The Mascot

by Mark Kurzem

  Moments later, the voice of a stewardess announced our descent into Riga.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  RIGA

  We made our way through passport control at Riga’s gleaming new international airport, a stylish edifice of glass, Baltic pine, and concrete. While Belarus had paid a high price for its struggle against Nazism, Latvia, which had welcomed its Nazi occupiers, had now begun to prosper.

  In the taxi on the way to our hotel in the old quarter of Riga, we saw that the landscape was dominated by enormous billboards advertising Vodafone, Mercedes-Benz, and Kylie Minogue.

  “Unbelievable,” I heard my father say. He had always described Latvia as gray and cold—a place for dour, Nordic-looking people whose forests might be inhabited by elves and trolls and woodsmen. Latvia, I thought, might prefer it if we were to go away, leaving its past undisturbed so it could get on with its bright new future.

  I woke at dawn and decided to go for a walk in the old town. I dressed quietly and slipped out onto the damp cobbled streets that reeked of powerful antiseptic. I wandered through the narrow lanes and could see now that I’d misjudged the affluence of the city. In this quarter there were fewer signs of gentrification: for every renovated shop front there was also a run-down or abandoned building.

  It was now daylight and there were more people on the street. I turned into a broad square that had a fountain in its center. I perched on its edge, taking in the buildings that formed the perimeter of the square. Opposite me was a relatively new building, the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia.

  In my research of Latvian wartime history and its postwar dealings with its past, I had soon come across references to the museum. According to one report, the site of the museum was originally occupied by a museum of Jewish history in Latvia. The Jewish museum had been evicted from the site and shunted into a single room in a back-street of the old town. The author argued that this incident symbolized the way the Latvians handled their wartime history: replacing one of the most savage aspects of their recent past with a “cleansed” version.

  Indeed, opinions on Latvia’s “complicity” during its period of so-called occupation remain divided. According to some historians, Latvia was not “occupied.” Many Latvians had “welcomed” their Nazi visitors, whom they saw as liberators from Soviet oppression. But there was more than political expediency behind this attitude. Some historians argue that Latvia adopted the Nazis’ ethos enthusiastically because of its native, often virulent anti-Semitism.

  I looked at my watch. It was almost eight o’clock. I hurried back to the hotel.

  My father and I had lots of territory to cover on that first day. He wanted to find the apartment on Valdemara Street, where he had lived with the Dzenis family, and the Laima chocolate factory.

  My mother pleaded off, saying that she was content to rest for a while, but I could detect disappointment in her voice. I knew that she felt her exhaustion was disloyal to my father.

  We hailed a taxi outside our hotel. “Valdemara iela,” my father told the driver, without giving a house number.

  “Don’t you remember the exact address?” I asked.

  “No. But I would remember the building instantly. Mirdza said that it was number ninety-nine. Wherever it is, I’ll find it.”

  “It’s that one,” he said, nodding at a building diagonally across from where we were standing. We crossed the street and stood before the brick-and-concrete apartment block.

  “It’s not number ninety-nine,” I said.

  “But I’m certain this is the one.” My father lingered in front of the building.

  “Number ninety-nine must be around here somewhere,” I said. “Come on.”

  We began to make our way slowly along Valdemara iela. My father seemed perplexed and he dawdled, reluctant to move on. He had taken no more than a dozen or so steps when he stopped abruptly.

  “No,” he said firmly. “Mirdza must’ve got it wrong.”

  Without waiting for me, he strode back toward the building we’d just left. I caught up with him outside its entrance. “This is it,” he insisted. “Flags flew on either side of the front doors. On one side there was the Nazi flag, on the other the Latvian flag.”

  I walked up to the building’s facade and examined it. Indeed, there were two metal cups embedded in the brickwork that might have functioned as flagpole holders. I called my father over to see.

  He only nodded a response, then backed away from the building in order to get a view of its upper stories. “We lived up there on the top floor. That was my bedroom window,” he said, pointing.

  I walked up to the glass doors on the ground floor and strained to get a look inside, but the lobby was dark.

  “Come on,” my father said, brushing past me and pushing open the door. He stepped in ahead of me. The deserted foyer reeked of cat urine.

  “The foyer is exactly as I remember it,” my father said quietly. “Of course, it was in better condition back then.” He pointed to the center of the room. “There was a stand there with fresh flowers in a vase. It was changed every day by the elderly caretaker. Mrs. Impuls was her name. I used to love coming down in the morning when Uncle and I were off to work. As we went downstairs and got to about there”—my father pointed to the last of the steps—“I’d close my eyes for just a second and breathe in the smell of the flowers.”

  My father gazed up into the darkened stairwell and began to climb the stairs. I could sense his mounting excitement as we reached the third floor. Before we’d even reached the landing, he turned to me, his face beaming, and pointed up at a door on the left.

  He knocked but there was no reply. He knocked again and waited. After several moments he reached for the doorknob and began twisting it frantically. The door was locked. He hammered loudly on the door, abandoning all restraint.

  “If only I could get inside,” he said. He thought for a moment. “I know,” he said, crossing the landing to another door and knocking loudly. “Hello!” he called out. “Anybody home?”

  “The building is uninhabited, Dad.”

  He ignored me and continued to bang on the door. Eventually he gave up, and in an uncharacteristic gesture of disappointment, he remained motionless for some time with his head resting against the door.

  Later that morning we stood opposite a famous landmark to Latvian independence on Brivibas iela.

  “I want to show you something,” my father said. “It’s this way.” Once on the street, he picked up speed. Then abruptly he stopped. “Look!” he said, indicating with a nod of his head.

  In the near distance was a small art deco clock tower. Its face was illuminated, as was lettering down the side of the tower that spelled out LAIMA.

  My father reached the tower and gazed up at it. “Laima, laima,” he said affectionately. “This was a famous meeting spot for everyone in Riga. ‘I’ll meet you at the Laima clock,’ they’d say.”

  “What does laima mean?” I asked.

  “‘Luck,’” he answered wryly.

  My father looked around in all directions. “Let’s get to Laima Chocolates,” he said, taking off up the street.

  My father stopped at a street corner and waved back at me. “Quickly!” he called out, attracting the attention of passersby. “It’s down here. Miera iela. Peace Street.” Then he hurried on.

  I caught up with him farther down Miera iela, where he’d suddenly stopped. Transfixed by the building opposite him, he didn’t appear to notice me. It was a factory, and perched on its rooftop was an enormous sign: LAIMA. My father had found it without a moment’s hesitation.

  “It’s been over fifty years,” he said pensively, “but it’s as if it were yesterday. See over there!” My father pointed across at the entrance, a wooden door adjacent to a row of dusty display windows.

  “That’s where Uncle was waiting for me when I met him for the first time. I can see him now stepping out of the shadow of the wall and onto the pavement with his hand extended.”

  My
father continued to reminisce in a hushed tone about his time at Laima. I glanced at him and saw that he was looking in all directions as he spoke, as if he were frightened about being overheard. He seemed acutely conscious of the fact that he’d been in the company of Dzenis and Lobe.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, giving him a curious look.

  “Let’s go around the back,” he said. In a flash, he disappeared around the corner of the building, and I found him in front of a tall steel gate topped with barbed wire. He leaned his back against the gate. I was certain he was remembering the deportations from the yard.

  “You know now what was going on in there?” I asked him gently, sure of what his answer would be.

  His nod was almost imperceptible, as was his simple yes. “Those people were Jews transported to an unknown destination where their fate was more or less sealed.”

  “Did you understand at that time what was going on, Dad?”

  “No,” he answered firmly. “I must’ve been only eight years old when this occurred. I’m not trying to excuse myself. I sensed that something was up, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was only later that night when I was alone in my room that it clicked. But then I told myself that Uncle would not let that sort of thing happen. He was a decent man, a fair man. Even now I cannot accept that. I believe he was forced to cooperate. Like me. Did I do wrong to pass chocolates to those poor people?”

  We were both silent now. My father pressed his back against the gate as if he could block the passage of the trucks and their unfortunate passengers. Then all of a sudden he bolted, fleeing in the direction he had come, without a final glance at Laima. I chased after him, calling out for him to wait, but he was already some way down Miera iela.

  He maintained his frantic pace, keeping his head down as he passed Annas iela, where the Latvian SS quarters that he’d watched when distracted from his studies in Dzenis’s office had been located. Annas Street, such a sweet name for a street of such poison.

  I caught up with my father just as he reached the far end of Miera iela. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  He fought to regain control of his breathing. I waited until he was ready to speak.

  “It’s harder than I thought,” he said, looking around and avoiding eye contact with me.

  I sensed that he was embarrassed by the intensity of his response to seeing Laima again.

  “My past is coming back too quickly,” he said in a low voice. “It’s good to find things, but bad to remember. Maybe that’s what it is.”

  I guided my father back to the hotel for some rest.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CARNIKAVA

  The following morning my father and I stood on the concourse at the Riga railway station. “This is where I always arrived when I came to Riga,” my father said, “and that’s where the limousine was waiting the time Kulis took me to Uncle.”

  He pointed at the entrance that we had just passed through. “I marched across here ahead of Kulis as if I were in command. People passing by stopped and stared at me, a boy of no more than seven or eight by that time, in my uniform with jodhpurs and knee-high polished boots. Some civilians even applauded me and, of course, soldiers on the concourse saluted me.” My father beamed broadly to himself, caught up in his recollection.

  Suddenly he snapped out of it. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got to find the train.”

  The train would take us to Carnikava, where we hoped to find the Dzenises’ dacha, or holiday house, still standing. My father had only his memory to go by.

  “Once we’re on the platform of Carnikava station,” he said confidently, “I’ll know the way like the back of my hand. After all, Auntie and I would make the journey from Riga almost every weekend when I was with the Dzenis family.”

  While my father went to find out train times and buy our tickets, I waited on the concourse. It was nothing like the gleaming airport, its drabness alleviated only by a solitary flower stall. My father soon reappeared waving two tickets in the air. “I got them so cheap,” he said proudly, as if he’d been involved in barter for them. The express was a series of dilapidated carriages drawn by an ancient engine, which at that moment let out a whistle to indicate its imminent departure. The train began to groan and move slowly forward.

  “Hurry,” my father shouted above the din. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me on board.

  I had dozed off and, on waking, found myself confused about where I was. I caught sight of my father’s face reflected in the windowpane of the train car. Whatever he was looking at, judging by the delicate and considered smile on his face, it seemed to give him much pleasure. Suddenly the reflection of his eyes met mine and instantly I sensed his shyness at having been observed unawares. He gave me a comical and slightly wry look, but it was as if a veil had suddenly descended over his true mood.

  The couple of hours spent in the train en route to Carnikava were a welcome respite from the hectic schedule of our journey across Europe thus far. I was exhausted and must have have dozed off a second time, for the next thing I recalled hearing at the edge of my consciousness was “Carnikava” over and over. It turned out to be the conductor’s voice echoing loudly over the loudspeaker. It brought me to with a start. My father was already preparing to leave the carriage. He climbed across me and began to make his way down the aisle.

  After the train ground to a stop, I joined my father on the deserted platform. Nobody else had disembarked.

  “So what do we do now?” I asked, watching the rear of the train as it pulled away. “Find somebody who can give us directions to the house?”

  “What on earth for?” My father was astounded by my suggestion. “I can remember the way.” With that, he tightened his grip on his case and strode confidently toward the station exit.

  I hovered beside my father and quietly watched as, hand held to cheek, he turned in all directions, getting his bearings. Suddenly a cloud seemed to lift as his face broke into a broad smile.

  “This was the shortcut we always took,” he declared and strode down a narrow track barely discernible in the tall grass. I hurried after him as he disappeared from sight. Less than a minute later, on a bend in the path, my father stopped.

  “Lost your way already?” I asked.

  “Of course not!” he said dismissively. “Somewhere around here we should come to a fork in the path that joins up again farther on. Auntie and I would each take a different path and race to see who’d get to the other end first. Auntie would take off her shoes and count down, ‘Three, two, one!’ Then she’d make a great show of waiting before whispering ‘Go!’ and off I’d run.

  “I always got there ahead of Auntie, who’d arrive breathless from running and laughing. We’d both sit in the grass, trying to get our breath back. Then Auntie would present me with a sweet or a chocolate, usually from Laima. ‘To the champion, Corporal Uldis Kurzemnieks,’ she’d declare seriously.”

  “So even Auntie thought of you as a soldier?” I asked.

  My father thought for several moments. “Yes and no,” he said. “She was always respectful. She didn’t make fun of me being a soldier like some people did. As if I were an oddity, like a toy soldier.”

  “A small boy in an SS uniform would strike most people as pretty odd,” I said. “Didn’t you feel strange yourself?”

  “I knew it was an SS uniform, but I didn’t understand what that meant. I simply thought of it as a soldier’s uniform and I was proud of that. But going back to Auntie, I know she also didn’t like me in the uniform. On a couple of occasions I overheard her and Uncle discussing it. Auntie said that it wasn’t right for a child to wear such a hideous outfit. She said I should be allowed to be a child. I remember from the sound of Uncle’s voice that he seemed to agree with her, but he warned her not to say such things in front of other people.”

  My father moved on. Not fifty yards ahead he came to an abrupt halt and turned to look at me. “I told you it was here,” he called out excitedly.

&
nbsp; The main path led directly ahead, but branching off to the left was a narrow trail overgrown with grass and weeds and barely visible. It looked as if nobody had used it since my father as a young boy.

  “Do you want to race me now, Dad?” I joked. In fact, I was half-serious about my suggestion. I sensed within my father the exuberance of the young boy as he raced along the path, and I was keen to share this happy experience with him. He laughed gleefully but then gently dismissed my idea, saying, “Nah. Too old for that now, son.”

  We found the point where the two paths rejoined, just as he had predicted. He smiled proudly at me, seeming to want recognition or even approval for the veracity of his memory. I did not hesitate.

  “Your memory…” I said, shaking my head in amazement. My father had kept this path somewhere in his mind for over fifty years.

  He strode away into the waist-high grass. A short distance on, he pointed off to the left. “Beyond that field,” he said, “is a stream where Auntie sometimes let me play. Carnikava is close now.”

  He headed off to the right, with me trailing behind, until finally we came out onto an unpaved road. “The house is over there,” my father said, “behind those trees.” We passed several seemingly deserted houses and entered a wood.

  Through the thin wall of trees, a house, a square two-story edifice guarded by iron gates and a stone wall, came into view. “Carnikava!” my father exclaimed. He moved forward and rattled the gates. “Locked!” He looked crestfallen.

  My father was still gripping the bars when suddenly we were startled by a voice from behind us. We both spun around at the same time. An elderly man in overalls stood before us. As tiny as a dwarf, he was bald and had no teeth, judging by his toothless smile.

  “What do you want here?” he demanded, a touch imperiously.

  “We’ve come from Australia,” my father replied, in his friendly, casual way.

  “Is that so?” The man was unimpressed.