The English German Girl

by Jake Wallis Simons

  The car shudders into life after a couple of false starts, but the journey through town is smooth. Much of the bomb damage has been repaired, yet builders and cranes are frequent. The streets are quiet; a man strolls with his jacket over his arm, a Yorkshire terrier by his side, he is wearing an ill-fitting brown trilby which marks him out as recently demobilised. Two women, secretaries perhaps, walk briskly on stout heels along the pavement, laughing and shaking their heads; a man in a cloth cap sits on a step in his shirtsleeves, holding a bottle of something. Samuel turns a little too fast onto the Marylebone Road, the car lurches slightly, then settles down.

  —Are you all right? I mean, are you ready? asks Samuel. We’re almost there.

  —I’m glad you’re coming with me, says Rosa.

  There is a pause; the engine clatters beneath them.

  —I don’t mind telling you, says Samuel, I’m rather jumpy.

  The car comes to a halt and they get out, stand side by side on the pavement in the sun, looking up at Bloomsbury House, a smart Georgian building surrounded by black railings, with a prominent porch capped with carved stone and a highly polished black door. Samuel puts on his hat. Then he takes Rosa’s arm and starts to walk towards the entrance.

  —Wait, says Rosa, just a minute.

  He looks at her for a moment, then stops and waits, still holding her arm. Her eyes are fixed on the polished door, and the breeze plays in the curls beneath her hat; her face is unusually flushed. Two men pass by in business suits and bowler hats, walking in opposite semicircles around them; Samuel makes an apologetic face.

  —All right, says Rosa at last, let’s go in.

  They make their way into the foyer and join a sombre group of people standing in irregular patterns on the black-and-white tiles, whispering occasionally in German, Polish, Dutch. Nobody is manning the reception desk but everyone seems content to wait resignedly. As the minutes go by Rosa grips Samuel’s arm tighter and her face grows increasingly flushed, tight-lipped. He leads her to the desk and looks around for a service bell, or any sign of life; finally a studious-looking man bustles through a door and takes a seat at the desk, tightening his tie. There is a murmur of recognition from the assembly, but rather than press forward, the people seem to shrink back.

  —May I help? says the man, peering at Samuel through wire-rimmed glasses.

  Samuel and Rosa glance at each other.

  —We received a letter, says Samuel, regarding a certain list of names.

  —Ah yes, says the man, if you follow that corridor, it’s three doors down on the left. They should all be up there now.

  They walk along the corridor followed by others from the foyer. The first door passes, then the second. Their footsteps are unbearably loud now, and brass light fittings on the walls seem to throw them into a spotlight. Other people are around them, a thin woman in a shapeless hat and leather gloves, a portly gentleman carrying a folder bursting with paperwork, a young lad with short trousers and a scampish face. More languages can be heard, Hungarian, Romanian, Yiddish, French. Third on the left, the door is open; they enter a large, square room with high ceilings and broad windows facing the street. The floorboards are covered in a thin Turkish carpet. Groups of people begin to assemble around the room, clustering around the walls, where, above the fireplace, and on either side of the paintings, and in between the windows, and across the paintwork, stretching up almost to the ceiling, there are rows and rows of large cork notice-boards, enclosing the room like a fence. On these are sheets of foolscap, pinned all the way across without the slightest space in between, ruled into columns and filled with tiny writing: names and figures and locations and details, name after name after name.

  —Let’s hope it’s alphabetical, says Samuel drily.

  Rosa gazes around her in grim wonderment at the sheer number of names on these lists. Her family could be anywhere among them, any one of these spidery lines of ink could represent Papa, or Mama, or Heinrich, or Hedi, and in a way all of them do; behind each of these little two-word units there is a life, a person, someone who had bonds with their family and their friends and their country, with a job and a house and a preference for sweet tea, or panama hats, or pumpernickel, or strolls in the Grunewald, who was plucked from the apparatus of their day-to-day existence and put to death.

  They move to a corner of the room and find all the people who had surnames beginning with ‘A’, starting off the list and continuing for several pages; then it is ‘B’, then ‘C’, Samuel is skimming the names now, leading her towards the letter ‘K’, stop, she wants to say, go slower, I’m not ready, I cannot look at the list, I cannot, I do not mind this unknowing, I have grown used to it, let me stay, let me stay, let me stay.

  —Are you all right? says Samuel.

  —Fine, says Rosa.

  —I think the ‘K’s are over here. Are you ready?

  Rosa nods. Could it really be that such a flimsy thing as a name, in two words, is sufficient to support the weight of somebody’s life? Here, they arrive, and look down the list. Kabakoff, Kacev, Kaciff, Kadar, Kadury, Kagan, Kaganoff, Kahane, Kahn, Kahin, Kaisermann, Kalisch, Kalischer, Kalmann, Kalonymos, Kaluzna, Kamin, Kaminski, Kaminetzky, Kan, Kaner, Kann, Kansi, Kantor, all ‘K’s, one below the other, people who could never have envisaged, during their lives, that their names would end up here, on a list of victims on the wall of a room in a Georgian building in Bloomsbury, Kapke, Kaplan, Karelitz, Karlinsky, Karlman, Kaskel, Kaspi, Kassiere, Katz, don’t look, close your eyes, for these people no longer walk the earth, it is impersonal and stifling, this dry presentation of people in the form of a list, written in columns in black ink, sometimes blue ink, name after name, fate after fate, Kirsch, Kirscheldorf, Kirschenbaum, Kirschner, Kirstein, Kirsten, Kisch, Kisselevich, Kissinger, Kissner, Kivel, Klass, don’t look, Klausner, Kleben, turn away, it will be final, once seen it can never be unseen.

  Rosa’s body shudders slightly. Samuel follows her gaze.

  Klein, Hedi, 15974, Auschwitz, d. 2nd February 1943

  Klein, Inga, 15973, Auschwitz, d. 10th March 1943

  Klein, Otto, 103762, Auschwitz, d. 13th April 1943

  Klein, Heinrich, 103761, Auschwitz, d. 23rd June 1944

  —That’s them, isn’t it, Samuel says flatly.

  Rosa does not reply. Suddenly she feels at peace. A numbness settles upon her, a sense that all striving and yearning and wishing and praying has come to an end, leaving behind a vacuum, peace. Unsure if Samuel is following, she releases his arm and backs away from the wall, then turns and walks towards the exit, across the black-and-white stone floor. Samuel takes her arm again and helps her down the stairs, and out to the motorcar; they join the traffic in silence, Samuel holding her hand as they drive.

  The journey passes in silence all the way down High Holborn until it turns into Cheapside. The world outside the windows of the car is absolutely normal, too normal, yet for Rosa it seems to be passing in slow motion; she knows now, she has reached the end of uncertainty, and she is reeling.

  —How are you bearing up? says Samuel.

  —All right, says Rosa, a little giddy.

  —Shall I stop? Would you like a drink of water?

  —Thank you but I’m fine. I think it’s the sun. I hope I’m not coming down with something.

  —Let me know if it gets any worse.

  Rosa nods and looks out of the window at a rag-and-bone man on a horse-drawn cart, flicking his switch against the beast’s hindquarters.

  —I suppose we can get married now, says Rosa.

  Samuel slows to allow the vehicle behind to overtake him, his furrowed brow reflecting in the mirror.

  —You mustn’t worry about burdening me, he says, you don’t need to put a brave face on.

  —It’s not that, says Rosa.

  —Would you mind lighting me a cigarette? says Samuel. I think this has affected me worse than you.

  He hands her his cigarette case and lighter; she places one in her mouth, cups her hands round
it, lights it and hands it to him.

  —Have one yourself if you like, says Samuel.

  They drive on without speaking for a while, Samuel breathing smoke over the steering wheel, Rosa gazing out of the window.

  —I never imagined it would be like this, she says. Ever since leaving Berlin I’ve been waiting for my parents, yet now that I know there is no chance of ever seeing them again, I do not feel a thing.

  —Give it some time to sink in.

  —I suppose there’s no reason to go back to Germany now, says Rosa.

  For the remainder of the journey they do not talk, and despite a little traffic around Aldgate their progress is smooth. Eventually the street broadens onto the Whitechapel Road, and the London Hospital comes into view. Samuel stops to allow an ambulance to pass in front of him, then turns in to East Mount Street and parks outside the nurses’ home. Rosa gets out quickly and closes the door, waves, and walks towards Cavell House. Samuel gazes after her until she disappears indoors, then shakes his head and lights another cigarette. As he starts the engine and looks over his shoulder for oncoming traffic, he wonders if it is actually possible to know someone fully, or if one is only ever shown one mask at a time, even by one’s fiancée.

  4

  —They’re late, says Samuel.

  —No they’re not, says Rosa, looking at the clock on the ornate mantelpiece across the room, we’ve still got fifteen minutes. You’re just jumpy.

  Samuel takes another sip of tea, the delicate porcelain teacup fitting perfectly back into its saucer as he replaces it.

  —Mustn’t drink too quickly, he says, this tea cost a fortune.

  —Why did you decide to meet them here? says Rosa.

  —I didn’t, says Samuel, they suggested it. I hate Mayfair. Is that them?

  Across the hotel café, which sparkles with a thousand mirrors, can be seen a middle-aged couple entering the lobby.

  —That’s not them, says Rosa, you’re panicking. We’ve still got fifteen minutes.

  —I’m just afraid they might not come.

  —They said they would, didn’t they?

  Time slips by, and Rosa and Samuel sit in high-backed chairs at a table laid with gleaming silverware; piano music flutters around the edges of the room, and a monotone of genial conversation lies like a silk sheet over everything, pierced here and there by the scrape of cutlery, the clink of glasses and porcelain.

  Samuel sips his tea again, then flicks open his cigarette case; a waiter appears with a lighter, Samuel prods a cigarette into the flame and inhales deeply.

  —It’s driving me insane, says Samuel. I’m going to the lavatory.

  —They will be here in a minute, says Rosa.

  —I shan’t be long, says Samuel, getting to his feet.

  He threads his way through the maze of tables populated by diners, each of whom is contributing towards the cloud of genial conversation that hangs in the room like opium smoke; he passes various marble pillars, chandeliers, gold-framed paintings and opulently upholstered sofas, and finds the gentlemen’s lavatory. Behind the heavy door he finds no privacy; American businessmen of sizeable girth are talking with cigars between their teeth, and two bellhops stand on either side of the doorway, handing out towels, turning taps off and on, and collecting tips. Samuel makes his way to a cubicle where he locks the door and sits on the toilet lid, his head in his hands, cigarette smoke collecting above his head. Five years.

  Dear Samuel,

  We received your letter with some surprise this week, and thank you for finally making contact with us. These last years have been very hard, due mainly to your unexplained absence which has left us daily wondering if you are alive or dead. Nevertheless we are prepared to meet. We suggest the Dorchester in Mayfair for afternoon tea, at four o’clock on Monday, 20 January. Should this prove inconvenient, please do let us know.

  Yours sincerely,

  Father and Mother

  Samuel folds the letter and places it back in his pocket; familiarity has desensitised him to the nuances of its language. He looks at his watch: seven minutes to four. He takes a last lungful of smoke, stubs out his cigarette, rises from the lavatory seat and unlocks the door, I will just splash some water on my face and then let battle commence; but here is a bellhop, what could he want with – oh, he is entering the cubicle, flushing the toilet on my behalf, how I hate Mayfair. And now – oh, he has turned the taps on for me, I cannot splash my face with his little eyes fixed on me like a cobra, I shall just wash my hands and – oh, a towel, I cannot very well refuse, and now he will be wanting a tip I suppose, well I’m damned if I’m going to give him one, I did not request his services and I will not be bullied into giving away money willy-nilly. Oh very well, maybe just a shilling, I don’t want to be miserly, and these people have a job to do after all.

  He emerges from the lavatory straightening his jacket and smoothing his hair. Rather than picking out a route between tables across the middle of the hall he decides to skirt the perimeter, moving from pillar to pillar, making his way circuitously in the direction of his table; perhaps he should have another cigarette to steady his nerves, he reaches into his pocket for his cigarette case – then there they are.

  For a full minute Samuel stares at his parents. They are sitting with Rosa, making conversation, Gerald is ordering tea from a white-breasted waiter, now Mother is asking for something, gesturing at the tabletop with a sprinkling motion of her fingers, they both look so different. Pain grips Samuel as his father removes his hat, revealing hair and a beard that are almost completely white; and as his mother straightens her husband’s collar he sees her lined face, her slight stoop. Yes, they have aged, these five years have not treated them kindly, but there is something else that is different about them now, their clothes perhaps, Father’s suit looks expensive, even from this distance, and Mother is wearing an elegant navy jacket with pearls gleaming at her neck. Samuel takes a deep breath and exhales slowly, blowing out his cheeks; then he approaches the table.

  For several minutes Rosa has been talking about the hospital, and every one of those minutes has felt like an age, these are the very people who carried out that terrible act against her all those years ago, but so far nobody has mentioned it, the conversation is meandering unbearably around the everyday, every word adding to the pretence that everything is somehow all right. She finds herself wondering if they will ever address the issues that plague them, even when Samuel arrives, or if they will all content themselves with this most banal of communications, and never touch upon the real issues that affect them, for as Papa would have put it, such are the ways of the English. Ah, they look so much older, and rather lonely, she would feel quite sorry for them in different circumstances, but sitting here now she is unable to rouse anything but nervousness and fear. Just as she is running dry on the subject of blanket-bathing, she becomes aware that both Mimi and Gerald are looking over her shoulder; she turns in her seat and sees Samuel, dwarfed by the luxurious backdrop of the Dorchester like a boy in a headmaster’s office. She reaches over and takes his hand, guiding him to his seat. He sits down without taking his eyes off his parents. Finally Mimi speaks.

  —My boy, she says, my son.

  —Mother, says Samuel, you look well.

  There is a pause. Gerald gets to his feet, pushes back his hat and walks round the table to where his son is sitting; he places his hand on his shoulder, pats it once, twice, then offers his hand, Samuel takes it, still sitting down, awkwardly, and Gerald says, so, my boy, you no longer get to your feet for your old father? And Samuel gets to his feet, and suddenly they embrace, for many seconds; the diners around them avert their eyes and focus on their food, and Rosa rearranges her cutlery. Gerald holds his son by the shoulders and says, why don’t you greet your mother properly, and Samuel walks round the table to his mother, and she gets to her feet, and they embrace, her shoulders jerking and falling beneath her navy jacket as the piano music washes around them. Finally they all take their places at the
table, Mimi dabbing her eyes with a napkin; Samuel is pale, his eyes are red-rimmed.

  —Look at you, says Mimi, you are already a man. It’s been so long.

  —I’ve missed you, Mother, says Samuel.

  He looks at Rosa, and she nods. Strength, thinks Samuel, be strong.

  —So you’re getting married? says Mimi. When’s the date?

  —Six weeks’ time, says Samuel, in the Bevis Marks synagogue.

  —So it will be a big wedding, says Mimi.

  —No, no, a very small one, says Samuel, they fit us in on a Friday.

  —And what are you doing for money these days? asks Gerald.

  —I have my own business, Samuel replies, motorcars.

  —And it’s going well?

  —Well enough.

  —A businessman and a fully qualified nurse. This makes me proud, says Gerald, this makes me very proud.

  —What about you? says Samuel.

  —I am retired now, says Gerald. Zeidi’s inheritance has kept us going nicely. One day we shall pass it on to you.

  Samuel exchanges glances with Rosa.

  —When the war ended we decided we liked life in Norfolk, says Mimi, after all London is frightfully frantic. But Northrepps is rather rural if you haven’t got the Germans to worry about, so we moved to Norwich to be closer to the synagogue. It was bombed, of course, but there’s still the community.

  There is an uncomfortable silence, broken only by the waiter arriving with another pot of tea; then he disappears again, and the silence is intact.

  —I’m sorry, says Mimi, I’m not sure I can talk about the past. I’m not sure I can do it without bursting into tears.

  —We can’t simply ignore everything, says Samuel.

  —It’s been such a very long time, says Mimi, wiping her eyes with the napkin, it’s been horrid.

  —Did you see action again? asks Gerald.

  —No, Samuel replies, not abroad anyway. I was injured in a bomb blast near Liverpool Street and that put me out of action for the remainder of the war.