The Longest Night

by Otto de Kat

  Maria just keeps talking, as if the truth is pursuing her. She wants to shake off this story, to tell what cannot be told. But Emma hears something else, she sees something else, and suddenly she thinks she understands what happened. And, strangely, that does not shock her either.

  “When did it begin again, Maria?”

  A part of Bruno had always remained in the shadows for her, it seemed to be something he could not comprehend himself. Emma had sometimes found him in tears. She can picture him in the dim light, at that round antique table of his father’s, his hand on the arm of the chair, a cigarette between his dark-yellow fingertips. Far away, in some foxhole in unknown territory.

  Yet Maria’s answer still takes her by surprise.

  “For me, it never stopped. I let go of Bruno back then, that summer. But I missed him constantly. After he met you, he treated me like his little sister, with a stubborn sense of loyalty. I often visited our island again in my mind, but never in reality.”

  A stubborn sense of loyalty? More like desperate perhaps. They’re unfortunately chosen words, although Maria probably doesn’t realize.

  Emma thinks about Bruno in his little bunker, lost in silence. Whenever it happened, she had waited, she was better at waiting than anyone she knew.

  Her friendship with Maria had only grown closer after this “confession.”

  24

  Morning came. Emma saw the first cars going by on Oudedijk, headlights on, full speed ahead into the city. She slowly turned her bracelet, the smooth silver band with the small silver clasp, which she had never taken off since the day she received it from Maria.

  “Bruno once gave it to me. I never dared to wear it. It’s for you.”

  That had been shortly after her confession. Bruno had been dead for thirty-three years now. Emma had worn the bracelet all that time, only removing it briefly to clean it.

  Thirty-three years alone, sixty-two years in the street. Counting up the years, it made her head spin. So many years with Carl, so many with Bruno, so many without. Maria was no longer alive either.

  Emma was not entirely certain that Maria had answered truthfully when she had asked when it had started again. It had sounded convincing, but looking back it had seemed too practiced, an answer learned by heart. Particularly the part about the “stubborn sense of loyalty,” which seemed almost to emphasize the lack of loyalty. In retrospect.

  Even looking back, though, and with the pain of Bruno’s death still palpable and all-pervading, Emma had felt neither anger nor jealousy. She did not want to go digging into secrets that Maria and Bruno might have, it would only put her friendship with Maria at risk. Anyone who wishes to uncover secrets of that kind, she decided, has never loved.

  Somewhere a church bell struck five. It must be the Koninginnekerk—no, that had been torn down years ago, after a hard-fought battle between two camps of believers. A hole in the neighborhood, now filled with new houses, but the hours had continued to ring in people’s memories for years.

  Emma listened out for Judith. It would not be long before she discovered she was gone. But there was just the silence of the rooms around her.

  If Thomas was going to arrive in time, he would need to be getting up now. It was a morning’s journey from Hamburg to Rotterdam. He had said eleven o’clock, that was when he would arrive. She still found it remarkable that he had gone to live in Clarita’s city. He felt at home there, he claimed. He was no doubt influenced by his father. After every trip, Bruno talked about how the young Germans had to bear the burden of their parents’ past, and how they were dealing with the literal and figurative heaps of rubble.

  Like the center of Rotterdam, Hamburg had been flattened by bombs. The Koninginnekerk over and over again, a vast number of gaps, a map of the soul that was now beyond comprehension: memory had become a labyrinth in which nothing was in the same place as before and all directions were lost.

  Thomas. And Michael, her first-born, who was so sick that Emma could hardly bear to look. Her greatest fear was that his condition would worsen. Her proud son and yet, from the very beginning, her problem child. Emma had never entirely understood him, even though they were so alike in many ways. As a young boy Michael had been unmanageable, she had even sent him to stay with a cousin for a while, to cool down.

  He had been four years old and yet was already conscious of this rejection. Sent away, farmed out, abandoned in an unfamiliar household. Emma had felt just the same when her parents had left her with her grandparents in Leeuwarden. The mirror image of an old wound. How strange that everything appeared to repeat itself, different in the details but essentially the same.

  And the worst memory. One she would not manage to escape tonight.

  25

  How old had he been? Fifteen, sixteen, she cannot remember. But that does not matter, it is now.

  Emma beats Michael. Hard, wherever she can hit him, in a wordless, ice-cold fury. He fends her off as best as he can. Stunned by the attack, which he did not see coming.

  It is over before he realizes what is happening. Half a minute, which resounds for a lifetime.

  Yes, he was sixteen, and he had said something about Carl, something he had read or heard somewhere. He had said it in a slightly provocative way, that was true, but he sounded more surprised than anything, just an observation about something that, as far as he was concerned, had been over for a long time, something from the war.

  That she had been married to a traitor.

  He was sixteen and rebelling against everyone and everything. Her response was to hit out, to make a stand against ignorance. She hit them apart forever. Maybe Michael, too, felt like a stranger everywhere, with his tentative footsteps, his life in the interrogative form. Emma had never been able to make up for that half minute, the arm he raised to defend himself had never been lowered.

  Emma had pushed her unbearable regret and guilt into the realm where Carl resided, ever present, always emerging at the wrong moment. But recently her guilt had become so strong that she wondered if it was that brief fight that had triggered Michael’s illness, a fire that did not break out until much later. It was possible—how much do we really know? At times she was certain.

  Later, she had heard from Clarita von Trott that people had looked down on her, too, because of Adam, a traitor in the eyes of some of his compatriots, the man who had stood in court and viciously lashed out at the criminal regime and its lying henchmen.

  “Nurse!”

  The ambulance door is pulled open, two nurses take hold of the trolley and push it along a brightly lit corridor. One connects the oxygen, the other holds the nose mask, but she stumbles, the plastic mask slips, Bruno’s head lolls. The operating theater in neon light, frosted-glass doors automatically opening and closing.

  “Nurse, I have to help him!”

  But they do not let Emma in. The door closes in her face. Now she is huddled in a waiting room next to the operating theater. Muffled sounds come through the walls. Bruno is lying in there, or whatever is left of him. She needs to let Maria and Maarten know. And did she blow out the candles at home?

  Someone comes in silently. Emma sees a shadow, she looks up. It is Michael.

  Almost as pale as Bruno, she thinks.

  He nods toward the operating theater, says nothing. And then, softly: “Thomas is on his way, he’ll be here in an hour.”

  Bruno, Bruno, don’t leave me, it’s too soon, there’s still so much for us to do, to talk about.

  The sounds have stopped, all is quiet. Then the door of the operating theater opens gently, as if to avoid disturbing the dead person lying there on the table.

  The lights go out, the doctor’s coat comes off, someone clears their throat. Michael’s hand on her bowed head.

  Thomas was going to catch the eight-thirty flight. Emma had worked out that he could be there by half past ten, if everything went smoothly. A weekday, Tuesday, sunrise at ten past six. End of April, spring, with summer on the way. But the sedation team would no
t let it come to that, Emma predicted contentedly.

  Thomas and Michael. The names came up fairly often in sermons. Michael, the archangel, protector of the dying, and Thomas, who had to see before he believed. Louis had once pointed out the meanings to her and asked if she had chosen them for that reason.

  No, she and Bruno had leafed through the Bible, so many parents’ favorite book of names, it had been the sound alone, there was nothing else behind it. But now it seemed to Emma as if her sons’ names had a deep significance. Michael, patron saint of the dying—who came up with such things? When Bruno died, Michael had stood in the waiting room at the hospital, silent and focused. He had protected her. And today Thomas would see, and he would have to believe. He would stand by his mother, his hand in hers.

  26

  What was it that her mother had said?

  “I thought you always discussed everything, had no secrets from each other.” It was about her father, “Oscar,” as she had come to call him after his death. Her mother had remained “Mother,” a description with little emotion attached. She had been her mother, of course, but there had been little resemblance, everyone said Emma was the spitting image of her father. There was nothing Dudok about her.

  She had difficulty picturing her mother’s face. Weathered skin, brown age marks, almost white hair, blue veins like cords on her hands. An African magician. She had rolled in and out of Emma’s life, without making a fuss, leaving little behind. Kate Dudok, Kate Verschuur, her mother, names of a stranger, someone who had not made herself known to her. With a grave on the other side of the world, near Élisabethville.

  And yet she was with her, too, Emma could not avoid her, she kept turning up tonight. This time with her remark about Oscar and their secrets. That was a misunderstanding, Oscar had told her as little as her mother, if not less. But, strangely enough, what her father had kept hidden from her was no longer a problem now—what annoyed her was what her mother had concealed or half-concealed. Or just casually revealed, such as the existence of Lara van Oosten, a subject that Oscar had so deliberately avoided.

  Switzerland is a mirage, a country that floats some way above the ground, untouched, untouchable, pampered, a land like a rumor.

  It is the late 1960s and Emma is driving alone through Switzerland. Bruno’s Citroën D.S. sways along the road, a waterbed on wheels and the ideal car for the mountains. Emma traveled there every year, summer and winter, it went without saying. It was an ingrained habit, she went there with her parents even before the war, and then with Bruno and the children. Via Belgium and France, of course.

  She breaks the journey in Bern for a small pilgrimage. Bern is the city where Oscar had spent the war. It feels like a solemn commemoration, her own May 4 in the autumn.

  It is the beginning of November, a month when almost all the hotels in the mountains are closed. The sun provides little warmth, there is no snow on the ground as yet, it is quiet and empty, so close to the beginning of the tourist season.

  Emma knows of one hotel that remains open all year round: Hotel Jungfrau. Where you can lie in bed and listen to the trains arriving and leaving on the cogwheel railway, model trains at a small station, spectral apparitions at a high altitude in the November mist.

  She leaves the car in Lauterbrunnen and takes the train up the mountain to Hotel Jungfrau. A married couple sit a few seats away, surrounded by suitcases. The woman is wearing an elegant fur hat and a long black coat. The man is gray, but still looks young. As they get out, he holds out his hand to support her, the kind of gesture that means more than can be seen.

  The hotel has sent porters for the luggage. Emma walks slowly up the steep path to the entrance. A dense mist has enveloped the outside dining areas, the light from the hotel windows barely penetrating it. Five o’clock, it is already getting dark, the fire in the lobby is lit. Emma writes her name in the guestbook. Everything is just right, Swiss precision ensuring everything and everyone is as advertised. The world here is a perfect diorama, a dance party.

  For the first time in ages she is alone. Bruno, Michael and Thomas have their own business to attend to: work, study, a conference in Krefeld. Emma is concerned about Bruno, but that is a constant. His illness ebbs and flows, but always returns. He is smoking two packets of cigarettes a day now, his index and middle finger are stained by the nicotine, it cannot be good. But he still skates long distances with ease and beats his sons at tennis, “so everything’s perfectly fine, Emma. No need to worry!”

  “Excuse me. I’m sorry, but could I ask you something? Did you once live in Berlin?”

  The woman from the train is standing at her table, without the fur hat and long coat now, but still just as elegant. A woman of around sixty, maybe a little older, it is hard to tell. Her question is so tentative that Emma is not even startled or puzzled by the fact that she is speaking Dutch.

  It is a question she is never asked, or rather, one that she knows how to avoid. But even so, she is prepared. A couple of guests sit by the fire, talking quietly, a waiter brings glasses of beer, the hotel owner talks to newcomers, candles are lit in the dining room. Upholstered happiness, a burst of wealth. Soon the pianist will start playing songs of yesteryear, the lid of the piano is already up.

  With the same cautious tones as the woman, Emma replies: “Did we ever meet in Berlin? I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”

  “No, we don’t know each other, but I saw your name in the guestbook. You are Emma Verweij-Verschuur, aren’t you? We signed in after you and I couldn’t help reading your name. I once knew an Oscar Verschuur. He had a daughter in Berlin, she was called Emma and, well, to be honest, you look a lot like him. Please excuse my curiosity, it would be such a coincidence if it were you.”

  “Oscar Verschuur was my father.”

  Emma stands up as she says it, automatically shakes the woman’s hand.

  “Yes, I’m Emma. Would you mind telling me your name?”

  “Lara van Oosten, at least it used to be. It’s O’Brien now.”

  It is her. How is it possible that they are staying at the very same hotel?

  Emma quickly sits down again. Lara van Oosten automatically takes a chair and slides it next to Emma’s. At that moment the pianist begins his medley, good cheer all around, it is busy, nearly all the rooms are occupied. This hotel is a gathering place for those who love the empty mountains.

  Strangely, Emma feels caught out, or more than that: guilty. Guilt is a misconceived form of responsibility, she reasons to herself. How idiotic to feel guilty for sitting with the woman her father loved.

  Guilt, compassion and the wish to find out more fight for the upper hand. Emma’s only option is silence. The woman briefly touches her hand, an apology. She does not speak either.

  This silence is a kind of truce, they are unintentional allies, they know nothing about each other. Words are still absent, sentences, questions, the truth, all deferred. Fog at the windows, fire in the hearth, laughter drifts through from the kitchen, a barman shouts something.

  “He died a long time ago, but you probably know that,” Emma says at last.

  The woman nods, yes, she knows. Her husband, an Irish diplomat, had told her.

  “All the diplomats in Europe knew your father. They were devastated to hear of his death.”

  “What about you?”

  Lara looks past Emma at her husband, who is standing nearby, waiting by the dining room. Many of the residents are already sitting down to dinner.

  “My husband’s waiting for me. Would you mind if we continued our conversation after dinner?”

  “Is it that difficult?”

  “I can’t think straight right now. I hadn’t imagined I’d ever meet you. I’d be happy to talk later, though.”

  She’s still beautiful, thinks Emma as she watches Lara walk away. How stunning she must have been thirty years ago. Her father had certainly not been lacking in taste, lacking in morals perhaps, although Emma’s opinions on such subjects have changed.

&nbs
p; After dinner, Emma and Lara sit, familiar strangers, on a sofa by the fireplace. Old questions, new answers, a chance conversation, on a lost evening in November, in the Berner Oberland.

  “Operation Barbarossa . . . Oscar knew the date of the invasion and I was under the naïve impression that tens of thousands of Russians might be saved if he warned the Allies. I did him a grave injustice, though. He was sure they would arrest you and have you executed. Those were his exact words, and I didn’t want to know, I thought him cowardly. I couldn’t put myself in the position of a man with a daughter. I simply didn’t believe the Allies would give him the brush-off, that they wouldn’t believe him, as he insisted. He was right, of course, and I never forgave myself for letting him go away so very sad.”

  Letting him go away sad?

  “But weren’t you his lover for years? I thought he still saw you often, even after the war. Is that not right?”

  Lara shakes her head.

  “After June 19, 1941, at one thirty in the afternoon, we never met up again. We knew each other for four months and yes, we were lovers, I don’t find it easy to say that to you, but that’s how it was. He remained the focus of my life for years. I never spoke to him again, though. I saw him once, but he didn’t see me. Six months after we ended the affair, I had to visit Bern. It was getting dark and it was snowing. I was walking across the square in front of the station with an umbrella in my hand when I saw him deep in conversation with another man. He didn’t notice me, he was out without a hat or umbrella, the collar of his coat was turned up. They were gone before I knew it.”

  She stops speaking. Emma can see that the woman with whom she is having such an intimate conversation is unable to speak another word. As if she has only just heard what she is saying and has realized that she is talking to the daughter of the man she had come to love in such a short period of time.

  Emma sits beside her, feeling somewhat lost and lonely. So her mother had only been speculating. Oscar had not led the double life that she had spoken about so casually.