In September 1945 I reentered life with a suitcase full of holes. Instead of clothes it was stuffed with hopes, dreams, and also fears.
Feeling ill at ease, as if I were wearing tight clothes, I knocked at the door of the woman with the smile. She took me in as a housekeeper and cook. I didn’t know how to do anything. There was so much to learn all at once! The woman with the smile soon realized this, and I could often read the annoyance in her eyes. It took so little to build up my courage, but the slightest thing could destroy it.
I could speak fluently with my eyes and hands. I could read people’s looks; a sixth sense was my antenna. The only word I knew in her language was “tremendous.” What a big word in the mouth of a girl who knew nothing!
I was no good at housekeeping, but I loved to cook. My cooking was emotional. For a smile I would invent unusual, sweet mixes which surprised the palates in my household.
After a few weeks the woman with the smile told me she was leaving for America. In that one moment my enthusiasm for cooking died, and my life was empty once again.
A gentleman who was very aware of his own importance needed some help while waiting for his family to return. I went to his house with my suitcase now full of dashed hopes. But I was unmoved by working for this man with spindly fingers who would think nothing of pulling out the soft white heart of a bread roll and abandoning it on his plate. He, for his part, did not care for my inventions, and so we parted company without regrets.
Once again I set off with my suitcase with holes in it, full of clothes, a few fewer dreams, a few more disappointments and fears. But I still wanted to hope and to be useful.
It took me thirty years to decide to write this book.
These few pages were born of a dark past that the love of my husband, the wished-for, unexpected, demanding arrival of our four children, and my friendships, have allowed me to accept. I also found inspiration in the acts of my parents, and in those of my fellow prisoners with whom I spent a year: their words and their silences became a reason for me to live so that I could bear witness, and hope. There is a mystery in encounters: its light has borne me along, and several times gave me back my life.
Today,9 I know with certainty that the creative love of my husband—my friend—has brought me peace because he was able to believe in me. For twenty-one years, with the joys and difficulties of each day—but with passion—we have continued to reinvent love.
His family has become mine too. Without knowing me, his parents were able to tell him, “If you have chosen her, she must be good.” Their trust has warmed my heart and helped me on the road to reconciliation.
Loyalty; the woman with the smile whom I met at a time of loneliness, and her commitment despite time and challenges; the thousand miracles of friendship: these have allowed me to reread my past with a look of hope, and to plunge into life with faith and enthusiasm. I believe in love. It sets life ablaze all around it.