WHITHER THOU GOEST 2 - SARAH'S STORY - PART 2

And so our lives continued like most people’s.  I got a good job and moved into my own small flat in London.  A year after leaving home, I received a call from my Father, asking me to go down for the weekend as he had something important to discuss.

 

Dad picked me up from the station on Saturday morning, and when we were all sitting round the kitchen table drinking coffee, Mum, who had been looking rather uneasy,  said: ‘Your Father has got something to tell you.  Go on Jacob, might as well get on with it!’

 

Dad produced  a brown folder, and pulled out some typed papers.

 

‘After you told me about the baby, I made some enquiries.  In fact I hired a Private Detective to try to find her.  It’s all there in the folder – information from kibbutz records, calls to America – you would be surprised how many Henry and Hank Kaufmanns there are in America! And it turned out his name is actually Charles Henry Kaufmann!’

 

‘But did you find her?’  Dad shook his head.

 

‘I got this last report two weeks ago with an address in Philadelphia.  My man was 99% sure he had got the right people, and I made the call.  Hank was not pleased to hear from me, but he heard me out.  So I asked him: ‘Can we see the child?’  He told me we would find nothing legal to prove that you Sarah are the child’s Mother.  There was no official record of you giving birth at the kibbutz, just some hearsay, and Hank and Julia had her registered with both of them as the parents before flying home, where the official formalities were completed.  These things were much easier to achieve than in these days of computers and so on. He sent me copies of all the documents, including her birth certificate, and I had my own British solicitor as well as a US Attorney check it out.  They both agreed that there was nothing to be done to prove your relationship to the child.  I am sorry darling, so very sorry.’

 

Then he handed me a photo of a family group, Hank, Julia and a little girl all smiling happily into the camera.  I turned it over and read:  ‘Hank, Julia and Ruth-Anne, Summer 1974’.  I turned it back over to study the laughing child seated on a little bicycle.  She was all sweet and dimpled, with dark curly hair like mine at that age.  I smiled.  He must have heard me – they had given her the name I had chosen for her!

 

Tears rolled down my cheeks.

 

‘Will they let me see her?  Will they keep in touch?’

 

He has agreed to send the occasional photo, but insists Ruth-Anne must not know anything about you, and you must never contact them.  I had no choice but to agree.’

 

I looked tearfully at the folder, and took out the Birth Certificate and another smaller photo obviously taken soon after she was born.  My Dad was crying too.

 

‘If you want to carry on trying to get her back, I will fund whatever it takes.’

 

‘Thanks so much Dad; but it’s too late now.  It would be cruel to take her away from the only family she has ever known, and she looks so happy in this photo;  it looks like that picture was taken round about her 5th Birthday;  maybe that bike was a gift.  I am glad to know she is well and happy, and hope Hank will think of me now and again’.

 

‘I think you are probably right, Darling;  and for all it’s worth I think Hank is one of the good guys, he seemed to love his daughter very much indeed.’

 

Two years later I married Martin Green, and we bought a house of our own.  It’s been a good life, and the arrival of Amanda in 1980 and Joseph in 1984 brought us all such joy, though I thought of my Ruth every single day, and carefully put away the small pieces of news that Hank had sent me over the years with several photos, but the letters stopped after her 9th Birthday, and I felt it kinder to refuse Dad’s offer to pay for another search.

 

So life went on.  Martin and I divorced amicably when the children were grown up, and we remain good friends.  He adores our grandchildren as much as I do:  Isla is 7 now, I reckon she looks a lot like Ruth at her age, such lovely curls; and Jack is 5.  He was named Jacob after my darling Dad, who passed away just last year at the grand old age of 91.  How I wish he could have been here today to see all his family enjoying his lovely garden; especially Mum, still pretty and ladylike, a little frailer but still wearing full make-up and high heels at the age of 85!

 

It was a big shock last year when this letter arrived from America; it was just a week after Dad’s funeral, and it felt like a final gift from him to me.  I read it so many times I know it off by heart!

 

 

Dear Sarah,    My name is Ruth-Anne Kaufmann Thomas.  I hope this won’t come as too much of a shock to you after all this time, but I believe you are my Birth Mother.

 

My father, Charles Henry Kaufmann, known as Hank to his buddies, sadly passed away more than a year ago last June.  My Mother Julia was always of a fragile constitution and she died a few years back of pneumonia. As I have no siblings, it fell to me to sort out Dad’s affairs with the help of my husband Danny.

 

I had always been closer to Dad than Mom; he used to call me his Best Buddy; took me fishing and to the game – but you don’t want to know all that stuff I’m sure. But I had always felt there were no secrets between us, so it was one hell of a shock when I found this box file locked away in his desk.  It contained copies of my Birth Certificate and various other papers relating to my birth.  None of this was a surprise to me as I had always known I was born on a kibbutz; I always loved the story, so exciting and special I thought.  But then I found several pictures of a girl sometimes picking fruit and tending the vegetable garden in shorts, sometimes in those long flowing hippy skirts they used to wear back then, and she had dark curly hair just like mine!  The name on the back was Sarah Strawinski.  Then there was a whole heap of legal stuff, and letters between Dad’s attorney and another one, all mentioning that name. At the bottom of the box were copies of short notes to Jacob Strawinski, in Surrey, UK.  These ended when I was small, round about the time we moved to Ohio.  I read through all this stuff over and over again, very carefully, and pieced together the story.  Whatever the details, it seems that you are my natural Mother.

 

It has taken me many months to get my head around all this, and I can still hardly believe it myself; but now I’ve plucked up the courage to try contact you, I would love to hear back from you.  I have so many questions – I will quite understand if you don’t want to get into contact after all this time, but I would at least like to know if you are well and happy, as I am.

 

Yours,

Ruth-Anne Kaufmann Thomas.

 

So here we are awaiting the arrival of a long lost sister, auntie, granddaughter and daughter.  I was so happy when she agreed to visit us, and though astonished at first when told the story, my kids are very curious to meet this sister they knew nothing about until recently; I just hope that there will be no resentment between them – still, what will be, will be.  And one thing I know for sure, whatever happens today, I will never lose touch with her ever again.  As the Ruth after whom she is named once said:

 

‘Whither thou goest, I will go…and thy people shall be my people’.

 

I see a car coming up the drive.  Wish me luck.