Finding Sophie

by Irene N. Watts

  If only you could speak to me. You're laughing, Mama. I can't remember the sound of your laugh. I wish I had more memories of you. Did you sing to me? Did you read me stories? What was your life really like? You should have explained to me why you sent me to be brought up by Aunt Em. Why did you say it was a holiday? Why didn't you tell me that we might never meet again?

  I wish you'd known how happy I've been here. Would you understand and let me stay? Papa took that photo of you, when you were both so young, before you turned into my parents. One of you dead, the other a Jew from a concentration camp, ill with typhus.

  At four fifteen, I leave for the hospital. All the way there I try to decide what to do if the worst happens: if Father wants me to go back to live with him in Germany and Aunt Em agrees because she thinks it's the “fair thing to do.” If I run away, I could easily earn my living selling sketches and portraits. I could be a pavement artist. It wouldn't be any harder than painting white lines along curbs and lampposts in the blackout. I'd only agree to leave my garret and go back to school if Aunt Em promises to let me live with her forever. Yes, I know, it's blackmail…. It'd be worth it.

  The porter greets me as if he's been waiting just for my arrival. “Don't look so glum, Miss. It's keeping so cheerful as keeps me going, as Mrs. Mop says.” I manage a smile. Our porter's a Tommy Handley fan, always quoting from everyone's favorite radio show: “It's that man again – ITMA.” Aunt Em and I try never to miss a program.

  “Thank goodness for an extra pair of hands.” Staff Nurse rattles off instructions as if afraid an emergency might arrive in the ward before she's finished telling me what to do.

  After I've made up the beds, and my “hospital corners” won a smile of approval from Staff Nurse, I mop the bathroom, arrange all the screens for visitors, and am sent down to the kitchen to remind them about sending up the special trays for the diabetics. Then I refill the water jugs and am in the middle of dusting the radiators, when I am told I can go for a ten minute break.

  Marianne passes me on the stairs. “Can't stop, Sophie, I'm being moved to ‘maternity.’ Bridget's home. I'll call you soon. The three of us must meet.” She squeezes my arm.

  At nine o'clock, when my shift ends, I'm just thankful I've made it through. My legs feel as if they've run a five minute mile. I think I forgot to eat today.

  At the Gibsons' house, Nigel opens the door. “Hello, Sophie. Mother and Mandy aren't home from the pictures yet. What's new?”

  “My mother's dead.”

  He stares, horrified. “I'm sorry, Sophie.” He puts his arms round me and pats my back as though I'm a baby.

  I want to go on standing there in the half-light of the hallway, to put my head on his shoulder and cry. Of course, I don't. “I had a letter from my father.”

  “When?”

  The front door opens. Nigel and I turn away from each other.

  “Hello, sorry we're late. You should have come, Nigel. Mum was petrified.”

  “Don't exaggerate, Mandy. Now, shall we all have some cocoa before you girls cycle home?”

  “Please. Any biscuits, Mother?” Mandy follows her into the kitchen.

  “Nigel, don't tell them yet. I'll tell Mandy myself.”

  “All right.”

  “Come on, you two, stop whispering. I thought I was going to scream when Charles Boyer was creeping around the attic looking for Ingrid Bergman's jewelry. I shan't sleep a wink tonight.” Mandy chatters on and on, so I don't need to talk much.

  “Thanks awfully for the cocoa, Mrs. Gibson,” I say.

  “Nigel, it's late. Cycle home with the girls, please. You look so tired, Sophie. Is there anything wrong?”

  “It was a bit frantic on the ward tonight, Mrs. Gibson.”

  “Come on, twin, let's be on our way.” Nigel hurries Mandy out.

  The moment Nigel leaves us and I close the front door, Mandy bursts out: “What's going on? All of a sudden I'm shut out. First it's your friend Marianne and now Nigel.”

  “Mandy, what are you talking about?”

  “Don't pretend, Sophie. I could tell as soon as Mum and I came into the house. Do you think I'm blind and deaf? Since when do we keep secrets from each other?”

  I hang up my blazer and walk into the kitchen. I need to sit down.

  “Don't walk away from me when I'm talking to you, Sophie Mandel!”

  “I'm not. Stop bullying me, Mandy.”

  “Did something happen to upset you? Was there a death on the ward?”

  “Not on the ward. Somewhere else.” I pull the letter out of my pocket and push it over to her. “Read it. I'm going to bed. Good night.”

  I brush my teeth, get into pajamas, and sit on my bed and hold Monkey.

  Mandy knocks on the door and comes in before I have a chance to answer. She throws herself at me. “Sophie, dearest Soph, I'm a selfish jealous pig. I'm so very sorry. Why didn't you tell me? Please please forgive me.” She gives me the letter back.

  I almost laugh. She's so tragic. “Don't be humble, Mandy, you didn't know. The letter only came after you left this morning. I told Nigel because he was the one to open the door. If you'd opened it, I would have told you first…. You know what upsets me, Mandy? Not just that she's been dead for so long without my knowing, though that's bad enough, but the awful waste. She had me and sent me away before I was old enough to really know her. She cut herself off from her family, well they both did, so I never knew my relatives.”

  “She saved your father, didn't she? You're alive. That's two lives. How can you call that a waste?”

  I don't answer. I can't think logically.

  Mandy tiptoes out as if I'm ill.

  One part of me is mourning and the other part is terrified of losing the person who became my “foster mother” all these years. My brain's going in a million directions.

  I'm fourteen years old – I think I have the right to decide about my life…. I'll write to the Home Office. They decide about naturalization, visas, passports, and things like that. How do I convince the Minister I'm the right “material” to become a loyal British subject? What I need is a letter of reference from someone in a position of authority – a person who is willing to say I'm doing a job of national importance and deserve British citizenship. Once I've got that, no one can send me anywhere I don't want to go.

  There's the headmistress, but I hardly think helping in the library would be considered crucial. It's got to be an essential service, like coal mining or driving an ambulance…. Why didn't I think of that before? The hospital. I'll ask Matron. She's very imposing. Everyone's in awe of her. The nurses say she's aware of everything that goes on anywhere in the building. The Middlesex has a terrific reputation.

  I even spoke to Matron once. She was walking down the corridor, with a chart in her hand, doctors in tow. I flattened myself against the wall and said, “Good morning, Madam,” and she sort of nodded in my direction. A letter from her saying I'm indispensable would be nearly as good as a recommendation from the king.

  It is almost four in the morning before I'm satisfied with my efforts:

  Dear Matron,

  I am one of the Junior Red Cross cadets in your hospital. At present I work a Saturday afternoon and evening shift. I look forward to being there each week and hope that, in a small way, I can help to make the hospital run even more smoothly than it does already. A bit of flattery never hurts. I am in the process of applying for British citizenship and would greatly appreciate a note from you supporting my application.

  It is vital for me to be allowed to remain in this country and not be returned to Germany, my place of birth. After seven years in England, my complete loyalty is to the country that has given me refuge.

  Thank you very much for your time and consideration,

  Yours truly,

  Sophie Mandel

  Then I draw a cartoon of a cadet making beds, taking temperatures, and scrubbing bedpans, and a nurse looking on, smiling approvingly. I add a balloon shape with the words:
“How could we ever manage without you?”

  After Mandy leaves, I cycle to the hospital to ask the porter to deliver my letter to Matron personally. That way she'll get it almost immediately. He says he'll take it on his tea break.

  The house seems eerily quiet when I get back. You can tell there's been a death. Even though it happened in a foreign country two years ago, somehow the news of it lingers in the air.

  Poor Mama, not even to have a funeral. I know that happens a lot in wartime, but when it's my own mother who is buried under piles of rubble, it's so horrible I want to scream; do anything to stop thinking about her like that.

  I close my eyes, trying to remember something about her when she was alive. She used to hum when she worked. Even when she was sewing, she'd hum through a mouthful of pins. Once I asked her, “What's the song about, Mama?” She'd said, “I don't know all the words, but once upon a time there was a boy and he saw a little rose standing in the meadow.”

  Sah ein Knab' ein Röslein steh'n

  Röslein auf der Heiden …

  Until this moment, I'd totally forgotten that. Was the rose a flower or a girl? It doesn't matter.

  It's going to rain, the sun's gone in. My window's wide-open. I rush upstairs to shut it. While I'm making my bed, I stub my toe on the box marked SOPHIE. I drag it out and undo the lid. It looks as if Aunt Em has kept most of my early report cards: “Sophie is settling down well.” “Her drawing shows promise.” “Sophie's spelling needs attention.”

  The usual. Everything neatly tied up in a cardboard folder, a thick gray one. A rubber band to keep the contents in place. There's a copy of my school registration form. All it says is the day I started school – January 9, 1939. Aunt Em must have kept me home those first few weeks in England, to give me a chance to learn some English, I expect. In the box where it says NAME OF PARENT OR GUARDIAN, there's Aunt Em's name. That should help my chances with the Home Office – having a solid British citizen as my guardian all these years.

  There are some of my early drawings too. One is of a gruesome-looking old woman glaring at two little girls. Underneath I'd printed: PLEAS CAN WE CUM HOME? That must have been when I was still an evacuee.

  There are two letters in German, one dated 3 Januar 1939, and the other one a month later – 1 Februar 1939. Those are the only words I can still read, other than the greeting and the signature and a row of O's instead of X's, the way we write them over here.

  I remember how angry the letters made me feel then. There was the day Aunt Em handed me the envelope and I'd torn off the stamp for Nigel's stamp collection. I'd burst out rudely: “I don't know how to read this letter and I don't want to. It's too hard. We don't write like that in school.”

  Aunt Em must have written to my parents and explained because there's one more letter addressed to me in the file. This time it's printed in English, and says:

  Dear Sophie,

  Thank you for your letter. You write very good English. Papa and I are well. Today I went for a walk in the Grunewald, our green forest. I waved to Papa, and watched him cut a hedge into the shape of a little bird. He says he would like to be a bird and fly to England to visit you.

  Love from your mama and papa OOOOO

  There's a drawing of a bird-shaped hedge at the bottom of the page. The date on the letter is August 15, 1939, two weeks before the outbreak of World War Two. That day Aunt Em explained to me that we'd have to wait until the end of the war before there would be any more letters from my parents.

  Another letter, addressed to Aunt Em, is from a Quaker group in Berlin. It's postmarked November 14, 1938 – that's when I still lived in Berlin. Aunt Em had clipped a column from a January 2, 1939 Times to the envelope. She'd circled NEW ANTI-JEWISH MEASURES IN GERMANY, and then a quote from a Quaker group: JEWS DESPERATE TO LEAVE.

  Snooping's horrible. But if this is something really private, why would Aunt Em leave it in a box marked SOPHIE? I have to read it.

  November 14, 1938

  Berlin

  Dear Margaret,

  I think our days are numbered here. I don't know how much longer the Nazi government will tolerate our presence. I'm sure they'll close down the office.

  The world reports on the “action” taken against the Jewish people on November 9 and 10 are not exaggerated. In fact, they cannot accurately describe the viciousness of the attacks against men, women, and children, under the benign eye of officialdom. Burning, looting, and imprisonment of Jews. We are able to help so few to get out of Germany. Desperate men and women, some with babies in arms, sit helplessly in the corridors waiting to be placed on some kind of list that will get them to safety.

  I'll talk more to you in the new year, when I hope to be back at home.

  Affectionately and in haste,

  Louisa

  Mama wasn't in that kind of danger – she wasn't Jewish. I wonder if she guessed what it might be like marrying Papa. She was very brave to stand by him.

  Tucked down inside the flap of the cardboard is a luggage label on a string. I remember wearing that on the Kindertransport. We all wore them. My number was two hundred and seventeen. What's that bit of old blanket doing in there …? Käthe?

  Sophie Mandel, you're too old to cry over a doll….

  We're going to have a party. Mama, Papa, and me. It's my birthday. I run all the way home from school and Mama is waiting at the door.

  She ties a scarf round my eyes. Papa's voice asks: “How many fingers can you see?”

  I shout: “None.” In the living room, I tear off the blindfold. Papa throws me in the air seven times, himmelhoch – sky-high, because I'm seven today.

  The cake is on the table; it is chocolate and white, in the shape of a ring. Mama has sprinkled powdered sugar over the top. It looks like snow crystals. I have a present too – a box tied with blue ribbon. I lift the lid. It is the doll from the window of the big toy shop near Mama's work. She has light brown hair. It is parted in the middle. Her hair is braided. She wears a skirt and a pullover. There are real white socks and leather shoes on her feet.

  “What will you call her?” Papa asks me.

  “Her name is Käthe,” I answer, and hug her to my chest.

  Next day is Saturday, and we go for a picnic in the woods. Papa knows the names of all the trees. I do too. Pine and spruce and beech.

  Mama pours coffee from a thermos. There's milk for me. We sit on the blanket and finish the birthday cake. Then we play hide-and-seek. It is Papa's turn to hide. I count to a hundred, hiding my eyes on Mama's lap. When I open them, there are two shadows on the blanket, tall like trees. They are not trees. They are men wearing black boots and uniforms with silver buttons. They smile at Mama. “Ganz allein, Gnädige Frau – All alone, dear lady?” I move closer to Mama. She holds my hand so tight she squishes my fingers. I want to go and find Papa. He will think I've forgotten him. Poor Papa, waiting to be found.

  “It is the little one's birthday. Tell the gentlemen how old you are, Liebchen.” I pull my hand away from Mama's and hold up seven fingers.

  “Three cups and plates, and who else is in this party?” They stare at Mama – they are not smiling now.

  “It is Käthe, my new doll.” I hold her up – close to me, so they can't touch her.

  “Happy birthday. Heil Hitler.” The boots click and move away. When they are gone, I help Mama fold the blanket.

  Papa comes over to us from behind the tree, where he was hiding. We go home. When I put Käthe to bed, I tell her not to be frightened of the soldiers. “I will always take care of you, my little Käthe.”

  For years I've been afraid to look at Käthe. It was all right at first, when that nice girl, whose name I've forgotten, twisted Käthe's head back after the Gestapo left the train. It was all right when Marianne was with me, but after that I was afraid to look at Käthe, convinced there'd be a jagged scar where the officer's hands had touched her neck – that somehow it had grown there.

  Käthe, my Käthe. You look perfect. There isn't a m
ark on you.

  I hold the doll for a while and then wrap the blanket snugly round her and put her back in her box bed.

  That's how I'll think of you, Mama – perfect, without a blemish. I won't think about the damage bombs and broken glass can do. I'll remember you rolling out pastry, or letting me come to the shop to help you, or hugging Papa when he came home from work or upset because you were worried the Nazis might hurt him.

  When I give Käthe to my daughter, I'll tell her it was you who sewed the dress. I'll say, “This is a present from your grandmother, the one who lived in Germany long ago.”

  I go downstairs and settle down to write to my father. Someone's at the back door. Mandy? She'll wonder why Aunt Em isn't here. It's stupid of me not to have told her the truth. I could have said I need time to be alone for a bit.

  “Nigel, I wasn't expecting you. I mean, come in.”

  “Thanks, I can only stay a minute. Swotting for my science exam. Mother sent me over with a loaf for your tea. She's been baking. Is your aunt back yet?”

  “Not yet. Thanks, awfully. I was just going to write to my father. Hard to know what to say.”

  “Rotten luck to hear like that, but it's great news about your dad.”

  “Somehow I'd never thought about one of my parents dying. To be honest, I didn't think very much about them at all. Do you think I'll be allowed to choose who I live with? There, I've finally said it out aloud – the thing I'm most afraid of. If I can't go on living with Aunt Em, it means I'll lose friends, country, everything I know. How many times in a lifetime am I supposed to do that? Got time for a cup of tea?” I put the kettle on.

  Nigel perches on the corner of the kitchen table. “You know how we always had these huge family gatherings at Christmas? On Boxing Day, the last one before the war, Uncle Bert asked me in front of everyone: ‘Tell me, son, who's your favorite – your mum or your dad?’ There'd been lots of talking and laughing, and suddenly all those hot red faces looked at me, waiting for an answer. Asking me to choose. Whatever I'd say, I'd hurt someone's feelings. I was afraid I was going to cry. Mandy saved me. She jumped on Dad's lap and said, ‘Well, I love my daddy to bits.’ They all laughed and I ran upstairs and wouldn't come down again.