It Was That Night

by Rikke Barfod

  I miss Dad so much. He’s living in a flat in Copenhagen. The flat is okay. Modern, full of white furniture and white walls. He has furnished a small room for me, so I can leave some of my stuff. He’s told me I am welcome to bring Ellen if I want to. Maybe later if there’s something interesting happening in Copenhagen we would want to go to. I visit him most week-ends. And we talk. He actually listens to what I say now. But we never talk about Ursula. He asks me questions about what I see. He’s even begun to read some of his own books.

  “I don’t really believe it, sweetheart. It can’t be scientifically proven,” he says, showing me one of his books. “But it makes for an interesting read.”

  We often go to the cinema. One day we saw a film about a man who betrayed a whole resistance group. Afterwards, we always eat pizza and talk about the film. This is one of the nice things about visiting Dad. At home we never go out eating pizza or go to the cinema.

  “You know,” Dad says, “That film reminds me of something I saw in Bornholm when I was a child during the war. I was probably about ten years old. I have never forgotten it. I was out walking on the cliffs one evening when I heard a German shout: “Halt.” I hid, then realized it wasn’t me he was shouting at, but at a boat leaving the shore. He shot at it, but the boat was already too far out.”

  Dad pauses, moves his pizza around, draws in a long breath and continues: “Something near me moved, making a few stones roll down the cliff. The German heard. He shot again. I saw somebody fall to the ground. I almost didn’t dare to breathe. All my thoughts stopped. I heard the sound of the German boots leaving. I sat still for a long time. I was so scared. I wanted to vomit. Finally, I crept to where I saw the body fall. I stared at it until I realized that it was my friend Daniel’s father. He was dead.”

  Dad’s eyes cloud over with memories. I have never before seen pictures from his head. Now I do. I lean across and take his hands in mine.

  “Oh, Dad, that’s too horrible. What did you do?”

  “I couldn’t do anything. Just sit there. At one point I did throw up, then I somehow got control of my legs and went for help. It has stayed with me for years. I think it altered my life. I became more serious. I still dream about it from time to time.”

  In an instant, understanding hits me like a flash: It is not a dream; he really sees Daniel’s father. Shall I say anything? It might hurt Dad too much to be told that he’s actually seeing a ghost. And why should he believe me? Instead I ask:

  “But why did this film remind you?”

  “Daniel told me afterwards that his father was the one who organized the escape for the resistance people when it became too hot for them to remain on Bornholm.”

  I close my eyes. Why does the world have to be like that with wars and everything. All I can say is: “War is horrible.”

  “You’re so right. Let’s not talk about it anymore. Have you had enough to eat?”

  “You bet.”

  Mum is much happier. She sings a great deal – totally off key. Jacov and I talk a lot. Especially in the afternoon. He is so sweet, he has tea and cake ready every day when I get back from school. Sometimes I forget that he is waiting and walk home with Ellen. Those days he looks sad when I come in. But he doesn’t say anything. The days Ellen comes back with me he seems very happy. But he too can’t understand why Ursula has disappeared.

  “I hope nothing has happened to her,” he says one day. Then shakes his head, “.. no, of course not. But where is she?”

  To get him away from thinking about Ursula I ask him about his childhood in Poland. I cannot imagine that people can be so poor that they have to share a pair of shoes and often have to go hungry to bed. I am glad he left there.

  “Did you ever visit your parents and brothers and sisters again, after you married Leah?”

  “Ja, natürlich. We visited them with Ursula. Ach, kleine Ursula!”

  He sighs, as he always does when he thinks of Ursula.

  “If I had just listened to what Hannah wanted to tell me when she and Ruben came. I was so happy to see them. There they were. Ruben came strutting in, ‘Hi Jacov, old friend. How are you’?” Jacov swears in German. ‘How are you’? When you’ve been to hell and back? I survived only for Leah and Ursula. Survived! Hah. A bag of bones the Russians had liberated. Liberated? Ach, kleine Claire, you are too young to understand, how it was to be liberated – but not really liberated.”

  “But Grandpa, aren’t you glad you have seen Ursula?”

  Jacov smiles when I say Grandpa. “Natürlich, Claire. I am also happy to be here with you and Sarah. Even though I could have known her for twenty years. But why doesn’t Ursula come back?”

  That’s what we are all wondering.

  

  Chapter 44

  Claire

  Tuesday 22nd August 1983

  Everything is getting easier. Mum is sending me to a clairvoyant. I didn’t even know that word. Mum says it means someone who is clear-sighted. Anyway, Ilse, that’s her name, teaches me to shut off my mind so I don’t hear people’s thoughts. She is actually famous and has written some books. I ask her why there are ghosts and if she talks to them. She says she does and that most ghosts are people who either don’t know they are dead, like Ursula didn’t, or they have some unfinished business that won’t let them rest.

  “But in one of Dad’s books I read of horrible ghosts.”

  “I’ve never encountered any,” Ilse says. “Maybe people who saw these ghosts were just afraid anyway.”

  Umm. I think about that and then let it go. Instead I ask: “But how come the ghosts know I can see them?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Ilse says. “Maybe they can sense from you that you are aware of them.”

  That didn’t really answer anything.

  Ilse is also psychic but not like me. She too calls it a gift. She says she helps lots of people who get scared when they experience something they don’t understand. She tells me that some well-known scientists around the world are now beginning to experiment with clairvoyance. Ilse gives me some books to read. They’re really hard to understand. I’m going to ask Dad, next time I see him. Maybe he can explain them. It turns out that Ilse knows him, and he has asked me to bring her home some time. I haven’t asked her yet. It’s a bit too freaky. He’ll have to ask her himself.

  I feel much better and I am beginning to appreciate that being able to see ‘things’ is a gift.

  I can talk to Mum, Jacov and Ilse about these weird things. Ilse tells me that it is a very good idea to keep a diary. Writing in it daily helps clear your thoughts.

  Kirsten also says that it is good practice. She really thinks I have a talent for writing!

  I’ve started reading the books about the Holocaust. It just can’t be true. But Jacov tells me it is. And this thing about being Jewish. I don’t really care. I think they should stop trying to be different. Or they can hide it inside. And be like everybody else on the outside. Jacov says that’s nonsense. But I don’t feel like a Jew. I feel more proud of being Danish because the Danes saved almost all the Jews in Denmark. But it is all such a long time ago.

  A violently loud clang from a bicycle bell interrupts my reading.

  “Come on, homework can wait,” Ellen shouts.

  We ride to the forest and Mum says not to worry about doing homework. Kirsten looks quizzically at me sometimes; but she doesn’t say anything. Much to the chagrin of Lissy. But Lissy is actually not so nasty anymore, now her sister is well again.

  I visit Granny and Granddad a lot – like I used to. It’s still difficult for them with Jacov.

  “You will always be my Granddad and Granny,” I tell them. “I am just so lucky that I also have grandpa Jacov now, too”

  Granny flicks away a tiny piece of fluff from the sofa then says, “You’re right, Claire. It is a good thing, having many people.”

  Granddad bites his pipe. Then he nods. “Yes, I begin to understand what Sarah has been missing all her life.” He pauses
for a split second before saying the name Sarah. “We should have talked to her. Also about her being Jewish.”

  “So when is the funeral?” Granny asks.

  “We don’t know yet. She has disappeared. Maybe she’s already gone to that place, where her mother is. Hey, I just realized that Leah must be my grandmother.”

  Granny smiles sourly, but she doesn’t say anything just looks at her teacup.

  Today we perform the play the class has been working on. Grandpa Jacov comes with Mum and Granny and Granddad.

  It is a horrible story: About the baker’s maid who betrayed the eighty Jews hiding in the church attic in Gilleleje. It was a public secret: Everybody in Gilleleje knew that the Jews were hiding all over town. Fortunately, the almost eleven hundred Jews hiding in other places in Gilleleje were being sailed across to Sweden - without any mishaps - by the villagers of Gilleleje.

  Imagine, having to live with that afterwards? That you had betrayed eighty people!

  “Ach jah,” Jacov says. “People’s motives can be many.”

  I wonder if I ever could betray someone. I hope not.

  The play was actually a roaring success. People clapped a lot, especially for Lissy. She was really very good the way she simpered to the German soldier.

  Jacov has fallen ill. Mum thinks he might die soon. When she said that, it felt like the bottom of my stomach would fall out.

  “No!” I cry, “I don’t want him to die. I’ve just got him.”

  “Don’t you think I too would like him to live? But Claire, I think he’s been held together by the hope of seeing Ursula again,” Mum explains. “I think now perhaps his body is ready to let go.” Mum hugs me. Her whole body is sad.

  “But he can’t die before the funeral, can he? Why doesn’t she come?”

  I run out of the house, jump on my bike and tear off. It’s beautifully still in the forest.

  I hope Jacov will stay alive for some more years. I know I will miss him. I have learned so much from him these past months. He is even teaching me to play the violin. Ellen thinks it sounds awful. Funnily enough, he doesn’t get along too well with my grandparents. I don’t know why. I did ask Mum. She thinks it has something to do with them still feeling guilty about not telling Mum and also, maybe they don’t have much in common.

  Isaac visits us often. Last time, he even brought a girlfriend. That made me very happy. The girlfriend is called Lina. She is a very nice lady and laughs a lot. Jacov also likes her.

  Jacov is a still alive and Mum has promised that we are going to Israel with him next holiday. I think Dad is coming too. I hope so, anyway.

  Finally, a letter arrives from the police. It’s on the hallway table when I get home from school. I go into the kitchen as usual just as Ursula pops up. Jacov is out of bed for the first time in several weeks. When he sees Ursula, he cries: “Where on earth have you been!”

  “Some place waiting. It seems I can’t keep coming and going anymore.”

  She sits on his laps and strokes his hair. Then says: “Pappi, I want you to play the violin at my funeral, and I want flowers.”

  She turns to me: “When the funeral is over please play that song ‘Imagine’ on your music machine.”

  She sits so close to Jacov. Suddenly she is not there anymore.

  Mum comes in with a letter in her hand.

  “It’s from the police,” she says. “At last. Now we can arrange the funeral.”

  “Mum, Ursula has just been here.”

  “I know. We gave each other a hug in the hallway when I came in.”

  Mum sits down and puts her arms around Jacov.

  “Will you be able to face the funeral?” She asks.

  Chapter 45

  Claire

  Monday 8th September 1983

  “You feel strange, don’t you?” Mum asks.

  “I just can’t understand why it’s so important with a coffin and all that.”

  “In one way it isn’t. But it comforts the ones left behind.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s important to have rituals, to focus on a nice way of saying goodbye.”

  We’re in the train, on the way to Copenhagen. Mum, Jacov and I. Jacov sniffles a bit, and mumbles to himself. Sometimes he says: “Leah” aloud.

  It really is weird. We have not seen Ursula apart from that day two weeks ago when she was here. The day the letter came from the police and she talked about how she wanted her funeral. A week ago, her skeleton came back from the authorities. But where have they put it? I wonder if she has merged with her bones. That must feel strange. I don’t really understand anything. Her bones are forty years old!

  We go by taxi from the main station.

  It is drizzling.

  We are not many. I wonder how the others feel. I definitely feel weird. Ursula’s bones were put in a coffin and sent to Copenhagen. Did they send the coffin by train? Doctor Heinz has come from Germany, Ruben from Israel, Hannah and Isaac from Sweden. Ursula is getting buried beside her mum.

  A Rabbi (that’s a Jewish priest) says something in a foreign language. Mum cries and mutters, “Have a beautiful journey.” I suppose Ursula is going on a journey. But where is she? Is she really inside that coffin? Jacov says a Jewish prayer. Then he plays the violin. He has explained about Jewish funerals and they are very simple, not like Danish ones. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to one. Anyway, they don’t have flowers and things, but Ursula told us that day that she wanted flowers and what we should do after the burial.

  The sun breaks the clouds when we gather around the grave. A sunbeam falls on the plain stone where it says:

  Ursula Steinovitych, born 2. November 1931, died 2. October 1943. A brave spirit.

  I wonder about the date. How do they know she died that day?

  The sunbeam moves and falls on Jacov. He is wearing new black clothes, and in one way he looks very old and frail, but he also looks strong. His back is straighter and even if he does look sad there’s a gleam in his eyes that wasn’t there when we first met him. He’s is not pathetic anymore. Mum and I also wear black; apparently you have to, at funerals. Jacov does not cry, just squeezes Mum’s hand. I try to speak to Ursula inside my head. She does not answer. She really must have left then. I hope she will meet her mother in heaven, wherever that is, or in some nice place for dead spirits.

  I take out my walkman and play ‘Imagine’. Then we all have to put a little stone on the grave.

  Very weird. You should have thought there would be more to it than that. In some bizarre way I expected Ursula to turn up. That she would suddenly stand there and she and I would have a good laugh. Instead all of us just going back together by taxi to Fiskersund.

  Mum has made lunch. Jacov sniffles a bit, but laughs at something aunt Hannah says. Maybe I would like to visit her in Sweden, after all.

  I go upstairs. I need to be alone. The window is open, the curtain flaps and a note falls down. I pick it up. I begin to wail when I read it. Mum comes running up. “What is it, Claire?”

  She sees the note in my hand. “What is that?”

  I hand it to her.

  When she reads it, her face turns completely white and the paper crumples in her hands.

  Dear Claire,

  I am leaving now. Tell Pappi not to be sad.

  It’s pulling me. It feels like I am filled with liquid light. I know I am dead, but it doesn’t feel like it.

  I would so much have loved to be alive, get married, travel around the world, have children, all the things we thought we were going to do when the war was over. All these things I hope you will do for me.

  Tell Pappi to be happy and remember me.

  So much has happened in the world after the war, so many changes and things I don’t understand. So many things I haven’t done. It is strange to write. I did not think I would be able to.

  I wanted so much to have known you and Sarah better and for much longer. Tell Pappi I love him and that he must see me in you and Sarah, and that he
must be happy.

  Tell Sarah she is the best little sister, I could have wanted.

  Love, Ursula.

  A Danish Dunkerque

  A whisper spread through the whole capital. One person bought a ship, another arranged transport with the fishermen along the coast.

  Phones rang, people trotted through town on foot or rode bicycles, throwing notes into every Jewish home that didn’t have a telephone.

  Passing strangers stopped people in the street and stuffed wads of money in their pockets, whispering, “I heard you need money to get them out.”

  Many of the people concerned didn’t believe it. “It’s the festival of Rosh Hashanah (The Jewish New Year). Surely nothing will happen!”

  But all were told: “Get to the coast.”

  A stampede in the central station.

  In all the small fishing villages along the north coast of Zealand, villagers who found refugees hiding in the forests, brought them food and blankets or took them into their homes.

  When most of the 8000 Jews were safely ferried to Sweden, we heard about the eighty hiding in the Church attic in Gilleleje, who it is said, were betrayed by the baker’s maid. She was in love with a German soldier.

  But most got away, the harbour police looked the other way, even some Germans pretended to be deaf and blind.

  Statue at Gilleleje

  ‘Rosh Hashanah’

  

  Historical facts

  On 9th November 1938, Hitler’s stormtroopers smashed Jewish shops and houses all over Germany. It became known as Kristalnacht (Crystal Night), as the streets were littered with broken glass.

  In 1938, Jews could not just enter Denmark as refugees if they didn’t have money and/or someone to sponsor them, or relatives already living in Denmark. Before the occupation of Denmark, the Danish government was not very interested in helping those Jews who were escaping from Germany or German occupied countries. They were returned – especially if they were poor. However, many did live in Denmark illegally. The Danish people helped them, especially those with from left wing politics.