by Irma Joubert
“First I need some basic information about your background,” he said. “Then we’ll get to what I’m really interested in. But just tell me as much as you’re comfortable with.”
It was the basic information that concerned her most. “You must understand, everything is rather fuzzy. I was really young when the war broke out. I can’t remember a time before the war.”
“You’d be surprised what young children can remember,” he said, opening a notebook. “What was your name?”
“Gretl Schmidt.” He wrote. “Schmidt ends in a t,” she said.
“Thanks. How old were you when the war broke out?”
“I suppose . . .” She made a quick calculation. “Germany invaded Poland ten days before my second birthday.”
He looked up and smiled. “You’re exact, aren’t you, Miss Historian?”
“Yes, I am. So you’d better get your facts straight, Mr. Psychologist.”
“I’ve told you you can check everything I write,” he reassured her. “Where did you live?”
“I have no idea. If I knew, we might be able to trace my family.”
“Did you move away from your place of birth?”
“Yes. My father was an SS soldier who died on the battlefield in 1941. I have a letter the government sent my mother, if you need a primary source.”
“I doubt it, but thanks. You’re my primary source.”
“I’m glad I’m no longer a case study!”
He smiled and looked at his notes. “And then? After your father’s death?”
“We went to live with my grandmother. My mother’s mother. I don’t know where. And I don’t know her name and surname. She was just Oma.”
“And your grandfather?”
She shrugged. “He wasn’t there. He might have died already. I never knew him.”
“Who else lived there?”
“My grandmother, my mother, my sister, and me.”
“Tell me about your sister.”
“Elza. Her name was Elza. She was quite a bit older than I, maybe eight years or more.”
“No other siblings?”
“No.”
Something niggled at the back of her mind.
“Did you stay with your grandmother until the end of the war?”
This was where she had to take care with what she said. “No, we had to go away, to a town far from there. I don’t know where.”
“Why, Grietjie?”
“I don’t know. They evacuated everyone from the place where Oma used to live.”
“And then?”
“We lived in a house with other people. I don’t know who they were.”
The ghetto. Fortunately she remembered very little of the ghetto—only the lice. And details about a vermin plague in a Jewish ghetto during wartime had no bearing on how she had psychologically survived the war, she decided. So there was no point in mentioning it.
“Did you stay there until the end of the war?”
“Until my mother and grandmother died in an explosion.”
He wrote for a while, as if he was wary of asking anything else. “Fire away,” she said. “While I’m trapped here, you might as well make the best use of the opportunity.”
He looked up. His face was very serious. “Tell me if you’ve had enough for the day, Grietjie.”
“I will,” she said.
“The explosion . . . How did it happen?”
“A kind of bomb, I think.”
“And you weren’t with them?”
“No. Elza and I were some distance away. But I heard the explosion, and I saw it.”
“Did you know your mother and grandmother . . . I mean . . .”
“Only later.” Much later. “In the beginning I thought we’d find them again.”
“And Elza?”
“She knew, I think. She died shortly afterward. I think of tuberculosis; that’s what someone said.”
Jakób. Long, long ago.
She mustn’t think about Jakób. He was stashed in a deep drawer for safekeeping. Along with her wooden cross.
“And then, Grietjie?” His voice sounded odd.
“Then someone found me. And took me to an orphanage. In Kiel.”
And, just like that, she built a bridge that spanned four years.
“And did you stay there until the end of the war?”
“Until the German Children’s Fund came to look for suitable orphans to place with South African parents.”
Now it was easy. She told him about the selection process, the journey from Kiel to Pretoria, the meeting with her new parents, the school, church, everything. Also about Grandpa John and Kobus. Up to the present.
It was almost eleven when she glanced at her watch. “I must get back to my res at once!” she cried. “If I’m not there by eleven, the Dragon will lock me out!”
“Up you get!” he said.
She held on tightly while he pedaled his bike so fast that the wind whistled past her ears. They skidded to a halt at her residence with two minutes to spare. “That was fun!” She laughed.
“Great fun!” he said. “Especially the way you clung to me.”
“No, you fool!” she protested. “I’m talking about the wind in my hair!”
He laughed. “See you tomorrow, about noon?”
“Remember the French fries! You promised!”
“Will you be coming inside, Miss Neethling, or do you plan to sleep on the porch tonight?” came the cold voice of the Dragon.
Grietjie slipped in. The big door was locked behind her.
The deception was easy, she thought as she lay awake in the small hours. Much easier than she had expected. Luckily Francois wasn’t a history buff and had no clue about dates that didn’t correlate.
But when she finally fell asleep, the nightmare returned. The fire blazed so high that she couldn’t see a thing.
It was a lovely, warm winter afternoon. They lay on a blanket in Magnolia Park, sucking their fingers to make sure that they got every last bit of tastiness from the French fries. The sky was pale blue and a few fleecy clouds drifted by.
“This is the life,” Francois said contentedly.
“We’re actually here to work,” Grietjie reminded him.
“You’re right, I suppose.” He sat up and took out his notebook. “Aren’t you going to sit up?”
“No, I can talk while I’m lying down. You have to sit up to write.”
“Okay. I’ll start at the beginning and ask you how you felt when certain things happened. Right?”
“You’re testing my memory!” she said.
He looked at his notes. “How did you feel when your father died?”
She thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I doubt whether I understood what had happened. I barely knew him—I was two when he left for the front. No, I don’t think it affected me.”
“And the rest of your family?”
She thought. “My mother stopped laughing. And cried a lot, I remember. And we went to live with Oma.”
“How did you feel about that?”
“I loved it.” She lay on her back, watching the clouds. A small cloud was chasing a bigger one. “Her house was at the edge of a forest. We picked berries. Any moment now that small cloud is going to take a bite out of the big one.”
“For crying out loud, Grietjie! I can’t have an intelligent conversation with you whil
e you’re flat on your back.”
“Not my problem,” she said, but she rolled onto her side. “What else do you want to know?”
He sighed. “What was your grandmother like?”
“Strong. Not a crybaby. She was strict with my mother.” She thought for a moment while he wrote. “I think my mother lost hope after a while.”
“Why?”
“Because of the war.”
“No, I mean, why do you think that?”
“I don’t remember her doing anything but sitting and crying. Not so much while we were living with Oma, but later, when we had to go to the other place.”
To the ghetto. Phantoms against a dark background.
“And your sister?”
“She was kind. We slept in the same bed. She held me when the planes with the bombs came over so that I wouldn’t be afraid. But I wasn’t afraid, she was.”
“What else do you remember about the time in the other town?”
“We had to black out the windows at night. We all lived in one room. Oma struggled to get food. Sometimes I stood in a long line with her. I don’t really remember much else.”
Except the lice.
“Can you remember being hungry?”
“Oma taught me to think about other things. You can think away the hunger so that after a while you don’t get hungry anymore. Thirst is a bigger problem.”
The train. Filling its belly with water. The slurping dogs.
She mustn’t think about the train.
“I’m not helping you much, Francois. If you like, I’ll get you a book on the Second World War. It’ll probably give you more information.”
“We’ll see,” he answered vaguely. “The explosion—can you tell me about it?”
“There isn’t much to tell, Francois. I thought I heard planes, maybe I was wrong. Then I heard the blast and saw the red glow. I looked for shelter; it was all I could think of.”
“You didn’t realize the explosion had taken your mother’s and grandmother’s lives?”
“No. I only realized it later, after my sister’s death.”
“How did you feel when your sister died?”
“Alone. Very alone. A man found me and took me to a woman who had four small children.”
Rigena. The baby that wouldn’t stop crying. The language she hadn’t really understood.
“I felt very strange. Not really afraid, because I believed I would find Mutti and Oma again. Just strange. And alone. Very alone.”
“And when you discovered your mother and grandma were gone?”
“Dead. You say dead, that’s how final it is,” she said.
“Grietjie?” he asked.
“I had to accept it. Carry on. What else?”
“You were very young. How old? Seven? Eight? How did you deal with it all at such a young age?”
Six, she thought. I was six. “I kept my thinking small. I thought closer, not wider, and especially not backward.” She thought for a moment. “And when the backward thoughts threatened to creep in, I thought about other things—stories.”
He sat motionless for a long while. Sometimes he wrote; sometimes he just stared at his notes.
Later he said, “I’m going to make that the focus of my research: ‘I kept my thinking small, closer, not wider, not backward. When the backward thoughts threatened to creep in, I thought about other things . . .’ It’s perfect. Thanks, Grietjie.”
“Have we finished?” she asked, relieved.
“No, this is just the beginning. But yes, for today, we’ve finished. Would you like some ice cream?”
Endless sessions followed. “How did you feel, Grietjie? What did you think of this? Can you remember that? Why didn’t you . . .? Don’t you think you . . .? Are you sure you . . .?”
“If you keep asking and asking and you don’t write anything down, you’ll get nowhere,” she told him.
He shook his head, deep in thought. “We’re not getting to the heart of the matter, Grietjie,” he said. “You see, you can’t always think about other things. It’s a short-term solution. In the long run it will catch up with you. We’re not getting to the part that really matters.”
Maybe she should tell him about the nightmares after all. But they made her seem pathetic.
“There’s something else I’ve been wanting to ask you.” Suddenly he looked different, less businesslike.
“Shoot. I surrendered a long time ago,” she said.
“No, it has nothing to do with this. Are you going to the year-end ball with Gerrit?”
She looked at him, surprised. The year-end ball hadn’t crossed her mind. “No, Gerrit and I aren’t together. We’re just friends.” Not that Gerrit wanted it that way, but she wasn’t ready for a steady relationship.
“Would you like to be my partner?”
She stared at him. “At the ball?”
He raised one eyebrow slightly, as he did when he was amused.
“Oh. Yes. I haven’t given it any thought,” she muddled on.
“Thanks,” he said. “It’s two weeks from Saturday.”
“I haven’t said yes,” she protested.
“Well, I heard a yes. Come now, Griet, it’ll be fun.”
She might as well go with him. Maybe Gerrit would finally realize there was no future for the two of them.
“Fine.” She had never thought of Francois as anything but Karin’s brother who was using her as his case study.
Now she looked at him through fresh eyes. Mm, she thought, imitating Kobus, he may be my type after all. Tall, athletic, with dark-blond hair and sharp green eyes behind his glasses. A straight nose, an attractive mouth that smiled easily. Long fingers—he would be a good pianist.
“Do you play the piano?”
His smile lit up his face. “Is it a requirement?”
“No, I’m just asking.”
“When I was young, my mom dragged me to piano lessons and forced me to practice in the evenings. I passed grade five, I think. I can play ’Chopsticks’ and ’In the Mood.’ Do I qualify?”
Maybe not her type after all. “Do you enjoy making fun of people?” she asked.
The smile was even broader. “Not people who happen to be a breathtaking beauty.”
“Are you making fun of me now?”
“No, I’m dead serious.”
Karin whooped when she heard the news. “Calm down!” Grietjie protested. “We’re just going to the ball as pals.”
“Will you wear your blue dress?”
“I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” Grietjie laughed. “It’s either the blue dress or the black one that I wore last time.”
“We can try to do the blue one up a little,” Karin suggested. “We could take out the sleeves or alter the neckline. Give me that dress, let me see.”
“Aren’t you writing criminology tomorrow?” Grietjie asked in a stern voice.
“It can wait,” Karin answered. “Give me the dress.”
The ball kicked off with some ballroom dancing. Graceful, old-worldly. Kind of boring, Grietjie thought.
The two of them danced well together, though Francois’ hand on her back felt odd.
Then the band launched into the latest hits of Elvis Presley and Pat Boone and Buddy Holly. “Jailhouse Rock” and “Ain’t That a Shame” and “That’ll Be the Day” thumped through the ballroom.
The elegant waltzers were instantly transformed into students. They jived, they r
ocked, they danced the Madison and the cha-cha. Coats and ties came off, and stiletto heels were kicked under the table. They laughed and sang along and wiggled their lithe figures. The spring ball was a roaring success.
Later the music slowed down. The jivers changed into smitten couples swept up in the thrill of the evening. “Love me tender, love me sweet,” the long-haired singer crooned into the mike.
Grietjie surrendered to the haunting melody. She felt content, lazy, pleasantly tired, and footsore. Francois’ hand on her back no longer felt odd; her head rested comfortably on his shoulder.
The melody flowed into her fingertips, into the roots of her hair.
“I have dreams,” she said, “almost every night.” He probably knew anyway, she thought.
At first she thought he hadn’t heard her. He danced on without missing a beat, carrying her along in the circle of swaying bodies.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked.
She didn’t know. “Not now,” she said.
He laughed softly. “No, definitely not now,” he said and drew her closer.
Just before midnight they walked back to her residence across the moonlit campus. She didn’t look up at the moon. For years she had been avoiding the sight of it. Her hand in Francois’ felt like the most natural thing on earth.
Just before they reached the door of her res he said, “May I fetch you tomorrow? For church?”
She nodded.
“We can talk afterward. French fries, I promise.”
She smiled. They were still friends. Maybe something more, but definitely friends.
A pity they had to talk.
“Francois, that’s everything, really,” she said the next afternoon. “I dream about fire. I see the flames, I hear them and feel them, smell them, taste their bitterness at the back of my throat. But I don’t know how they get there, where they come from. I don’t think it’s a bomb, I don’t know. I just wish the dream would go away.”
Today was different. His arm was behind her and she leaned against him. He didn’t write at all, just sat, quietly listening. His voice was soft, calm.