Ashes

by Christopher de Vinck

  ‘Mesdemoiselles, follow me. I have a table waiting for you.’

  Private Lacey stepped aside and reached behind a counter for his rifle. I noticed how lithe he was, how confident in the way that he picked up the rifle and slung it over his shoulder. I would always remember the colour of his brown hair, his helmet hanging on his back. I thought of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz and how sad Dorothy was when she had to say goodbye.

  ‘Well, ladies, I’m off.’ He extended his hand to Hava first.

  She shook it gratefully and said one word: ‘Merci.’

  ‘And Mademoiselle la General, look me up if you’re ever in Portsmouth. You can’t miss it. It’s in the southern part of England. We’re the only island city in the country. We like being special; an island unto ourselves. Right, I’m off. Enjoy your meal, and remember, you must leave tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Cheerio.’

  I watched as he turned, saluted, and stepped out of the café, back into the chaos that filled the streets of Dunkirk, France, in May 1940.

  The man in the red shirt escorted us to the little table, and when we sat down, the forks and knives rattled again, the talk and murmur resumed, the waitress finished opening the window, and a basket of bread and a bottle of wine appeared on our table.

  We hadn’t eaten anything since the train, and that had been very little.

  ‘We have no menu, mesdemoiselles. There is not much left, but the sea always provides. We have salmon. That is our menu. The bread is the last as well. There is nothing left. The Germans have cut off the supplies to the city. No flour. No vegetables. The strawberries were just coming in from the farms, but now even the strawberries are gone.’

  ‘But we don’t want to take away what little is left,’ Hava said.

  ‘Ah, no. You know the saying, mademoiselle. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’

  ‘I won’t die.’

  I looked at Hava and said to the man in the red shirt, ‘You’re very kind. Salmon will be very good.’

  He nodded and, pulling out a small box of matches from under his apron, he lit the single stump of a candle; a little candle that had seen happier nights. The flame from the match illuminated Hava’s face. She looked angelic.

  We sat in silence for a moment. The voices of the other patrons carried throughout the café in a collection of disjointed sounds. The walls had pictures of Paris: the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, a boy feeding a swan at the Tuileries Garden. I took the bottle of wine and poured some into Hava’s glass, and some into my own.

  ‘Tell me something happy, Simone. I want you to tell me something happy.’ Hava placed her arms on the table and propped her head in her hands.

  I placed the bottle back onto the table as the man in the red shirt brought our salmon.

  I thanked him repeatedly, but he just waved his hands above his head. ‘Eat, drink, for tomorrow the Nazis will be here.’

  Before she ate, Hava said, ‘I don’t know anything happy, Simone, but prayer helps when one isn’t happy,’ and she recited a simple Jewish prayer: ‘Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, by Whose word all things came to be.’

  As we raised our wine and tipped together the edge of each glass, Hava said, ‘L’Chayim’.

  CHAPTER 41

  We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

  Winston Churchill’s words delivered to the House of Commons, 4 June, 1940

  An old man sitting at the next table suddenly spoke up. ‘What brings you girls to the coast? On holiday?’

  I was about to say something sarcastic like, ‘Oh yes, Hitler gave us an all-expenses-paid trip to this beach town for the summer.’ Instead, I smiled and almost laughed. It was good to smile again.

  ‘Forgive me for intruding. I just heard your prayer. It’s the prayer my mother said before each meal. You reminded me of my mother.’

  ‘That’s disappointing. So, in your eyes, I’m like an old Jewish mother?’ Hava chuckled.

  ‘No, mademoiselle, in my eyes you are memory, and all that is present.’

  Talking to this man so suddenly was, for me, like talking to the funny Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. He seemed to speak in riddles.

  ‘What do you dream of? Clouds or mountains?’ the man asked us.

  I was confused, but Hava answered right away, ‘Why, I dream of mountains. How do you know to ask?’

  ‘I always asked my students about their dreams. My name is Ira Alberg. I was a teacher once; Shakespeare, Dante, Dickens. I like to know people’s dreams.’

  ‘My name is Hava Daniels. This is my friend Simone Lyon.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I heard the rumours that we might be in the presence of General Lyon’s daughter. And what do you dream of, Simone? Clouds or mountains?’

  I wanted to tell this man that I didn’t dream of either clouds or mountains, so I just picked one. ‘I dream of mountains, like Hava. We’re like sisters.’

  ‘Yes, you two act like sisters. I thought you were sisters when you entered the restaurant. Why do you dream of mountains?’

  ‘I want to be important,’ I said.

  ‘The rocks are important. They make the mountains. Are you a rock, daughter of the general?’ He paused, ‘And, Hava Daniels, what is your father?’

  ‘He is also a great man, a printer. He is respected in the synagogue.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  Hava’s facial features changed quickly from her dream face to her war face: stoic, hard, not the face of Hava the opera lover. ‘I don’t know. My mother and brother, they all disappeared. The rabbi said they had gone.’

  ‘We shall all return someday, Mademoiselle Daniels.’ We sat in silence for a moment. We heard the distant shelling of the coast by German artillery.

  Everyone in the restaurant stopped talking and we sat in silence as one explosion after another echoed in the background. An air-raid siren sounded. The night sky outside the restaurant suddenly radiated a yellow aura. Then, the shelling and the siren stopped.

  ‘There was a great Jewish soldier, Mademoiselle Hava. He was never a general like Simone’s father. Have you heard of William Shemin?’

  The people in the restaurant began talking again.

  ‘In the First World War, German machine guns cut across a field. Many Americans were killed. Shemin ran across the field and dragged many of his comrades to safety. Then he did the unthinkable. He ran back three more times, and each time the machine guns fired at him and at everyone else on the field. A bullet passed through his helmet and lodged inside his skull, just behind his ear. He had lied about his age and said he was 18 when he joined the army, but he was only 16. After the war he owned a plant nursery and sold flowers and shrubs in New York City. Now, he is a general of a man. He saved his friends and he sold flowers in New York City.’

  Hava and I finished our meal. The restaurant owner stepped up and said that there was no charge. The British soldier had paid for our meal. We were about to get up to leave when our dinner companion asked, ‘Where are you girls sleeping tonight?’ I explained that the soldier had told us we had to leave in the morning, so we had decided to walk through the night and escape.

  ‘The Germans don’t travel at night. You are safe for one more night here.’

  ‘Yes, our soldier friend said the same thing, but there are no rooms left anywhere.’

  ‘I have a room, right next door in the Hotel du Beffroi. It’s already paid for. I will give you my room. You both need to sleep, daughter of the printer, daughter of the general – mountain-dreamers.’

  The old man stood up. ‘But first, you must grant me a favour.’

  As
the three of us walked out of the restaurant, Monsieur Alberg said, ‘I’d like you to escort me to the hotel, so I can pick up my things.’ Monsieur Alberg extended his left arm to Hava, and she hooked her arm into his. He extended his right arm to me, and I hooked my arm into his, and the three of us walked along the cobblestones in Dunkirk, France, on that night in May 1940.

  The sky lit up again as bombs exploded further down the street. ‘You see,’ Monsieur Alberg said, ‘an old Jew with two princesses, one on his left and one on his right, will never be touched by bombs.’

  As we entered the little lobby of the hotel, Monsieur Alberg said, ‘Wait here a moment while I get my things.’

  ‘Hava, why is he giving us his room?’

  She shrugged and smiled. ‘Perhaps he dreams of clouds.’

  Hava and I sat on a pink marble bench, where on each corner was carved a small, plump angel. I rubbed the belly of an angel for luck, the marble cold against the tips of my fingers. There was no heat in the hotel, no electricity, just candlelight. The concierge sat at her desk folding towels. I thought it was funny that she was folding towels. The next day the Nazis would enter the city with their guns, and tanks, yet the concierge was folding towels peacefully, as if she were expecting an eager weekend crowd.

  Monsieur Alberg reappeared in the lobby with a suitcase in one hand and a birdcage in another, in which sat a plump canary.

  ‘I take my little bird, Firoo, with me wherever I go. She sings to me at night before I switch off the lights – a gift from my niece.’

  Monsieur Alberg placed the cage before Hava and me as we sat on the marble bench. ‘Look closely. She is my soul.’ The bird jumped from the little wooden perch to the bottom of the cage, then back onto the perch. Back and forth the bird jumped. The seeds in a small glass cup scattered out between the bars of the cage each time the canary made her sudden dash to the bottom of the cage and back up to the perch.

  ‘Would you like Firoo?’ Monsieur Alberg asked Hava. I didn’t think she wanted the soul of an old man. She looked at the bird in silence. Monsieur Alberg shrugged and then said to Hava, ‘Ah well. I have a favour before I give you the key to my room. I hope you might indulge an old man’s wish.’ He hesitated, then looked at Hava sadly.’ I wonder if you might let me touch your hair.’

  I gave Hava a secret pinch to her thigh.

  Hava told me later, as we prepared for bed, that no one had ever touched her hair except Joff the woodcutter’s son, and her little neighbour who liked to visit Hava’s home to sing songs with her family.

  Hava said that the girl always liked brushing her hair. ‘This little gentile girl would come to our door about once a month and say, “Mademoiselle Hava, I have come to brush your beautiful golden hair today.”’ Hava told me that she’d invite the little girl into the house. ‘I would sit in the front room and she would stand behind me and brush my hair with long, gentle strokes. Sometimes she and I sang “Sur le Pont d’Avignon”; other times she would ask me to tell her a story. Her favourites were the Baba Yaga stories about the famous Russian witch who lived in a house on chicken legs.’

  ‘When it was time for her to go home, I’d send her along with a sugar biscuit, and each time, before leaving, she’d say, “Mademoiselle Hava, thank you for letting me touch your hair. It’s very beautiful.”’

  I didn’t think that Hava would let old Monsieur Alberg touch her hair with his crooked, arthritic hands.

  But after I pinched Hava’s thigh again, she looked at me and then at the old man with the sad eyes, and said, ‘Of course you can touch my hair.’

  The old man placed his single bag beside the bird cage and stood before Hava. Then he reached out slowly with his right hand and stroked her hair gently, letting the strands filter through his fingers. I had never seen a man touch a woman with such gentleness and majesty – such grief.

  ‘You have beautiful hair, Mademoiselle Hava. It reminds me of my daughter’s.’ Then he reached into his pocket, took out a brass key, and placed it into Hava’s soft, thin hand.

  ‘I will now take Firoo and go.’

  ‘But where will you stay? There are no rooms.’

  ‘Ah, a canary and an old man can always find a place to sleep.’ He smiled.

  When Hava thanked him for the room, he looked at her and said, ‘You know the Jewish proverb, “When you have no choice, mobilize the spirit of courage”?’ She nodded as understanding passed wordlessly between them. Then, picking up his bird cage, and tipping his head in farewell, he said to me, ‘Your father is a brave man.’

  As Monsieur Alberg walked out of the hotel, he stepped quickly among the moving mass of people. Hava and I followed him out, then watched as he negotiated the crowd, his arms going up and down, before he disappeared into the night.

  CHAPTER 42

  At the end of the Second World War, at least 11 million people had been displaced from their home countries

  ‘I wonder where Mr Alberg’s daughter is now,’ Hava said as she reached into her pocket and pulled out the key. ‘I hope touching my hair brought her back to him briefly.’ She looked down at the key in her hand. ‘I’m tired. Let’s go inside.’ And she walked back into the hotel.

  The concierge explained that our room was up a flight of stairs and to the left. She gave us a small kerosene lamp.

  The stair rail was made of black iron with filigree spiralling under the rail like bits of liquorice. Hava climbed ahead of me, her footsteps echoing on the wooden stairs. The heels of her shoes were hard. The soles of her shoes rubbed against the steps.

  ‘Are you coming, Simone? Just a few more steps.’

  I was so tired that my legs felt ready to fall off.

  We were barely women, and had stepped out of the pink shells of adolescence expecting Clark Gable, but instead we had found Hitler greeting us with his fast-approaching invasion and with bullets that could penetrate through us, into us, without regard for our names, our well-being, or our performance of scenes from Romeo and Juliet.

  In the room there was a single bed and a large chair covered with overstuffed pillows.

  ‘Hava, you take the bed. I sleep in a chair at home often enough.’

  She didn’t argue, but unlaced her shoes, placed them side by side near the door and then slipped into the bed. Before I settled into the chair, I blew out the flame in the lamp, and Hava and I were in the dark. We were silent. I was sure she had fallen asleep when she asked in a low, quiet voice, ‘What did you learn at your Catholic school?’

  I sat in my chair and looked out the window. I could see that the sky glowed orange to the east where exploding bombs encroached towards the city.

  ‘One summer,’ I told Hava, ‘we were on holiday and I was walking past the empty school. The front door opened, and Sister Bernadette stepped out, shaking a rug. When she saw me, she called out, “Good afternoon, Mademoiselle Lyon.” I waved back and said, “Good afternoon Sister Bernadette.”

  ‘She asked me how my father was, and about my summer. I told her that I was reading The Good Earth, a novel about China. Then she asked me if I could help her for a few moments.

  ‘Soon enough I found myself in the convent, in the laundry with Sister Bernadette. She showed me how to use an iron, and how to iron a nun’s handkerchief. I pressed it flat on the board, sprinkled a bit of water onto the handkerchief, and when the iron touched the cloth, a puff of steam rose, and a small hissing sound sighed from the hot iron. That’s what I learned at Catholic school: how to iron a handkerchief.’

  There was silence again, and I thought Hava was asleep when she said, ‘Jewish girls are like myrtle: we have a sweet smell and a bitter taste – like Esther. She listened well and fought against the wicked Haman. My father said that Jewish girls must be proud of their heritage.’ I looked out of the window once again to the orange night, and then we slept.

  Once, Hava had come to meet me after school. She wanted to see if anyone would notice her horns as she waited outside my Catholic school.

  �
�Don’t you know, Simone? All Jews have horns?’

  That’s ridiculous,’ I said.

  ‘Oh no, it’s true. Even artists of the Middle Ages depicted Jews with horns on their heads.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ I said again.

  But Hava took my hand and said, ‘Rub my head.’

  ‘I will not rub your head.’

  ‘Go on, Simone, rub my head and feel my horns.’

  ‘Hava, that’s a horrible thing to say, and I will not rub your head.’

  Hava grinned mischievously as she grabbed my hand. ‘Even the great artist Michelangelo knew about this. One of his famous sculptures in a church in Rome is a statue of Moses, and he has two horns sticking out of his head.’

  She giggled and forced my hand onto the top of her head, dragging it back and forth across her scalp. I was shocked to feel two little horns sticking up beneath her thick, blonde hair.

  Then Hava laughed, reached up into her hair, and pulled out two little combs in the shape of the Eiffel Tower.

  In class Sister Bernadette had taught us, ‘Our human body is so beautiful and so precious that God in all his power could never invent anything better.’

  Recalling this, I muttered to Hava, ‘And he certainly didn’t give the human body horns.’

  At the end of school that day, we were all nervous about a big test the next day. Before the bell went and I rushed off to meet Hava, Sister Bernadette had looked at the thirty girls sitting before her and said, ‘If you all come to the exam room tomorrow with a flower in your hair, I will give you all 100 for your exam.’

  After school, as Hava and I walked back to my house through a small park filled with lilac bushes, she said, ‘Well?’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Are you going to wear a flower in your hair tomorrow for the exam?’

  ‘I’m sure Sister Bernadette was joking, Hava.’

  ‘Do you know,’ Hava said, ‘that pollen from brightly coloured wildflowers was discovered in the grave of a man buried 60,000 years ago in a cave in Iraq? They used to bury people on beds of hyacinths.’