by Rikke Barfod
“Oh that’s why. I always wondered why you were only half here.”
I throw a pine cone at her.
Ellen doesn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. Then she grins, “Hey, you know what? Christian invited me to the school dance.”
“Christian. But I thought you wanted Peter to ...” (A hopeful lurch in my stomach, maybe Peter will invite me.)
“Well, as it seems Peter never gets around to invite me, I thought that if he saw me with Christian, then …” she rolls around in the grass grinning.
“Ellen you’re terrible.” (That’s the end of that dream.) I try to avoid looking at her. “So, what did you say?”
She sits up, “Yes, of course. I have to borrow your red top. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“What are you going to wear? You are going, aren’t you?”
I nod vigorously so I don’t have to answer.
It is a relief talking about normal things like boys and clothes, and not ghosts. No, I won’t think about Ursula. (Or Peter).
We ride the bikes to Ellen’s secret lake in the forest, and jump into the water from the trees.
I’d never dare to do it without Ellen. She has taught me to climb trees and do all sorts of wild things, I would never have done by myself. Sometimes I don’t understand why she wants me as a friend. I’m not brave like her. I did ask her, once. She just shrugged her shoulders and said she liked to be with me. I try to teach her to be still and listen to the forest: how you can hear the trees breathe and the music of the wind.
“Ellen, you’re crazy. It’s still winter. The water is icy.” My teeth chatter like the woodpecker hammering in the background.
Ellen grins: “It’s April – not winter. Does you good. Gets rid of cobwebs and ghosts.”
I laugh and splutter.
I see a movement. It is Alicia, my favourite fairy, waving at me.
I wave. Ellen laughs, “Why are you waving at me?”
“It’s not you. I waved at Alicia.”
“Is she the one you mostly play with? What games do you actually play?”
How can I explain how it is to play hide and seek with the fairies. The colours become more clear, the fragrance in the forest intensifies and it seems as if the air sort of plays a melody. And how difficult it is to spot a fairy standing still. How one can play for hours with a root of a tree, and it becomes the most amazing game, you ever had.
“I talked to Karin about it, once. We agreed that it is impossible to explain. It is just so different. You sort of disappear into the game.”
“Umm. Well, that was not very enlightening. Now it is your turn to disappear.” Ellen dunks my head under water.
“Ellen!” I shriek and splutter, trying to retaliate. She is too quick.
I don’t really want to go home, but my stomach could murder a loaf of bread or some of Granny’s scones. So, we bicycle back.
“Ellen, please don’t talk about this.”
Ellen twists one of her curls. “Of course not. But, um, can I meet this ghost?”
“Ellen!”
“No – but maybe I … I don’t know.”
I scratch my head, “Well, you can come in. I think she’s here.”
Ellen is a big question mark: “Here? In your house.”
“Yeah, she came back with us yesterday. Her mother died in our house, when my Mum was born. You know I told you.”
Ellen only knows one way to park a bike – by throwing it.
When we open the door, I hear voices. Mum and Isaac are in the living room. I peep in. I can’t see Ursula. Ellen looks around. “Is she here?” she whispers.
“No.”
“I’d better go home then. See you tomorrow. By the way, do you want to go to the cinema on Saturday? There’s a good Danish film showing in Elsinore.”
“Super.”
Chapter 25
Claire
6. April 1983
Ellen skips out of the door in her usual boisterous way. I go into the kitchen and make myself a sandwich. They are still talking in the sitting room. I don’t feel like being in the house right now and head down to the beach. It’s too cold to sit in my favourite spot amongst the rose hip bushes, so I go for a long walk. The wind is icy. On the way back it pushes me towards Granddad and Granny’s house. I might as well visit. We did leave in a rather peculiar way yesterday when Mum marched me out the door, after I’d told them about Ursula. I also want to hear why they never told Mum that she was adopted – or that she was Jewish.
My hand is reaching for the doorknob. I hear Granny and Granddad talking loudly. I halt my hand. Maybe I’d better leave again.
“But Gustav, don’t you remember when she asked you who Ursula was? She was about nine at the time. You got angry and told her not to eavesdrop.”
I blush. I am doing exactly the same as Mum, listening at doors. Granddad’s deep voice is calm when he says:
“I thought she must have overheard us when we talked to the woman from the Red Cross.”
Wow, this is interesting.
“She got so angry when you insinuated that she had been eavesdropping.”
Granddad’s voice is soothing. “Yes, I remember, and you got her off the track, by talking to her about the grey kitten.”
There’s laughter in Granny’s voice when she says, “She was really upset when you wanted to drown the whole litter.”
“I remember. But Marie, we should have told her everything.”
“I know. I just couldn’t. Gustav, I couldn’t bear to lose her.”
“But we did, Marie. All those years we didn’t see her.”
A chair scrapes across the floor. Heavy steps walk around. That must be Granddad. Granny sounds as if she is about to cry.
“I blame myself so much.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Marie. We were both guilty. I know it hasn’t always been easy, but hasn’t she been such a gift to us?”
“The best. I am just ... now all this about Ursula and ...Gustav, she must have been seeing Leah, her mother. I don’t really believe in all that; but do you remember my mother told us that we should believe Inga when she told us about things she had seen. And now it seems Claire is involved.”
“It will pass, dearest.”
I hear Granddad’s footsteps coming nearer. Quickly I knock and walk in. I give him a hug. He smiles at me and says:
“I’m just on my way to the shop. I have run out of tobacco. See you in a while, Claire.”
Granny gets up and hugs me.
“Claire, how nice. You look cold. Go and sit by the fire. I’ll make some tea.”
She comes back with the tea and a big piece of sumptuous looking cake. None of us say anything for a bit. Then I ask:
“Why did you not tell Mum that Jacov had been found?”
Granny sighs and plucks at her necklace:
“I always thought there would be time.”
The cake tastes as good as it looks. “Didn’t you know that Isaac had already told her?” I ask with my mouth full of cake.
Granny sighs, “No, Inga told us that many years later.”
The house is quiet. Granny slowly stirs her tea. A piece of coal falls down in the fire with a puff of sparks.
“I don’t know if you can understand it, Claire. You see, I was so scared of losing Inga. After having lost one child it was unbearable having to lose another. Of course, with hindsight I see I was being very stupid. When Hannah, Ruben and Isaac came to see us after the war, they saw Inga. Of course, they immediately knew who she was. Hannah was all for taking her with them, but I think Isaac persuaded them that she should stay where she belonged – and that was with us.” Granny crumbles her piece of cake into bits.
“It was horrible, Claire. Like the story of Solomon and the two mothers. I was so relieved and thankful when they said she could stay – and I promised everything they asked of me: Calling her Sarah, telling her she was Jewish. All that.”
“So why didn’t you?”
&n
bsp; Granny stirs her tea without answering. She continues:
“They came back a couple of months later. Ruben had found a Jewish lawyer in Elsinore, Mr. Levin. Ruben explained the whole scenario to Mr. Levin and requested him to write the name ‘Sarah’ and ‘Steinovitych’ on the birth certificate, as well as adding a codicil that should the father of the child be found the adoption would have to be reconsidered.”
Granny smiles, “He really didn’t like it, Mr. Levin. Said it was very irregular and that he could be disbarred for doing it. He said: “You cannot put in such a clause. But, of course, as a victim of war …”
I don’t quite understand what a codicil is, but I am eager to hear more. Granny takes a sip of tea and continues: “Afterwards Ruben arranged for Leah’s coffin to be moved to the Jewish cemetery in Copenhagen.”
I almost choke with my mouth full of cake when I ask: “So what happened after that?”
Granny fiddles with her pearls.
“Quite a few Jewish children had been left behind with Danish people who took care of them when their parents escaped to Sweden. You know old Mrs. Holstein down the road. She had to give up her Jewish child after the war. It almost killed her – and worst of all – the child didn’t want to be with her biological mother any more. Mrs. Holstein had become her mother.”
“How awful.”
“I think they worked it out in the end, so you can understand how I felt every time a letter with a foreign stamp came. How my heart behaved like a horse running wild. Sometimes I could sit for hours before I dared to open the letter. When I finally did, I sighed so deeply. I remember once thinking: ‘This sigh can keep a glider in the air for hours’.”
Granny smiles. “The things one thinks. Fortunately, they had not found Jacov. Deep inside I would mourn my own selfishness; that I could be happy knowing that a man apparently was dead in one of Hitler’s horror camps. But what could I do? I was happy.”
I squeeze Granny’s hand. But I can’t understand her. Surely it would have been better for Mum to know if they had found him.
“Then what?”
“Well, every couple of months I took Inga to a photographer.”
“Why? Didn’t you have a camera?”
“It wasn’t very common for normal people to have one, back then. When I got the pictures back from the photographer I would write a letter to Sweden, enclosing the newest photo as I had promised them. I never had much schooling you know, so it wasn’t an easy task.” Granny pours more tea. The cat comes in and jumps up on her lap.
“And you know when Inga was about five, the letter came back.”
“Why was that?”
“I asked Gustav why he thought the letter was returned. He said that it probably was a mistake or maybe they had moved. We would just have to wait and see. We waited many months.”
This is really exciting. “What then?”
“Finally, after many months a letter arrived. I looked at the stamps – they didn’t look Swedish. And it wasn’t Hannah’s handwriting. Was it a letter from Jacov? I felt like I was submerged in a frozen lake. Fortunately, Inga climbed up on my lap. ‘Mummy tired’. She crawled down again and fetched a cup from her doll’s house and poured water into it, gave it to me and said, ‘Mummy drink coffee’.
I had to pull myself together and open the letter. This time it was from Ruben. He wrote that they still had not found Jacov, but they had met a man who had been in the same concentration camp as him. As far as the man knew, Jacov was alive when the war ended. They themselves had moved to Israel, whilst Isaac preferred to stay in Sweden.
You know Claire, I am not very educated. We were seven brothers and sisters together and we only went to school every second day. That’s what it was like when you lived in the countryside. In those days you went into service when you were fourteen. I never read much. I understand daily life, but the big words don’t come easily. That day I remember murmuring to Inga, while I clasped her so hard she wriggled to get free, ‘Mummy loves you so much’. I was glad nobody was there. I felt very embarrassed using such pretentious words.”
I look at Granny. I never did think much about her before, I guess. She was just there. Like Mum, like Dad, like Granddad. But of course, people must have their own secret thoughts inside them. Not just daily ones.
“Granny, why didn’t you call Mum Sarah, when you had promised?”
“I don’t really know. I just couldn’t. For me she was my little Inga. I think I sort of pushed the promises to the back of my mind. The only thing I did remember was the thing about not giving her pork – and even that wasn’t always possible, if we were visiting people.”
I still think Granny was being awfully selfish. “But you could have told her about being Jewish.”
Granny clasps her cup so tight I am scared she will break it.
“I know I should have. But time just went and when I found out that Ruben and Hannah had moved to Israel, I didn’t think I would ever see them again. Then when Inga was about nineteen, that awful letter came, telling us that they had found her father.”
“How can you say that was awful. It was good.”
“Not for me. I know I am a coward, Claire – and I didn’t feel nice about it. I just pretended that the letter hadn’t come. Gustav thought we should tell her, but because she was in her final year at school, I persuaded him to wait.”
Granny sits quietly, lost in her thoughts. I swallow the last of the cake and get up to go home.
“I am glad you asked about it, Claire. And that I told you.” Granny’s hands shake, she fiddles with her necklace again. “I only hope it hasn’t upset you too much – and that you won’t think too badly about me.”
I grin. “Of course not.”
We hug. Outside the house I meet Granddad puffing on his pipe.
“Ah, here you are, Claire. I’m glad I caught you,” he says and hands me a bag full of my favourite liquorice allsorts.
I hug him. “Thanks a lot, Grandad.”
I put a sweet in my mouth and leave – with a strange sense of being on the verge of losing my childhood.
Chapter 26
Claire
6th April 1983
I go upstairs to my room. Ursula is sitting in my chair, rocking backwards and forwards. Her knuckles bore into her eyes as if forcing them to see.
“Hi.”
She looks at me with a face like a broken mirror.
“They are going to get Pappi to come,” she says.
“Who?” I ask.
“Sarah and Isaac are going to Germany.”
“Is that good?”
I don’t know how to react. I try putting my arms around her. It is too difficult. I don’t know how to do it. I wonder how Mum is able to hold her.
“Yeah, aber ...” she starts crying. I shout for Mum.
Mum comes running. She doesn’t say much, just sits with Ursula. So many thoughts and feelings are warring inside of me.
I mumble: “Mum, I have a headache; I’m going for a walk again.”
I walk back to the shore. The wind is a constant murmur accompanying my swirling thoughts. They crash like the waves on the shore.
Crash – it’s not a sister. It’s an aunt.
Crash – this is different. I have only smiled and nodded, almost never spoken to a ghost before, apart from Aunt Clara.
Crash – will she always be around? Am I jealous?
Crash – Dad. I do love you, only it is so difficult.
Crash – Mum can see things too. This is the spookiest thing of all.
How do you live your for almost thirteen years, and not know that your Mum too is strange.
Slowly, the crashing of the waves clears the thoughts in my head. At least they’re not knotted up in big balls of coloured yarn anymore. I am still thinking of Mum’s story. Was that strange or what? Granny should have told her that Jacov had been found. She should not have been such an ostrich.
I walk back. Ursula is alone in my room. S
he sits on a chair in her usual straight backed way.
“Hi,” I say.
“I have looked at your room. It’s nice.” Her empty eyes scan the room. She looks at my nice big bed with all the cushions, the bookcase overflowing with books; the knick-knacks all over the place; the plants on my windowsill. “You have many strange things. And what a lot of books.”
“Yeah. I read a lot.” I still can’t understand her seeing things. It is weird. I almost ask: “Did you use to read a lot,” when I remember she probably couldn’t have because of being blind.
She must have felt my thoughts, because she says: “I used to read a lot after I learned Braille.”
“Awesome. What kind of books?” I flop down on my bed.
"Mostly kids’ books.” She points at my walkman. What is this?”
“It’s for music. You want to try.”
“Please. I don’t know how.”
I hand her the headphones. She’s a ghost for God’s sake, how can she wear headphones?
“Can you put these on?”
She puts them on. They don’t fall through her head, as I thought they would. I wonder why they don’t. I put on Andreas Vollenweider and click the ‘on’ button. Her face lights up. “If I’d only had something like that in the cupboard.”
I show her my tapes and how to change them. I like a lot of different music: U2, Bob Dylan, Ravi Shankar, and even the Beatles.
“I can fetch some of Mum’s if you like. She’s got lots of Classical music.”
Ursula sighs with contentment: “This is fantastic.”
I yawn. It’s been a long, long day. “I have to go to bed. Ah, do you?”
“I’ll just sit here and listen,” Ursula says.
It is uncanny – her sitting there, watching me. At least I think she is looking at me, hard to tell when you can’t see someone’s eyes. I start to tell her what I’d heard from Granddad and Granny, about Mum getting born and Leah dying. I fall asleep whilst talking.
Chapter 27
Claire
Thursday, 7th April 1983
When I wake up, Mum is sitting in my room talking to Ursula.
“I want so much to see Pappi.”