My Family for the War (40 page)

“Because I lose my residence permit as soon as I leave England,” my uncle replied simply. I couldn’t breathe. “The war is over. The island is happy to be rid of her refugees.”

“But… you have to…” I was so shocked I could barely speak. “Mamu… how should… I thought…”

“Let me find them first, Ziska. We can apply for new papers then. Leave it to me to convince your mother that she needs to come here.”

“Does that mean”—I sat down on the bed—“you think she wouldn’t want to?”

Uncle Erik smiled. He had grown visibly stronger, but his eyes were only rarely without a sad expression. Ahead of him was the prospect of telling Aunt Ruth about their children’s deaths. “I’ll talk with your mother,” he repeated. “I’ll tell her that you’re the only one of us who still has a home. If we want to start over again together, then it has to be in England.”

“How do you think she’ll react?” I looked at him anxiously.

“She’ll need a little time.” He dodged the question. My heart sank. “Ziska, Margot lived to see you again. You’re everything she has left. But I don’t know if she’s prepared for the fact that there are other people in your life besides her.”

“You’re right. Oh, Uncle Erik!” I hugged him tight. “I’m so sorry about everything that’s happened, and that you had to wait so long to go back… but I’m glad for every day you were here! And I’ve never, ever forgotten that you were there to wave at our train that night. You were the farewell they cheated us out of!”

“I haven’t forgotten it either.” He patted me on the back, and after a moment freed himself from my hug. “And now let’s go out and celebrate that the time of good-byes is finally over.”

We had known for months that this day would come. One German city after another had surrendered—some without a fight, but in many other cases only after Hitler ordered his
last reserves of half-grown boys and old men into senseless, unevenly matched slaughters—before the “greatest commander of all time” shot himself in his bunker. In March Walter had been ordered to Lübeck, where they needed German-speaking liaisons between the British commanders and the residents.

What would happen after that was the subject of continuous speculation—at the Vathareerpurs’!

Walter had become a British citizen on his twenty-first birthday and carried his new identity with pride. Hazel and her mother expected that he would soon ask me “the question,” as they called it. I, however, was neither as convinced nor as carried away as my friend. I hoped he would take his sweet time with that question. I missed him terribly, and could easily picture us standing under the chuppah and celebrating an exuberant Jewish wedding. But a wedding meant more than a promise and a party. It meant starting our own household, having our own children, and responsibilities I absolutely did not feel ready for. After I’m finished with school! When I’m nineteen! There was no denying there was something there that wanted to be awakened, but for the time being I clung tightly to my last two years of school.

All the more so when, right after the celebrations, I faced a new and entirely unexpected dilemma. For years we had longed for the end of the war, lived for nothing else; now it had come and gone with breathtaking speed. Londoners went back to their daily lives, everywhere things were cleaned up, built, planned, and the Refugee Committee remembered me again.

“Well, now that the war is over and Germany has been
liberated, naturally we have to consider what should happen to you,” Mrs. Lewis informed me.

Unsettled, I sank deeper into the living room sofa. She sat across from me, her purse on her lap. “Have you had news from your mother?” she wanted to know.

I shook my head. “My uncle went to Holland ten days ago to look for her, but we haven’t heard anything yet.”

“You can also start a search through the Red Cross. I brought the form with me.” Mrs. Lewis reached into her purse and retrieved the paper. “Of course, this is only if your uncle isn’t successful,” she added quickly.

“Of course,” I murmured, and “thank you.”

“You’re finishing secondary school this summer? We’re so pleased, Frances. You are one of our success stories! We brought thousands of children out of Germany, but unfortunately not all of them were as lucky as you, I’m sad to say.”

“Mrs. Lewis,” I interrupted, “why are you here?”

She gave me an unexpectedly hard, scrutinizing look. “You know that your stay in England was meant to be temporary. No one will deport you, even if the danger is past now. You practically grew up here in England. But if your mother is still alive and is waiting for you in Germany, that of course raises questions.”

The shock ran through my whole body. “I’m not going back to Germany. Never!”

“Calm down, Frances. As I said, we’re not sending you back unless your mother demands it. And that’s why we’re also eager to find out whether she’s alive. We need to know if we are still responsible for you, or whether you still have family.”

“I have family,” I said with a quivering voice. “The Shepards.”

“I believe you know what I’m talking about, Frances,” Mrs. Lewis responded. She placed the form on the table between us and pushed it toward me.

“You knew about it, right?” I asked after she had left.

Leaning on the doorframe I watched Amanda cut vegetables at the kitchen table. “That your mother can demand that you return?” she replied without turning toward me. “What’s new about that?”

“But don’t you think I’m old enough to decide for myself? If Mamu wants to have me back, she has to come to me. After all, she’s the one who sent me away.”

“Heavens. You still hold that against her?” Amanda finally looked upset, even though it wasn’t on my account, but Mamu’s. I immediately felt betrayed.

“I don’t resent it,” I protested. “But she certainly lost the right to make decisions about me when she did. I decide, me alone, and that’s exactly what I’ll tell her.”

My foster mother, the mother I had chosen, looked straight at me and like a flash, the memory was there… the seconds of our first encounter, the look of this intelligent, friendly face. Now there was so much more in it, the past six years, the war, Gary’s death, our shared history.

“Don’t be afraid.” I wasn’t even sure if she had said it out loud. “Don’t plan what you want to say. When you see her, you’ll know. Only then.”

The Red Cross missing persons form consisted of just a few lines, the first of which was the hardest to fill in. Name
of the missing person. My pen hovered above it for several minutes. Days, actually, if you counted the time I had needed to actually look at the form Mrs. Lewis had left, and use it.

Rebekka Liebich. I sighed with relief when it was finally done. The rest was quick. Born on December 8, 1927, last known residence in Berlin-Neukölln, Silbersteinstraße, with her parents, Susanna and Hermann Liebich. There were a few lines for “other information” where I filled in four words that looked like a plea: probably in the Ruhrgebiet, question mark. I stuck the form in an envelope, sealed it, and added a stamp before I lost my nerve.

The other letter lay under the desk blotter, the one we had awaited for such a long time and had arrived the day before yesterday, about three weeks after Uncle Erik left.

I had withdrawn to my room with the letter and read those few sentences again and again until I thought I could hear Uncle Erik’s voice, and when the tears finally came,
they were for him. He can’t take this, not again! Don’t keep him waiting. Let it have an end.

Since Gary’s death I had avoided asking God or Jesus for anything. I would have liked to pray for Uncle Erik to find Mamu and Aunt Ruth alive and well; I would have liked to feel I was doing something for him that way. But I couldn’t. What had happened, had happened. I didn’t believe in an all-powerful God anymore. He had to watch everything unfold, every evil plan, every single murder. Suddenly I knew what I could pray for.

If you are a compassionate God, then have mercy on Uncle Erik. Don’t abandon him. Stay with him and give him strength.

The telegram came a few days later.
Margot lives. Love and hugs. More soon. Uncle Erik.

Chapter 23

Mrs. Collins would have to throw away her world map. When the students returned to school after the summer holiday, they would be dealing with different borders, and a few small countries would disappear from the map entirely. Hitler’s grip of the countries around Germany had been thwarted, but the victorious powers had their own plans for Europe.

Everywhere, people launched the bitter search for their relatives that might last years, and often in vain.

“Why don’t you come outside, Frances? I’ve set out the little table for you, you can bring your schoolbooks and study there.”

I looked up. As so often since my accident, pains pounded and bored into my head and it took a few seconds for my eyes to change focus from the tiny letters in the math book to Amanda’s face.

For days now, my foster parents had been walking on eggshells around me, waiting patiently, giving me time. I had no
idea why that didn’t help, why it only intensified my feeling of being utterly alone.

Amanda’s move with the table was the first attempt to get me to do anything, and it seemed harder to find an argument against it than to just do her the favor. Without another word I packed up my books and papers and followed her.

It was as if my life had been interrupted the moment I read Uncle Erik’s letter; as if I had to see my mother, talk with her, receive some word from her before I could inhale again. I had to look at a photograph to remember her face, and even that didn’t shut out those other images that wanted to get in the way now. Amanda withdrew to the backyard while I sat on the bench with my books. She had set out juice and a piece of cake for me, but left me alone.

I glanced over at her and saw her quick hands digging, snipping, planting seedlings. The neighbors couldn’t get over how quickly our garden was recovering under Amanda’s green thumbs. “What’s she using, Frances?” Mrs. Beaver pestered me. “Coffee grounds? Something from the toilet?”

“Nothing but love,” I said. “That and a little stinging nettle tea.”

I squinted at Amanda over my book, wishing with all my heart that she’d come over and take me in her arms—if only so that I could push her away.

I’ll go crazy if Mamu doesn’t write soon,
I thought.

“What would you think of driving to Southend tomorrow?” Matthew suggested on Friday.

We looked at him with astonishment. “What are you talking
about?” I asked indignantly. “It’s Shabbat. We only drive in an emergency.”

“We’re going to have an emergency on our hands if we don’t lure you away from your books soon! I’ve already talked with the Beavers. They’ll drive us and stay there for a few days; we’ll take the train home on Sunday and be back in the afternoon in time for work.”

Southend, of all places, across the channel from Belgium and Holland! The barricades had been dismantled, the same little waves rolled calmly and cheerfully onto the beach, and people walked along the promenade as if it had never been otherwise.

No sooner did he step out of the car than Matthew was overcome by his scruples after all. Setting aside that little white lie with the “emergency,” Shabbat was expressly not for pleasure, but was reserved for spiritual reflection. Now the fresh sea breeze apparently threatened to be such a great pleasure for my foster father that he didn’t dare take off his coat!