'Foundlings' By David Bennett Carren

It is cold; I am very cold. A young woman with long, brown hair is carrying me in her arms as she runs down a dark, snow covered street; black buildings rising into the night on both sides of us. Her feet crunch through the frozen snow as she runs. I want to ask her who she is and where we are going, but something is wrapped tightly around my mouth. I try to remove it, but I’m not strong enough.

We run onto a bridge with stone railings hand-carved out of marble like in an old church. White eagles, their wings spread wide, stand guard every few feet. I can see the entire bridge and the icy white glow of a full moon reflected on the black river flowing far below us. I can also see the fear in the woman’s eyes as she staggers, exhausted, against one of the white eagles, her breath ragged and harsh.

And then we are bathed in a bright light. I am blinded by it; all I can see is a world of white, burning silver. The woman says something I can not understand; it sounds like "forget me." And then there is a loud noise, an explosion. Her head snaps back, blood splashes across her cheek, and she screams in pain. I fall out of her arms and tumble over the railing. I catch just a glimpse of the eagle’s cold, empty eyes as I fall.

I fall a very long time. I fall forever. I never hit the water. I just fall and fall.

And then I wake up.

I have had this dream all my life. I’ve had it so long and so many times I no longer wake up in a sweat. It is a normal part of my existence — like my work, my wife, and my dog. I have it when I’m happy or sad; when I’m tense or relaxed; when life is difficult or easy. Therefore, it’s not surprising that when I dreamed of the woman and the bridge the night before we went to LAX to get Mora and Troy I saw no connection between one and the other. It was just a coincidence to me at the time. Now I’m not so sure.

The British Skyways terminal was unusually quiet that day. Only a few people seated here or there; a janitor sweeping the floor; one or two parked planes visible past the big windows. Janice was very quiet, even for her. She sat beside me, her hands in her lap; body tense and rigid. I tried to make small talk, but the silence triumphed. There was really nothing to say. We had made the decision; or rather Janice had made the decision, months ago. I had gone along passively, as I often did, which was one of the many reasons our marriage was in trouble. Which is why Janice felt the adoption was our last chance. I didn’t tell her I was certain that this would only make things more complicated and painful.

We didn’t wait very long before a big French Airbus appeared in the wide windows and taxied up to the gate. Janice started to pace as the passengers began to deplane. I watched her as she moved — elegant and graceful — and thought sadly of the attraction we had once had for each other.

Then Mr. Valdemar, trim and fit in a gray cotton suit that matched his white hair and silver eyes, stepped through the gate. He had one hand on the shoulder of each child. Both of them had pale skin, green eyes, and red hair. The boy was three, the girl barely a year older. They stood quietly as Valdemar introduced them to their new parents; two people in their late thirties with a barely functioning relationship and no experience with children beyond saying hello to their neighbor’s kids. I knew this wasn’t going to work; the two silent children seemed to know it would not work. Only Janice, smiling like she hadn’t smiled since our wedding, appeared oblivious to reality.

As she gave Mora and Troy hard candies and battled vainly to make them feel welcome, Mr. Valdemar took me aside and said that I should expect a difficult transition. These children had lost their parents in Chechnya only recently. They had seen terrible things that no adult should be forced to endure. They spoke little English. They were frightened and lost. But love and patience can accomplish wonders.

I clearly did not accept anything he was saying, but Mr. Valdemar didn’t seem affronted. He simply fastened his silver eyes on me and smiled. "You will be the perfect father. You can’t help but understand."

I frowned at this strange statement. While it was true I was an orphan myself and adoptive parents had raised me, I didn’t see this as relevant. My childhood had been boringly normal and I had never felt compelled to seek out my birth parents.

In any case, my parentage, or lack of it, had not been listed on any of the adoption documents. Valdemar knew almost nothing about me beyond my bank balance and my address. We had met with him at his office only twice before today. We were less than strangers. How could he possibly know what I was capable of understanding?

But before I could request a clarification he reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of official looking papers. We laboriously signed each of them in three different places, then he said goodbye, and then he was gone. And we had two children to take home.

I’d prefer to say the transition was like Mr. Valdemar said it would be — tantrums on the part of Mora and Troy; coldness and distance for me, confusion and pain for Janice. This would all certainly sound more believable and dramatic than what actually happened. We drove to our house in Santa Monica. We showed them our black lab, Bucky. We fed them. We gave them the toys Janice had picked out. We showed them their rooms. They were very quiet and well mannered. They made no demands save one. In her limited English, Mora carefully indicated that she and her brother wished to sleep together in one room.

That night, Troy woke up soaked in sweat and screaming. With horrific visions of the ruins of Chechnya coursing through her head, Janice immediately insisted the boy should sleep with us. Of course, Mora didn’t want to be alone, so we all crowded into a single bed.

I had the dream that night, like I always do, and woke up before dawn, as I often do. But this time I found myself staring into Mora’s eyes. Huge eyes. Green as emeralds. While the girl lay at my side, she watched me for a long moment, and then she wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me tight.

And that was all we needed. By the end of the month, we were going to McDonald’s, seeing the latest Disney movie at the local multiplex, and watching Barney DVDs together. The children learned English very quickly, although they still spoke to each other in their native tongue for a while. But that quickly faded away, and they were both as American as Mousketeers in less than a year.

Three moments stand out for me. One occurred when I took Mora and Troy to a video store in Santa Monica Place one Sunday. It was an airy establishment on the third floor overlooking the vast canyon of the mall. The children were still speaking to each other in their secret language then. As they babbled excitedly over a Spongebob Squarepants DVD, an old man came up to us with a strange smile on his face. He said a few words to the kids, and they jabbered at him as if he were long lost family. The old man was astonished. He said this wasn’t possible; no one spoke the Old Tongue any more — certainly not in America at least. Had the children just arrived from Ireland? I told him he had to be mistaken. Mora and Troy were from Chechyna. The old man stared at me for a long time, as if deciding whether or not this was worth an argument. He finally walked away, shaking his head in disbelief.

And then there was the morning we drove to Long Beach. An auto show was being held in the huge, white dome of the old Spruce Goose hangar. It should have been a pleasant day. For Janice and I this was a practical excursion; we had decided a station wagon or SUV was necessary for our new family. And the kids both loved looking at shiny vehicles.

But after we parked near the hangar and we got out of the car, the children suddenly began to scream. Not with excitement or surprise but with unmitigated, wide-eyed, pulse pounding fear. Never before or since have they ever exhibited such complete and utter terror. Troy was all but incoherent, and Mora could barely beg us to take them away from the "big ship."

Baffled, Janice and I stared up at the three huge, red funnels of the Queen Mary looming over us. We quickly drove home, and that was the end of our only visit to that part of Long Beach.

And then there was the third thing — the one that changed everything. Or at least explained everything. It was sheer luck — the kind that awards a twenty million dollar lotto prize to a poor couple living in a trailer — or places a farmer working his fields in the one spot that lightning is about to strike.

I was in the library, gathering research for my latest book, a historical romance set in the early part of the century with elegant people in fine clothes cruising through richly decorated salons and apartments. It was the kind of thing I write to pay the bills in between those rare pieces I really care about. At one point, my lovers travel across the Atlantic from England to America in a large ocean liner. For verisimilitude’s sake, I was reading everything I could find on the ships of that period — the Mauritania, the Aquitania, the Bremen, etc.

And then I found a picture of some passengers; an Irish family — mother, father, little girl, and boy — who had booked passage on the last voyage of the Lusitania. None of them had survived her sinking.

It would have been obvious to a blind man. The girl and boy — dead the better part of a century — were Mora and Troy.

I never told Janice; she would have refused to believe it. And God knows what the effect would have been on her if she had. We had too much to lose now; I would not risk her happiness or the children’s. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t full of questions, and, somehow, I felt it was safe to go to the one man who might answer them.

I found Mr. Valdemar in his Century City office during his lunch hour. He was alone and eating a sandwich at his desk, secretary and clerks all gone. I didn’t confront him with anger or suspicion. I simply showed him the book and the picture of the Irish family. He looked at it for a long time and then he slowly nodded; silver eyes empty of concern.

"I told them the Lusitania was too notable; that there was too much documentation. But they couldn’t resist. So many children lost; so many bodies never recovered. But I suppose I shouldn’t complain. They pulled me off the Titanic just as she was going down."

"They?" I said.

"They are whoever you want. Aliens from outer space. Travelers from the future. Mad scientists from Cleveland. Be free to make your own guess. I see no need to identify my employers for you. Does it really matter anyway?"

I just waited for him to go on. He took another bite of his sandwich, washing it down with cold coffee. "Simply be assured that they are well-intentioned, and they are providing a kind service."

"By borrowing a few of the young from the dark side of history," I said. "But why not borrow their parents along with them?"

"Very young children can make the adjustment. The world they leave behind becomes a dream or a fairy story. Adults would not be so fortunate or flexible."

"Will your employers be flexible, now that I know what they’re doing?"

"You have nothing to fear from them, considering that proving what you know to any legitimate authority would be next to impossible." He indicated the book I had brought to his office. "Your documentation is limited and debatable; your story beyond any rational belief. And in any case you have little to gain and everything to lose."

I could see his point. A distant relative back in Ireland might press for the custody of our children. The media would make our lives a living hell. There was nowhere to go with this, no one to tell.

As if reading my mind, Valdemar smiled. "I think we’re finished here."

I shook my head, and he raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow over one of those silver eyes. "Or is there something else you need to know?"

"Why?" I asked quietly. "People die in accidents, wars, and other such tragedies every moment of every day. Present history is soaked in blood; why look to the past to heal the damage?"

"Because the past doesn’t notice when a child is borrowed, and the present isn’t ready for what my employers have to offer. In any case, your question doesn’t matter. But a child’s life, quite a few lives in fact, certainly do. Would you disagree?"

As made a gesture of agreement, he nodded, pleased. "Go home. Enjoy your family. And try to forget what you know."

The logic of his advice was unassailable. I rose to leave, but then I suddenly remembered the odd statement Valdemar had made at the airport. It was no longer odd. It was suddenly very clear.

"Where did they borrow me?" I asked.

Janice easily accepted my explanation for the trip — a second honeymoon slash family vacation to an exotic, little traveled part of the world. It was a long, tiring flight, but the children handled it much better than they would have coped with the QE II. Warsaw was a city vaguely familiar, yet totally alien. We rented a car and drove far out into the countryside to a decent sized village nestled in the heart of the Plain along the polluted banks of the Vistula River. With surprisingly little difficulty I found the address Valdemar had given me. It was a small hotel run by a very old, even ancient woman with long white hair and a distinctive scar on her cheek.

We took a third floor room above the river. It was the kind of place where you shared your meals with the owner. We became friendly with her very quickly; she was a decent, kind person who spoke fair English. And she clearly found it amusing and touching the way Janice and I held hands like newlyweds.

I bided my time until I could arrange to walk alone with our landlady through the streets of the town one night. Somehow, by some instinct we both understood, we headed for the bridge that crossed over the Vistula — a beautiful span with large, hand-carved marble eagles perched on its railings. One in particular stared at me with cold, hard eyes I had seen thousands of times.

As we stopped in the middle of the bridge, the old woman stared out at the black heart of the river for a very long time. No doubt thinking of another night many years ago when the SS had chased a frightened young Jewess and her tiny son through the streets of the village. She had gagged his mouth to make him silent, but this had failed to make a difference. She had still lost him to the icy dark waters of the Vistula — or so she had thought. And then, wounded in both body and heart, she had managed to survive the camps, the wars, the occupations and the decades, but she could never forget the boy she gave to the river.

While that boy was raised by adoptive parents in a far different time and place, only to return to his mother’s city many years later. Not as an old man in his sixties as by rights and nature he should be, but as a being at the height of his powers with a family and a future. It made no sense, the way the universe rarely does, but at least it was just.

I took her hand in mine. She stared at me for a long time. And she believed and accepted who I was without words being exchanged. Her relief overshadowed any sense of shock or amazement she might have harbored, and tears flowed across the white scar on her cheek.

"Forgeben mir," she said.

But I told her there was nothing to forgive.