by Anna Ellory
Eva takes a bite of her biscuit and crumbs fall into her lap. Miriam watches as she flicks them away with the back of her hand.
‘Thank you for helping me with the letters,’ Miriam says.
‘You are paying me, and . . .’
‘Yes, I owe you money, don’t I?’
Eva waves the question away.
‘It was a good thing I met Jeff, or you may have found me slaving over a dictionary trying to put the words together.’ She knows she is talking fast and almost nonsensically, but cannot find a way to calm down. ‘Do you have a family?’ she asks. ‘Other than Jeff?’
‘My husband died a few years ago, he was a doctor. A very good man. His daughters are grown now. Jeffrey is Renka’s son, she was the oldest,’ Eva says, stirring the cream into her coffee with the long spoon. ‘They stole through the tunnels when he was a boy. I hadn’t seen them for almost twenty years.’
A long silence casts a shadow over the table as Miriam listens to Eva’s breathing slow down. Her hands are darkened with age, yet long and thin.
‘Do you have a partner, Miriam?’ Eva asks, her mouth full of biscuit.
Miriam shakes her head and sips at her scalding-hot coffee.
‘No,’ she says. ‘Well, not exactly.’
Miriam thinks of the night she left him.
‘It’s . . .’ she starts. ‘You see . . .’ she tries and then settles with, ‘It’s a bit complicated.’
That night, the phone call from the hospital still ringing around her head, Miriam had washed her hands thoroughly and tiptoed into their bedroom, thinking only of her father, alone, dying, a few hours away.
The soothing sound of Axel’s snores offered her peace. He was in his usual position, asleep in the bed as he would be dead in his grave.
The soft, cream blanket, usually found at the foot of their bed, was placed on the floor, folded over and over on itself until it made a small rectangle. The size of a dog basket. Her bed for the night.
Dogs and bitches get the floor.
She turned and left the room.
Her toes had crawled for purchase on the side of the bath as she teetered, trying to access the top shelves of the cabinet where her medication was stored. Away from her.
Axel was the only one who could be trusted to ensure she received the correct dose. After the last time . . . when each bitter pill seemed sugar-coated, a sweetness to abyss.
She opened the old box at the back, and amongst an assortment of medications, anti-depressants, anti-hallucinogenics and sleeping tablets . . .
She saw it.
After years of not knowing where it was, Miriam, looking for an escape, any way to free herself, had found one.
Her ID card.
If she could prove she was a West German citizen, she could get back into Berlin, she could go home. No matter that they lived in Wolfsburg, still West Germany, the guards at the checkpoints would need proof she wasn’t an East German stowaway.
She gathered it in her nightdress, close to her heart, and silently walked down the stairs, avoiding the second-from-top stair and its hollow creak. She placed her feet into her shoes, took her coat and bag from the rack, and pulled the front door shut tight. There was no thinking. Her feet left the house.
‘Sorry, Eva, what did you say?’ She feels the room pulse towards her and imagines her exit through the mass of bodies and tables should he enter the café here. Or be sitting there. Or behind her.
‘Just saying how complicated most relationships are,’ Eva says. ‘Nothing is ever as straightforward as people say it is: books and movies, people are just skimming over the edges. I suppose that is because most commercial art is made by men.’ Eva smiles, a twinkle in her eye.
‘My mother once said to me, when I was contemplating what to do in life, Men make art and women make babies. I failed at both,’ she says. Then adds, ‘At the time I thought it was stupid, but maybe she was trying to caution me.’
‘Caution you?’
‘To know my place.’ Miriam tries the coffee again and scalds her lip in the same place. She takes a bite of the biscuit instead.
‘Can I ask you about the letters?’ Eva asks. ‘How did you come by them?’
‘They come from a dress, a uniform I think. I found it when I was tidying Mum’s things.’
‘Is it your mother’s?’ Eva asks.
‘I don’t think so. One of the letters mentions Ravensbrück, maybe Mum went there, but the letters? Mum never spoke French, let alone read or wrote in it . . .’
‘Is she not around to ask?’
Miriam shakes her head at the same time as taking a sip of coffee. The cream splashes up on to her face. She wipes at her mouth with a napkin.
‘I’m sorry to hear that. How long?’
‘Three years. From cancer,’ she says. Her hands shake and the coffee spills over her fingers.
The music is quiet and the voices swarm around the café like bees as Miriam waits for the shattering feeling she has grown used to when thinking about Mum. But the feeling doesn’t come. She waits for it as she sips her coffee, the cream sweet, she licks her top lip as the warmth of the café seeps into her.
Eva rustles in her bag. ‘Would you like one?’ She offers a clementine. They sit eating and watch the cars and people wash by.
‘And your father?’ Eva says eventually.
A man in leather shoes walks past her, Miriam springs up.
‘I have to get back,’ she says.
‘And I thought I was jumpy. Are you okay?’
‘I have to get back to Dad, before it’s too late.’ She consults her watch. Time has passed.
The noise of the café becomes deafening. Happy faces, laughter, perfume, couples sitting face to face. Guilt crawls and takes hold in her throat. The crushing, banging and bashing of the coffee machine. The grinding sharpens her senses.
The door opens, a bell tinkles and the weather intrudes with the sweep of a wet umbrella, held by a man in a long black coat.
The man is as tall as Axel, but it isn’t him.
The coffee turns bitter. A spiderweb of fear she cannot swallow past.
‘Sorry,’ Eva says. ‘I apologise if I said something out of turn.’
‘Oh no,’ Miriam says, putting on her coat. ‘But I must get back to my father now.’
They leave the café together. ‘Can you come back? I left the letters on the table for you.’
‘I came with a few more for you too.’ Eva gently takes Miriam’s arm and slows her pace to match her own. The weight of Eva on her arm is comforting and eventually the panic Miriam felt on leaving subsides.
They walk together in silence, watching their footing on the leaf-strewn street.
The house is still and as she stands by her father, she whispers, ‘Eva is here, Dad, she’s helping me. To find Frieda for you.’ She squeezes his hand tight.
‘This is the dress,’ Miriam says in the dining room where she has put the bag with the dress in it. She opens the clasp and pulls the sheet out, offering it to Eva, who steps back.
‘You do it,’ she says.
Miriam flattens the dress out on the table.
‘A miracle,’ Eva says. ‘Where did you find the letters?’ she asks.
‘Here.’ She points to the pockets and the frayed seams, the collars and cuffs.
‘They used to adjust the dresses,’ Eva says, her fingers trace the bottom of the dress. ‘The uniforms, so they could carry their own spoons and sometimes a photo of a loved one, a letter.’
‘I read that in the letters. Bunny sewed secret pockets or something?’ As Miriam says her name aloud she realises that these letters are real. Bunny is real. These are letters depicting lives that have been lived and lost. Miriam feels an overwhelming sense of inadequacy at reading something so personal, and wonders how Eva feels about translating them. Sharing this with Eva brings a comfort, a shared experience, maybe even a friend.
Eva walks along the table, smoothing her hands along the fabric as she go
es.
‘Can I get you a glass of water?’
Eva doesn’t answer.
Miriam goes into the kitchen and returns with two glasses of water.
Eva seems to have aged, her face is still wrinkled in the same places, but the lines have deepened. Her lips narrowed. Her fingers smooth the pocket. Miriam hands her a glass and she takes a sip, swallowing hard.
‘It’s incredible such a thing exists. So many members of my family died in camps,’ Eva says quietly.
‘I’m so sorry. The dress got to me too,’ Miriam says. ‘Especially the smell.’
Sitting abruptly in a chair, Eva seems to shrink in front of her. She places her hands together and shakes her head, looking at the dress.
‘It’s horrendous. I don’t know how you are managing translating them, but I certainly . . .’ A loud bang at the door makes both jump. Miriam sloshes water over her top and Eva looks wide-eyed towards the hallway. Neither of them move.
Another knock propels Miriam into motion. She opens the door to Lionel panting with an enormous bunch of flowers in his arms: red roses with foliage. Expensive.
‘These are heavy,’ he complains. ‘What is wrong with your intercom again?’
‘Nothing,’ she says, and takes them from him. He is right, they topple in Miriam’s arms.
‘Who are they from?’
‘Those stairs . . .’ he pants, holding his hand up to stop her speaking. ‘You’re welcome,’ he says, brushing green leaves from his shirt, and walks away, muttering something under his breath.
‘They look pretty.’ Eva appears by her side, composed. ‘An admirer?’
Miriam shakes her head.
‘Can I help you? Get a vase maybe?’
‘No, thank you.’ Miriam places the flowers down on the kitchen side as if they were an unexploded bomb. She finds the card:
Until tomorrow, my wife.
‘Who are they from?’ Eva looks over her shoulder.
Miriam picks them up and squeezes them in the bin, stems snapping as she forces them further and further in. She closes the lid and steps away, brushing her hands together, the plasters on her fingers join themselves together. She collects the bin liner and takes it out to the main bin downstairs.
Eva waits for her return in the kitchen.
‘Can I help?’
While she washes her hands, Eva puts the kettle on.
Miriam winces as she places her hands under the steaming hot water, then washes them with soap. The kettle screams and she looks at it. At the boiling water, thinking of the blistering it could cause to her skin, and the peace she would find after.
Eva takes the kettle off the heat while Miriam rinses, before using a nail brush along the palms and fingertips, ripping off the plasters, rinsing again with water that streams hot. She allows the water to run red before Eva places a hand on her shoulder.
‘That’s enough,’ she says.
‘It wasn’t an admirer,’ Miriam murmurs.
‘I can see, but it’s enough now.’ And she reaches past Miriam and turns off the tap before placing a towel in her hands. ‘May I see?’
Miriam unravels the towel, showing her bleeding fingers, the skin peeled back on her fingernails and the scratches and grazes along her wrists.
‘May I help?’ Taking her by both hands, Eva guides Miriam to the living room and into the high-backed, gold-studded, olive chairs. She dries each hand with a towel, stems the flow of blood and replaces the plasters to Miriam’s muted instructions.
‘What’s tomorrow?’ Eva asks.
‘They want to take Dad away to the hospital, I think. There is a meeting.’
‘What will happen?’
The question is left in the air.
‘The flowers,’ Eva starts, ‘are from your husband?’
Miriam nods.
‘You aren’t together?’
‘No,’ she says. Then a second ‘No’, with more conviction.
‘All terrible things do pass with time, I promise you. Your fingers will heal, and the damage inside will too. You just need time,’ Eva says and collects her bag. ‘I have some more of the French letters here.’ She draws out a bundle. ‘I should be going now,’ she says, looking at the dress and then at Miriam’s hands.
‘Of course.’ Miriam gives her the other half of the letters and a ten-Westmark note. ‘Thank you, and I am sorry you had to see that.’ She nods to the kitchen.
‘Never apologise. Can I perhaps . . . If it wouldn’t inconvenience you, well, perhaps I can call again?’
‘Please, any time.’
When Eva has left, Miriam takes the new letters to her father’s side.
There are so many letters of all shapes and sizes and many more to read. Grateful for something to do with her hands, she picks up the next letter, happy to absorb herself in Frieda’s plight rather than think about her own.
17
HENRYK
I am resting in pieces, but I can hear Miriam.
Her tiny voice speaks, but not to me. I try to listen, to find my centre once more, but I am turning and turning and I lose her words in the dark.
I am adrift. I can feel my toes, I try to move them, but they are too far away. My legs feel confined and strange but they are there. I am lying on a bed. I cannot place where I am, all I know is that I am.
And although I know that Frieda is gone, I also know that she has not faded for me. I must know all that happened, I must know the weight of my crime, the judgement and the sentence.
All that happened to her was because of me.
I hear Miriam again. ‘Frieda,’ I call. But my mouth won’t form the words. Not today. ‘Please,’ I scream, but the scream just reverberates inside my head and spittle runs out of my mouth. I feel it slide down my chin and cool there.
MIRIAM
To not think about tomorrow, Axel or anything other than the letters, Miriam reads long into the night.
Henryk,
The Blockova said I could see the Kommandant. After all this time, it felt useless. I had nothing to say now. The reason I wanted to talk to her had gone now we were in Block 15. But you cannot decline to see the Kommandant if she calls for you.
I felt naked walking to her office. I had not bathed in days; there was no water for bathing, because we needed it to drink. It was so hot. I smelled like bodies – hot, dirty bodies. I washed my hands to rid myself of the sand and grime and the little water left I drank. I pinched my cheeks and licked my lips to try and plump them up. I had sand in my teeth.
The Blockova caught me, vanity is punishable. She whipped the back of my hands. My eyes watered from the bite of it.
The office was quiet, and I was faced with a woman: blonde hair, clear skin. Pressed, dark uniform.
I could be her.
I think we are but a circumstance apart. Lipstick, hair lacquer, her hat pinned on to her hair. I pulled off my kerchief revealing patchy hair growing thick and light. I realised I was staring. I did not know where to start. I cried tears I didn’t know I had.
I spoke words that crippled my heart. My shaved head, my broken hands, my empty stomach reveal who I am. I will do anything to be free. Even disown the name I had taken so easily.
The truth is ugly.
Only eight weeks ago I answered to the name Emilie Winter – I chose to be with you, as Emilie hid away. I was proud to stand next to you. To be arrested with you. To walk with you, even if it was to here.
I am ashamed, but I stood and emulated all that I hated.
‘My family are pure Aryan,’ I mumbled.
Her impenetrable face, marbled, watching me.
‘Heil Hitler!’ I said. The salute, one I had not done for so long, felt like treachery, treason of the heart and mind.
I was selling my soul. My only worry: was it enough?
She had papers in front of her.
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Eight weeks, ma’am.’
‘What do you want?’
And
in that moment, although I knew I wanted a bowl and a better job than shifting sand; I wanted the Blockovas to treat us better; I wanted the women in charge not to be criminals; I wanted to DO something.
I said very quietly: ‘Please, I want to go home.’
‘Women do not get released from Ravensbrück.’
That was it.
But just as I turned to leave, she called me back.
‘It would be nice to have eyes and ears in the camp, you understand? Bring me information, illegal behaviour, rule-breakers, slackers, there are several underground goings-on. Women “hiding” within blocks, spouting lies.’ She looked up. ‘I can make things better here for you if you help me. Do you understand?’
I nodded.
‘Return next Wednesday with something to tell me.’
I left.
I was marched back to the block. I thought of Bunny, Wanda, Stella, Eugenia. What was the price of my freedom?
HENRYK
I was forced into the wagon, forced with so many men. I looked for Frieda. I stood by the barred window and looked out for her. We all clambered to see out of the window to catch another glimpse of those we had been parted from.
We saw nothing.
I rested my head back on to the wood of the wagon. The door was shut tight. What had I done?
I was sent to Auschwitz. I did not know the meaning of ‘Auschwitz’ as it is talked of. I only knew I was in hell. Every night, I would close my eyes and there we were under that bridge, Gleis 17, waiting for a future, never knowing that future would be apart.
And for me, this time that all have forgotten, or chosen to forget, is entwined with Frieda, and to pull on a thread is to lose myself in the tapestry where I bit a man’s hand for the bread held tight within it. Where I threw bodies into the crematorium, not questioning if those bodies were dead or alive.
MIRIAM
She places the letter face up and looks at the four names that jump from the bottom of the yellowed and curling page. Bunny. Wanda. Stella. Eugenia. She wonders if any of them got out alive and who was this person, Frieda, who could even think about giving up such vulnerable and broken women?
