I Cannot Get You Close Enough by Ellen Gilchrist Read Free Book Online Page A

called to check on her progress.
    â€œShe is exquisite,” Miss Caroline answered. “This child shall not be wasted, Anna, as you were. Her music is a gift. You must come and see her dance, you must hear her play. Have you heard her play?”
    â€œI heard it last time I was home. It’s amazing, isn’t it? The things she composes.”
    â€œShe dances as well as she plays. Like a spirit she moves, like a dream. When will you come home?”
    â€œI don’t know. I’m writing a book. I have to finish it first. You know how that is. I’m so happy you are there to teach her, Caroline. So happy to think of her with you.”
    â€œOh, my darling. I am not the teacher now. I only oversee. Lily is the teacher now. My precious Lily. You must come and meet her. You must see the child dance her dance of jonquils in her yellow tutu. Yes, you must come soon. The air is wrong for you up there. It will ruin your complexion. Why does it matter where you are to write?”
    â€œIt doesn’t.” I laughed. “But I have to stay away from my family or I get too excited. They take up all my brain if I stay in Charlotte. So it’s quieter here.”
    â€œCome at Christmas and see the recital.”
    â€œI’ll try,” I told her. “And I’ll be home to live before too long. Not to Charlotte, perhaps, but near there, in the mountains. We’ll see each other soon. I’ll try to come at Christmas. I’d love to see the recital. Imagine the recital still going on.”
    â€œStay warm, my darling,” she ordered and hung up. I imagined her, her hands raised to begin the music, bringing high civilization and high art to Charlotte.
    In many ways Adrian Moss reminded me of Caroline. He demanded a certain level of civilization every minute of the day. I could not imagine him taking off his shoes until it was time for bed or refusing to save a drowning man or being late for dinner. Adrian was a godsend that year but he was not an Englishman after all. For all his British manners and British ways it turned out he was Polish and even his name was an assumed one. His real name was Tadeusz Rozwadowski and he was the last surviving male of a line that included statesmen and generals and a famous writer of aphorisms. When he was fourteen years old he had walked out of Poland to escape the invading Russian army. With his twelve-year-old sister, Dubravka, and sixty gold coins wrapped in a leather purse around his waist, he had walked for five days and nights and arrived finally at an American air force base on the German border. He and his sister both spoke enough English to make themselves understood.
    â€œMy father has sent me,” Adrian said to the first American soldier that he met. “I am to go to the land of freedom. Would you please assist me in any way you can.”
    The Americans kept them for a while, then turned them over to the International Red Cross, which sent them to England, to relatives outside of London. A cousin worked for a designer and with her help Adrian had found his way into the world of haute couture, then into costume design. He might have been a general in another world. Instead he had taken what was offered and spun it into gold. It was a hero’s tale, and when I heard the story it changed him in my eyes.
    â€œAnd where is Dubravka now?” I asked.
    â€œShe is married and the mother of two sons. She lives in London. She is more in contact with Poland than I am. She is also sad more than I.”
    â€œFor your country?”
    â€œShe writes to them. Our parents are dead but we have kinsmen still alive and friends she remembers. She writes many letters and goes to marches in Hyde Park. She thinks she can change history. Well, perhaps she can. I am more resigned. When she gets stirred up I remember how brave she was when we left our mother. How straight and uncomplaining she was and how she walked holding my hand and never