Beyond the Storm

by Diana Finley

  At that terrible time so many years ago, Anna was desperate. It is her nature to be secretive – a legacy perhaps of having to suppress so much of ourselves as children, due to our mother’s illness. Her feelings of shame and guilt pushed her even deeper within herself. Perhaps we were wrong, but it seemed that the only solution at that time, was for us to take the child. No one else was allowed to know, not even our parents or Margaret. Of course, I have never regretted it – Reuben and I love Shimon like a son, and Marta and Leila regard him as their brother.

  But the cost for Anna has been unimaginable. She felt she had betrayed Jakob, and had to agree to his terms. He believed Anna would forget her pain when they had children of their own. Of course, that did not happen, and in any case, no mother can forget her first-born child, regardless of her love for children who come after. Anna insisted that no one speak (or write) of the past. She could not bear to know anything of Shimon except that he was well – and we had to respect her wishes.

  Reuben and I have always told Shimon the truth about his birth. We told him that we love him and that nothing will ever change that, but that Anna – his mother – loves him too. We always hoped that Shimon would come to know his mother one day. It is what Shimon wants too.

  I will write to Anna to tell her all this. How lucky she is to have you, Sam.

  With loving greetings from all of us,

  Esther

  June 12th 1957, Boston

  Liebste Anna,

  How are you, meine Liebste, my dearest? Your lovely Sam has written to me and told me about your illness. I hope that you are growing stronger and happier day by day. I am so sorry to know how you have suffered, and so sad not to have been with you and put my arms around you. But, Anna, I am glad – yes glad – if it means that you can at last share your secrets and your pain with those who love you. All these years you have kept it inside you. Why, Anna? You think others will condemn you, but it is not so. Now Sam knows what happened to you – and does he love you any less? Not one bit.

  Now at last, I feel free to tell you of your beautiful son, your Shimon, who has been nothing more than a shadow at your shoulder for so long. He is determined to emerge from the shadows, let me tell you, he will not be kept hidden any longer! First of all, he was a darling baby and a sweet little boy, full of fun and curiosity, full of love and affection. As soon as he was old enough to understand the words, I told him about you, Anna. I told him he was extra lucky, that he had two Mammas – one was his Auntie Esther Mamma, who cared for him and loved him from day to day. The other was his Anna Mamma, who gave birth to him and loved him with all her heart, even though she had to give him up and flee to Palestine.

  Shimon asked many questions. He wanted me to tell him all about you. When he asked why you had not come to visit him, I explained that you were afraid that he would blame you; that you were afraid he might hate you. He always answered that he would never hate you, but he came to call you his ‘Frightened Mamma’.

  Do not worry that Shimon’s life has been one of sadness – it has not. He has had a happy and full childhood, surrounded by family who love and admire him. Marta and Leila worship their big brother, but of course he has another brother and sister who have never met him. Shimon has grown into a fine, intelligent, perceptive and secure young man. You may wonder what he has inherited from you, and what from his father. There is no doubt he has inherited Otto’s good looks. That is where any likeness to his father ends. Girls hover round Shimon, but he is not vain and never takes advantage of his attractiveness. He is kind and caring, with a strong sense of right and wrong. This comes from you, I think. He has a riotous sense of humour. This too comes from the Anna I remember. He also has a quick temper and expresses his outrage without hesitation or inhibition. Where does this come from, Anna …?

  Liebste, we all long to see you. Shimon is desperate to meet you. Please come to visit us. We have a nice home here in Boston, and plenty of room. Please come soon. There is nothing to stop you now, no reason to hold back.

  Reuben, Marta, Leila, and above all, Shimon, send you much love –

  as I do, my dearest sister. I long to embrace you,

  Your Esther

  Chapter 12

  Düsseldorf 1957

  Anna sits at her dressing table, fiddling aimlessly with jars and bottles. All day she has been unable to sit still. Now, as the time draws near, she can barely contain her excitement – and her apprehension. It is nearly fifteen years since she has seen Yael. Will they be able to re-create the closeness, the friendship they once had? Certainly, their regular long letters over the years have kept alive a depth of warmth and intimacy she has never again found with anyone new. Clutching Yael’s most recent letter, she re-reads it for the hundredth time. Just thinking about Yael, and Rachel, and the times they shared in Haifa, brings a heaviness, an aching to her throat.

  She knows Sam has written to Yael, as he wrote to Esther. She does not blame him for that – it was an act of concern, not one of intrusion. In fact, it brings her great peace to reflect that three of the most precious people in her life now know everything important there is to know. The relief of the confessional; she has often envied Catholics that comfort. Why did she deny the truth to Sam for so long? It seems an impenetrable question. Sam has never reproached her, but he did ask if she could not have trusted him. She always trusts him absolutely, Anna tells him, and without reservation. It is herself she did not trust. But only now, slowly, she is learning to trust herself too, and even to like herself, just a little.

  And Rachel, what of her? What will she be like now, who will she be? Anna pictures herself back in the warm courtyard with the beloved little girl, whose innocent charm and physical presence comforted her so much all those years ago. Rachel had been a small child at that time, younger than Eve is now. Now Rachel is a young woman of nineteen. Will she even remember Anna?

  Sam opens the door quietly, and puts his head round tentatively.

  ‘Anna, we should be going. Are you ready?’

  She turns to him and smiles. Immediately his face relaxes. These days he often looks tense, she notices, and tired. His face is drawn; he seems to have lost weight. He is always dismissive of his own health. A lengthy bout of flu has sapped his strength recently.

  ‘Fit as a flea,’ he assured her, as she urged him to rest in bed a little longer. Yet the doctor is concerned for his chest, and reminds her sternly that Sam is no longer a young man. They should plan a holiday together, perhaps without the children.

  Sam bends down and puts his arms around her. She twists round to look at him.

  ‘I’m coming. Do I look all right? Look at the shadows under my eyes. Will she think I look much older?’

  ‘Of course not. You look lovely as always. She’ll just be glad to see you. Time hasn’t stood still for any of us.’

  ‘You think it’s the right decision to leave the children with Della?’

  ‘I do. The entire family party could be a bit overwhelming. Gives you two a chance to talk together a bit on the journey back too.’

  * * *

  Normally Anna hates airports and train stations, the scene of so many sad partings and departures, but this is different – a welcome arrival. The information board indicates Yael’s plane is on time. Anna’s stomach squirms and contracts. The gates open and passengers begin walking through with their luggage, some alone, others in couples or groups, their eyes anxiously scanning the waiting faces. For a moment Anna can scarcely breathe. Sam strokes her shoulder. Suddenly there she is: a short, stocky figure with dark, olive complexion, her broad face enlivened by a huge smile. The blackness of her hair is streaked with grey, and the cut more sophisticated than formerly, but otherwise she is hardly altered. It is her, Yael.

  They stop just inches apart, as if separated by an invisible screen. They embrace for a long time, both crying, and the long years turn around them, swooping like swallows about to leave. Anna takes a step back to allow Sam to move forward. He bends his
height to hug Yael. Only then does Anna’s attention transfer to a striking young woman, standing like a shadow, deliberately in the background. Alert eyes, so like Yael’s, study Anna with great interest. A subtle look of Yael, yet quite a different version, like variations of fruit from the same tree. She is slender, and taller than both her mother and Anna. Long dark hair frames her face. High cheekbones sweep down towards a heart-shaped mouth and small pointed chin. Her mouth tilts slightly higher on the right side when she smiles, just like Yael’s.

  ‘Rachel …?’

  ‘Anna! I am so happy to see you.’

  They embrace, with more tears.

  ‘Do you really remember me, Rachel?’

  ‘Of course I do. You are just as I remember you. I have pictured you so often. You were one of the most special people of my childhood. How could I forget you? But I’m afraid I must have changed a lot.’

  ‘You have become quite beautiful.’

  On the drive back from Düsseldorf airport, Rachel sits in the front seat next to Sam. He takes pleasure in pointing out the sights to her, explaining points of history: the Oberkasseler bridge over the Rhine, Carlsplatz, Kaiserswerth, Königsallee, the Altstadt and Rathaus. Rachel exclaims with genuine interest at each. She asks lots of questions, delighting Sam with her curiosity. Anna and Yael, meanwhile, sit in the back of the car together, hands clutched, knees pointing inwards, scarcely taking their eyes off each other, just talking, talking, and during the hour of the drive, fifteen years shrivel up and drift away, leaving their friendship to return.

  At home Ben and Eve run out into the drive to meet their visitors.

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ exclaims Yael, hugging Ben first. ‘Just look at you two! Such a fine, handsome young man. But I thought you went to school in England?’

  ‘I do, but it’s the holidays at the moment. I’m home for eight weeks.’

  ‘Eight weeks! But that’s wonderful, Ben. What good times we will all have. And now, who is this lovely young lady? She looks just like her mamma.’

  Eve smiles shyly and looks from Yael to Anna. She allows Yael to hug her, but her eyes are fixed firmly, admiringly, on Rachel.

  ‘Oh, I think you like my Rachel, don’t you, Eve?’ asks Yael.

  ‘Yes I do. Would you like to see my cat?’ she asks, turning her face to Rachel. ‘She’s called Emil.’

  ‘Emil? What a good name. I would like to see her very much.’

  Eve stretches out her hand to Rachel and leads her into the house.

  ‘Ben,’ Anna calls softly, ‘keep an eye on them and see that Eve isn’t bothering Rachel.’

  He raises his eyebrows slightly, gives a knowing nod, and strides after his sister, pleased with the adult responsibility he has been given.

  Yael links her arm firmly with Anna’s. She looks penetratingly into her friend’s face.

  ‘Lovely children,’ she says. ‘Both of them, lovely. But, Anna, you have become so thin, and your face …’

  ‘Don’t say it, I know. My face looks like an old woman’s.’

  ‘No, not at all. You don’t look old, dear Anna, you look … lost. Like a lost child. We must help you find yourself again.’

  ‘Yes, that search is a project Sam has taken on too.’

  Yael extends her other arm to hold Sam too, and walks into the house with them both.

  ‘Then let us begin immediately!’

  * * *

  ‘I can’t believe you would leave Israel. It’s impossible to imagine you living anywhere else.’ Anna shakes her head, frowning. Della places a large tureen of soup in front of her.

  ‘Rachel and I have been considering emigrating for a long time. Re-emigrating, in my case. You know how things were when I left Russia. We had to leave. What choice did we have? But it was always David who was the true Zionist – I was a pragmatist, just trying to save my skin, and my parents. So much has happened since then, to me and my life, but to Israel too. The dream of Zion has gone sour for me. All that idealism. A Shangri-La for the Jews – that was the idea. But at what price? Haven’t we Jews seen enough of cruelty and victimisation, of one group of people pitted against another?’

  ‘Israel is the only home I have ever known,’ puts in Rachel. ‘I am a Sabra. I do find it hard to imagine living anywhere else. If we remain, I would soon have to join the military and fight for my country. Of course, if there were truly a threat to Israel, an outside enemy—’

  ‘Like Nasser perhaps?’ interrupts Sam, circling the table with a bottle of wine. ‘Now the Egyptians have taken full control of the Suez Canal, God knows what their next move might be.’

  ‘Perhaps. I’m not sure how much of a threat the Arab world really is. If it were, I guess it would justify joining forces with my comrades to defend Israel. But we can ask ourselves, who are most of the people defined as enemies? Our own neighbours. Those who have lived in Palestine for generations and whom we, Israelis, have forced from their homes and villages, and into new ghettos. And as if it isn’t enough to discriminate against Arabs, increasingly there are divisions among Jews themselves: lighter skins against darker skins, Ashkenazim against Sephardim, pre-war Sabras against Holocaust survivors. You know what Ben-Gurion called them? “Human dust”.’

  ‘Pah! Shameful!’ says Anna.

  ‘Look, we don’t want to talk politics with you all evening – we do enough of that at home,’ says Yael. ‘The fact is Rachel has been offered a place at MIT, and I’ve decided to live in America too – at least while she is studying there.’

  ‘MIT? But that’s wonderful, Rachel!’

  ‘Brains as well as beauty,’ says Sam.

  ‘That’s right,’ says Yael, looking at Rachel with pride. ‘I’m not sure where the brains come from – must be from her father. Not from me, that’s for sure.’

  Anna watches them: their closeness and ease, laughing together, the strong bond between Yael and her daughter.

  ‘Total nonsense, Yael. You always were sharp as a needle.’

  Conversation pauses for a moment. Yael and Rachel exchange meaningful looks.

  ‘Another reason for us both to go to America,’ says Yael, ‘is for me to join … a … friend, who lives there.’

  ‘A friend?’ Anna laughs delightedly. She passes a bowl of salad round the table. ‘Who is he? I assume it is a “he”? Come on, out with it!’

  ‘Leave the poor woman alone,’ says Sam. ‘Can’t she have any secrets?’

  ‘Absolutely none! And certainly not from me. We are none of us allowed secrets any more. Revealing all is so liberating!’

  ‘How much wine have you had, darling?’ asks Sam.

  ‘Of course I don’t mind telling you,’ says Yael. ‘He’s called Hal Stonehouse and I’ve known him about a year, since he first came to Haifa. He was on a “fact-finding mission”, looking at legal systems in different countries. He’s a lawyer, and he’s been divorced for about five years. That’s about it. He needed somewhere to stay, and one of his colleagues recommended my house. You wouldn’t believe how smart it is now: a high-class guesthouse! Well of course, over time we talked … and talked … and talked. I showed him round a bit and introduced him to one or two people. To cut a long story short, we became good friends—’

  ‘Just good friends?’

  ‘Anna!’

  Yael smiles.

  ‘Hal’s a really nice man, Anna,’ Rachel adds. ‘I can quite understand what Mum sees in him.’

  ‘Oh, thank you for that vote of confidence from my daughter! We have to have the approval of our children for our relationships, don’t we? Anyway, we are very good friends. Since that first trip, he’s made three more visits to Israel, and he has invited me – us—’ Yael looks at Rachel ‘—to stay with him in Boston.’

  ‘Boston! But that’s where my sister Esther lives!’

  ‘I know, Anna. There’s more than one reason for you to visit Boston now – no excuse not to.’

  Anna’s hands clutch her face. She looks down at her lap, then turns towards Sa
m. He reaches his hand across the table to her.

  * * *

  Rachel is exploring the city centre. She says she needs some new clothes for America. To Eve’s great joy, Rachel has offered to take her along too, promising a girls’ shopping expedition, perhaps with a visit to a coffee house for a drink and a cake. Anna is delighted to see the blossoming relationship between them. It reminds her of her own special attachment to the young child Rachel was years ago. Yet the memory is overlaid with a sense of some sadness and regret. If only her times with Eve could be as uncomplicated. She resolves to do more with her herself, to devise some special times for the two of them together.

  It is a fine early summer’s day. Anna and Yael walk to the Rhine and stroll arm in arm along the riverside promenade. Across the great, heaving expanse, small waves glitter silvery in the warm sunshine. They find a bench facing the water and sit down side by side, the growing heat of the sun penetrating their heads.

  ‘Mmm, we could almost be back in Haifa.’

  ‘You know, Anna, when Sam first used to call at the house for you, I thought he was charming, so handsome and so courteous – and there was no doubt about your feelings for each other – but sometimes I used to wonder how compatible you two were. There was Sam, an English army officer, and you, brought up in Jewish intellectual and socialist circles in Vienna. It was as if you occupied opposite poles of the social and political spectrum.’

  ‘Oh? Did you think Sam was a reactionary old stick-in-the-mud?’

  ‘Well, maybe not reactionary exactly, but he did present himself as … conventional.’

  ‘I think that was part of the attraction. It was almost like marrying a kindly uncle – but a sexy one! I felt so safe with him.’

  ‘What an idea! A sexy, kindly uncle! Anyway, I was quite wrong to think there was such a gulf between your beliefs. Sam’s attitudes are actually much more radical and liberal than I realised. It’s just that he disguises them with that traditional English gentleman persona.’