I thanked him, and we both left the confessional box. The church was empty, and we walked down the aisle to the door together.
The priest opened the heavy door, and golden late-summer sunshine lit his boyish face. He tried to pull a sober expression but his wide, honest eyes were dancing with excitement. “Even if the bishop says yes, which I doubt, how could it be managed?”
“Oh, if he says yes, I’ll find a way to manage it.”
He laughed out loud and suddenly felt more like a friend than a priest.
“Izabela,” he said, and I was surprised he even knew my name, “I believe you will.”
He shook my hand.
“I’ll come the day after tomorrow,” I said.
• • •
If my mother was surprised at my new desire to attend mass, she didn’t say anything. She could hardly criticize me for being a whore one day and a saint the next, and so I sat through the early-morning mass two days later in a welter of anticipation.
Afterward, I positioned myself on the grassy bank below the church and waited for the last of the pious ladies to leave. Finally the priest came to the door, beckoning me inside.
We sat in one of the back pews, under the balcony. It felt private and safe.
“I saw the bishop,” he said cautiously.
“Thank you.” I twisted my hands together in impatience.
His eyes were raised to the paintings of the stations of the cross. In profile, his nose had a hooked shape like a Roman emperor’s.
“The bishop said it is most irregular and has little precedence in canon law.”
“But can it be done?”
He glanced quickly at me, full of concern for a moment, and then smiled. “I have permission. Under the circumstances of the war.”
I moved to hug him and then held back, remembering he was a priest. “Oh, thank you, thank you!”
“We’ll have to have two witnesses. Does the prisoner—your fiancé—speak Czech or German?”
“No.”
“And I can’t speak English. So we’ll have to have a witness who can translate everything.”
My heart fell like lead. To have to tell another person could risk everything.
But the priest had already been thinking, “The organist, Mr. Novak, speaks good English. He might be willing to help.”
Mr. Novak was no good. I’d known him since I was a child. He was a dear friend of my father’s, another Czech musician.
“He’d tell my mother,” I blurted out. “He was my father’s closest friend. He’s eaten meals with us so many times. He wouldn’t keep it from her.…”
“He’s a good man,” cut in the priest. “I think he’s a man who knows many secrets and keeps good counsel.”
Was he trying to tell me that Mr. Novak was in touch with the resistance and that he might even be able to get a message to my father to hurry us to safety? I nodded uncertainly.
“OK. Please, will you ask him? And please, tell him it must be a secret from everyone. Especially my mother.”
“We’ll need a second witness.”
“I’ll ask Bill to ask his friend. I’ll pretend to be taking them both to the dentist in Mankendorf.”
“Very well. I can see you’ve thought of many things.” He paused. “When will it be?”
“My aunt lives in Český Těšín. She’s expecting a baby to arrive in a couple of weeks, at the end of September, and my mother’s planning to go to her and take my little brother. The crops should all be gathered in by then.”
“I see.”
“I’ll come with a message when she leaves.”
“Very well. I’ll speak to the organist. And I’ll pray for us all that you aren’t making a terrible mistake.”
• • •
Bill was working in the turnip field when I got home, but my mother and Herr Weber were both in the field, so I schooled myself in patience, inching along behind Bill, watching him bending and lifting, bending and lifting, loving the fluid grace of his movements, until finally he was within whispering distance. “Keep working,” I said softly. “Don’t look at me.”
He gave a wonderful impression of a man for whom turnips were most fascinating thing in the world and a pretty young woman of no interest at all.
“Hello, Izzy,” he said, not looking back, “darling Izzy,” and a warm glow spread through me.
“I have to ask you something,” I said shyly, banging mud from a turnip root and laying it on my cart.
“Yes?”
Suddenly I was worried that I had run away with my own ideas and ambitions, that my mother was right and only the heat of infatuation had made him mention marriage.
“I…I have talk to priest.”
His head jolted as if he had to stop his instinct to swing round to me, but he continued working, pulling and shaking the turnips.
I thought I could detect a tremble in his voice as he replied quietly, “And what did he say?”
I took a deep breath. “He has yes said. He will marry us, if you still want.”
Bill risked a backward glance at me, and the force of his smile was like a light switched on in a gloomy room. He was happy. It was all right!
“Of course I want. You are the most astonishing girl I’ve ever met.”
Now I was smiling too. How could I ever have doubted his love?
“We must be many time careful,” I said, turning my attention back to the turnips.
He turned and continued his harvesting, as I walked slowly behind him.
“Yes, yes, I understand. But how will it be managed? When will it be? I can’t believe it.”
“Is true, and I have plan.”
He laughed quietly. “Of course you have. Tell me everything I have to do.”
I told him about the different elements that would have to come together. First, about my mother going to Český Těšín as soon as my aunt went into labor.
“She is have bad time with last baby. My mother will leave me to look after farm. This bad part.”
“Why? Oh, I see. You feel sad about being married without your mother there?”
I realized I hadn’t yet told him that my plan was to abandon the farm, abandon the animals I’d fed and cared for, abandon my whole life and family for this one chance to be with him. I hadn’t told him that I hoped we would be picked up by the partisans and be able to fight with Dad and Jan for the resistance. I truly believed I could escape the oncoming Russians, fight the Third Reich and be with Bill, all in one.
“No. Yes. But is only way.”
I reminded him that I’d been allowed before to take prisoners to the dentist in Mankendorf, and he nodded, remembering. “Jim came back with half his teeth missing!”
“Yes. So you and Harry must start to have bad tooth. Each have pain. Different time.”
“I get it!” The delight is evident in his voice. “So on the day your mother goes away, me and Harry both have a terrible toothache, and you take us to the dentist. But actually, well, actually to our wedding. And he’ll be my best man.”
“Our wedding,” I repeated, because I couldn’t help myself saying it aloud. “Our wedding.”