‘Who did they say I was?’ Susannah says.
‘We kept asking the British about the Zuckermans,’ Helena says. ‘All they would say was that records kept by the guards said you’d been found guilty of stealing food and had all been shot.’
Paul leans forward. ‘But that was when we met your friend Ester. She heard us talking and told us you were still alive. She was certain you’d survived even though your father, mother and brother had all been shot. I still can’t believe what happened to that girl . . . such a sweet little thing.’ He bowed his head for a moment and gathered a few thoughts before continuing. ‘So when we asked to see her again the next day, to ask more questions . . . It was all a bit chaotic, but we were told she’d had a heart attack.’
‘But because of her we knew you were alive,’ Helena says. ‘We had to look at hundreds of young girls – all as sick as you – but eventually we found you.’
Paul leans over to the end of the bed and picks up the board that hangs over the bedframe.
‘See,’ he says. ‘The British gave you a different name.’ He points to the board and Susannah holds it and reads it. The words ‘Dee Glucklisher’ were crossed out and ‘Susannah Zuckerman’ written in above.
‘“Dee Glucklisher”?’ Susannah says.
‘I thought it was some sort of joke at first,’ Paul says. ‘In very poor taste. I was going to complain.’
‘In the end,’ Helena says, holding his arm, ‘I persuaded him to just ask about it.’
Paul nods. ‘They said the SS guards called you that name on the day of liberation. It must have been Die Glückliche, but I can see how the British would have thought it was “Dee Glucklisher”.’
‘It sounds stupid,’ Helena says. ‘I can’t see why the SS guards would call you “The Lucky One”. What was lucky about what happened to you?’
A short laugh escapes from Paul’s mouth. ‘“The Lucky One”,’ he says. ‘It would be funny if not for . . .’
‘Why would they call you that?’ Helena says to Susannah. ‘Have you any idea?’
Susannah feels that nausea welling up inside her again and her mind goes into a tailspin. She starts to feel the searing heat of guilt. Should she air her thoughts as she tries to piece together her memories of why she’s been christened ‘The Lucky One’? Her mind swirls with thoughts of bags of sugar and Keller and her family devouring the sugar as if it were the last food on earth. Did she persuade Keller to give them food? And if so what did she do in return? More importantly, would Paul and Helena believe her? Or would they blame her for the deaths of her mother, father and brother?
And then a spark hits her all the way from Berlin.
‘What day was it?’ she finally says. ‘What date was the day of liberation?’
‘April the fifteenth,’ Helena says.
‘Oh, yes. That’s my birthday,’ Susannah says. ‘The guards were probably mocking me – saying how lucky I was to be rescued on my birthday.’
Paul pauses for thought, then says, ‘But why would the guards be interested in your birthday?’
‘I don’t know, but—’
‘Your birthday?’ Helena says. She leans back and takes a moment to think, squinting into space. ‘But your birthday is in early May.’
Susannah shakes her head. ‘It’s April the fifteenth.’
‘No, no,’ Helena says, now laughing. ‘I remember it from when we lived together. We celebrated it in May. I don’t understand—’
‘Please!’ Susannah’s hand starts shaking, and she presses it to her forehead. ‘Please. I . . . I don’t know. I feel so tired. Why are you arguing about it?’
Helena opens her mouth to speak but Paul gets there first.
‘Leave the girl alone. You think she doesn’t know her own birthday?’
‘But I was only—’
‘And anyway,’ he continues, ‘I like it – “The Lucky One” – it has a nice ring to it. And after all, it’s true. It’s not a question of gloating over the misfortune of others, but celebrating good fortune.’ He leans forward and holds Susannah’s hand. ‘You’ll always be “The Lucky One” to us, Susannah.’
‘Yes,’ Helena says, ‘I know that but—’
‘Well, if you know it, then just accept it,’ Paul says.
Helena nods. ‘Yes, of course. You must know the date of your own birthday. I’m sorry, Susannah.’
Susannah smiles, thanks them, and rests her head back on the pillow. She sees her aunt shrug acceptance before she closes her eyes.
‘Come on,’ Paul says. ‘Let’s leave and let her rest.’
Susannah feels two kisses on her forehead, then there’s quiet.
When they’re gone Susannah steps out of bed and steadies herself on her feet. She feels dizzy and has to hold onto the bedframe for support. She picks up the board and reads it once more.
‘“Dee Glucklisher”,’ she mutters to herself, almost breaking into a laugh.
With slow, weary footsteps she edges her way to the end of the bed and hangs the board up where it belongs. On the way back she sees something in the small cabinet next to the bed.
She stares for a few seconds, and soon a nurse comes over and asks her in broken German whether she needs anything.
‘Whose are those?’ Susannah says, pointing to the green woollen socks in the cabinet.
The nurse shrugs, and calls over another nurse – one who speaks German.
‘Whose are these socks?’ Susannah says again.
‘They’re yours,’ the nurse says. ‘They were on your feet when you came in here. They were the only pieces of clothing that were worth washing, everything else was just rags so got destroyed.’
Susannah picks them up, then nods to the nurses, who leave.
She sits back on her bed and holds the socks close to her chest. Even now their softness and warmth bring her comfort.
In fact, they remind her of the special comfort of a voice.
PART FIVE
The Wretched Legacy
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Susannah woke up in the multimedia room of the Bergen-Belsen Memorial.
She must have dozed off. Again.
Why was she here? Oh, yes, she’d had a funny turn, and the gardener had consoled her outside the open space that had once been the punishment block. He was such a kind man, holding her in his arms and bringing her here because it was so quiet and cosy. He seemed to understand that she wasn’t just being a silly old woman – that she was here for a purpose. And he made his excuses and left only when he was sure she was okay.
He was a kind, gentle man. Such a kind, gentle German man.
And a clever one too. He was right when he said the seats were comfortable. She felt like she could have stayed here for ever – or, at least, as much ‘for ever’ as she had left. She really had to leave, but the fact that the room was dark and quiet and just the right temperature didn’t exactly make her feel like rushing out.
But no, she had to leave the place – the memorial, that is. She’d found her truth. The memories brought back by her visit had clarified things she’d fussed about and lost sleep over for more than sixty years. So from that angle it had been a worthwhile trip. However, the trip was now over.
She pulled the handles of her handbag over her wrist and placed the palms of her hand on the sides of the chair, then steadied herself to push and get to her feet. It was the sort of planning that an eighty-year-old body demanded – otherwise it would be You didn’t tell me you were going to do that or That’s way too much weight for these old joints.
But, as she braced herself, the darkness and the silence were broken as the screen at the front flickered back into life. She heard footsteps behind her, and turned to see a young couple walking through the door behind her. There was obviously one of those new-fangled sensors that detected someone entering the room – something Susannah found just too helpful and not a little creepy. The couple who had just entered, however, patently didn’t find it creepy and settled down on
the opposite side of the room to watch the main feature from the start.
Well, she was comfortable. Perhaps she should watch it properly, from the start.
Twenty minutes later Susannah was even more dazed than before, as though her blood had stopped flowing.
The piece of film she’d just seen had been horrific, sad, funny, touching and just plain strange all thrown into one big mixing bowl and given a whirl.
In those twenty minutes her trip to Europe had taken on a whole new perspective, so much so that she had to take a little time out to recover before she could even consider leaving.
But leave she had to, so ten minutes later, and with the heaviest of hearts, she left the multimedia room and walked back out of those gates for good.
There she turned and saw no barbed wire or lookout towers. She smelt nothing but fresh sharp pine, and heard nothing but the polite chatter of tourists cutting across the backdrop of a calm breeze whistling through the forest. She looked again and again, and kept her eyes on the place, even when the coach pulled her away and onwards back to Hamburg.
She kept her eyes on the place for as long as she could, because she knew she would never see it again. But then, the same could be said of so many things – beautiful things. Not seeing this wretched place ever again would be no great loss.
And it was on the coach back to Hamburg that she made up her mind about something she’d been struggling with for a few days: whether or not to visit her birthplace.
She’d spent the first eleven years of her life in Berlin, and then the next few years dreaming of going back to the street where she grew up. But she never had returned in all of those intervening decades – not once. During all those years in North Carolina it hardly seemed relevant, and going there would have been going backwards, not looking forwards. And, of course, for many years there had been that abominable wall too. Yes, there had been no shortage of excuses to choose from.
But the actual reason?
Only now did she realize that the reason for not returning had been fear. Throughout her time in America she’d been anxious about reliving that part of her life and terrified of what it might do to her. Would it bring back even more bad memories of that sunny morning in 1940 when the family had gone on their ‘long vacation’ – or of the years that followed? And could those memories lurch up and destroy her settled life? They were certainly capable of such a thing.
Of course, none of that mattered now, because those memories were back with her anyway and as large as life.
So could Berlin harm her now? After all, it was only a big German city, and, like Hamburg, probably resembled any modern US city more than it did the Berlin of 1940 she remembered. There was nothing to be scared of.
She’d tossed the dilemma around the barren edges of her mind for days, but on the coach trip back from the memorial to Hamburg she made up her mind.
No. She wasn’t going back there. Her memories of the place were happy ones and didn’t need fixing in any way.
But she did have to leave Hamburg; she’d been in pretty much every shop in town so there were no excuses there.
Tomorrow she would fly out.
Over her evening meal in the hotel, more recollections came back to Susannah. She’d always known the basic details of how she’d ended up in North Carolina, but now she thought about those experiences – the months after liberation – in a new, warmer light.
Within days of being rescued she was well enough to leave the makeshift medical centre and had been moved to a house a few miles away. There was food, rest and warmth. But most of all there was Uncle Paul and there was Aunt Helena, who both visited every day and gave her a reason to try to eat and drink properly, which her body took some getting used to.
Then there was some walking, trying to regain her sense of balance and get some muscle strength back into her feeble body. They told her that her heart could give out at any moment, that it was affected more than she could know, and that it would take years to repair the damage.
She thought of Ester and took those warnings seriously. And it wasn’t just Ester; it seemed crazy that within weeks of liberation so many prisoners had died through the effects of illness and malnutrition. Susannah’s body felt wrecked and old, and nightmares made her wake up soaked in perspiration, so she really did sometimes wonder whether she was one of the lucky ones.
Within months that part of Germany was being administered by French forces, and Paul and Helena persuaded Susannah that living so close to the concentration camp wasn’t appropriate now she’d made a basic physical recovery and her life wasn’t in immediate danger.
Susannah remembered thinking, again, that perhaps she was going back to Berlin, to finally meet her old friends, the ones she used to play with. But Paul and Helena insisted that even when she was fully recovered Berlin was still not a safe place for them to go to. Not yet.
So Susannah embarked on yet another long journey, this time to Sweden, to convalesce with other survivors. In that establishment there was more exercise to build up her wasted muscles, and there were interviews to assess her mental state. Paul and Helena followed, staying nearby, and visiting every day.
However, soon there came that day when they said they had something important to explain to her, and took her to the local park to talk.
It was July, and roses that were trailed up walls surrounding the park left their faint sherbet scent lingering in the air.
For Susannah it was another reminder of better times – of where she yearned to be.
‘You remember Reuben?’ Paul said as they sat together on a bench.
‘Of course I do,’ Susannah said, maybe a little too quickly.
‘I’m sorry. Of course you do. Well, the fact is, he’s settled in school now – in America – and we think it’s best for him to stay there.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Susannah said. ‘I’d like to see him again.’
There Paul took a moment to find the right words, eventually saying, ‘It’s a difficult situation back in Berlin.’
‘The Jewish leaders are saying we’re, in effect, homeless,’ Helena said. ‘A lot of people in our position have simply lost faith in the countries they were born in.’
‘And you?’ Susannah said.
Paul glanced at Helena, then nodded. ‘I honestly can’t see how we can feel safe back there.’
‘So . . . ?’
‘The thing is,’ Paul said, ‘we’re welcome in lots of new countries.’
‘Including America,’ Helena added. ‘Where Reuben is.’
Paul leaned forward, his face brightening up. ‘And . . . well . . . we’ve obtained permission to be with him, to live there permanently.’
As Susannah’s face started to crack, Helena held her hand. ‘There are projects set up for us,’ she said. ‘Farms and businesses that will give us work.’
Then Susannah started to cry, saying she couldn’t live without them now she’d been reunited with them, that she had no one else.
And then, in the middle of the park, Paul knelt down in front of her and held her hand. ‘We agree with you, Susannah.’ He looked to his wife.
‘Susannah,’ she said. ‘We want to take you over to America with us; we can call it adoption if you like.’
‘We know we can never be proper parents to you,’ Paul said. ‘And anyway you’re not a child anymore; you’re a young woman.’ Then he held her hands more tightly. ‘Susannah, you have the freedom to go wherever you want to. But we want you to come with us.’
Helena put a hand around her shoulder. ‘Please, say you’ll come with us. We can start a new life together, away from Europe.’
Susannah thought for a moment. First she gets shunted around Europe, now to a new continent. ‘But we’re from Berlin,’ she said. ‘We’re German.’
Paul smiled at her. ‘And look what that’s done to us.’
Susannah did. She looked down at her body – the front of her torso almost concave, her hands still weak and bony in spite
of the good diet she was now enjoying. And she was still having the bad thoughts. Perhaps if she went to America the bad thoughts would stay behind.
‘It will be good to see Reuben again,’ she said, showing a delicate smile to Paul and Helena.
Paul’s face creased up and he threw his arms around her. Helena was smiling and crying at the same time.
So, by late 1945, Susannah hadn’t merely seen Reuben again, but was living with him and Paul and Helena on a farm on the outskirts of Wilmington. Meeting him was awkward; it had been seven years since they’d played together in Berlin, and now he was a grown man who had progressed so much in life. But in time they became something like a family unit, Paul and Reuben supporting Susannah while she went back to school. Uncle Paul made it clear that nothing could replace Susannah’s real family, but they were never lacking in food and warmth, and so her body fully recovered.
Her mind was a bigger problem; the nightmares did not, as she had hoped, stay in Europe, but were a constant reminder of her other life. And, just occasionally, she also dreamed of the pure white world where all the people she missed lived, but where she couldn’t be.
Throughout that evening, spent alone in her hotel room, Susannah’s mind churned over those post-war years. They should have been joyous ones, what with a new beginning in a safe and welcoming country. The truth was that for her they were turbulent times. It seemed so many people around her had only a superficial understanding of the struggles they had undergone in Europe – or had soon forgotten them. And then there had been the joy of meeting Archie, getting married, and having a family. Archie had truly been the love of her life and she missed him and wanted desperately to talk to him and hear his voice every single morning. But in these dark years, when her tribulations should have been about dealing with being widowed, she was troubled by something else. It almost stopped her grieving properly for Archie, and she didn’t want that.
That night, as she lay alone in her bed with the distant city hubbub her only companion, her sleep didn’t come as well as it should have done. There was something missing. There was, perhaps, something else she needed to do. Something to give her some more of that ‘closure’.
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