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As I climbed the old creaky stairs leading to the attic,many memories washed over me.This had been Grandma Agota's home where she brought up her daughters, my mother Marie and Aunt Anne. The house went to Auntie,of course who had never married & had taken care of Grandma until she passed. It was only right. Now, with both of the sisters gone the house belonged to me. How many years had passed too swifty? I could feel the tears welling in my eyes and could just about hear my mother's laughter & my aunt's reprimands as i tried to open the always locked attic door with an old skeleton key i had found in the alley , or a hairpin, and once even a screwdriver! It's not that the room was off limits too me. I had been in there countess times! Oh no, not the attic itself. What was "verboten" to me was the trunk that sat in the corner. The trunk Grandma had brought with her from the old country! The very trunk that now also belonged solely to me..... I was ready to open the door! This time i had the real key! Click... As the door swung open, the old smell of a room closed off for too long greeted me. i watched the dust partcles dance in the shaft of light coming in through the window pane for a moment. My eyes scanned the room. There it was! Little did i know that as walked toward the trunk that soon after opening it i would be headed on an adventure so important that my life, & the lives of those i was to meet, would never be the same.....
My hands trembled as I drew the key out of my pocket, suddenly a wave of anxiety hit me! What if there was something in the trunk that my grandmother would not want me to see? What if I were to learn something of the past that would affect my life? What if? Oh so many thoughts....but my curiosity and the desire to see WHAT WAS IN THAT TRUNK took hold and I knelt down and opened the trunk!
The musty odor hit me like a blast of hot air. Yet, oh holy moly, once the musty odor evaporated I swore I could smell lilacs!! Oh how I loved to smell that scent whenever I came to this old house. The rack appeared to have old photos and letters neatly tied together, I recognized my grandmother, mother and aunt and there was a handsome man that I didn't recognize but then ...something in his smile seemed to raise a flutter in my heart. Did I know him? Well, no time for that now. I opened some of the letters....simple correspondence from relatives from the old country...nothing much in them.
As I lifted the rack I heard a murmur, and I had the sensation of someone smoothing my hair, and it was if someone brushed their lips across my cheek! I dropped the rack back as the chills ran up and down my spine.....was I NOT to go further? Was grandmother or my mother or aunt warning me to leave the trunk as is?
I sat back and contemplated what I should do. Leave the trunk as is to be opened by someone else when I was gone? Had I waited in anticipation all these years to back off now when I COULD open the trunk? With a deep breath I again knelt before this haunting trunk of mine .....I lifted the lid....once again the scent of lilacs. I stared at the rack and quickly lifted it off and as I placed it on the floor I saw that whatever was in the bottom of the trunk was loosely covered by a silvery silk sheet. The scent of the lilacs was stronger then ever as I left the silk sheet.........
"This is really odd" Daniela thought.
Grandma hated the Germans. Grandma had lost both her parents, and a brother, in the concentration camp, She and her sister, Great Aunt Elzbieta had survived. Grandma would not even speak of the time in the camp.
Looking closer, Daniela noticed a large envelope under the uniform. She opened it up, inside were more photos of the same man. In these photos he was wearing the same German uniform and embracing her Grandmother! Inside the envelope was one more thing, a birth certificate the names were German, but Daniela still could make some of it out. It was her mothers birth certificate!
She was really puzzled. Her Grandmother was Polish her Granfather Christov was Polish. Why would her mother have a German birth certifcate? Who was this German soldier?
Aunt Elzbieta would know the answers. She decided to call her her Aunt in Poland.
RING... RING.. The phone is picked up quickly.
"Auntie, I have found some things....." she started to say.
"Ah...you have opened the trunk dear?" replied her Aunt.
"Yes, and I'm very confused."
"As you should be dear.
Your Grandmother should have let you know alot of things. I could never convince her to tell you or your mother the truth."
"The truth?" questioned Daniela
"Yes dear, the truth. Christov was not your mothers father. The German in the pictures is your real Grandfather. It's all in the Diary that is there in the trunk, it has a bouguet of lilacs pressed in it."
"No Diary? She told me she put it in there. Are you sure?"
"Yes quite sure." replied Daniela with a sigh.
"Dear I believe the time has come that you must visit Poland. Perhaps I can help you understand things better here. I must go now, please say you'll come."
"Ok Auntie... I'll come." Daniela hung up the phone.
The next day she was boarding a plane bound for Europe.
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"But I have found no Diary Auntie, the trunk did smell of lilacs tho."
