaking about my experiences and the writing of the book. I am grateful for the enthusiastic response, as always, but I’m ready to sign books and return to the hotel where Amaryllis is waiting for me. I’ve promised her a trip to Sunset Boulevard tomorrow and a matinee at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
The patrons who have bought books crowd around the signing table. Some want to chat with me a few minutes; many want to know why, as I said in my talk, none of the designers and doctors of the T4 program have been brought to court on war crimes, like those in the Nuremberg Trials. I tell them I wish I knew. I don’t have an answer. I wish I did.
The line begins to dwindle, and I see a man and woman at the end of it, hanging back as if they wish to be last. Perhaps they want to have a longer conversation with me. I’m tired and feeling every one of my seventy-one years. But if they want to talk about what I shared, I will. How we treat one another is what we are still able to do something about.
I redirect my attention to the person in front of me, a teacher who says she will be using my book in her high school sociology class next fall. I thank her.
Finally the last person in line is finished with me, and I can see in fuller detail the couple who’s been hanging at the back. They move forward. The woman has my book in her hands. They walk toward me with uncertain steps—she especially.
When she is only a few feet from the table, I do a double take. I know that face, those cheekbones, that nose. They are Amaryllis’s. Suddenly it’s as if two worlds are colliding: the one I’ve been living in for most of my life and the one I had hoped to occupy again someday—the one Rosanne Maras inhabits.
“Rosie?” I say.
She smiles. “Hello, Helen.”
For a second, I am frozen in my chair, and then I am up out of it, on the other side of the book table, and she is in my arms. Tears of joy, relief, and utter surprise are cascading down my cheeks. She is crying, too.
When we part, I step back to look at her. I see traces of the girl I knew among the grapevines all those years ago, but I see Amaryllis, too, in every feature on Rosie’s face, except for her eyes. Amaryllis has her father’s eyes.
“I tried to find you!” I say to her, wiping the wetness from my face. “I could find no record of Rosanne Maras anywhere.”
Her smile deepens. “I haven’t been Rosanne Maras for a long time. I go by Anne now. And my last name is Drummond.” She turns and extends her hand to the man standing behind us, and he steps forward. He is of average build, has a kind face and dark brown hair with the first scatters of gray at the temples.
“This is my husband, Dr. Robert Drummond,” Rosie says.
“What a pleasure it is to meet you, Miss Calvert.” He stretches out his hand to me.
“The pleasure is all mine,” I say.
“Robert is a professor in neuroscience at UCLA,” she continues, smiling at him. I can see that she loves this man very much. And that he loves her. I am so, so glad.
“And you’ve been here in Los Angeles all this time?” I ask.
“For the last fifteen years, anyway. I moved here in 1943. Robert and I were married two years later. He and I met at the hotel in Petaluma where I was working after... after...” Her voice trails off.
“I know what happened before that, Rosie,” I say, grasping her hand.
She nods, swallows down a bit of emotion, blinks back a few fresh tears. “Of course you do. Robert was in Petaluma speaking to a group of scientists about the very condition I have that sent me to that awful place.”
“Synesthesia,” I say. “I went to the Sonoma County institution looking for you when I first returned to the States. It was Dr. Townsend who told me about it.”
“Ah. I should have guessed that’s where you learned of it. I read in your book you knew why they cut into me.”
“You’ve already read it?”
“Robert and I both have. I recognized your name right away when I saw it the first month it came out. And I knew you were talking about me in the last chapter. I almost reached out to you then.”
“I’m so sorry if I shouldn’t have used that variation of your first name. I was thinking if I called you Rose, you’d still have a measure of anonymity. I just wanted people to know you were real, and that what happened to you was real.”
“I don’t mind. I’ve had some time to get used to the idea. I think it’s important what you’ve written about and what you’re doing now by talking about it. I’m grateful. We both are.” She nods toward Robert.
