Living with Strangers (6 page)

We break up early for the summer holiday. Saul needs a week to clear his work while Josef and I hover impatiently waiting to pack, trying to help Molly, who washes and irons and deals with Paul’s indignation at not being allowed to come too.

The suitcase that Oma left me is beautiful dark brown leather all kitted out with brushes and bottles inside. Apart from her cello, it was the only luggage she brought to England from home. It stills smells faintly of her, of Chanel perfume and cigarettes. I imagine it going with her as she travelled with the orchestra across Europe’s capital cities – Paris, Vienna, Prague. It once even crossed continents when she went to play in Boston. So much carried within that old and battered rectangle.

When we finally leave for Germany, on a warm evening in late July, the whole family comes to the station, even Adam, shamed into a show of family solidarity by a few sharp words from Molly. Sophie strains in the pushchair and Paul, placated by promises of a trip to the zoo, terrifies us all by hopping up and down on the edge of the platform. It is a veritable
Grosser Bahnhof
– Oma would have been proud. We board the train amidst a flurry of rapid hugs and hasty goodbyes. I watch them retreating, my family suddenly reduced, a disparate little group. This journey we are making will venture into the past and help part of Saul to heal, but that day on the platform is almost the last time our family will ever be together again.

*

It’s not an easy journey. The heat on the train is unbearable, the crossing unseasonably rough. On the boat, Saul finds some seats and stores our cases, then wedges himself into a corner where he stays for the rest of the journey, reading the paper and drinking a small black coffee. Josef and I, flushed with Coca Cola and chocolate, explore the decks until, like most of our fellow passengers, we’re overcome with sickness as the boat heaves and thumps its way across the North Sea, issuing wave after wave of acrid diesel fumes. I spend a wretched hour in the toilets, the contents of my stomach simply adding to the overflowing basins. Years later, I would wake up sometimes on the floor of a strange bathroom, in a house belonging to some unknown person whose party I’d crashed. At other times it would be a strange bed that greeted my returning consciousness, along with sour breathing beside me and grimy sheets. But the boat that night, aged twelve, is the nearest so far I have come to squalor.

The Hamburg train is cooler and I doze on and off, waking at dawn with an acid mouth and a stiff neck as we cross the border into Germany. At Cologne, Saul brings us breakfast. I watch anxiously as he disappears into the crowd on the platform, fearful that the train will leave without him. But he reappears ten minutes later waving rolls and fruit, boarding the train with time to spare. Clearly he has done this before.

By mid afternoon we reach Hamburg. Gritty and light headed, Josef and I wait with the luggage whilst Saul wanders up and down, scanning faces. Then coming towards us, picking his way against the stream of passengers, is an elderly man, tiny in stature and the image of Oma. He’s wearing a dark overcoat and a black hat, his shoes are shining. Josef takes hold of my arm as we stand there watching his approach. Saul moves towards him, holding out his hand. We hang back, see their long earnest handshake and hasty embrace, before Saul beckons us over and we go to join them.

‘Jakob,’ he says, ‘these are my children.’ He speaks in German; it’s been many years since he’s done that – not since Oma died.

Jakob greets us warmly, clasping each of us by the hand – overcome, I think, because he seems to be crying and I don’t know where to look. Josef and I smile politely and mumble a
Guten Tag
then we all follow him out of the station to the waiting car.

*

Jakob’s house, near the centre of Lübeck, is like a picture postcard. Roses round the front door, trail out of an earthenware pot on the pavement. The four of us sit close together in the front room and Jakob serves coffee from white china cups set out on a side table with crisp linen. He also serves a huge lemon torte, much of which Josef and I devour gratefully, having eaten nothing since our station breakfast. We sit bemused while Saul talks intimately with this familiar stranger in a language I’ve only just begun to learn. Every so often he will pause and explain some point or other as if suddenly remembering we’re there. He seems to feast on this reunion, on this reconnection after twenty-six years.

Jakob is a perfect host. With only two bedrooms, he has gallantly given them up for us and arranged to stay at a guesthouse close by. Saul and Josef are to share, while I have the spare room to myself. Up a steep staircase, under the roof, it’s reminiscent of home on a minute scale. Home seems a long way away. That night I lie awake in the narrow bed, covered with something like an eiderdown but thinner and big enough to wrap round me completely. The sound and motion of the train still rush in my head; there are images of Oma and Jakob and Saul, fusing one into the other, speaking in words I cannot understand. Eventually, I sleep.

In the morning, Jakob’s housekeeper comes and prepares breakfast for us; coffee, a selection of jam, warm rolls and cheese, all beautifully placed on fresh table linen. Josef and I look at each other, afraid to spill or drip or drop crumbs.

Saul holds his cup carefully. ‘Perhaps we should do this at home. What do you think your mother would say?’

I think of our breakfast times, yo-yo meals with Molly presiding, standing by the stove dishing out bacon and eggs.

‘I think she’d have a fit.’ Josef spreads his roll generously with butter. ‘We’ve never used a tablecloth since Oma died.’

‘Well,’ Saul says, ‘Jakob’s life has been a little different from ours.’

‘Has he always lived alone? Did he never marry?’

‘No, he never married. He lived with his sister, Aunt Reine, when they came here. You remember? She was Oma’s sister too. She was a good woman – very…understanding.’ Saul stops, a little flustered, as if he’s said the wrong thing.

‘Was that when you and Oma came to England?’ I ask.

‘A couple of years later. They had to leave Berlin – it was no longer possible to trade, even with other Jewish families. Then the government took over the factory – it was very dangerous.’

‘What work did they do?’

‘Jakob owned a small clothing factory. He’d been very successful until the troubles started. Aunt Reine was a seamstress, she worked in the factory and looked after the other workers.’

‘Couldn’t they come to England too?’

‘Reine was unwell by then, she had arthritis – it was hard for her to sew. She couldn’t imagine leaving Germany anyway – in spite of what was happening. Jakob decided to stay with her, so they came to Lübeck – it was far enough away from Berlin and there were cousins here. They had somewhere to stay that was safe – at least, that’s what they’d hoped.’

I sip my coffee, holding the cup carefully too over the saucer. ‘So what happened to her – to Aunt Reine?’

Saul helps himself to more bread, chewing thoughtfully, about to speak, but Jakob arrives then and sits down to share breakfast and we have to wait for the answer.

‘You all slept well I hope?’ Jakob asks. ‘Your little room in the roof was alright?’

I empty my mouth and mumble something again.

‘I see you’ve met Lenchen – she looks after me now,’ Jakob winks, ‘or so she likes to think.’

The housekeeper comes back into the living room with another pot of coffee. She wears an apron with faded flowers, her hair tied back in a bun. She looks about the same age as Molly.

‘What would you like to see while you’re here?’ Jakob asks. ‘The waterfront is impressive and we have some fine buildings still. Some were left standing, though many were not.

And it’s later, as we tour the city that we find out what happened. Accessed by a series of bridges, the old city of Lübeck is an island. We walk by the waters that surround it – the river paths, the harbours, the pools sectioned off for swimming. Tireless in spite of his age and failing health, Jakob takes us through endless narrow streets, past salt lofts – he calls it the
white gold
that helped the town to prosper centuries before. He leads us up from the harbour to the tailor’s shop where, after the war, he finally found work.

In the centre of town, there’s extensive building work, new shops and houses already completed, some still in progress. We come to a standstill outside a vast church, built largely of red brick, its twin spires glinting green in the sunlight.

‘I want to show you something,’ Jakob says, ‘we have to go inside.’

I look at Josef, then from Saul to Jakob, confused that we’re to be taken into a church. I’ve attended church services occasionally with Molly but the last time Saul went to the synagogue was for Oma’s funeral. Although we sat Shiva for her afterwards in the schoolroom – a whole week of no friends to play, no music, no proper food – since then religion has played no great part in our family life.

Jakob leads the way in, walking slowly round the cavernous spaces. Ornate and colourful, gilded arches lift our voices so that it seems we’re not talking to each other but to the sky. Then we stop. At the back of the church is a small chapel, dark and gloomy, lit only by a spotlight and a single candle. On the ground, lie the remains of two bells, huge and wounded, sunk deeply into the broken stone flags.

Josef and I look in horror. ‘Whatever happened?’

‘It’s part of the story,’ Saul says. ‘I’ll let Jakob explain. I think he wants you to know, that’s why he’s brought us here.’

And there in the church, with Saul interpreting, we listen as Jakob quietly relates the events of the night that not only brought down the bells but took his sister too.

‘Reine and I came here to Lübeck in 1938. We tried to stay in Berlin – it was our home after all – but so much was happening, our family was already torn apart. We had other family here, Christian cousins from our mother’s side, and they agreed to help us, but in some ways it was no better than Berlin. Not long after we arrived, in November, we were caught up in the violence and riots of Kristallnacht – the madness was everywhere. I don’t know how we survived, how we avoided deportation. As far as possible, we kept hidden – kept the curfew. The following year, with Germany at war, we heard little news. We had only rumour and stories and fear to tell us what was happening to your Opa and indeed to so many of our friends back at home. I cannot speak of guilt – we did what we thought was right. We made a life here and our cousins took a great risk. But there was another danger too.’ Jakob sighs and rubs his forehead. Then he continues slowly, in English.

‘One night in 1942, about a week before Easter, Reine insisted on going to visit a friend. She stayed the night because the friend was taken ill and Reine didn’t want to leave her alone. That night a huge bombing raid began. Buildings fell, others caught fire right across the city. It was chaos. Sometime after midnight, the house she was in collapsed – with both of them inside. Our own house, just a few streets away, didn’t have even a broken window.’ Jakob is clutching the brim of his hat, turning it slowly round. His hands shake a little. ‘How is that? How did God allow this?’ He seems lost for a moment, somewhere in the spring of 1942.

I turn back to look again at the bells. Even at twelve, I can see the complex irony of what we’ve just witnessed, the futile devastation wrought on both sides by the war. Meetings in the schoolroom begin to make sense – no wonder Saul has taken up the mantel for peace.

By the time Jakob leads us out of the church, it has started to rain.

The legacy of recent history is leaving new markers too, complexities that I’m hard pressed to follow. Europe has new boundaries, its countries parcelled up and changed. I’ve heard about the division of Germany, not only from Adam’s dismissive comments, but from snippets picked up at meetings in the schoolroom or round the supper table. I know that Berlin is cut in half by a giant barrier; now I learn that Lübeck’s eastern side descends into wasteland, buildings remain in ruins, restoration has been limited. From here, the Intra-German Border runs north to the Baltic, then south and east to Czechoslovakia.

A few days later, Jakob takes us to the coast for a day out, where the mouth of the River Trave meets the sea at the northernmost point of the frontier. It’s wet and windy that day; the little seaside town struggling with its damp cafés, its dispirited tourists. We stand by the lighthouse looking east to Priwall, to the guard tower and the border control and the flat, empty heathland beyond. Saul wipes the rain from his face, but I think now they were tears – because of what happened, because the country he left simply replaced one deplorable regime with another and now he can never go home.

***

Under the eaves, the wind howled. There was a gentle creak as Chloé turned in her cot; water dripped in the airing cupboard next door. I thought of how I had settled in an adopted land, of how, as a family we had all chosen to become strangers: Oma, Saul, Jakob, Josef and I gave up the familiar for the foreign. Displacement, through necessity or choice, became the norm as we dealt with a new, obscure landscape rolling out before us. Even at home, in the bleak years after Josef left, we circled each other warily, shocked by the loss, floundering in the new place, none of us knowing where to tread.

I returned from Germany that summer full of insight, to the home I still recognised, a jigsaw piece of my heritage slotting neatly into place. I was touched by Saul’s decision to take us with him and his faith in our concern for the past. And I loved every waking minute with Josef. But six months later he had gone.

Dear Joe

It’s nearly summer. Or trying to be. I’m sitting in Paul’s tree house – Gil made it for him last year out of bits of wood from the old tall boy, the one from Adam’s room. Adam doesn’t need it any more now he’s found a flat up north. It looks as if he’ll stay there after his degree – he says it’s cheaper and there’s more opportunity. His new girlfriend lives up there too so that’s probably the real reason. He wants to do industrial law or something – doesn’t sound much fun to me.

I can’t remember what I wrote in my last letter, the last one I sent you anyway. Sometimes I write and then throw it away. Did I tell you about the Easter March? Did I tell you about Gil? He’s been around quite a bit – at least he was until recently. We’d sort of been going out for a few months. Well, I thought we were going out, but he had other ideas. He and I did the March this year, all three days, the first one since you left. To start with it was really good. There were thousands of marchers – we were up at the front with the flags and all the important people, even famous ones – I’ve seen some of them on telly. But it didn’t end up as I expected. Not at all. I’d love to tell you it was great, all of us united for the common cause, that we came back resolute and committed – but that’s the fantasy version. I won’t bore you with details, suffice to say I had blisters the size of half crowns and things got really messy in London in more ways than one. Gil’s idea of a relationship didn’t quite coincide with mine and the sad thing is I’ve ended up without the only real friend I’ve had since you left.

Life’s not so sweet at the moment, just when I thought it was getting better.

Write soon. M x