The Mascot

by Mark Kurzem

  “Did you know the people who lived here during the war?” my father asked.

  The old man eyed us both suspiciously for a moment before deciding to continue to speak to us. “Only by sight. From Riga, they were. There were three daughters—didn’t see much of them. Then the war came…”

  “There were no other children?”

  The man shook his head. Then something occurred to him. “No, I’m wrong,” he said. “There was a boy who suddenly appeared in their midst during the war.” The old man laughed to himself.

  “He was quite a sight, getting about in a soldier’s uniform. An SS uniform, in fact. The family must have had some important connections because many of their guests, too, were officers from the SS, coming and going in their fancy cars. I’ve no idea what became of them, though.”

  “They emigrated to Australia,” my father replied.

  “That so?” the man said warily. “You knew the family?”

  My father nodded and then began to pace up and down in front of the barred gates like a caged tiger, staring in at the house. “Who owns the place now?” he asked.

  The Dzenises’ holiday home in Carnikava, outside Riga, where my father spent some happy days in 1943.

  “No idea. It’s been empty for years.”

  “How can we get in?” My father looked at the man with a pleading expression.

  The man rubbed the back of his neck and then walked away from us, indicating that we should follow him. About fifty yards along the stone wall, we came to a narrow section of the fence that had collapsed.

  “Welcome to Carnikava!” the old chap cackled.

  My father and I climbed through, gingerly navigating the pile of broken rocks. My father glanced at me and then called back to the man, “Thank you, sir!”

  “For what?” I frowned.

  “Not quite sure yet,” he answered.

  The house loomed before us like an enormous frog.

  “How did Uncle get this place?” I asked.

  “From Lacplesis. A reward for bravery. For fighting for Latvian independence against the Bolsheviks, the Soviet occupiers.” But my father wasn’t even remotely interested, at this moment, in the history of Latvia.

  I remained at some distance from the house and let my father approach it by himself. He circled it cautiously, as if at any moment it might lash out and snatch him in its jaws. When my father finally reached its facade, he tentatively stretched out his arm until it came to rest on the wall. He stood there silently for several moments, as if communing with the entire house. Then he began to move, one hand still touching the wall of the house, as if he were somehow placating it so that he could safely close in on his memories.

  Farther along he came to a window placed high in the wall. He pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and began to rub vigorously at the pane, but he was unable to break up the thick, encrusted dirt. Annoyed, he turned his back on the house and walked away from it.

  As he approached me, it was not difficult to see the mixture of anxiety and impatience contorting his features. “How could they let the place get so run-down!” he exclaimed to himself in a disgusted tone. With an almost childlike directness, he added petulantly, “I want to get inside. Where’d that old guy get to? He might be able to show us a secret way.”

  The man had disappeared as suddenly as he had first appeared. My father scratched his head, looking in all directions before giving me a bewildered shrug and joining me where I’d now positioned myself—on the steps in front of the building’s entrance.

  “They used to lock me inside sometimes,” he reminisced. “It was my fault. I’d be rebellious and try to run away, but I’d never get any farther than the beach down that track over there.” He pointed to a path that ran alongside the property.

  “I loved the seashore,” my father said, “as long as I didn’t have to go in the water. As I said before, the first time I ever saw the sea was at Carnikava, and I was awed by its power.

  “I’d practice doing handstands in the sand,” he said, taking a seat beside me on the steps. “Most of all I loved walking along the beach hunting for amber. It used to wash up on the Baltic shoreline like common seashells. I’d collect it in my pockets and, before I’d head back to Carnikava, I’d divide it up: half in one pocket for Auntie and the other half I’d wrap in my hankie and hide in my other pocket. That half was for my escape. I figured that if I ever got away from the Latvians, I’d have to bribe people—the police and ships’ captains and the like—to get me to another country. I always hoped it was America, even though I didn’t know where America was. I just thought of it as paradise—sunny and warm with happy, smiling people in nice clothes.”

  My father looked around for several moments before he spoke again. “Remember me telling you about the film they made about me?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “This is the very spot where they filmed me,” he said, “playing blindman’s bluff with the other children.”

  My father pulled his brown case onto his lap. He clicked open the lock. This time there was no secretiveness, no holding the lid in a partly opened position so that nobody but himself could see inside. His hands fumbled in the morass of papers and photographs, and he drew out a tatty, yellowed scrap of paper. It was not even a full sheet, and its edges indicated that it had been roughly torn by hand.

  “Look!” my father commanded, passing across the scrap.

  It was a newspaper article. I handled the fragile page gently: it seemed as though it might suddenly disintegrate. In the center of the sheet was an image I recognized. It was my father in uniform, reading a map.

  When telling us stories as children, my father had held it up a number of times, as a prop to whatever he was recounting. But it had always remained firmly in his grip and only ever briefly revealed. This was the first opportunity I’d ever had to scrutinize the photo at some length, and I could now discern that he was actually in military uniform. It occurred to me how deftly he had always handled this picture—he had positioned his thumb or one of his fingers over any sign that would give away the truth about his uniform. I was unsettled by the effort he had made to keep the truth from our family.

  A photo taken during the filming of the Latvian propaganda newsreel in which my father appeared in 1943.

  “I am certain that this photo is a still taken on the day the film was made here,” he said.

  “What newspaper is this from?” I asked.

  “It’s from the Eagle, a paper in Riga,” my father replied. “It was taken in 1943.”

  My father looked around again. “Over there,” he said, pointing to a small clump of trees about twenty yards from us. “That’s where it was taken.

  “I recall some things from the day of filming,” he said reflectively. “Various people arrived throughout the afternoon. A group of kids about my age appeared on a bus. Later Lobe arrived with an entourage of officers who inspected the grounds of Carnikava.

  “Lobe insisted to Auntie that I get back into my uniform. You see, Carnikava was the only place that I was willing to take off my uniform: in the summer I’d spend all day at the seashore and virtually lived in my swimming trunks.

  “We were up at around dawn the next morning. I was still sleepy but Auntie dressed me in my uniform, smoothed my hair, and took me down to a room where a crew member was making the other children ready for the film.

  “One group of girls were already dressed in folk costumes, and their hair had been plaited with colorful ribbons. They were being looked after by a lady in a white uniform who was giving them bowls of ice cream. At that hour! When she saw me, she came over and offered me a bowl as well. I couldn’t believe it! I thought, ‘This is going to be a great day.’

  “Then another woman came up to me and began to straighten my uniform. I wriggled about, trying to enjoy my ice cream. ‘Be still!’ she said impatiently. ‘Don’t forget you are a soldier! We must make you handsome for the film.’

  “Then she tried to
apply makeup. I squirmed at that and screwed up my face. ‘Soldiers do not use this!’ I stamped my foot. ‘It’s for ladies.’

  “This only caused everybody in the room to laugh at me.

  “‘Shush, you,’ she said playfully, planting a kiss on my forehead. I could feel my face turn hot and red with outrage. ‘You don’t like my kisses?’ she exclaimed. Fortunately for me, somebody interrupted us. They were ready to film me.

  “Outside in the morning sunshine the crew was waiting with a camera. The girls rolled their eyes and began giggling when they saw me. Everything had been planned, down to the last detail. The director organized our positions around a maypole, telling us to join hands to rehearse our dance.”

  “A maypole dance?” I laughed. I simply could not imagine my father dancing.

  “I know,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “And those girls I had to dance with. They were real little Aryan maidens with terrible, fierce tempers.” My father screwed up his face as if he were being asked to dance with them this instant.

  “One girl complained that she didn’t want to be next to me: ‘the little nuisance,’ she called me. ‘I’m not holding hands with any of these awful girls,’ I said arrogantly. That started the girls off again. ‘You’re not even a real Latvian!’ one of them said to me.

  “I pinched her”—my father chuckled loudly—“and all hell broke loose. The commander gave me a harsh warning. I settled down quickly.

  “After that, I can only recall bits and pieces, because the fun had gone. It was work and, with Commander Lobe hovering threateningly in the background, I just did what I was told.

  “They filmed us eating lunch. The girls tormented me again, this time because I couldn’t use a knife and fork properly. I showed them up later, though, when we had to change to our swimming trunks and play on the beach. I could run faster than any of them, and I was the only one who could do handstands.”

  My father and I both laughed, but then his mood altered. “Imagine if we found the film,” he said pensively. Without another word, he rose and made his way down the steps. He walked directly toward a small copse that had been planted in a semicircle with the opening facing toward the house. Before he actually reached it, he stopped and nodded his head as if confirming something to himself. Then he headed to one particular tree. He beckoned me with a wave of his hand.

  By the time I reached him he was crouched at the base of the tree and patting the grass all around him. “Help me up. I’m looking for treasure,” he said with disarming simplicity.

  “Treasure,” I repeated. “What treasure?”

  “Buried treasure that Uncle left behind when we fled Latvia.”

  My father registered my look of disbelief. “No,” he protested, “I’m serious. It was in the summer of 1944. He and Auntie had taken me to Carnikava by car for the weekend. Uncle must have sensed that the writing was on the wall for Germany and Latvia, and he began to make plans for our departure.

  “‘This might be our last visit here,’ Uncle explained. ‘We will have to leave many belongings behind. Collect a few of your things that will fit in your case.’ That’s the case I’m holding now. Uncle bought it for me in Riga.

  “That first night in Carnikava I was asleep when something woke me. As I came to, I heard a noise coming from outside my bedroom window. I didn’t know what to do. In truth, I’d gotten used to the good life—being safe from the elements—and I thought it might be wolves. But as I sat there on the edge of my bed, I soon realized that it wasn’t wolves; it was a digging sound.

  “I went over to the window and peeked from behind the curtain. There was enough moonlight that I could just make out the garden. By these trees—literally where we are standing now—I could see two figures moving about. As my eyes got used to the darkness, I saw that it was Auntie and Uncle. Auntie was holding a small lamp close to Uncle, who was digging up the soil. I noticed that Uncle had two small sacks at his feet, which he then placed into the hole he’d created.

  “I have no inkling as to why, but at that moment Uncle looked up at my window. I backed away quickly, but I was sure that he’d caught a glimpse of me. I pressed myself against the wall, worried because I knew that I’d just witnessed something that I shouldn’t have. I crept back into bed and drew the covers up so that only my eyes and the top of my head were visible. I couldn’t sleep. I lay there worried that Uncle would be fierce with me the next morning.

  “Downstairs I heard the sound of a door closing and then footsteps as Auntie and Uncle made their way upstairs. They passed by my door, but moments later I heard one set of footsteps return and stop outside. I could tell that they were Uncle’s. I held my breath, waiting for the handle to turn, but he seemed to think better of it and moved on.

  “Early the next morning I woke with a start. There was a shadow over me. I let out an unholy scream and tried to spring out of bed. Whoever it was put his hand over my mouth and held me down on the bed. Then I saw that it was Uncle. He put one finger to his lips indicating that I should be quiet, and then he sat down on the edge of the bed. He spoke in a whisper, explaining what he and Auntie had been doing the night before: he had some gold and silver that he couldn’t take with him.

  “‘You must promise to keep it our secret,’ he said solemnly. ‘It’s yours. If Auntie and I never return, it’s yours. After all this mess is over, come back and get it.’ Then he rose wearily from the bed. ‘Get dressed,’ he said, ‘and go down for breakfast.’

  “At the door he stopped and turned. ‘Don’t forget,’ he said. ‘It’s our secret.’ With that he was gone.

  “I think it’s still here.” My father frowned intently at the ground. “Nothing seems to have been disturbed.”

  “Uncle didn’t come back for it?”

  My father shook his head. “No, he never returned to Latvia. And he never once mentioned the hidden treasure to me again. Not even after we’d emigrated to Australia.”

  “He must have told someone else about it,” I suggested. “And they’ve collected it.”

  “Who would he tell?” my father responded as if my idea were absurd.

  “His daughters or grandchildren, perhaps?”

  “No.” My father shook his head vigorously. “We would’ve known about that, one way or another. The loot should still be here, below our feet.”

  “What happens now?” I asked. “Do you want to look for it?”

  “What, with our bare hands? Don’t be stupid. Perhaps we’ll come back another time,” my father added.

  “When?”

  My father tried to shrug me off. He began to walk away from me toward the hole in the fence we had climbed through.

  “When are we going to get another chance to go back for it?” I called after him.

  “Look,” he said, turning back to me. “I don’t want their gold and silver. It’s not mine.”

  “Uncle said you should have it.”

  “Leave well enough alone, son,” he replied irritably.

  “Why don’t you want it?” I persisted.

  My father turned to face me. “Because that would mean they’d bought me,” he spat out, incensed. He looked at his watch. “If we don’t hurry, we’ll miss the train back to Riga.”

  Without waiting for me, he strode to the gap in the fence and onto the unpaved road, where for one moment, he faltered. He seemed to be torn between continuing on his way and turning for one final glance at the house that had now taken on a malevolent presence: my father had been used as a propaganda tool—a little mascot for the Reich and its poisonous ambitions.

  He did not turn around. Instead, together we began to retrace our steps back to the train station. He quickened his pace, as if in flight, now from Carnikava.

  By the time we reached the station, my father’s mood was calmer and more pensive.

  “Who would have thought we’d find Carnikava again?” I ventured, hoping that he’d confide his feelings to me. “Greater chance of winning the lottery…”

&n
bsp; “Carnikava was no prize,” he snapped harshly at me.

  I was shocked. I could tell that my father instantly regretted his tone with me.

  “Too many memories there,” he said. “Memories and ghosts.”

  “You don’t believe in ghosts!” I joked, hoping to return him to a better mood.

  “After seeing Carnikava I do,” he hit back. “The place is full of them.”

  The train to Riga pulled in, and soon we were safely ensconced in a carriage, heading away from Carnikava. He would likely never see his refuge by the sea again. He seemed relieved.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  THE FILM

  In the months since his astonishing revelations in our kitchen, I had contacted various film archives in Russia, Germany, Latvia, and elsewhere. In my communications I’d described the bare details of the film that he had given me.

  Nothing had come of the search. None of the organizations had had the film in their archives. At the time I’d kept it from him because I wanted to surprise him if I found it. I didn’t want to get his hopes up unnecessarily.

  The Latvia State Archive for Audiovisual Document was among those that had responded in the negative, but now that I was actually in Latvia I decided to approach it again. Having just been to Carnikava, I knew how meaningful it would be not just for my father but for all of us to see the film.

  We returned to the hotel from Carnikava just before three and went our separate ways. My father was keen to return to his room and check on my mother. I went to my room and placed the call to the archive immediately. After a brief reminder, Miss Slavits, my contact there, recalled my unusual request. I described to her the new information I’d gotten from my father that day. I skirted around the issue of my father’s SS uniform. I was still uncertain about the depth of Latvian nationalism, particularly in a government institution, and had no idea whether Miss Slavits would willingly locate a film if she knew its potential for controversy. My parents’ experiences in Melbourne had taught me that some Latvians did not take kindly to my father’s story. As it turned out, Miss Slavits was willing to assist me provided I could pay the archive for its time. She’d warned me that closing time was 5:00 p.m., and it was already well past three o’clock. We were due to leave Riga for London early the next morning, so this would be my only opportunity. I put on my jacket and left the hotel.