Maybelle was a small ordinary-looking horse and quickly became Helen’s pet. Horse and rider became very attached. It did not take long before Helen claimed that Maybelle recognized her when she arrived at the stable bringing carrots and sugar cubes. Maybelle accompanied Helen to a riding camp on the south shore of Montreal that summer. Some time later, Maybelle had to be euthanized because she was suffering from equine infectious anemia, a fatal and very infectious disease attacking some horses. Maybelle was followed by Pride, a grey-and-black speckled horse, much larger than her predecessor, which in turn was followed by Ebony, a fine-boned black horse that had been a racehorse.
It was mainly I who drove Helen to the stable, but I enjoyed these occasions to spend time with my daughter. She competed in horse shows, which I attended, primarily because I wanted to make sure that she was all right. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest each time she approached a jump, and when the horse refused, I felt even worse.
As Marvin had forewarned us, he went to Israel with Camp Ramah in the summer of 1971. A postcard we received from him told the tale: “This is my country. It is here I want to live.” Although he was only sixteen years old at the time, I did not take this statement lightly. I believed what he said, but he was still very young and I thought he might change his mind in the coming years.
That summer, Stefan and I joined an American Express tour to Europe. It was one of those trips that took you to several countries in a very short time, one day here, the next day there. We had chosen this particular tour because it took us through Cologne. Neither of us really wanted to spend even one night in Germany, but Stefan thought that this would be a good opportunity for him to see where I had lived and for me to visit my childhood home.
We spent only one night at an inn on the Rhine. I remember that when I asked in German for a comforter because it was very cool, the owner of the inn complimented me on my German and asked me if I was German. No, I said in no uncertain terms, I was Canadian. The following day, a sightseeing boat took us to Cologne past castles and large estates to the tunes of “Ich weiss nicht was soll das bedeuten” (“I Do Not Know What That Means”) and other German Lieder (songs), which nearly brought tears to my eyes. What did this mean? Why was I so moved? I disliked everything about Germany, I did not want to be there and yet a few sentimental songs had me almost crying.
While the others in our group had lunch and visited the Koelner Dom, or Cologne Cathedral, Stefan and I took a taxi to Marienburger Strasse 52, my father’s dream house. The street was still lined with trees and beautiful, just as I remembered it, and so was the exterior of the house. I rang the bell at the gate, and a woman opened the door. I told her in German that I had lived in this house many years before and that I lived in Canada now. I asked her if she would mind if we came in and looked at the house. She said she would not mind; she was only the house-sitter while the owners were in America. She was under the mistaken impression that we were friends of the owners, and I did not correct her.
My childhood home was still a beautiful house. The rooms were smaller than I remembered, and the garden with the fountain where my father and I had loved to walk, and which I had thought to be almost as large as a park, was in fact just a small garden. But the fountain was still there. The rose bushes I remembered were gone and so was the dog kennel adjoining the house. But my memories were those of the little girl who had sat on the bench in the garden with her Vati, and they had little to do with today’s reality. It is always hard to go back, yet I was happy that I did so in the company of the person closest to me, someone who understood my conflicting emotions. When we returned to the bus, our travel companions had heard from the guide where we had been while they visited the cathedral. Their reaction was touching. Sandwiches had been prepared for us, and the empathy was palpable.
Marvin returned from Israel a full-fledged Zionist, and to this day he has never veered from that course. That fall he became the new leader of the Beth Ora Junior Congregation, a position he filled with much enthusiasm. Tragically, Rabbi Halpern died suddenly that year from a heart attack. The congregation was shocked. The very popular rabbi had been only forty-two years old.
Stefan had started building commercial buildings in St-Laurent. The success of the first property at the corner of Côte-Vertu and Beaulac streets was a long time coming, but Stefan was as always patient, and eventually the building was fully rented. A new and smaller building was constructed next to the existing one, where he built a comfortable office for us, consisting of a reception area that led into his office, with a door between the two, and a third room where we kept our files. The move from my basement office to a real office was exciting for me. I felt it gave me a more professional aura, and although our tenants never knew that I was their landlord’s wife, I eventually became known, much to my delight, as the owner’s efficient secretary.
That same year, we celebrated my mother’s seventieth birthday. She had been talking about moving to the King David, a seniors’ residence, but I kept dissuading her because I realized she would be even less physically active there than if she stayed in her own home. Over the years, my mother had developed a back problem that made it hard for her to walk, and she was already using a cane. From that time on she had dinner with us almost every night. Either Stefan or I would pick her up and take her back home again. It was only when she spent the afternoon and evening with friends that she did not come to our house in the late afternoon. This was a burden that I took upon myself, and she never resisted. Had Stefan been less understanding, he could have objected to my mother’s steady presence, but he never did. We continued this routine until my mother eventually moved to the King David when she was seventy-five years old.
In the fall of 1973, Marvin started McGill University. Just before the High Holidays, he contracted mononucleosis. Because of his allergies, his bout with this illness was particularly severe, and it was quite some time until he recovered. On Yom Kippur, he was still in bed when Stefan and I heard the news on TV about the outbreak of war in Israel. Marvin’s radio was on that entire day in spite of the holiday and for the next few days as well.
By the time the war was over, Marvin had made up his mind: he would go to Israel to do volunteer work as long as there was a need. We did little to change his mind. He managed to finish the semester at school, and in January 1974 he left for Israel, where he was to work at Kibbutz Tirat Zvi, a Modern Orthodox agricultural kibbutz near Beit Shean in northern Israel.
With Marvin gone, our house felt empty and we missed him terribly. We had, however, promised to visit him, and just before Pesach 1974, Helen, Stefan and I travelled to Israel. Marvin came to Tel Aviv to spend the holiday with us at our hotel. Then we joined yet another bus tour of Israel to give Helen the opportunity to see this beautiful and varied country.
A visit to Tirat Zvi was mandatory, of course. Marvin seemed to be very much at home and proudly showed us around. Originally founded by Central- and Eastern-European Jews, the kibbutz was already an old and well-established enterprise. We met the kibbutz parents he had been assigned to, as well as various other people. Marvin’s work consisted mainly of picking olives. Today he cannot bear even the sight of this fruit.
When Marvin returned from Israel in the spring of that year, he decided to spend the summer working on a project he had started in Quebec City in 1974. To facilitate his work and also to make travelling between home and Quebec City easier, we bought him a small brown Toyota with a clutch. Both children had in the meantime learned to drive, and for a short while, the three of us had shared my car. That summer Helen stayed in town, working at a Coles bookstore. I had for a long time wanted to revisit Norway, and the fact that both children were close to home convinced me that this was the right time to leave my husband for two weeks. In the nearly twenty-five years we had been married, we had never been apart that long.
My Return to Norway
The big day of my departure arrived. St
efan, who had been very supportive about my trip, appeared to have second thoughts, but now it was too late to change my plans. Flying was no longer a problem for me. Stefan and I had done so much of it that I was totally relaxed. In fact, I enjoyed the rush the takeoff gave me. (It actually still does.)
In Amsterdam, while waiting for the Scandinavian Airlines plane, I heard people speak Norwegian and became really excited. Onboard the plane to Oslo, I talked to the woman in the seat next to mine, and although I felt that my Norwegian was somewhat rusty, I was able to communicate.
As on my previous visit, I stayed with Beks. Despite the fact that we had not seen each other in many years, we resumed our friendship where we had left off. It was wonderful to have a friend who was part of my past and who was as interested in my family as I was in hers. Beks had retired from her store two years earlier at age seventy and was now enjoying the free time she had never had before.
That first evening, Beks had invited my old friend Josef Fenster, the boy I had met in Alingsås so many years ago, as well as her sister Hannah for dinner. By the time the guests left, I no longer knew if I was speaking English or Norwegian. It had been a long day.
The following morning, I went to a travel agency on the main street, Karl Johans gate. I scrutinized the pamphlets for different tours of Norway and bought a ticket for a five-day bus tour to the city of Bergen and the fjords, where I had never been before. Before I left on my trip, I called Einar Wellén’s office and was told that Einar was at the seashore with his family. I had been in touch with him only sporadically since leaving Norway. Now I was determined to at least speak to him, so I called him at his cottage in Nevlunghavn in southern Norway. He seemed thrilled at hearing my voice and invited me immediately to come visit him and his family in Nevlunghavn. We agreed on a date a few days after my return from my trip to the fjords.
The tour bus I travelled on had English-speaking tourists. Our guide was a twenty-four-year-old Norwegian student, Anne-Marie, whose English was impeccable. By that time, I was completely fluent in Norwegian again and decided to let Anne-Marie know that I spoke her language. She was truly shocked, and subsequently we had many conversations in Norwegian. I don’t think she had ever had a tourist quite like me, a non-Norwegian who spoke Norwegian perfectly. Because her father had worked in the Norwegian Underground during the war, it was easy for her to relate to my story of the past.
It is impossible to describe the beauty of the Norwegian fjords, the deep still waters edged by high mountains that seemingly climb out of the fjords. Incredibly, there are farms that can be reached only by boat nestled into the mountains, a sight that is etched into my memory. On one of the boats crossing the fjords, Anne-Marie introduced me to the captain, who told me that his vessel had once been a library boat, distributing books to the farmers in the area.
Anne-Marie had brought some tapes of music by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. The bus left the Sognefjord to the tune of the mighty “Bryllupsdag på Troldhaugen” (“Wedding Day at Troldhaugen”) and climbed through mountainous, narrow and curvy roads up to the famous Stalheim Hotel with its magnificent view of the valley below. Although years have gone by since I visited this area of Norway, I still vividly remember its outstanding beauty.
On the morning of the last day of the tour, the guide, Anne-Marie, told us that we would have lunch in Fagernes. This was something I had not been prepared for, but I immediately decided that while the rest of the group was having lunch, I would somehow get to Rogne and back. I hoped to see Alma Granli, with whom my family had lived so many years ago. As soon as the bus stopped, I ran into the only hotel and asked for a taxi, but was told that there were none available that day. I was upset and told the receptionist that I had to get to Rogne and the reason why. A woman standing next to me was so moved by my story that she offered to drive me. In the end, her teenagers drove me. As we came closer to Rogne, they kept asking me if I knew how far we still had to go, but all I could tell them was that the house faced the Volbu lake.
I recognized the green house with its steep approach and ran up the hill. Outside the house, an elderly woman came to meet me. Knowing immediately that she was Alma and not wanting to shock her, I simply asked, “Do you remember a family that lived here during the war?”
She looked at me and, with tears filling her eyes, she said, “You are not Margrit Rosenberg, are you?”
That made me cry, too, and we embraced each other, barely able to speak. In the few minutes I was able to spend with Alma, I found out that Nils had died a few years earlier. Her daughter, who had been a little girl when I lived there, also came out of the house and was quickly told who I was. And then I had to leave. Two teenagers were waiting in the car, and a busload of people were waiting in Fagernes. What a day this had been! That was the last time I saw Alma.
My five-day excursion ended on a high note, and I felt sad that it was all over. But I still had something special to look forward to — the visit with Marit and Einar Wellén in Nevlunghavn.
When the train arrived in Larvik, a small town close to Nevlunghavn, Marit and Einar were standing on the platform. Although it had been years since we had last met, I would have recognized them anywhere. We drove to their beachfront cottage, where Marit served lunch and we talked of everything that had happened in the intervening years. It was a lovely warm day, and in the afternoon Einar took me in one of his boats out to sea, where we went swimming in the cool water. I had never been in this part of Norway before and marvelled at the contrast between the scenery of southern Norway, with its coast dotted with grassy holms (small islands) and reefs, and western Norway, with its fjords and high mountains. Marit’s twin sister, Lita, and her family came visiting later that day. They owned a cottage close by. I loved being a part of this close-knit family even for a short twenty-four hours. The warmth with which I was treated, the interest they showed in me, my family and my life in general, was something I have never been able to forget. My visit to Nevlunghavn revived and strengthened an old friendship, which has endured until today.
Back in Oslo, I went to see my old friend Celia. She and her family lived in a comfortable house in the suburbs of Oslo. Her eighteen-year-old daughter, Monika, was playing the piano as I came in, but I did not meet her son, Thomas, who was fourteen at the time. Celia and I had not seen each other since I had left Norway in 1951, so we had a lot of catching up to do.
It had been an amazing holiday, and I returned to Montreal in high spirits. The trip had been so stimulating that I felt as if I were walking on air for days. Getting back into my routine at work and home took a great deal of effort.
There is a saying that husbands and wives should never work together, and there were times when I felt this to be absolutely true. But from the beginning, I had decided that if Stefan and I were to have a reasonably good working relationship, he would be the boss and I his secretary. He was, after all, an excellent and prudent businessperson who made all the important business decisions, and, like any good secretary, I tried to keep order in the office and facilitate his work as much as I could.
In the fall of 1974, Helen entered Vanier College and Marvin continued taking courses at McGill University. Both of them had part-time jobs, Helen at Coles Bookstore and Marvin as a ski instructor at the International Ski School. Through the university, Marvin became aware of the plight of Soviet Jewry and participated in demonstrations and meetings concerning this issue. Despite the children’s different schedules, we still managed to have supper together at 6:00 p.m. most days.
Stefan’s and my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary was coming up in December of 1974, and, to celebrate this milestone, we went to Hawaii. It was a dream come true for me. We went on a tour that included Oahu, Kauai, Maui and Hawaii. Stefan was especially excited to visit Pearl Harbor. Coincidentally, our friends Judith and Victor Farkas were in Honolulu at the time, so we had dinner together. Even though it has been nearly thirty years since that outst
anding trip, I can recall almost every detail.
One day soon after we returned from our trip to Hawaii, I came home to find Marvin in the den with a stranger. My first thought was, who is this girl and what is she doing here? The girl who was sitting comfortably in one of our leather armchairs could not have been more than sixteen years old to Marvin’s twenty. Marvin introduced her as Lily and told me that he was helping her with some of her homework. She had transferred from a school in Rosemère to Montreal’s Hebrew Academy for her last year of high school and was staying with her grandparents in Montreal during the week. The explanation seemed plausible at the time.
But Lily turned up at our home more and more often, and it soon became apparent that there was more to this relationship than tutor and student. Lily was a very attractive and self-assured young woman who seemed older than her years. She and Marvin had many common interests as she, too, was becoming religious — hence her transfer to Hebrew Academy. Their relationship quickly developed into a major romance, and it was not long before Lily called Stefan and me Ma and Pa, albeit jokingly. Stefan and I had our reservations about where this romance was headed. Surely, Marvin and Lily could not be thinking of getting married. They were much too young, and Marvin had not even completed his education. But I don’t think Stefan or I ever voiced our concerns to Marvin.
While we were speculating, the two made plans. Lily had decided to spend the year after high school at a yeshiva for young women in Israel. I was relieved when I heard about her plans. A year’s separation would be a cooling-off period for the young couple and would give them a chance to contemplate their relationship from a distance. However, that was not to be. Marvin declared that he could not be separated from Lily for such a long time, and so he made inquiries about an ort engineering school in Tel Aviv and applied for admittance.
Silent Refuge Page 14