by Anna Ellory
‘Miriam, this is just an interview to find out your version of events,’ Officer Müller says.
‘My version of events is what happened. You know I’d rather be in prison for the rest of my life than with that man. I’d freely go to the mental institute, but for the medications. I can’t stand not being able to think.’
‘Miriam, are you listening to me?’ She stretches her hand across the table palm down. ‘You are not in any trouble here. We have seen the bruises on your neck, and the injuries, the damage to his nose, the scratches on his wrists, are all linked to him choking you. What we need to know, and this is serious, is the intention behind the attack on him. He says you hit him with the telephone, is that true?’
‘No, I was blacking out, I couldn’t breathe, I thought I was going to die. Then Eva must have hit him, because the pressure eased off my neck and Axel slumped off me. It was ages before I could see again and when I did Eva was beside me. She saved my life.’
‘How did this Eva get into your apartment?’
‘She has a key. I got the locks changed after Axel got into my apartment the other day. Eva has a new key.’
‘How long have you known her?’
‘Not long, she is an old friend of my parents’.’ Although not entirely the truth, Miriam doesn’t think twice.
‘Where is Eva now?’
‘I don’t know,’ Miriam says.
‘Do you have another address for her, a telephone number? She’ll need to corroborate these events.’
‘Will she be in trouble?’
‘I don’t think so, but with this type of situation . . .’
‘Is Axel going to make trouble out of this?’
‘He has made a complaint, yes, but I can’t see us being able to pursue this further, seeing as he attacked you.’
‘In your own home,’ adds the older officer. ‘He says he signed the divorce papers and left them with you, is this true?’
‘I don’t have them.’ She shakes her head, overwhelmingly tired; crying is exhausting. She tries to focus, but her tea has made her warm and as the officers speak, she can feel her eyelids close.
‘We can see you are very tired, Miriam. We will be in touch.’ Officer Müller touches the file in front of her. ‘We have all your details. And can you ask your friend to come down to the station, so we can have a chat with her too. Your security guy’ – she consults the paper in front of him – ‘a Herr Lionel Ambrose, he’s stated the presence of a third party, a woman, so it should all line up. But we do need to talk to your friend.’
‘Sure.’ Miriam stands as the officers do. ‘Thank you.’ She shakes both their hands and moves on wobbly feet. ‘I’m sorry for all the tears,’ Miriam squeaks, her voice gone.
‘You’ll need to check your neck with a doctor.’
As the door opens and Miriam is rustling with her coat she hears a familiar voice.
‘I am Eva Bertrandt. I tried to kill Axel Voight.’
Miriam looks to the front desk and there is Eva. Her voice deep and loud in the empty room. In her arms is the intercom phone and she passes it to the officer on the other side of the desk as if it is a baby.
‘No, Eva,’ Miriam says, but her voice is inaudible. ‘Eva,’ she tries again, and clears her throat.
She takes a step towards her, but the older officer has crossed the room in a few strides and he ushers Eva to the opposite side of the desk and away from Miriam. Officer Müller puts an arm out to stop Miriam moving towards her.
‘She didn’t kill him,’ she whispers. ‘She saved me. Axel’s not dead, is he?’
‘No, he’s at home, resting.’
‘Then tell her, please?’
‘It’s important we listen to her.’
‘But she’s trying to protect me.’
‘Why? You aren’t in any trouble.’
‘She doesn’t know that!’ Miriam wheezes a response that is inaudible even to her.
‘Go home, rest up and we’ll be in touch.’
‘What will happen to her?’
Officer Müller steps closer to hear Miriam, who repeats herself at a whisper.
‘She’ll be questioned.’
‘Can I wait for her?’
‘No, go home. It will all work out.’
She holds the main door open and Miriam steps through; as she does the door hushes shut behind her and she is swallowed into the late afternoon, as black as night.
36
MIRIAM
Lionel is asleep in his chair, his mouth open, and heavy snores rattle the newspaper on his chest.
‘It’s a bit late for you?’ she whispers, her voice sounding strange and foreign.
She touches him on the shoulder.
‘Why aren’t you home?’ she mouths. ‘It’s New Year’s Day.’
‘Oh, hullo pet, are you okay? Thought them officers had arrested you.’
‘No, I’m fine.’
‘With all the shenanigans going on, I thought I was better placed here today. Well, until all the residents are back. The Smyth sisters are out at the theatre so I said I’d stay late until they got back. What happened with your husband and that woman gave us all a hell of a fright. The whole building’s talking ’bout nothing else today.’
‘I’ll bet.’
‘And that woman, an Easterner, no doubt. I did say it before, but that wall may have been a blessing, you know. Now that it’s down you never know who’ll come through it. Your poor husband.’
‘No, Eva did nothing wrong, she saved me.’
But either Lionel isn’t listening or cannot hear the croak of voice Miriam is using every effort to push out. ‘Came by again today, cheeky blighter, after all she’s done.’ He stretches in his chair and his buttons pull, revealing his greying vest underneath.
‘Told her it was all her fault, you see, that you had been arrested instead of her. Bad lot.’ He shakes his head. ‘She flew off like a cat that caught the pigeon.’ He smiles. ‘So you see, there’s nothing to be worried ’bout now, petal. You get off up the stairs and I’ll keep a look out down here. You find that once the police are round, them Easterners scatter. Bet she was a red and all.’ He rests back in his chair.
‘Lionel,’ Miriam tries again, but points to her throat, to mime that she has no voice.
‘Oh.’ He sits up and looks at her neck where the scarf has fallen loose. ‘Oh pet, that looks terrible. She did that too?’
Miriam says, ‘No. It was Axel.’ But he can’t hear her and just shakes his head.
‘Look after yourself, Fräulein, I’ll be here ’til the sisters come back. They do love their ballet, them two. Goodnight.’
She walks up the stairs, pulling the scarf from around her neck. Frustrated by her lack of voice, she thinks about how to get Eva out, how to help her. The house is dark, she locks the door.
On the dining-room table is the dress.
Miriam switches on all the lights, the letters are in small piles resting on the dress at the waistband, and an envelope of newly translated letters is at the head.
She cannot understand what Eva was doing. Why take the dress and return it? Why confess to something that she didn’t do? Perhaps she knows what she is doing. The woman, from the little she has shared, must have endured so much, but still she kept going, and keeps going.
She looks at the stitching on the dress, it’s been patched up as though Miriam had never taken her scissors to it in the first place. The letters, for her, are no longer about finding a woman her father loved, but how a woman can survive these horrors. If she survived. What Eva had said makes her think that whatever Miriam has not read will not be easy. It will not end well.
The letters are all in order, she separates the piles, and finds she only has a few left to read. She wraps a blanket around herself.
Henryk,
Bunny, although silent, is a presence in the camp like nothing else.
Half her right leg is missing, severed from inner knee to ankle, it’s covered in a blanket, but
you can see the tendons pulsing if she moves. Her bone removed. She has only one where she should have two.
To keep her fingers busy, she sews. Patching army uniforms and sewing pockets. Trying to thread flesh to bone again.
She holds Stella like a newborn, absorbing her innocence, her childhood warmth.
We could not have been more surprised the morning The Noise ground the camp to a halt.
When the wail that hurt our hearts more than our ears came from Bunny.
Rabbits make no noise. Silent animals. Until they scream. A rabbit in pain will scream. A scream unlike anything I had ever heard before.
We were walking back to the block with the soup, Hani and I, and we saw guards in our block. We were about to drop the soup, but we carried on without spilling a drop.
‘What’s happening?’ We looked to each other. The Noise entered my body, penetrated so deep. It hurt me inside, like a fracture. I heaved on an empty stomach.
The guards came away with Stella. Her arms and legs thrashing about. Stella was calling for Bunny. Hani and I dropped the soup and ran. Ran towards the sight of Stella being taken.
But we were stopped. A shot rang around and around, a spiralling noise that deepened and worsened as it sang out. Stella was crying, slumped, a dead weight, they were struggling to hold her.
I rushed to her, she grabbed my neck with both her arms. A vice-grip.
‘Bunny!’ she called.
Hani went past me into the block. I rocked Stella in my arms and watched the door. The guards were talking amongst themselves.
Hani came out shaking her head and joined us where we sat at the feet of three guards.
‘Bunny,’ Hani said, and wrapped herself in my arms with Stella.
Goose pimples rise over Miriam’s skin and tingle at the nape of her neck. Tears fall silently as she reads. ‘Bunny,’ she says into the darkened room, shaking her head and blowing her nose.
She checks the time, it is late, but the thought of walking in the night no longer bothers her. Miriam places the unread letters in her bag, and goes to the hospice.
The hospice is locked and she waits a long time, listening to the rustle of leaves from Ruhwald Park. Finally, a nurse waddles to open the door.
‘It’s late,’ she says, and Miriam recognises the voice, deeply nasal, as the one she spoke to when she was trying to find her father after his transfer.
‘Sue said I could stay,’ she says and ducks past the woman towards her dad’s room.
‘It’s late,’ the nurse says again, but she has darted in and gently closes his door behind her. With only a small night light above his head, the room is musty with sleep and dark. Miriam unfolds the bed with a creak and a crash of springs.
‘It’s only me, Dad,’ Miriam says. ‘My voice is a bit broken, but it’s only me. I’m fine.’
She takes hold of his hand and kisses her father on the forehead. The nasal tube is large and pokes out from his nose, he has been shaved again and looks younger.
‘I’m sorry about Axel, I’m sorry about a lot of things. But Dad, I can make things right.’
He smiles, an actual smile, and pats the bed with his hand. Miriam perches on it and holds his hand in both of hers, his nails neatly manicured and his skin soft.
Miriam bends to kiss his head and he reaches his hand and places it on her hair.
‘Miriam,’ he says, patting her head very gently. ‘My Miriam.’
She rests her head on his chest for a long time, unable to pull away, not wanting to either. ‘I’ve put a notice in the paper for you, Dad. If she’s alive, she’ll come. I know it. Until then, I’ll read you all her letters, I promise, but please’ – her voice breaks – ‘please, if she is what you are holding on for, please don’t die. I still need you.’
When his arm falls heavy, she wipes her eyes and sits in the comfort of the armchair to read the final letters. Unable to push her voice into sound, she whispers the words, like a promise in the dark warmth of the room.
Henryk,
Stella’s number was called to transport. Bunny was murdered in her bunk. Hani and I had a split-second decision to make. We were sitting in the dust. Eugenia came out to join us. The guards started to try to take Stella from my arms.
Eugenia, Hani and I looked to each other.
Hani and I stepped up with Stella. We held the sobbing girl. She was calling for Bunny. The guard hit her and her tears fell, but her hands were in ours now. We walked with her.
Eugenia stepped back. She would not make the journey with us.
We have been unmanned, disbanded and now, yet again, we are on a journey of unknown destination.
I did not think of our child, or of my life or of you.
Henryk, I am sorry.
Eugenia stepped back? What happened to her?
She can understand why Eugenia stayed behind. Why would she step up to an unknown when she knows the status quo? That’s why she’d stayed with Axel. If you jump out of the frying pan, you may end up in the fire.
But Frieda made the choice and took the risk. She reads the next letter, a tiny, finger-sized piece of paper.
When I stepped on to the train with Stella I thought of her mother, long dead, I am sure, and how I would want someone with my child when they die. I finally understood what Wanda was doing with the babies. She was giving them warmth and love at the very end, something their mothers were not permitted to do.
The original letter curls back over itself. She picks it up and unrolls it. The paper so small and flimsy she doesn’t want to tear it.
We held Stella as she sobbed for Bunny; we sobbed for Bunny too. And for Eugenia left behind, and for Wanda.
We held Stella as she shook in fear. We gave her all that we had, food and stories and songs.
Then she became feverish.
We held her hand when she grew cold. Her wooden carving of a rabbit held tight in her palm. Talking only of her ‘Bunny’.
We held her when she died. We wrapped her in our love, but we had to let her go. On the transport to ‘Pitchi Poi’.
Now it is just Hani and me. We shake and we sob and we scream in anguish at a forgotten world. But we also look to each other.
What next?
She doesn’t want to read on, she doesn’t want to know. But she promised her father and she needs to know what next. With a heaviness in her heart that ripples back to the loss of Michael, Miriam picks up the next letter.
I am now in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
‘You were in the same place?’ she says. ‘Dad, Frieda was in Auschwitz too. I wonder if you met each other there?’ She places her hand in his and he squeezes tight.
This is a special degree of hell. Babies thrown into a roaring fire, alive. Mothers and fathers jumping in after, everyone getting shot. Black flakes fall like snow. Ashes. The chimneys burn here all day and all night. This is our fate.
By some mistake we were neither stripped, searched nor showered. We kept our clothes, missed the showers and stayed side by side. We ended up in a line. A red cross is painted on my Ravensbrück uniform and Hani’s too. We stood for hours in the line, waiting, not sure what we were waiting for. A man, a prisoner, with a cap and a striped uniform like ours, sitting solitary, with a needle attached to a pen-like instrument. He heated the pen under a lamp, then dipped it into ink, and marked the skin on the arm with a series of dots.
We waited and Hani quaked.
‘I cannot let them mark me again.’
‘No, Hani, not now. I need you. Stay by me, we will be okay.’
I moved her in front of me, I held her there with both hands and I talked to her constantly. When she was in the chair she pulled away so hard she almost toppled the table, but I kept her in place. It hurt. The process. They have marked my skin again. This time with ink and not with a whip. More scars. We are now 72828 and 72829.
But my nine is joined almost like an eight and Hani’s eight doesn’t join. Perhaps, if you look from afar, we have the same number.
&
nbsp; Then we were put in a block with eight women to a mattress, women on the floor; it is so packed in here it reminds me of the holding tent when we first entered Ravensbrück. Hani and I stay close, we try to understand how this place works.
All I know: it is a killing camp. We will not leave here.
We look at our numbers, maybe they will save us. But we both know that, just maybe, they can only save one of us.
HENRYK
Miriam is alive. She is alive. My baby is alive.
I hold on to that thought as I hear her broken voice; she is hurting but she is alive and Axel failed.
I try to hold on to this, this hope, as I hear Miriam read all that Frieda went through, for me. I can do nothing. I hear it all now. I squeeze the small hand held within my own. I thank Miriam with a heart full of love for the sacrifice she is making. I know this is my punishment. I must hear how Frieda died from the mouth of my sweet child. But not just how she died, the way she was tortured too. And how she loved me, even though I caused all of this.
I dreamed so often that I would throw a body in, waiting for the belch of the flames, then I would realise it was Frieda. And I would tumble and fall, leaping into the pit to find my love and to seek redemption. Because I am lost. And I fear that Frieda will never be found.
Because it was me. It was my name. My name upon her pure tongue. Her life has gone, for me.
And I am nothing, for hell has a name, and it is mine.
37
MIRIAM
She moves to the pull-out bed when he breathes evenly and restfully in sleep. She switches on the lamp and pulls out the final letters. First, a letter to her mother:
Dear Emilie