Box of Secrets

I open the wooden box that I brought back from my parents’ home. I have never seen this box before. It was hidden in my mother’s hope chest, under knitted baby clothes and blankets. I lift the latch and find brown envelopes full of old photographs. One picture falls out and I pick it up. The black and white photograph is faded, but I am still caught in their gaze. I wonder who they are, with the mountain lake behind them. Instinct makes me flip the picture over and I am rewarded by the faded ink script on the back. Fred and Bunny, Lake Annecy, France 1944. My first thought is who would be crazy enough to be called Bunny.  My second thought is why France? And then, who is the officer?

I stare at the girl in the picture. Solemn. Not joyful. The man looks like he has stared into the face of death too many times to ever find joy again. He is wearing a uniform. German, I think.  I shift into memory mode, my brain going through the lists of relatives, cousins, aunts, grandmas. Nothing comes to mind. More questions fly through my head.

Maybe I am mistaken about the names. I flip the picture over again. Trying to see if I was mistaken. Nope. Fred and Bunny. I flip the picture again. Maybe they will be smiling this time. Nope. Still gazing at me from the past. I sift through the fragile envelope of old photographs that I unearthed from my mother’s boxes of family history. My mother never discussed much of her family. I know that her mother is a war bride, marrying a Canadian soldier and moving here from France. Gran has never said much about that time.

I sift through the box. More photos that I have never seen before, although I recognize my grandmother, standing in front of the same mountain lake. I do not recognize the man with her as my grandfather. Who is the man in the picture then? Where is my grandfather? Are they on holiday? During the War? Why did they take a picture of the unknown couple? Nothing makes sense.

Pictures of a farm, with a stone house and a sorry barn, some sad children and a few scrawny chickens. No one is laughing. Their spirits are as faded as the pictures themselves. The same spidery handwriting is on the back of some of the pictures. At last, I decipher a name I know – Edith. My grandmother, standing amongst several children. Henri. The man standing with her at the lake.

I dig further. More tattered envelopes, more pictures, some letters, written on paper as thin as butterfly wings. Just as I build up my courage to remove the letters, the front door slams shut and yelling ensues. My children are home. They will be looking for supper, which I have quite forgotten about. So much for any more peace tonight. I put the lid back on the box and tuck it under the edge of my bed, where I have been sitting.

The rest of the evening passes in the usual round of “Mom, Carter’s looking at me!” and “Mom, Sara’s breathing my air!” How come my twins don’t get along like other twins? There is no mystical connection between them. They are eight-year-old terrors, disrupting all thought of peace until bedtime. I ignore them and plunk re-heated chicken and noodles in front of them. My husband has pulled out a bagged salad from the fridge and dumped it into a bowl. Caesar salad. My favourite.

“Mom! Dad knows I hate this salad! How come he always gets salad I hate?” Sara whines.

“Because he knows that it’s my favorite!” Carter retorts.

“No, it isn’t! You hate salad! She replies, and tonight’s battle gears up into full swing.

“That’s enough.” I growl half-heartedly. I am not really listening to them. My thoughts are back with the box under my bed.

“Jeannie, how can you stand their bickering?” David’s exasperated voice cuts through the noise.

“Practice,” I reply and dig into my salad. After dinner, David orders the twins outside “to work off steam”.

“I hope they don’t kill each other,” I say.

“Don’t worry, our neighbors will let us know if they do.”

David is right, although I don’t tell him so. It wouldn’t be the first time that our neighbors have paid us a visit, to make sure we knew about the behavior of the yelling maniacs in our backyard. I wanted to have nice, well mannered children who never fought with each other. All I can hope for is that constant reminders, repeated consequences for misbehaviour and outright threats of dumping them on Great Grandma’s doorstep would one day have the positive effect of turning them into civilized human beings.

 Of course. Great Grandma. My grandmother. I will ask her directly about the photos. I can’t ask my mother anymore. Her dementia has worsened this year. She now resides in a long-term care facility. My father can’t look after her. She wanders off, maybe in search of her lost past.

“David, how do you feel about going to see my grandma on the weekend?” I blurt out.

“Could do.” I hear the unspoken “why”.

I explain about the photographs. About Bunny, whom I can’t stop thinking about. He sighs and agrees.

“It would be nice if we didn’t have to bring the kids. Several hours in a vehicle with them is terrifying.” He says.

“Would your sister be willing to look after them?”

“Perhaps I can bribe her.” He goes to make the arrangements with his sister, Tammy. The kids are intimidated by Aunty Tam, who has climbed mountains, parachuted out of airplanes and loves to ride her purple motorcycle all summer. David and I are too ordinary for them, teachers who, thankfully, don’t teach at the same school they attend.

While David is making arrangements, I quickly tidy the kitchen and return to the box of photographs. I bring the box out to the kitchen table. The light is better there. There is that picture on top – of Bunny. I look more closely at her. Why does she haunt me so?  

The dishwasher gurgles and I glance up. A picture of Sara catches my eye. I am struck by her resemblance to the girl in the picture. They have the same heart shaped face and dark almond shaped eyes. Both have dark straight hair, bobbed at the shoulders. Everyone says Sara looks like me. Slight, with olive skin tones attributed to my grandmother. So why does Sara look like this mysterious Bunny?

The weekend takes forever to arrive. I survive the week by calling my grandmother, teaching grade nine language arts, marking assignments, refereeing my children and trying not to dwell on Bunny, who now appears to me in my dreams. I wonder if she was in love with the soldier. I wonder if they survived the war and found happiness at some point. I wondered so much that my nights were shortened. I become obsessed with Bunny. I find no more pictures of her though I search all the envelopes in the wooden box. I read and re-read the letters, looking for hints and finding none.  

 Through the letters, I re-learn that my grandmother married my grandpa Ernie, a Canadian soldier, and moved to Invermere, British Columbia, country not unlike the farm she had left, where they opened a restaurant and raised their family. I vaguely know that she grew up in France, near the border with Switzerland.  She rarely discusses her past. I now wonder why. I had put down her reticence to speak about France to not wanting to relive memories of the war. I wonder if there is something more to this story.

On Friday, Aunty Tam arrives, driving her Jeep, rather than the motorcycle. She unloads her overnight bag and strides up to the house. I have warned the twins that Aunty Tam will be staying with them and will give me a full report when I return home on Sunday. They may not want to stay with their aunt but the thought of the four hour drive to Invermere is worse. They are relieved to not be going with us.

The drive with David is blissfully quiet. We listen to a blues party on the radio. I tell him more about the photo of Bunny and how she looks like Sara. He is surprised but absorbs this information as he drives, concentrating on the highway as dusk settles over the mountains. He is worried about running into a moose at this time of night.

By the time we arrive at my grandmother’s, the full moon is high overhead, illuminating the ink dark sky. The front porch light is on. We park the suv in front of her bungalow. David carries our bags up to the door. I carry the bag with the wooden box and it’s contents as though it might disappear if I blink.

Grandma Edith greets us with hugs and kisses. She seems smaller than the last time I saw her at Spring Break.

“Hello, darlings,” she says as she steps back so we can enter the tiny entryway.

“You can have the bedroom on the right” she directs us to put our bags in the bedroom down the hall.

“Now, come have some tea.” She commands. We follow her into the kitchen, where a green ceramic teapot and matching cups await us on the glass topped kitchen table. There are ginger cookies. We drink tea and eat cookies, telling her about our trip, about how the children are growing and how glad we are to see her. She yawns in spite of herself and we convince her that we are tired and must go to sleep too. I put the box on the dresser. We get into our pyjamas and crawl under the log cabin quilt on the bed. The room is sparse, except for the maple mid twentieth century bedroom suite. David is asleep in minutes. I lay awake listening to the far-off chiming of the clock in the living room. Sleep arrives in the deep middle of the night.

The next day, Grandma has set out cereal, toast, jam, milk, juice, and coffee. She is bright and cheerful despite her late night.

“I am so glad you came to see me. But you could have brought the kids. I miss them.”

“We are happy to have a break,” David says, and she laughs. After breakfast is done and the dishes are cleared, I bring out the box of photographs and letters.

“Where did you get this?” she asks as she runs her hand over the smooth wood.

“Mom had it. I found it when we moved her to the long-term care place,” I say.

“I wondered what happened to it.”

“I have questions.”

“I am sure you do. David, be a dear and fill our coffee cups please.” David obliges and returns to the armchair, curious as well.

“Who is Henri? And Bunny?”

Gran sighs and sets her cup down. She picks up his picture, ignoring the one with Bunny.

“He was my husband. We lived on a farm near Lake Annecy, close to the Swiss border. He was older than me but was a loving husband, in his own way. We didn’t have any children. Then war came. My sister and her family moved from town, out to the farm, where we could grow more food and be away from the soldiers.

“Who is Bunny?” I ask again. She sighs and sips her coffee. She picks up the picture of Bunny and the soldier.

“She was a Jewish girl from town. Her real name was Bernice. She fell in love with a young German soldier. Frederick. He knew she was Jewish and wanted to protect her. She was a friend of my sister’s. They came to us for help. They told us that they planned to marry after the war. But she had become pregnant. It was no longer safe for Fred to visit us. It was getting more dangerous for everyone. I helped my husband deliver her baby. She was getting weak but she held on and delivered a baby girl. Fred was both pleased and scared. One night Bunny died. Fred was heartbroken. He didn’t know what to do about his daughter, who they had named Amelie. Henri told him that we will take her but we must register her as ours at the hospital. Fred and Henri went into town and filled out the paperwork and she became our daughter, your mother. He said that I gave birth to her at home. No one cared enough to investigate.

“What about that photo of them? When was that taken?” I ask.

“In the fall. When there was not so much to do on the farm. We took the cart and horse up to the lake, which was not far away. Just to have a day. Fred wanted to see it. She may have been pregnant by then. I don’t remember.

“After Amelie was born, Fred came to warn us that someone thought we were hiding a Jewish girl. We hitched up the horse and loaded the baby and my sister’s children into the cart and headed for the border. Fred gave us some passes that he procured somehow. I never asked. We escaped just in time but Henri’s heart gave out. He died a few days after we reached Switzerland. There we were, without a clue what to do when a young soldier came up to us. He helped us find a room for the night. His name was Ernie McGregor. He was on leave due to a leg injury. He was going to be sent home to Canada soon. I was grateful for his help. We were in that small town for a few weeks. I don’t remember the name. One day he says come with me to Canada. I was so surprized I nearly dropped the baby. I said you don’t even know me and what about my sister and her family? He says I can arrange to have you all come home with me to Canada. All I knew about Canada was that there was snow but I couldn't see what else to do so I married him.”

“And here you are…” I say.

“Yes, here I am,” my grandma replies.

“What happened to Fred?” David asks.

“Through friends, I received a letter. He was arrested and jailed. Someone reported his affair with Bernice. I can only assume he died. I never heard from him again.”

“Did my mother know this story?”

“She didn’t want to know. I don’t think she ever asked about my past. She was happy to live only in the present. Maybe she stole this box, thinking that I would forget. But that was impossible. She looked just like Bernice. So do you and Sara.”

“Do you remember Bernice’s last name?”

“Fried? No, Friedman, I think.”

“Thank you, Gran.” I hug her as she wipes a tear away.

“It’s been a long time.” She caresses the box again, visiting the ghosts of the past. I know that I must leave the box with her. These are her memories, not mine.

David has prepared some egg salad sandwiches for us. I didn’t even notice that he had left the room.

After we eat, my grandmother goes to lay down for a rest. David says “You know that you can probably find out how to look her family up through one of the Synagogues.”

We take Gran out for dinner then retire early. I finally sleep.

We return home the next day, where the children have been complete angels, according to my sister-in-law. She will never admit that they are anything less than perfect for her. David gives her a bottle of her favourite wine as recompense.   

At night, after the lights are out and I am left alone with my thoughts, I know that this journey is not over yet and start making plans for a holiday to France. I briefly wonder what Aunty Tam’s plans are for the summer.