CARMARTHEN, WALES
THURSDAY, DECEMBER12, 1940
Thanks to Mrs. Owen’s thorough local registry, Aleida’s work in Carmarthen went quickly, leaving time to interview evacuees and foster parents. Miss Granville still encouraged her to visit the country to build the national registry of evacuees, but Aleida hadn’t mentioned she continued her interviews.
Her initial goal for collecting the stories had been to persuade families to evacuate their children. Now she simply wanted to document conditions, good or ill. With hundreds of interviews, she would soon be ready to type her report.
After Aleida packed her notes and registry cards in her small suitcase, she smiled at the billeting officer seated across the desk from her. Mrs. Owen showed extraordinary care for evacuees and foster families. “Thank you for your help. The evacuees here are blessed.”
“It’s our blessing to help them.” A slender woman around forty, Mrs. Owen wore her light brown hair in a simple pageboy cut. “Are you finished?”
Aleida rubbed the nubby brown leather of her suitcase. To ask about Theo on the twelfth day of the twelfth month—onTheo’s fourth birthday, nonetheless—felt like yielding to superstition.
Yet she’d be remiss not to ask in every town she visited. She gripped the suitcase handle to busy her hands. “Has anyone mentioned a boy of four, blond hair, blue eyes, possibly a Dutch accent? He’s missing the fingers on his right hand.”
Mrs. Owen pressed her fingertips to her round chin and frowned. “A few months ago we had a little boy with some sort of hand deformity. We had to send him to the hostel.”
“The hostel?”
“For the children who are hard to place—persistent bedwetters, delinquents, those with delicate health—and we’re required to send all refugees to hostels as well.” Mrs. Owen raised a flimsy smile. “It isn’t as medieval as it sounds. The children are cared for well, and they’re better off than with foster families who can’t manage their needs.”
Aleida’s face tingled as the blood drained away. Although stories of hard-to-place children peppered her interviews, no one had mentioned hostels. Theo was a refugee. Could he be in a hostel?
“The little boy is Dutch?” Mrs. Owen inclined her head. “You know him?”
“He’s my son.” Her voice cracked.
Mrs. Owen sprang up and flung her coat over her green WVS uniform. “My husband is a doctor, so we have petrol in the car. Shall we go?”
What if this little boy was Theo? Could it be? Would she see him today?
“Come.” Mrs. Owen handed Aleida her dark blue coat.
With an intake of breath and hope, Aleida put on her coat and followed Mrs. Owen out of the guildhall and down to the road running alongside the ruins of Carmarthen Castle.
They climbed into a black car, and Mrs. Owen drove away, chatting about the history of the castle and of the new bridgethat replaced a medieval structure a few years before. Dreadful, wasn’t it, but necessary.
She was trying to distract Aleida, but it didn’t work.
Theo.
Her heart fluttered. How much had he grown? Would he recognize her? If she’d known she might find him today, she would have brought Oli and the little wooden lorry she’d bought for his birthday.
Tap, tap. Aleida grimaced and shoved her hand under her thigh.
Still Mrs. Owen talked, now about the Welsh language and how evacuees struggled to understand some of the foster parents at first, and how the foster families struggled with Cockney accents and such.
Even though trapped, Aleida’s fingers jiggled on the seat.
It seemed a month until they reached the hostel, a three-story brick home surrounded by gardens and lawns.
“I resist sending children here.” Mrs. Owen parked the car. “I believe there’s a home for every child, but sometimes we have no choice.”
“I understand.” Aleida’s voice quivered.
Mrs. Owen rang the bell, and a woman admitted them and led them to the matron’s office. Miss Lloyd, a heavyset woman in her sixties, greeted them.
After introductions were made, Mrs. Owen nodded to Aleida. “Mrs. Martens is searching for her son, a little boy of four with a hand deformity.”
