by Moya Simons
‘I know that.’
Martha stood up. ‘We have to find her quickly. It will be dark soon. Tell me, you’re her best friend. Where would she go?’
‘I don’t know. I have no idea.’ My mind was a blank.
Martha called for Peter, who asked the other adults working there to help. We dressed warmly and holding torches began searching the grounds. We couldn’t see Greta anywhere. She seemed to have been swallowed up by the swirls of snow that lay everywhere.
‘Don’t go further than the fence,’ Martha said as she caught up with me. ‘We’ll let the police know. We have to pray that she’s safe. Peter’s checking the outside sheds.’
We continued to search. A dusty moon appeared then disappeared behind snow clouds. The snow deepened. Even with a thick coat and gloves, I still felt half frozen.
The police arrived with long-beamed torches and joined the search. The Hartfield children pressed their noses against the windows of the house, watching.
We searched and searched. Eventually, I was sent back to the house. Martha came in and the other children went to bed, though I doubted that anyone slept. I crept downstairs in my pyjamas and sat in an armchair by the frosty window with a blanket around me, watching snow fall against the window and the beams of torches light up the darkness outside.
I searched my memory for clues. Had she ever said anything to me that would help us find her? Maybe she’d gone onto the main road and had hitched a ride somewhere. Somehow, I couldn’t imagine Greta doing this. Her cheerful chatter hid a lot of fear and I couldn’t see her on a dark road asking a stranger for a ride.
Why had she taken my scarf? She’d said how lucky I was to have the scarf, to have a reminder of my mother, and how lucky I was to have my sister’s journal. Suddenly I remembered her saying the only place she felt really safe was in her ‘wardrobe’. That was it. Her wardrobe was in the hollow of the oak tree near the stream.
Dressed in my pyjamas with the blanket around me I ran outside the house to where Peter and Martha were taking a tray of hot cocoa to the searchers. ‘Martha,’ I gasped. ‘I know where to find Greta.’
Together with three policemen, Martha, Peter and I raced to the rear of the house, to the outskirts of the boundary, and from there we plodded with torches through the woods to the old oak tree adjoining a small stream.
Martha shone a torch inside the hollow. Sure enough, there was Greta, curled up with the world’s longest scarf wrapped around her neck and covering her chest. She was barely conscious but managed to whisper, ‘What are you doing here?’
Peter reached inside the hollow and pulled her out. He carried her to the house, and we wrapped her in blankets and sat her in front of the fire. Greta’s lips were blue and her face was the colour of white chalk.
She closed her eyes, then stirred, and her eyelids fluttered. I began to panic.
‘I’m not sure about an ambulance. I think she’s going to be all right,’ said one of the policemen. Martha propped up Greta’s head and wet her lips with warm tea, and Greta opened her mouth and drank. Slowly, colour returned to her cheeks and lips.
‘Good thing she had that long scarf around her. It doubled as a blanket,’ one of the policemen said. ‘She wouldn’t have made it through the night otherwise.’ I took the scarf and held it against me.
Peter suggested a nice warming tea and the policemen and helpers followed him into the kitchen.
‘I’m running you a hot bath, Greta,’ said Martha, helping Greta to her feet, ‘then it’s off to bed.’
Later, when Greta was tucked in under heavy blankets I whispered to her from my own bed, ‘Are you going to be okay?’
‘I don’t know.’
GRETA DID NOT speak at breakfast, which frustrated the other children who wanted answers. ‘Just tell me why,’ asked Gabi. Greta grunted and eventually I said, ‘Leave her alone. She’ll be all right. She just needs time to herself.’
After breakfast, Martha asked that we go to her office. Greta sat on an armchair in front of the fireplace. She looked at the flames.
‘So, Greta, the truth this time. Begin. Tell us your story.’
Tears ran down Greta’s face. She wiped them with a hanky, then looked sideways at me.
‘I am happy for you, Rachel. I’m sorry I ruined your day. I’m sorry I took the world’s longest scarf. I didn’t mean to.’
‘Greta, your story—the truth, please,’ implored Martha.
‘All right, Martha. Give me a moment.’ Greta took a deep breath. Each dancing flame that she stared at became a memory and the pupils of her eyes reflected pinpoints of light. ‘We were on a railway platform. We were to be taken away. All around us were Nazi guards. My father had gone before us. I think I told him I loved him before he left, but I can’t be sure.’
‘That’s all right, Greta dear,’ said Martha. Cups of hot cocoa had been brought in. ‘Just tell us what you remember. Here, sip this.’
‘He’s not alive. My father, I mean. But a lot of us lost parents. I can accept that, though I don’t want to. It’s my mother. She wasn’t Jewish.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘She gave me up.’ Greta shrugged and then her body began to tremble, as if she suddenly realised the weight of her words. She shook so much that Martha took the wobbling cup of cocoa from her and put it on a small table beside her.
‘We were on the train platform waiting to be transported to a concentration camp. She saw a guard she knew and she grabbed him by the shoulder. He recognised her.’
‘Do you remember what your mother said to him, Greta?’
‘She said, “I shouldn’t be here. I’m not Jewish. Look at me. Look at my blonde hair and Aryan features. See. I made a mistake. My husband was Jewish. He has been taken away. I am a good German. I want to live.”’
‘What did the soldier say, Greta?’
‘He said, “And your child?”’
That was all Greta remembered about the conversation. Her lower lip shook with the telling of her most terrible memory.
‘My mother slipped away into the crowd. Everyone was pushing and jostling one another. Guards were beating Jews with their rifle butts. I called for my mother. She’d left me there. She escaped and I went alone to a concentration camp, where I should have died. I was sent to Bergen-Belsen, to an orphans’ compound. A guard there smuggled milk to us. Imagine, I had to go to a concentration camp to find more love from a Nazi guard than from my own mother.’
‘Greta, maybe it didn’t happen the way you remember. Maybe she tried to grab you in the crowd on the railway platform, but it was too late,’ Martha said, stroking her arm. ‘There were guards pushing people onto the train. You were separated for a moment. Everyone went a little mad at the railway stations. You can’t be sure she meant to leave you there by yourself. You must always remember that.’
‘I remember being sent to a concentration camp, and that I was all alone. That’s what I remember.’
Suddenly I had a very good idea. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?
‘When I write to my papa, I’ll ask him if I can bring you to Australia as well. Imagine, we can go to school together. We can sit at the long table together on the Sabbath and throw bread at each other.’
‘If my own mother didn’t want me, why should anyone else? Your papa won’t want me either, Rachel. He will send me back to England.’ Her eyes filled with tears.
‘Don’t cry, Greta. Papa’s such a good man. He will say yes.’
That night, in bed, I said to Greta: ‘Hey, what made you take the world’s longest scarf?’
‘Don’t know. You treat it with such love, I s’pose I wanted to feel what you feel when you hold it.’
NEXT DAY I asked Peter for help with my German and we sat together in the living room and wrote a letter to my family.
My darling Papa and dearest Miri,
How would you like another daughter and sister? I would like to bring Greta to Australia with me. She is an orphan here. She n
eeds a family just as much as I do.
She has been through terrible experiences in Bergen– Belsen concentration camp and needs a lot of love.
She is my age, and full of stories about the royal family. They aren’t true, but they are good fun all the same.
We heard on the wireless how the newly formed United Nations agreed on the Jews having a Jewish state in their biblical homeland. Australia was the first country to vote for it. Hurray for Australia!
I shall bring a special pair of scissors just to trim your eyebrows, Papa. Miri, buy two bottles of scent. One for me and one for Greta, your new sister.
Is there any word about Agnes?
As soon as you reply, Martha, our carer here, will make arrangements for us to travel to Australia.
I love you both more than words can say,
Rachel
‘I’VE POSTED MY letter to Papa,’ I said to Greta over dinner that night.
‘It’s a wasted letter, Rachel,’ said Greta. ‘Why should he take in a child he’s never met? Anyway, I’ve told you already. I’m not going with you.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ I replied, pushing mashed potato onto my fork. I looked around the table and after I’d finished eating I handed Greta the salt shaker. ‘Throw some salt over your left shoulder.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s for luck. It’s an old custom. It’s time for you to be happy and optimistic, Greta. Time for you to let go of your sad memories.’
Greta frowned but found it hard to continue looking grumpy because the grin would not move from my face.
She took the salt shaker and sprinkled salt over her left shoulder. Some of the younger children watching did the same. Martha, sitting at a nearby table with Peter, glanced at us and smiled. I think she recognised this old ritual and didn’t care a bit about salt dotting the floor.
‘SO YOU’RE GOING to Australia,’ Tony said at school recess.
‘We’ve grown used to you, Rachel.’ Timothy smiled. ‘Our parents hoped you would change your mind and that you’d come and live with us.’
‘I suppose this is better for you, but we’ll miss you,’ Tony added. ‘I heard that you’re taking Greta with you. She’s a weird one. But I suppose you know that already.’
He tossed a ball at me and I jumped to catch it.
‘You’ll write to us?’ Tony called out as he dashed across the school oval.
‘Of course I will.’
‘YOU SEE, GRETA, a letter has come from my father and he doesn’t just want you, he expects you to arrive with me. He will send out a search party if you don’t come. He has written that I’m to trim his left eyebrow and you’re to trim his right. My sister has already bought you a bottle of scent and has written welcoming you as her new sister.’
Greta smiled despite herself.
‘And there are beaches the colour of honey, Greta. And handsome lifesavers.’
‘Really?’
‘That’s what Miri has written. No kings and queens there, no princesses. Just people. Good people. No war. People like us escaping from the war. People going there to make a new life. We’ll go down to the beach together with Papa and Miri. We’ll go across the Harbour Bridge. Miri says it’s a beautiful bridge shaped like a coat hanger that joins one side of the harbour to the other. There’s a zoo there, and koalas and kangaroos. I think they hop down the main streets of Sydney.’
Greta smiled some more. ‘All these stories. You’re starting to sound like me, Rachel. Tell me more about the lifesavers.’
Chapter Twenty-six
IN DECEMBER 1948, seven months after the State of Israel became a reality, Greta and I, aged fifteen, accompanied by a refugee mother, Mrs Feinberg, and her small son Isaac, left on the SS Orcades for Australia. It had taken months for arrangements to be made with the Australian government for our immigration.
It was a maiden voyage for the ship, which was crammed with new immigrants for Australia and refugees seeking a new, safe life far away from war.
Early that frosty morning we left Hartfield, our home for more than three years, for the last time. We kissed the other children who had been our friends and family for so long. I turned as the car followed the driveway to take a last look at Hartfield House. No, I won’t forget you, Hartfield, ever, I thought.
Martha and Peter drove us to Tilbury Docks where we saw the ship. It was huge and shiny with a mighty funnel. People were already cramming up the long gangplank and lining the decks. Martha cried as she said goodbye, but they were happy tears.
‘We’ll write,’ I said to Martha and Peter as Mrs Feinberg gently took my hand to lead us up the gangplank.
‘Good luck and be happy, girls,’ Martha called to us wiping her eyes. Peter, that solemn man, gave a wide smile. He took off his cap and waved it as we climbed unsteadily from one life to another.
Once on board the ship we leaned against the rails, and Peter threw a red streamer to us from the wharf. I caught it and held on tightly to it. I felt a link between us, a solid tangible weight, until the ship pulled away, and the thousands of streamers held between passengers and friends on the dock broke. A cord between us and our old lives was broken, but not the love we shared.
‘Come on, Greta, let’s explore,’ I said.
I WAS SEASICK. Greta too. Then one day I found Greta looking under our double bunk bed. ‘I’ve found them,’ she called out.
‘What?’
‘Our sea-legs. Here they are.’
She held up invisible legs which, of course, only she and I could see. From that moment on, we decided there’d be no more throwing up. We’d sway when the ship swayed and forget our giddiness.
I loved the ship. I loved the smell of salt, the pulse of the ocean, the amazing sight of dolphins and whales. I loved the variety of people and the many languages. This, of course, was second nature for me. I had surely heard every language of Europe at Hartfield.
Little Isaac soon made friends with other children and spent a good part of the day in the children’s play area. Mrs Feinberg made friends with other families, and we would often pass her sitting on a deckchair talking or inside one of the lounges playing cards with her new friends.
Dear Freddy,
I shall never call you Fred, no matter what the Australian customs are. You’ll always be Freddy to me.
I am on my way to my new home in Australia. Greta, another refugee like me, is coming to live with us. It will be a new life.
You said you might come to see me sometime. I would like that. Your grandmother and you will always be part of my life. Your grandfather too. I always knew your grandparents loved me. You too, Freddy. Why else would you all risk your lives when the bombs fell?
I hope all your dreams come true, and you become part of building the new Germany. For me, I don’t know yet what I want to be when I finish school. It doesn’t seem important right now.
I shall see my papa and Miri. I can hardly believe it. And one day, I shall see you.
I am sending you a photograph. You will see that I am growing up, and am quite outstandingly beautiful. Ha ha, only joking.
With affection,
Rachel
EVERY DAY ON board ship, a teacher gave English lessons. How happy I was that I spoke it fluently. Refugees turned up at the English classes and worked seriously on their English. Greta and I went along out of curiosity. I noticed two boys there about our age. They hung around us when they found us on deck the following day and asked if they could play deck quoits with us. One was called George. He had dark hair and a skinny body, and had eyes only for Greta. Greta’s face became flushed when he talked to her. He was French and his English was awful. His friend was called Jacques. I immediately thought of little Jacques who couldn’t hear.
I wondered about their stories. They also had a chaperone refugee family and were travelling to Melbourne. George was to be reunited with a distant aunt, and a home had been found with a Jewish family in Melbourne for Jacques.
Jacques had slic
ked-back dark hair and a bony face. He was fifteen and a half and seemed too tall for his body. He had very long dark eyelashes that were wasted on a boy.
‘Tonight, big dance. You dance, yes?’ George was testing his English on Greta.
‘Um…’ said Greta.
‘She’d love to,’ I finished the sentence for her.
So we went to the big dance. I wore a pink dress with a fitted belt and a lace collar; Greta wore a yellow cotton dress. She braided her hair and wore it up and plaited across her head. With her fair hair and her pink skin, she looked very much like the posters the Germans used to show of the typical Aryan girl, the kind that German girls were meant to look like under Hitler’s policies.
Greta stared at herself critically in the cabin mirror, until Mrs Feinberg called out, ‘Too much staring can break a mirror. Now, off with you both, and have a good time.’
‘Don’t you want to come, Mrs Feinberg?’ asked Greta. ‘The stewards are checking on the children, so Isaac will be fine. You should come with us.’
Mrs Feinberg shook her head sadly. ‘Oh, don’t worry about me. I had a husband once, and we danced plenty. I have my memories. Now, go.’
Off we went upstairs to the dance. The band was playing a Bing Crosby song and people were dancing. We sat at a table and my heart pounded. This was the most grown-up thing I’d ever done. I couldn’t really dance, but figured that you moved in time to the music, let your partner lead you, and hoped for the best.
George came over and asked Greta to dance. He looked quite nice with his hair combed back and slicked down with oil to keep it smooth and shiny. He’d dressed for the occasion in a suit that didn’t fit him very well and a broad tie. It made him look years older.
Greta became nervous. ‘I can’t do this, George. I’ll tread on your toes,’ she protested.
‘Toes?’ he asked. ‘What is toes?’
I grinned and pushed Greta onto the dance floor, and watched smiling as she was whirled around in his strong arms. Then as I tapped in time to the music Jacques appeared and asked me to dance. I could hardly say no when I’d pushed Greta onto the floor, so I tried to stand gracefully and followed him in my low heels to the dance floor, hoping that I wouldn’t trip or stub his feet.