Finding Sophie (10 page)

O
n Wednesday, when Aunt Em comes home from the office, she says, “I've been making some enquiries through the Red Cross. Things in Europe are pretty chaotic. I'm told, much worse than the London Blitz. Thousands and thousands of homeless people, soldiers returning from war, cities reduced to rubble, and hardly any food. If the war had lasted any longer, many people would have died of starvation. I know you'll keep this confidential, Sophie, but it's almost certain that our own rations will be cut again in the next few months. Rationing may go on for years.”

“I always thought the moment war was over, food would miraculously reappear in the shops. I've begun making a list for Father's parcel, Aunt Em. Shall I read it to you? I tried to think what the patients in our hospital seem to want most: instant coffee, tea, biscuits, condensed milk, tinned fruit, soap, socks. I've still got that bar of Yardley's soap Aunt Winifred gave me for Christmas – we could send that.”

“Add cigarettes. Even if your father doesn't smoke, cigarettes can be exchanged for almost anything. I hadn't thought of socks, but I can knit a pair quite quickly. There's some of that gray wool left from your last winter's cardigan. Shirts. We must assume that Jacob has no clothes except what the hospital may provide.”

“There's a whole boxful of men's shirts in the boxes I labeled last week.”

“Why don't you see if you can find one or two shirts in a plain color, dear? Your father is exactly the kind of recipient those shirts are meant for.”

I rush upstairs. I know why Aunt Em said shirts in a plain color. We've both seen too many pictures of prisoners in striped jackets lately. I find a blue one and a white one, both in good condition.

“I tried some on, Aunt Em. These reach to my knees and the sleeves are miles too long, so they should be all right. I expect Father's pretty thin.”

“Excellent. Bring the shopping basket, Sophie, and we'll see what we can do.”

On our way to the grocer's, we pass Mr. Billy's. There's a notice in the window:
NO LAMB, BEEF, OR OFFAL.
Mr. Billy is standing in the shop doorway.

“Good day, Miss Simmonds. Haven't seen you in a while.” He leers at me.

Aunt Em nods politely. “Good afternoon, Mr. Billy. I wonder if you might have any tins of meat today? We're putting together
a care package for a friend in Europe. People are having a bad time over there.”

“Tins of meat, Miss Simmonds? That's a joke. Haven't you heard? There's a peace on. If I did come across such a thing, and I say
if
… well, charity begins at home, Madam. Meat for the enemy – that's a good one. Good day, Madam, Miss.”

“I think, Sophie,” Aunt Em says, “we must try to find another butcher to register with. I really don't want to have any more dealings with Mr. Billy. In future we shall shop elsewhere.”

“What did you expect, Aunt Em?”

“Decency. He really is a most odious man.”

We walk in silence to the grocer's.

I give our list to Mrs. Logan, and she looks at us as if we've gone mad. Her eyebrows shoot up to her hair net. Aunt Em puts our ration books on the counter.

“No need to look so astonished, Mrs. Logan. We're putting together a parcel for a friend in hospital, in Germany. He's recovering from typhus. Is this list too unrealistic?”

I realize suddenly that Aunt Em intentionally does not mention who the parcel is for. I hope she doesn't think I'd be embarrassed.

“It's for my father, actually,” I say.

“In that case, we'll have to see what we can do, won't we?”

Mrs. Logan reappears five minutes later. “Digestive biscuits – you don't want anything too rich. I can let you have some Bovril cubes too – very strengthening. There's a tin of peaches. I'm sorry about the sugar, but you can have a tin of golden syrup.”

“We're truly grateful, Mrs. Logan.”

“We must all be that, Miss Simmonds. This time let's hope the peace lasts.”

After she takes our points, she puts a tin of corned beef in the basket. “No charge. That's from me to your father, Sophie. My dad didn't come back from the war in 1918. You send that with my good wishes. That'll be nineteen shillings and eight pence, please.”

I put a pound note – the one that Aunt Em had given me to spend – on the counter.

“Thank you, Mrs. Logan. It's very kind of you.”

When we get back from our shopping expedition, the afternoon post has arrived. There is a letter for me from Middlesex Hospital.

I enclose the letter with my application to the Home Office, and send it off next morning.

On Friday Mandy and Nigel call on their way to the Youth Club, and ask if I want them to put my name forward for next year's planning committee. I tell them to go ahead.

I'll be here. Matron's letter will work, I know it will.

Aunt Em's rule is that if I don't go to school, I can't go out socially either. She does agree to let me do my hospital shift as usual on Saturday.

Marianne telephones from the nurses' residence just before I leave for work.

“I'm back, Sophie. I don't go on the ward till Monday. Bridget wants to meet you. Are you free Sunday? I could call for you around two and we can go for a walk first.”

“Who is it?” Aunt Em comes into the hall.

“Marianne. She's invited me to tea on Sunday. Is it all right if I go?”

“It'll do you good.”

Marianne arrives early. The first thing she says to me is, “You're looking awfully tired, Sophie. Are you getting enough sleep?”

“We had some bad news – at least …”

I still haven't worked out how to say it's both good and bad.

“Let's go and sit in Regent's Park – we've got time,” she says.

We sit watching the swans swimming in elegant circles, ignoring the chattering ducks.

“W
hile you were away, Marianne …,” I beg in.

“Do you know why I had to go home?” She starts speaking at the same time. “You first, Sophie. Is it something to do with Aunt Em?”

“In a way it is because she and my mother were friends. A letter arrived from my father –”

“Then he's safe …,” Marianne interrupts. “That's wonderful news.”

“Yes. He's recuperating from typhus in a hospital in Munich.”

“I thought you said your parents lived in Berlin?”

“My mother died there in an air raid. The factory where she worked got a direct hit. That was in 1943. My father wrote he was picked up and sent to a camp called Dachau. The Americans liberated him three weeks ago.”

Marianne takes my hand. “Sorry is such a little word. People use it all the time, don't they? When they make a mistake, or
drop something, or bump into you in the blackout. I wish I knew how to …” She seems to be having trouble keeping her voice steady.

“Marianne, do you think Mama knew she wouldn't see me again? Is that why she didn't make any promises, or say I'll see you in a little while, or when your holiday's over? I mean, she just handed me over, like a puppy you can't keep any longer.”

“I think my father had a feeling that he wouldn't see us again too.” Marianne's voice is low.

When I look at her, tears are rolling down her cheeks. After a few minutes, she wipes her face with the back of her hand. By this time I'm crying too.

“Mother heard from the Red Cross,” Marianne says. “That's why I got leave. In 1942, Father was sent to Terezin, a concentration camp near Prague. It was liberated by the Russians on
V-E
Day. The letter said he died of malnutrition – a kind way of saying of hunger – at the end of April.”

Marianne turns to me. She'd kept her head averted till then, as if she couldn't finish what she had to say if she looked at me. “It's not fair. Another week and the war would have been over. He'd never hurt anyone. He loved his books and he loved us. Hunted down and starved to death. …”

“Because he was a Jew.” I finish the sentence for her.

I touch my neck, feeling the choking sensation I felt the first time I'd tried on my Star of David that I keep hidden away in a cubbyhole in my desk.
Had Mama been trying to save me from being
punished, the way she'd been for marrying a Jew? From suffering like my father, or being starved to death like Mr. Kohn?

People pass by on their Sunday outings. No one takes any notice of us.

“I hope you'll see your father soon, Sophie.”

I was going to tell Marianne how hard I was trying not to leave England and go and live with Papa in Germany.
How can I tell her now?

“Aunt Em's hoping to bring him over for a visit.”

“I'm glad.” Marianne opens her handbag, takes out a powder compact, and dabs at her cheeks. “Look at me, Sophie. Awful. You're supposed to make a good impression on Bridget and her parents.” She pats my face with the powder puff.

“You're always telling me to make a good impression.” I sneeze. Actually I enjoy her “big sister” act.

“Gesundheit.”

“I think I'll have to disgrace you with my shiny nose.” I sneeze again. “Anything with perfume always makes me sneeze.”

“You're hopeless.” She smiles at me. “Come on, or we'll be late.”

We run for the bus.

At Circus Road, Marianne points out Bridget's house, “That big one on the corner of St. Anne's Terrace. Number twenty-two.”

“Mary Anne. It
is
Mary Anne, isn't it?” A thin-lipped woman wearing a black straw hat comes toward us.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Abercrombie Jones.”

“What a surprise to see you after all these years. And is this your sister?”

“No, this is my friend, Sophie Mandel. You'll have to excuse us – we're on our way to visit Bridget O'Malley.”

“You kept in touch, did you? My husband will be so interested to hear I've met you again. You've quite grown up.”

“Is Gladys still with you?”

“She left. Joined the forces. It's impossible to find good help these days. Are your parents well?”

“Actually, my father died recently in a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Do you remember once you said to me that he must wait his turn like other refugees? ‘It is not a question of saving, but of good manners.’”

“My dear Mary Anne, we had no possible way of knowing.”

“I suppose not. Good-bye, Mrs. Abercrombie Jones.”

Marianne links her arm through mine. “That felt good. I used to call her Aunt Wera, instead of Vera, before I could speak English properly. It used to drive her mad.”

A slim girl with short dark curly hair runs down the steps to greet us. She kisses Marianne on both cheeks, then shakes hands with me.

“I'm so pleased to see you both. Do come in. We're going to have tea in the garden.”

“How nice to see you again, Sophie.” Dr. O'Malley emerges from his study to greet us. His arms go round Marianne and he
murmurs: “My dear child, we are all deeply grieved for you and your mother. We have written to her.”

Bridget and Marianne begin to cry, and then Mrs. O'Malley hugs us both and says, “Come along with me now. Dry your eyes and let's have tea.” She plies us with bread and honey that her sister sent from Galway in Ireland, chocolate biscuits Bridget brought back from Canada, and homemade Irish soda bread.

Bridget is what Aunt Em would call a character. She talks nonstop, about Canada.

“I've learned to curl and ski and skate and speak French, but there's nowhere like home.” She kisses her mother's cheek, and I think,
I'll never be able to do that.

The three of us do the dishes and then go upstairs to Bridget's room.

“Presents.” Bridget tosses a beautifully wrapped parcel into Marianne's arms.

“Bridget!” Marianne shrieks.

Bridget says quickly, “Don't you dare say you'll never wear them.”

“Thank you a million times. I've never in my whole life owned a pair of nylon stockings.”

“Well, now you've got two pairs. They won't ladder if you roll them on very carefully – I'll show you how.”

“I'm not going to wear them. I'll just look at them.”

“I knew it was a waste to give them to you. I'll just have to take them back, I suppose.”

“I
will
wear them. But it will have to be a very special occasion. Thank you, dear Bridget.”

“This is for you, Sophie. I'm afraid it's only a small box of chocolates. I didn't know we were going to meet, you see.”

“It's very kind of you, Bridget. Thank you.”

I undo the blue ribbon, the tissue paper, and the little gold seal and offer the chocolates around.

“Heaven! It melts in your mouth,” Marianne mumbles. “Six months of chocolate rations in there, Sophie.”

Bridget refuses to take one. “I've been spoiled long enough. These are for you, Sophie. Now if you two can stop eating for a minute, I'm ready for a proper talk.”

“Isn't that what we've been having?” I ask innocently.

Marianne and Bridget look at each other.

“All right, Bridget, confession time. Is it fit for Sophie to hear?”

“Of course it is. I've been bursting to tell you. I've met someone.”

“You've only been home a few days,” Marianne says.

“Don't interrupt, I'm going to tell you everything. On Tuesday, I had my appointment with Matron. I can't tell you how nervous I was, but she was perfectly charming. Glanced at my Canadian hospital records and said, ‘It all seems very satisfactory.’ I'm to begin on Monday week. I was so relieved that I ran down the front steps of the hospital, and went flying.”

“Into the arms of a handsome stranger?” Marianne says.

“Almost. Everything in my purse scattered all over the sidewalk.”

“It's hard to believe, Bridget O'Malley, that you once lectured
me on speaking English. What is your ‘purse’ and could you please translate ‘sidewalk’ for us poor English girls?”

“A purse is a handbag and the sidewalk is the pavement. Now for the exciting part. A young man in an air force uniform helped me up and asked me if I was hurt. The Royal Canadian Air Force, can you imagine? By the time we'd gathered my things, we'd introduced ourselves. His name is Dominic St. Pierre. He's from Longueuil, which is on the outskirts of Montreal. He's twenty-two, and he wants me to go out with him again.”

“Again? Bridget O'Malley, I'm shocked. He's a perfect stranger.”

I know Marianne is only pretending to be horrified.

“We went to have a cup of coffee in Fullers. He asked for my phone number, and whether he could take me out. Marianne, don't look so scandalized! He's a most respectable Canadian boy, I can tell. I'll ask him to come to the house first to meet Mother.”

“Just so long as you don't fall in love with him and go and live in Canada and leave us again,” Marianne says.

When it is time to go home, Dr. O'Malley insists on driving us both.

Mrs. O'Malley says, “I hope Marianne will bring you again, Sophie. We've missed young voices around the place.”

After we drop Marianne off at the nurses' residence, I tell Dr. O'Malley about my parents.

“You're a very brave girl,” he says. He takes me to the front door and Aunt Em asks him in.

“Thank you for bringing me home,” I say. “Night, Aunt Em.”

Upstairs I divide the tissue paper from the box of chocolates into three squares. There are fourteen chocolates left. Four for Mandy, four for Nigel, four for Aunt Em, and two for me. I cut up the ribbon and tie up each of the little parcels. I put Aunt Em's on her bedside table, and Mandy's in my satchel to give to her in school tomorrow. I'll see Nigel after his cricket match.

Dr. O'Malley and Aunt Em talk for a long time before I hear her come upstairs.