Postcards from No Man's Land (The Dance Sequence)

by Chambers, Aidan

  ‘There was a queue.’

  ‘As usual.’

  ‘Quite a long one, which didn’t help my bad mood one bit. I’m not very patient when it comes to queues. But I joined it and it seemed like waiting to see the two-headed man or the bearded lady at a fun fair. And when I got inside, people ahead of me, people behind me, all of us tramping up the stairs in to the rooms. In to her rooms. Which were crowded with people already, everyone kind of gawping and shuffling along. They weren’t behaving badly. Just the opposite. Quite reverential really, quite silent, not talking, just whispering, and pointing and peering. I don’t know. It just came over me that we were invading Anne’s privacy. Treading all over her. But apart from that, the really stupid thing …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Seems ridiculous. But, seeing all those people, and most of them about my age, all of us like pilgrims visiting a shrine, well, suddenly Anne wasn’t mine any more.’

  ‘Not yours?’

  ‘No. Here were these other people who wanted to be where she had lived. Where she had written her diary. And I said to myself, “They think she’s theirs too”.’

  ‘But, Jacob, you must have known how famous she is.’

  ‘Of course I did. But that was different. I mean, there’s knowing and knowing, isn’t there. I knew it in my head, like a statistic, like a fact. But I didn’t know it inside me. She was famous—so? So what? I read the diary all the time. Highlighted passages, like I told you. I don’t think I’d ever thought about it. It was as if she were my best friend and I just, I don’t know, assumed, believed, took it for granted, that Anne had written her diary for me. Only for me.’

  ‘Then you saw those people in the secret annexe—’

  ‘Especially in the room where she slept. You know how small it is and how the pictures she stuck up on the wall, the postcards and clippings from magazines—’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘—are still on the wall. No furniture. Stupid again, I suppose, but I’d expected to see the rooms just like they were when she was there. But they aren’t. Nothing there. Just empty. Except for the model in a case, like a doll’s house, showing how they used to be. That upset me a lot. I mean, I realised afterwards that the rooms couldn’t be the same. I knew the Germans cleared everything out after the arrests. But it hadn’t kind of seeped in to my mind what that meant. Except for the pictures Anne had stuck on the wall by her bed. That’s what did it, I think. When I saw them, it was like she was still there. Or not her, but her ghost. And I started to go to pieces. All those times I’d read the diary. Everything it meant to me. Especially those parts I’d marked because they were so important. Anne talking to me. Saying what was in my head. Speaking my own thoughts and feelings. And then, these bare rooms, and all these people coming between me and Anne. And they thinking about her just like I was thinking about her. And why not? That’s what she wanted. She wanted to be a famous writer, that’s all she wanted, and that’s what she was. What she is.’

  ‘So you ran out?’

  ‘No. Not straightaway. I tried to keep a grip on myself. I knew I’d been ridiculous to think the way I did. I knew I should be happy, should be pleased. Happy that so many people loved her the way I did. I managed to work my way in to the corner by the window and stand right up against the wall, trying to recover. I was shaking like a leaf and sweating cold sweat. I remember there was a man standing next to me, looking out of the window. He was English, middle-aged, a bit like my dad. There was a woman with him, he called her Joke, so I guess she was Dutch. While I was standing there, trying to pull myself together, I heard him say, “You see those houses across the garden?” And the woman said, “They are on Keizersgracht.” And he said, “Did you know that Descartes lived in one of them?” “I think, therefore I am,” the woman said. And the man said, “I think, therefore I am. I am, therefore I am observed.” And then they laughed, and she kissed him.’

  He looked at Alma.

  ‘I think, therefore I am,’ she repeated. ‘And then?’

  ‘I am, therefore I am observed.’

  ‘Never heard that before,’ she said.

  ‘Nor me,’ Jacob said.

  ‘Not Descartes.’

  ‘And don’t you think it’s strange that I remember it, every word?’

  ‘Perhaps. And when you’d pulled yourself together, what did you do?’

  ‘Followed the crowd. And you know how you go down from the hiding place in to the museum part.’

  ‘Where her story is told in pictures.’

  ‘And where there’s the glass cases with things in them belonging to Anne.’

  ‘The real diary.’

  ‘Yes, the diary itself. Well, I saw the diary and I could hardly bear it any more. The pictures in her room were bad enough. But they weren’t her. Not Anne herself. But the diary—! When you come to think of it, that’s what she was. That’s what she is! Her diary is Anne. The book she wrote. Her handwriting. Her words that she wrote with her pen. I looked at it and looked at it. Couldn’t take my eyes off it. I wanted to smash the glass so I could pick it up. I wanted to hold it. Wanted to smell it. Wanted to kiss it. Wanted to steal it! I really did! And people were jostling around me and trying to get as close as they could. Just like I was. I wanted to shout at them, “Go away! Leave her alone! You’ve no right here! Get out!” But I didn’t, of course. Just got out myself. Don’t remember doing that. Not at all. Next thing I remember is coming to when a tram nearly knocked me down. That was when I reached Leidsestraat, though I didn’t know what street it was at the time. And ended up in the plein where I got mugged.’

  ‘And then I found you,’ Alma said, breathing out a sigh as people do at the end of a story. ‘No wonder you were so upset. Perhaps more from your visit to Anne’s house than from being mugged.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘The thief only took your money. What you lost at Anne’s house was something much more precious.’

  ‘I know. That’s what I feel. But I still don’t understand what it was, even though I’ve thought a lot about it.’

  ‘Perhaps you lost some of your childhood innocence. Every time we learn an important lesson about life we suffer a sense of loss. That’s my experience. We gain. But there’s a cost.’

  As Alma was speaking, Jacob knew quite clearly why he had come to see her. Without introduction or permission, he told her about Geertrui’s memoir. Said how worried he was about how Sarah would take the news. Did not say that Daan and Ton and Tessel all thought he should keep it to himself. And ended without a pause by asking what Alma thought he should do. Tell Sarah or not?

  She was silent. He could feel the weight of the question hanging in the air above their heads.

  At last, when he was beginning to think he had asked something so offensive to her that she was not going to reply, Alma said, ‘Are you sure your grandmother does not already know what happened?’

  Her question took his breath away. The possibility had never occurred to him, not even for a hint of a second.

  ‘She’d have told me,’ he said when he could.

  ‘And what makes you so sure of that?’

  ‘We talk about everything. Wouldn’t she?’

  ‘You talk about everything. She sent you to see your grandfather’s grave?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why not until now?’

  ‘She said I was old enough to understand.’

  ‘Understand what?’

  ‘How he died, I suppose.’

  ‘And how did he die?’

  ‘Well, there was his wound. But from a heart attack, I think.’

  ‘Yes, a heart attack. So she sent you to see his grave. Or did she really send you to Geertrui?’

  ‘Geertrui invited Sarah, but she couldn’t come.’

  ‘You saw the letter?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then how do you know what Geertrui said?’

  ‘I don’t. It’s just what Sarah told me.’

  There was a si
lence before Alma spoke again.

  ‘Why is it that young people so often think that old people cannot deal with life as well as they? Or that they cannot bear the truth any longer?’

  Jacob regarded her for a moment, trying to assess what he was being told, what she was really saying. But her eyes were steady and her face gave nothing away.

  ‘You mean, if Sarah doesn’t know, she’ll be able to take it?’

  ‘I don’t know your grandmother. It’s for you to decide.’

  ‘And if she knows, she’ll be waiting to hear what I say.’

  ‘Quite a dilemma,’ Alma said, smiling.

  She got up with a push on her knees like old people with arthritis do, and took the coffee cups to the kitchen.

  When she came back she said in her cheery sociable voice, ‘Your flowers are lovely.’

  Time to leave. Jacob got up.

  ‘I’d better go.’

  ‘You’ll come to Amsterdam again?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll be coming back, I’m sure.’

  ‘I thought so. I hope you’ll visit me and tell me what you decided.’

  ‘Yes. Promise.’

  Alma held out her hand. He shook it and gave her three of the most restrained and polite of up-cheek kisses.

  ‘You’re learning our ways very quickly,’ Alma said, laughing.

  Jacob.

  Daan told me you asked to be here at my end.

  I must say no.

  It will be difficult, most for Tessel and Daan. They must live afterwards. They must not have anyone else to think of.

  I have planned.

  Only Tessel and Daan with me. The doctor also.

  But you will think of me.

  It will be noon, Monday.

  Tessel and Daan will be here all the time from Friday.

  We say our final goodbyes.

  The doctor gives me an injection. When I sleep, he will give the injection to end my life.

  There will be no pain. It will be the end of the most terrible pain.

  From the time of our goodbyes until the end they will read words I love. One poem will be in English.

  There will be no fuss.

  After the funeral my body will be cremated.

  Tessel and Daan spread my ashes in the Hartenstein Park at Oosterbeek.

  Dirk’s ashes are there. Where we grew up and spent the days of our childhood with Henk.

  The grave of your grandfather is not far away.

  It is beautiful.

  Our family can come there to remember us.

  I hope you will also.

  May your life be blessed.

  Liefs,

  Geertrui.

  ‘Hille?’

  ‘Jacob.’

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘Okay. You?’

  ‘Need to see you.’

  ‘But you leave tomorrow, yes?’

  ‘In the afternoon.’

  ‘I was going to write.’

  ‘You got my letter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I need your help.’

  ‘Help?’

  ‘Some stuff I’ve found out. And I need to see you.’

  ‘There’s chaos here. The move and everything.’

  ‘I really need to see you.’

  ‘But when?’

  ‘Tomorrow. I’ll come to Oosterbeek and go on to Schiphol from there.’

  ‘I’m in school.’

  ‘Just the morning.’

  ‘I’m looking at what we’ve got.’

  ‘You’d be back for the afternoon.’

  ‘Maybe I could.’

  ‘It’s important.’

  ‘Okay. But I’ll come to you.’

  ‘Okay. When?’

  ‘About ten. Something like that.’

  ‘I’ll wait in the apartment. You know where it is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thanks. See you then.’

  ‘Tot ziens.’

  POSTCARD

  The gift of pleasure

  is the first mystery.

  John Berger

  ‘YOU WONDERED ABOUT my grandfather,’ Jacob said. ‘Now you know.’

  Hille laid Geertrui’s story on the coffee table between them.

  ‘Glad I’m alive now and not then,’ she said.

  ‘But what d’you think? About my grandfather and her, I mean.’

  ‘Things like that happened a lot. Especially at the end of the war. This year, we even had a day for it.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For people who were children of soldiers who helped liberate us. It was called Reconciliation Day. Some people, many people, who had children by soldiers and kept it secret, told their children for the first time.’

  ‘In public?’

  ‘Yes, if they wanted to. And the people who had always known helped them.’

  ‘Amazing.’

  ‘Why? I thought it was good. I liked it.’

  ‘Can’t imagine a day like that happening in England.’

  ‘You didn’t need it. You were never occupied and so you were never liberated.’

  ‘Wouldn’t happen even if we had been.’

  ‘Maybe it is a bit Dutch.’

  ‘Finding out my grandfather had a Dutch lover and a Dutch daughter and grandson was bad enough. God knows what it must be like to find out your father wasn’t who you always thought he was, and that your mother let you believe a lie all your life.’

  ‘Some people went in pieces. Others took it very well. Some didn’t seem to mind. It’s always like that, don’t you think? You never know how people will behave when they hear big news. You never really know how you will yourself till it happens. I don’t anyway. Like I told you about when my grandmother died. Before, I wouldn’t have thought I would feel guilty. I mean, why should I? I’d done nothing wrong to her, she was an old person and ill. Sick old people die. It’s natural. It wasn’t my fault she was sick and old. But I still felt guilty.’

  ‘That’s odd, because—one of the things I want to talk to you about. Since yesterday, when I had time to think about it, I’ve been feeling guilty. About Grandad.’

  ‘Why? Because he and Geertrui were lovers?’

  ‘Not that so much.’

  ‘Because Geertrui had a child?’

  ‘I can understand how it happened. Why it happened. The way things were for them. I might have been the same, probably.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘Because I know about it.’

  ‘But it happened a long time ago. And it’s not awful for you, is it? That you’ve got yourself a nice Dutch family.’

  ‘No, that’s all right. I like it.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I’m not so sure my grandmother will be that pleased.’

  Hille slapped her thigh. ‘She doesn’t know! Domkop! I was only thinking of you.’

  ‘Thanks. But that’s why I feel guilty. Because I know and she doesn’t. Almost as if I were my grandfather and she were my wife. Stupid, eh?’

  The anxiety made him restless. He stood up, wondering as he did why he always chose to sit in this chair, and went to the window. A family of coots was paddling along the canal, that spring’s young ones looking quite grown up. No one in view in the hotel except a chambermaid making a bed. The grimy church windows blank and blind and wire-netted as always.

  He heard Hille get out of the sofa, her shoes clicking on the tiles as she came up behind him and put her arms round his waist. He could feel through his shirt the squash of her breasts against his back, and the hardness of her hips against his buttocks.

  ‘Will she be very upset?’

  Her breath tickled the nape of his neck. He waited a moment before replying.

  ‘You think I should tell her?’

  Now she waited.

  ‘Won’t you?’

  ‘Daan says I shouldn’t. Tessel as well.’ He didn’t mention Ton or Alma, so as not to complicate it, and because he wanted to hear what she decided if she thought everyone else said no.r />
  There was a longer pause before she spoke again. He didn’t mind. He liked her hugging him this way. It was comforting as well as sexy. Kept very still, wanting it to go on.

  ‘Like I said just now. You never know how people will behave. Especially with bad news.’

  ‘I was hoping you’d help me decide.’

  She stood back. He turned to face her. She took his hands, holding them between hers. Before she spoke she pursed her lips and scowled.

  ‘If I were you, I would tell her. But I’m not you, and I don’t know your grandmother.’

  He gave a rueful smile and said, ‘In other words, it’s your problem, Jacob.’

  She smiled and nodded. ‘Don’t mean it like you say it. But it is, isn’t it, you have to agree.’

  He let out a long breath.

  ‘I learned to read for myself when I was six. To congratulate me, my grandmother—Sarah—sent me a picture postcard. The picture was of a rabbit reading a book. On the back she wrote, “Well done! Now you can find out all the secrets of the world.” When I saw her next time, she asked if I liked it. I said, “I like it so much, Gran, I wish I had a postcard every week.” And since then she’s sent me a picture postcard every week. Never misses. Doesn’t matter if she’s ill. Or away on holiday. Whatever. Every week she sends me a card. Even though I live with her now, she still sends them. By post. When there’s no post, like when there was a postal strike once, she puts that week’s card through the letterbox herself. The picture is always something she wants me to know, like a famous painting or a building or a person or a landscape. Anything. And on the back, if there’s nothing she wants to write, she copies out a quotation from something she’s reading, or she’s heard on television, or she sticks on a clipping out of a paper or a magazine. Not always serious. Jokes sometimes, cartoons. I’ve kept them all from the very first. There are seven hundred and eleven so far.’

  Hille studied him for a while. Then let go of his hands and went back to the sofa.

  ‘That’s one serious grandmother,’ she said as she sat down.

  Jacob followed and sat beside her.

  ‘And my grandfather was the love of her life. She never married again. Now I’ve got to tell her this man she thinks is so wonderful and who she’s still in love with—. It could kill her.’

  ‘So don’t tell her.’