by Jan Vivian
‘I have you, father…and Betty to think of.’
It was a dilemma that only now occurred to her; she was being chided for being away from Simon and the opportunity to be distracted from the seeming futility of daily existence. She had sensed it to be otherwise, in Simon’s behaviour and how he conversed with her.
‘We’re close…we won’t be far from you, lievert.’
’Darling,’ continued to be mother’s consoling name for Harriette. Now she made them turn and they retraced their steps, walking purposefully. Clearly, mother’s thoughts were on the claims made upon both her children even in this alien gathering place, a no-man’s land between two worlds.
●
‘How much longer am I to endure this?’
Simon said it to himself as he leant against the wall of the small auditorium and watched the noisy throng gathering about him. The transport train had departed earlier in the day and he had been spared that lot. A concert, a bunter abend, served as a welcome distraction for those who could gain entry to the hall and he had made it his business to be there.
He remained uncertain how his attraction to Harriette could be resolved; he knew only that he should live for every moment that the beautiful young woman was in his presence. He felt unashamedly possessive about her and everything that she aroused within him.
Such intensity, an emotional turmoil, had not been experienced before. He chose not to dwell for too long on the thought that their present circumstances heightened his senses.
His only wish was to see her, to watch Harriette dance and, most pleasurably of all, to hear her sing. Then he would be taken to another place, seduced into believing that the camp was but a temporary and horrific aberration. Normality might yet be re-discovered in a labour camp or factory, that servitude would be his fate; he would be taken to a place where he could put his skills to use. He was a jeweller, a craftsman, but any manual skills devoted to prosaic endeavours would serve until a heinous war beyond the fence had been settled. Dismantling parts recovered from shot down aircraft was deviant behaviour for a man with his skills.
How else could he, and countless others, make sense of what was being done to them? Rumours abounded but they were incredible to believe. The shop, the café and work inside the camp, and outside under close supervision, confounded the pessimists. The camp even had its own currency although he knew others profited from the exchange of money brought in from the ‘real world’ outside.
Hearing the lovely voice of the young woman he had so recently met would calm any observer’s tormented soul. He knew the debilitating fear of the unknown and that a resolute mind could still so easily succumb to. So much happened all around him to shake one’s defences; the punishment regimes for some, for others the loss of loved ones and friends on the weekly transports out of the camp, and for many the loss of life through illness and lack of food.
It hadn’t been like this for him only a few weeks ago; he had lived beyond the wire but within the confines of the ghetto. The boundaries to the world were being drawn in, both physically and emotionally. He was quite alone as he sought to be reconciled with the changes in his short life.
How he wished that his own family was close by; how comforting it would have been to know, like Harriette, that they would be together, one and all, until a judgement day of some kind and of man’s devising. He believed in only one; that determined by Jehovah and a faith that he clung to. The man he was, and his belief, had determined that he be taken to this place; the sight and touch of Harriette would sustain him during the days of waiting until names were called out again in a week’s time; then the tumult of uncertainty would begin once more in those that remained behind.
These were thoughts that could have overwhelmed him; instead, he felt uplifted as the small orchestra in the pit before the stage began to play. He found himself humming along somewhat tunelessly, but he was diverted, and tapped his feet.
‘Not too loud,’ a well-dressed man advised him, not unkindly.
The curtain drew back to reveal an elaborate backdrop for a dance troupe. They were dressed in very short skirts and matelot tops and began a high-kicking routine that soon had onlookers clapping along.
‘There are some who frown on what goes on in this place…’ Simon was now told and he heard a hollow but appreciative laugh as they watched with rapt attention a routine that would have been unremarkable in any other venue.
‘I prefer it to the alternative…and so should they,’ Simon answered, somewhat haughtily.
‘That’s what I think,’ was the man’s reply. His eyes hadn’t left the scene being acted out before them.
‘Are you…alone, here, like me?’
The man nodded then bowed his head.
‘Yes, my wife and children were taken…today,’ he confided over the din of the music. ‘The SS have their ways…and the OD people act them out or…’
‘They’re put on the train too?’ It seemed devilishly cruel to have separated them here. How could they possibly know where a reunion might be held?
‘Yes. One way or the other…we’re in this together, every one of us.’
The confession was said on a sorrowful voice that ended the brief conversation between them; it left Simon to reflect on the devastating consequences of his enquiry but he did not have to do so for long.
Harriette appeared before a simple set, a homely scene that was revealed as a curtain was drawn away and the orchestra played the introduction to a song that he had come to know well. He was soon captivated by her softly modulated voice, the comforting lilt as she sang out the words of a piece that lasted for only a moment. Thoughts would turn to home in all who listened, to scenes at bedtime, perhaps, or of people who were at one with their surroundings and circumstances and not of a place where boundaries were rigorously enforced.
Harriette danced in graceful joyous steps, a brightly coloured package clutched to her bosom as if it had long been awaited.
‘Tralala...tralala...tralala,’ she sang as the tempo of the orchestra’s introduction set the mood.
‘At last a little package comes,
And all are glad...both young and old,
What I hold near I’ll soon unfold...
How glad all are...when a lovely package comes,
For the cloudy skies give way to sun,
It’s wrapped real tight...tralala...tralala,
It’s hard to see how it can be undone,
We can’t open it soon enough...tralala...tralala,
When that little package comes...tralala...tralala,
For when we do the sick are healed...quick as a jot,
And on a card we will write our thanks to you, a lot!’
Still clutching the package Harriette waved and smiled happily as she skipped off the stage.
‘Bravo!’ Simon called out but she paid no heed to that.
Simon went outside and walked in the gathering gloom to what passed for a stage door. He would chance it; he’d seek out the girl who possessed his thoughts. The orchestra had struck up again with another familiar tune and cabaret stars took their turns to entertain the audience.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’ a hard voice called out. An orderly soon barred his way as Simon opened the door and chose to step inside.
‘I’ll be glad to see...and speak, to Harriette. She’s finished...I presume?’
‘You presume too much walking in here like this.’
‘Maybe...’
‘You’re insolent too...’
‘No...I’m just curious about her. I wanted to say thank you...just to tell her that.’
‘Wait here,’ the orderly instructed and Simon was surprised to hear it said. ‘Do you think you can manage that?’
The man tilted his head in enquiry and his stare upon him made Simon hesitate.
‘Yes, certainly...I can do that,’ Simon assured him, and then he paused. ‘I can do that as long as I have your word that she’ll be told that I’m here. I’m Simon...’<
br />
‘Let’s see if she’s as keen to see you...’
‘Thank you...’
‘I’ll do it this one time...’
‘I can’t ask any more...I live for the day.’
‘As we all do...’
The man was gone. His unremarkable overall, with its star, was in bleak contrast to the colourful costumes of the women on the stage he had seen before and again tonight, especially Harriette’s.
Simon tapped his feet impatiently on the boarded floor, wondering if the young woman he longed to be with again had gone on stage for another act. The cast, on nights like this, were usually made of well-known stars, or troupers; Harriette would only be in a supporting role if called for, he could only assume now.
The noise was deafening even in the confined space of the back stage area where he had been ordered to wait. The little jigs he soon chose to perform, swirling his cap as he did so, went un-noticed.
It was just as well for he tripped on something that had gone unseen. He crashed to the floor and recognised soon enough what it was, someone’s pathetic bundled-up possessions – perhaps those of a detainee who had been transported and had had no time to gather all that remained to them. He was relieved not to have dropped his cap; finding it in the gloom and on this dusty floor would not have been easy.
‘‘Do you remember...do you remember,’ he began to sing, confident that no-one would hear him, ‘do you remember how I told the stars...that I loved you?’’
The rest of the words to the song didn’t come easily to mind, but the tune did, so he hummed and then lapsed into Harriette’s soft refrains...tralala...tralala...as best as he could. It didn’t sound so believable coming from his lips.
‘I’ll make something for you,’ he now decided as an idea came to mind.
He said it wondrously for the door at the end of the short passage where he stood had opened and there she was, his lady Harriette. She still wore her costume, a long frilly, flouncy dress along with her bonnet that had been partly tied with a ribbon at her throat.
He hoped that she hadn’t heard him trying to sing or the gasp of amazement to see her silhouetted in the doorway.
‘Is that you, Simon?’ she asked querulously.
‘Yes...I couldn’t keep away.’
‘Can’t this wait, please?’
Simon took in her dismay on finding him here.
‘I guess it can,’ he replied easily, ‘but I wanted to tell you how much I loved the song, the solo you’ve sung. I wanted to ask...may I see you afterwards?’
‘There’s roll call....then lock up...there’s so little time.’ She made it sound as if her words would persuade him that she was right to point out the obstacles to meeting again.
‘It’ll only be for a moment...’
‘Very well,’ she answered hesitantly. ‘Come back...meet me here. And now I have to go...I’m sorry.’
‘Your audience awaits you...’
‘As you seem to do,’ she dared to admit, touching his arm as she did so, and before she was lost once more to his view. The door closed and he had to adjust to the semi-darkness once more.
‘You’d better be off,’ a familiar voice, that of the orderly, instructed from behind some props.
‘No one’s ever alone here,’ Simon muttered but his comment elicited no reply as the orderly drew closer.
He knew this to be the case only on account of the man’s foul breath; it reeked of some ersatz substance that he chose to smoke and that passed for tobacco.
Obediently, Simon left the building and decided to linger by the hall’s entrance. The concert would soon be over, in fifteen minutes or so; he wouldn’t have long to wait.
Above him, somewhere beyond the patchy cloud that drifted on the freshening breeze, a concert of a different kind beat out its droning rhythm. Another bombing raid was in progress. He knew well enough that he, along with so many others, would soon be taken somewhere to break up the charred and mangled wreckage that had fallen from the sky and to salvage some metals for reuse by their captors.
‘Go to it,’ he encouraged on a whisper. ‘An eye for an eye...so, do anything and everything necessary to end this nightmare for us here below.’
●
‘I could never tire of you doing that,’ he said with evident pleasure.
Harriette had responded to his first tentative kiss. She had gripped Simon’s hands as if to do so would exercise some restraint upon their actions. Conceding to his gentle entreaties had been enough. To be courted so carefully in the surroundings of a detention camp was an affront to all reason. She had dared to concede, in the days since the concert when Simon had appeared so unexpectedly back stage and in a show of his touching devotion, that she was enamoured of him. Mother had even been told of it, how her emotions and rational ways of thinking had been thrown into turmoil by this smiling young man, a man who wore his hat as if to proclaim, carelessly sublime, that he would survive anything just as long as he had her for company.
‘And I also have something from you,’ she said with a tremble in her voice. It had been so unexpected, so wonderfully special, his gift to her.
She opened her hand to reveal a small metallic band that Simon had fashioned in secret and in no time at all. Within a clasp he had fixed a small piece of quartz, its pale translucent brilliance evocative and significant. Permanence and innocence he had confessed to her; it also symbolised eternity, boundless time as he had chosen to think of what had been found beyond the camp’s perimeter fence. The stone meant that to him and all that he would take wherever he was after Westerbork...a place remarkable only for the camp, but made bearable by her presence beside him whenever that was possible.
‘Shall I fasten it for you?’ he now asked, concerned with the baleful look she had given him for only an instant as the meaning of his gift possessed her once more.
‘Yes...please.’
She said it softly and then turned so that Simon could do so. His hands drew away her plaited hair and the simple hook and eye was closed against her skin. It was all that the rudimentary clasp would allow.
‘I’ve done better,’ he smiled. ‘The shop near Rembrandt’s Square was where I worked...Pa’s place.’
Harriette turned and was surprised to see him blink back tears. She raised her hand to touch Simon’s face in a moment’s consolation for a memory that had risen up within him, unbidden.
‘You’ll always be together...’
‘Yes...there’s that belief to hold on to,’ he replied before brightening. ‘The metal strands will fade...it will look lovely against your skin...simple as the band is.’
Harriette noted the evident pride in his work and the way Simon had spoken of it.
‘Keep it hidden…under the collar of your dress…’
‘Very well…’
‘It will spare you any enquiry…especially from the people watching over us…and the other lot.’
Simon chose now to conceal his gift as he had advised her to do. Then, he placed a single, soft touching kiss to her neck as he said something that obliged her to turn and face him.
‘May God, and your family, help you lovely Harriette…wherever you are.’
Right then she couldn’t hold back her tears; nor, could she keep from embracing him and she kissed Simon’s cheeks in a rush of emotion. The happy-go-lucky young man who had caught her eye, the smiling face under an ungainly cap, a suitor in an alien place, had said something profound and quite unexpected.
‘Go…go now, Simon, please,’ she whispered, brushing away her tears with sweeps of her fingers against her cheeks. She couldn’t keep from wondering why she was so tearful, how she could be overcome or lose control of her emotions? Was she being worn down by all that she and everyone around her had to endure in this place? ‘You’ll be late for roll-call. Don’t get into trouble…not over me.’
Even then, after all that had passed between them in recent days, and now his special gift, she couldn’t concede to an emotion that she had s
triven to disclaim in present circumstances…that she had found a love particular only to her and Simon.
He said it for her.
‘I could love you…’
‘I know…I know it too, and that is what hurts me.’
Harriette turned away and pushed on the barrack room door. Others rushed past but she was oblivious to them all. After a fleeting glance, and to see if Simon would leave her and save himself any trouble, she was lost to his view.
●
Simon walked purposefully away, conscious that the time of evening roll-call was fast approaching, a tally of those in his block.
He turned the corner of the building that housed Harriette’s family, noticing the faces at the window, the looks of curiosity and bewilderment that he should still be about. It was far too close to ‘appel zeit’ but he felt a sense of elation at having been able to confess all that he felt for a girl, his lovely Harriette, for that was how he thought of her now. In a moment, a few more steps, and he would be at the door of his block.
A deep authoritative voice startled him.
‘Was tun sie?’
He heard the crunch of boots on the gravel of the path, also the hollow sound of clogs. It seemed an SS patrol and some orderlies had discovered him at the very beginning of the curfew.
However, he chose to keep on walking and consulted his watch as he did so. It was but a minute or so past the designated time and he thought it of no great consequence. He dodged nimbly around the corner and headed for the door. It would not open.
‘Halt!’
He felt restraining hands on his arms, then the push in his back. It made him stumble and he grabbed at his cap just to be sure it wasn’t lost to him if he fell. He soon recovered his balance and turned.
‘Papers!’ the officer demanded and snapped his fingers impatiently before holding out his hand. ‘Be quick…idiot! I asked, what are you doing out here?’
Simon did as was commanded but met the German’s stare with an even look of his own.
‘Was tun sie?’ he was asked again.
‘What are you doing?’ an orderly asked, helpfully or so it seemed.