Sowing the Seeds of Love

by Tara Heavey

  He sat there shaking his head for a few moments. Then he looked up at her sharply. ‘And you? Did he hit you too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just that time or others?’

  ‘There were others.’

  ‘Christ. All these years and I never knew. Why did you stay with him as long as you did? It’s not like you to take crap from anybody.’

  ‘That’s what we women did in those days. You put up and shut up. There wasn’t much of a choice. If you were unfortunate enough to have married the wrong man, you just had to make the best of it.’

  ‘So why that day? Why did you finally snap?’

  ‘I was in fear of my life, Lance. I hadn’t felt that way before. But mostly it was because he hit you too – for the first time. I never thought he would – he doted on you.’

  ‘And to think that all this time I blamed you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For driving him away.’

  ‘How could I have done that?’

  ‘Well.’ Lance squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. ‘You’re not exactly the warmest person in the world.’ He threw her an apologetic look. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s fair comment, I suppose. But I wasn’t cold with your father. Not in the beginning at least. I adored him, you see.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They were both quiet. Each absorbed in their own thoughts, which touched at certain points.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s something else I remember from that day.’

  ‘What?’

  He laughed somewhat nervously. ‘But it can’t be right. It’s so far-fetched – my memory must be playing tricks on me.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I somehow seem to remember you holding a knife to his throat.’

  ‘Yes, Lance. I did.’

  38

  Uri and Aoife worked easily together. Yet again he was helping her, his endless patience and generosity amazing her anew.

  ‘You must get tired of my constant questions,’ she said.

  ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘But I’m forever asking you things.’

  ‘The knowledge isn’t mine to keep. It’s for passing on to the next generation. That’s you. Then it will be your turn.’

  She digested this for a while, wondering how far she could push her luck. There was an unspoken rule in the garden: the respecting-each-other’s-privacy rule. But he seemed in the mood to be open… ‘Seth tells me you’re from Germany.’

  He looked up at her briefly, something indefinable in his eyes, then turned his attention back to the sapling he was tending. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What part?’

  ‘Just outside Berlin.’

  ‘Do you ever go home?’

  ‘Dublin is my home now.’

  ‘But you must have some family over there.’

  ‘Not any more.’

  There was something definitive about the way he said it. She knew that their discussion – such as it was – was at an end.

  He gradually wandered away from her then, the atmosphere now slightly strained. In any case he preferred to work alone. It meant that he could perform his tasks uninterrupted and that his daydreams remained undisturbed. Unfortunately there was the ever-present danger that his thoughts might wander into forbidden territory.

  He touched his fantail fig lovingly, rubbing a fruit between his fingers – fruit that was soon to be transformed into something even more delectable by the women of the Mothers’ Union. His own mother used to make something with figs. What was it again? He closed his eyes and tried to recall.

  He had loved to sit and watch his mother bake. He and his sister would stand on chairs overlooking the counter on which she worked: rolling, kneading, mixing, creaming, chopping, peeling, filling, trimming. Sometimes she let them help. Always she let them lick the bowls. Well, he got the bowls because he was the biggest and Hannah got the spoons. If there was one thing better than watching her bake, it was eating the results afterwards: challah loaf, bagels, blintzes, honeycake, rugelach, kugel and tzimmes.

  Sometimes Uri would bring these treats to school for his lunch. The other boys did so too, but Uri was sure that his mama’s were the best.

  Then, one day, his school was closed down. He didn’t know why exactly, but it had something to do with the soldiers, although what they could have against him learning his letters and numbers and playing chase in the yard, he couldn’t work out. It was exciting at first, like being on holiday. But after a while Uri missed the other boys and even learning things. Another funny thing happened around that time. He was no longer allowed in his favourite playground. His mama said that it had been closed down but he knew that wasn’t true because he had seen other children playing there. He thought it might have something to do with the yellow star on his clothes because none of the children playing there had stars. He asked his mama if he could take it off so he could go and play. But she said he had to wear it. He thought this was very mean and sulked in his room for a while. So, no school and no playground. Life was boring. Uri liked to play with other boys on the street but sometimes children without stars would shout names and rude things at him. It wasn’t very nice, but not so bad if he was with his mama or papa. Then he would just hold their hands tighter, look straight ahead and pretend he hadn’t heard a thing.

  All this meant that he spent a lot of time indoors and mostly the only one left to play with was Hannah – and she was useless. The only thing she was good at was messing up his games. So life was pretty dull. Then one day his parents said that they were moving. To somewhere called Ghetto. He’d never heard of it before but he hoped it had a playground.

  They didn’t seem pleased about moving, maybe because it happened so quickly that they didn’t have time to bring everything. They had to leave the big things, like tables and beds. Uri got to bring most of his toys with him so he was happy about that. And his parents could always come back for the rest of their things later.

  The new house wasn’t what he was expecting. It was a lot smaller for a start. Before, they’d had a whole house and garden to themselves. Now they had to share a house with other families, and it didn’t have a proper garden – just a yard. Uri didn’t have his own room any more either. He had to share with his parents and sister, and not just for sleeping. They had to do everything in this room – cooking, eating, playing. In the beginning, he would ask his mother to bake him honeycake. She would say she couldn’t, then look all nervous and worried and bite her lip. So he stopped asking.

  But there were good things too. The best was that now there were lots of boys to play with. There wasn’t a playground, as Uri had hoped, but they made up games, and they could play on the street all the time because in Ghetto everyone had a star and there was nobody left to call them names.

  Another good thing was that Uri’s father was at home all the time. He used to have a job at the Palace Gardens. His was the most important job of all, and the other men who worked there had to do what he told them. He had taken Uri to work with him a few times, on the special seat on his bicycle. Uri liked having his father at home, mainly because he told such brilliant stories. Even though he was quiet and normally didn’t say very much, his stories were fantastic. It was funny: his mother talked all the time but her stories weren’t nearly as good. Most of Papa’s stories had dragons in them, because they were Uri’s favourites. Except when Hannah was listening too and then Papa had to include princesses and other stupid girls’ stuff. But Papa would wink at him to let him know he was only putting in these bits to keep Hannah happy.

  When he wasn’t telling stories, Uri’s father looked sad. He would stare out of the window. Uri thought he was probably worrying about his flowers and plants in the Palace Gardens. Normally he didn’t like to leave them, even for a few days, so he must be wondering how they were getting on without him and hoping that somebody else would weed and water them until he got
back. Uri would try to cheer him up when he looked like this, with little jokes and tickling games.

  Then one day they had to leave their new house – even more quickly than the last time. He could only bring a few of his small toys. It wasn’t a nice day. There were lots of soldiers with guns and they were shouting loudly and making people run to where they wanted them to go. They all ended up sitting in the town square – hundreds and hundreds, maybe even a thousand people. All wearing yellow stars. Then they started moving them in big groups. Uri and his family were in the second group. After a while, they could tell that they were going to the station.

  39

  Once they were on the train, Uri could hardly breathe. He stood awkwardly, pressed up against his mother, his cheek cradled by her hip bone. They had to stand because there was no room to sit down. His father held Hannah in his arms. She had fallen asleep some time ago, her body slumped heavily against Papa. As an old man, Uri could still see the haunted expression on his mother’s face that day on the train. But every time he looked up at her, she smiled and touched his cheek or his hair. This would have embarrassed him normally. He was ten years old, after all. But things like that didn’t seem to matter any more. A few hours earlier he had seen a boy from his school, a boy who was a lot bigger than Uri, crying like a baby. He wouldn’t do that. He looked up at his mother again and returned her smile. She touched her fingers to her lips and pressed them to his. He hugged her hip, wishing he could reach up and hug her properly. He could just see through the slats that it was growing dark outside.

  Elsewhere in the carriage, parents sang lullabies to their children. Prayers were muttered. Uri hadn’t known that it was possible to fall asleep standing up. But that was what he did.

  The train juddered to a halt and they all fell against one another. Uri’s eyes felt gritty, as if he hadn’t slept at all. He could hear men shouting outside the train. The doors were opened and the people spilled out, gasping at the fresh air. One man didn’t get up at all. Uri and his family had to step over him. Uri wondered how he could stay sleeping with all the noise and activity that was going on around him.

  The air outside was very cold. It bit into Uri’s skin. His mother wrapped her arm around his neck like a scarf as they were herded quickly along. The guards shouted orders at them. By now he’d had plenty of experience of those guards. They always seemed angry about something or other. One was screaming at everybody to leave their bags on the train. Uri wished he would stop – it was hurting his ears. One old man wouldn’t let go of his briefcase so three of the guards pulled him to the side. There was a lot of shouting, and then, a few seconds later, an even louder noise like a gun going off. Uri heard his mother gasp and she covered his ears. He didn’t see the old man again.

  When they got inside the camp, it was the men and boys on one side, the women and girls on the other. Uri’s mother wouldn’t let him go. She smothered his face with kisses and held him so tight against her coat that he could hardly breathe. Then a guard yelled at her and hit her on the side of the head with the butt of his rifle. The last time Uri saw his mother, she was scrambling to her feet, blood running down her face.

  ‘Be a good boy,’ she said. ‘Do everything your papa tells you.’ Then she picked up Hannah, who was crying and grabbing at her leg. As they walked away, Hannah held out her hands to Uri’s father, like she did when she wanted him to pick her up. But he couldn’t go to her. It wasn’t allowed. He took Uri’s hand and they joined their queue.

  They made everyone take off their clothes. Uri couldn’t understand why they did this when it was so cold. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it was summer. In the summertime, Uri would go down to the river behind their house in Berlin. He’d strip off all his clothes and jump in. Sometimes there were other boys with him and they would take turns diving off the rocks and seeing who could make the biggest splash. Once a fish had nibbled at Uri’s toes. It was kind of ticklish.

  He was at the top of the queue now and two men sat behind a desk looking at him. They took down his name and age, then made him turn all around. Then one of them looked inside his mouth. It was a bit like being at the dentist and the doctor all in one. It wasn’t too bad because he could see his father the whole time in the queue beside him. Next they gave Uri some new clothes to put on. They were blue and not the type of clothes you’d normally wear outdoors. Uri didn’t think they’d keep him very warm. Then he copied what the boy in front of him had done and went into this big hut. He found it was best to do what everybody else did and not make a fuss. That meant you didn’t get shouted at so much. The only time Uri got upset was when he thought about his mother. He tried to put her out of his mind, not think about the last time he’d seen her, with blood running down her face. Maybe somebody would bandage it for her later. As scary as her blood was to Uri, her tears were even scarier. He’d only seen her cry once before – when she’d had a baby and it had died. She’d had three babies who had died. One between him and Hannah – a girl called Esther. Then two boys after Hannah – Oskar and Jacob. They were both dead when they were born. Uri felt especially sad about them because he would have loved to have a brother to play with. They remembered them in their prayers every day.

  When you got to the top of the queue in the hut, you sat in a big chair and a man shaved off all your hair. He was rough, not like Mr Rothschild in the barber’s Uri went to at home. Mr Rothschild always chatted to you the whole time, asked you questions about school and what sports you liked, and when he had finished, he gave you a sweet. The man in the hut didn’t say anything at all.

  Next was the worst bit because all the boys had to go off together in a big group and he couldn’t see his father any more. The guards made them run to another hut. There were loads of huts all over the place and they looked the same. This one was full of beds, except they weren’t like real beds, more like long wooden boxes that you had to share and try to sleep in. Everyone was very quiet until the guards went away. Then Uri could hear a few whispers. But mostly he could hear other boys crying. Uri squeezed his eyes tightly shut and rolled up into the smallest ball ever.

  That night, he dreamed he went fishing with his father and grandfather near his grandparents’ home in Heidelberg. Uri caught a small blue fish that thrashed and glistened in the sunlight. Then, quick as a flash, a kingfisher swooped down, grabbed the fish in its beak and carried it away. Uri could still see the vivid colours when he first woke up. The dream made him feel warm inside, even though he was so cold. The strangest thing was that his grandfather had died two years before. But in the dream he was alive and smiling and exactly as Uri remembered him.

  All the boys in Uri’s hut were his age or older. There were no little ones. Uri couldn’t work out what had happened to all the little ones. They must have been keeping them in a different part of the camp. Over the next few days, Uri kept an eye open for his mother, father and sister, but then the boys were moved to a different camp. Uri was upset because he wanted to stay where his family were, even if he couldn’t see them. Unless, of course, they were all being moved. There was no way of knowing. He looked out for them the whole time they were marched to the train and while they were getting on board, but there was no sign. All he saw, as the train was pulling away, was that the sky above part of the camp was orange. A terrible stench filled his nostrils, something he’d been smelling on and off since he’d got there. Years later, when he walked the streets of Dublin as a young man, he sometimes thought he could smell it still.

  The first day in the new camp they set them to work breaking up stones. They might have been to put between the railway sleepers. That was what they looked like to Uri. Hard and grey. There were lots of men working there too, not just boys. Uri was overjoyed to see his father among them. For a moment, he thought he was going to cry. He and his father saw each other at exactly the same time. They stopped what they were doing and smiled. But not for long because there were guards all around. But now and then they would glance up and smile when th
e guards weren’t looking. What Uri really wanted to do was to run over to his father and hug him and to be hugged back. Which was strange, really, because he’d never done that before. His father was kind but distant. It was to his mother that Uri had gone for hugs. But everything was different now.

  The work was hard but Uri was strong and quick. Which was just as well because the guards whipped you if you were too slow. Some of the boys were finding the work more difficult than Uri, but they didn’t have a father to smile at them every now and then. They didn’t have the happiness of knowing where their papas were and having them near.

  Uri didn’t see any women or girls in the camp.

  Later on, when they were giving out the bread, he was able to talk to his father for a minute.

  ‘Have you seen your mother and sister?’

  ‘No.’

  His father gave Uri half of his own bread, which wasn’t fair because he must have been starving too. But he made Uri take it. And Uri ate it because he was so, so hungry. He’d never been so hungry in his whole life.

  That night, he dreamed he was at home and his mama was cooking him dinner. It must have been a special occasion because she was making all his favourites: matzoh-ball soup, gefilte fish, blintzes.

  He ate until he was so stuffed he could hardly move. His mother didn’t look as she had the last time he’d seen her. She was smiling and happy and laughed a lot. The dream felt very real, and when he woke up, it was as if she was with him still. He was to have this dream several times. It was his favourite.

  There was a man in the new camp, another prisoner, called Viktor, although some people called him Dr Frankl. He was friendly with Uri’s father. He wasn’t an ordinary doctor, although he did know a lot of stuff and he could help you if you were sick or hurt. Many of the boys had sores on their bodies. Uri had one on his head. Dr Frankl looked at it for him one day. Uri felt the man liked him because of his father.