The Earth Is Singing

by Vanessa Curtis

  My room-mates are not the quietest either.

  Mama sighs and fidgets in her sleep.

  Omama snores and coughs and mutters angry-sounding words.

  All in all I get about one hour of sleep.

  The three of us struggle up into sitting positions and open our suitcases to find clean clothes.

  “I could do with a wash,” says Mama. “I hope Georgs brings us up some water.”

  My uncle pushes up the hatch, right on cue, and passes a bowl of water up. Then he disappears for a moment, grunting with effort as he descends the ladder. His next appearance yields a tray full of rolls, jam and coffee.

  Omama’s face lights up a little at this.

  “God bless you,” she says to my uncle. He gives a faint smile. It doesn’t look as if he got much sleep either.

  “Is Brigita going to honour us with a visit?” says Mama. “I would like to see my sister-in-law, particularly as I am hiding in her house.”

  Uncle Georgs sighs. He glances at me, in that annoying way which adults have when they are not sure that they should say something in front of me.

  I busy myself splashing water on my face from the white china bowl.

  “Hold on,” he says. He heaves himself up through the hatch and comes to stand stooped in the middle of the floor.

  “Brigita was not keen on the idea of you coming here,” says my uncle. “It was I who insisted. Niklas was a good man.”

  Niklas is Papa.

  “Why are you speaking about him as if he is no longer alive?” I say, panic rising in my chest. “He is in Russia. He will come back when the war is over!”

  More looks pass between the adults. I wish they wouldn’t do this. Do they think that I am blind?

  My blindness is starting to lift a little. The more I see what is happening at the hands of the Nazis, the more I have been worrying about what has happened to Papa at the hands of the Soviets. I never realized that people could be capable of such horrors. And I keep wondering why we haven’t heard anything from him. Not even a line in a letter or a rumour from someone who might know him.

  I know that Papa would try to contact us if he could.

  Mama pats my arm and gives me a reassuring smile. Then she helps Omama into her skirt and blouse.

  “I’m sorry, Hanna,” says my uncle, sitting down on the edge of my bed. “It was just a figure of speech. All I meant was that you are family. Your papa would want me to help you.”

  That’s true. Papa and Uncle Georgs always did get on, in a pipe-smoking sort of a way. The two of them spent hours walking up and down the gravel terrace of our old villa, puffing out clouds of choking smoke and discussing business.

  “Can we come downstairs?” I say. The low ceilings and heat of the attic room are making me feel claustrophobic. “We could make you breakfast.”

  Uncle Georgs gives an apologetic smile.

  “We think it better that you stay up here for the time being,” he says. “Although I would love you to be downstairs with us, Brigita is very nervous. We have thin walls in this house and our neighbours can hear our voices.”

  I remember the middle-aged couple who used to chat to me over the wall in the front garden when I visited as a little girl. They seemed pleasant enough.

  “Yes,” says Georgs, reading my mind. “They are nice. But we do not know their feelings about Jews. So it is best to be cautious.”

  I nod. First Velna, then some of our old neighbours and now these people who knew me as a little girl and gave me biscuits over the fence. So many people are starting to turn against us.

  I stare at Uncle Georgs, hard. He does not look the sort of person who is going to break his word and suddenly hand us in to the police. He would not go to all this trouble unless he was on our side. But how do we trust anybody completely ever again?

  “I must show you something now,” he is saying.

  He gets up and goes over to the larger of the two windows in the attic roof. He wrenches it open, to my delight. I run over and take a deep breath of the air but he pushes me back and I fall onto my bottom on the hard floor.

  “This is only in an emergency,” he hisses. “There is a balcony here. If you get onto the balcony you can climb onto the roof.”

  I stand up and rub my sore behind.

  “But why would we want to?” I say. He is not making sense.

  My uncle shuts the window and comes back to sit beside me.

  He points to a cable on the wall next to my bed. I hadn’t noticed it before. The cable ends in a tiny round grey metal object.

  “If the Gestapo come looking,” he says. “We will try our best to stall them. The loft hatch is as hidden as we can make it. But if we think they are going to move the shelves and enter the attic we will ring from below and this bell will make a noise. Then you have time to get out of the window and onto the roof. After that we cannot help you.”

  I’m in the middle of cutting open one of the soft breakfast rolls but when Uncle Georgs says the last bit I put it down uneaten. Something about his voice seems to pave the way ahead for us with sharp rocks and falling stones. The Gestapo are the Nazi police, or so Omama has told me.

  Mama sees my face and starts to pour coffee into the three tiny rose-patterned cups on the tray.

  “This is all so good of you, Georgs,” she says. “I am sure we will be very happy and safe in our new temporary home. And please tell Brigita to come up here so that I can thank her too.”

  My uncle shrugs.

  “I will try,” he says. “But as I say. She is very frightened of the penalties.”

  Mama and I nod our understanding as Uncle Georgs begins his grunting descent down the ladder. We have read the threats in Tēvija about what happens to Latvian civilians who try to hide or help Jews.

  We hear him reach the bottom and then the ladder clangs up and the hatch snaps shut. Beads of sweat have formed on Omama’s top lip.

  We are stuck up here in the airless attic.

  “How long do we have to stay here?” I say. “It won’t be for too long, will it?”

  Mama sighs.

  “Until the war is over,” she says. “I am sure it can’t be too long now. But we must do as Georgs says and try to bear it with good grace.”

  I should be hungry. But the rolls may as well be made of lead.

  Mama says that if we stick to a routine, we will find it easier.

  So, over the next few days she implements the new routine and the three of us try to stick to it. It is not easy. The heat up here is stifling and the lack of exercise and fresh air makes all of us cranky and anxious. I want to ask Uncle Georgs to find out from the outside world how much longer we will have to live like this but Mama has forbidden me to bother him with questions.

  “He is bringing food and drink to us,” she says. “He is risking his life and Brigita’s too. We must remain grateful in our hearts, Hanna. Don’t forget that.”

  I try, but it’s not easy to feel grateful when you’ve got bruises on your skull from bashing it on the beams several times in the day and night. It’s not easy when you have to pee into a shared bucket and pass it to your uncle down a small hatch, trying not to splash him with warm yellow urine. It’s not easy when it is too hot to sleep and your grandmother snorts and snores within about a metre of you.

  The worst thing of all is that I have no space to dance.

  I try, but the beams on the ceiling are too low for me to stand upright anywhere other than the centre of the room and there is very little floor space there. So I sit on the edge of my bed with my ballet shoes on and do leg exercises to keep my muscles flexible instead.

  Sometimes I get out of bed in the night and risk a peek out of the window. There are few people on the streets around here at that time. This area is still full of wealthy Latvians who go about their daily business as if nothing were happening on the other side of town. It is so different from old Rīga with the ruined church spires and the piles of smouldering rubble and the constant shootings a
nd parading up and down of soldiers and carloads of SS officers.

  I should be comforted by the peace and safety in the house but I hate the quiet. It is making me nervous. It is making me wonder what will happen next. The three of us seem suspended away from real life, up here in the attic. We have ceased to be members of the public. We do not have to wear our yellow stars in hiding but that has made me feel even less real.

  Mama’s routine involves getting up early in the morning even though there is no need. We then say prayers. This is more Omama’s idea than Mama’s but there is something comforting about the ancient Hebrew words, muttered very softly over a candle that Uncle Georgs has given us on the understanding that we only light it in daylight and on the floor so that there are no reflections outside.

  After prayers we eat the breakfast that Georgs brings up every morning.

  Sometimes there are fresh rolls and coffee but at other times there is a loaf of harder bread and a jug of water. Uncle Georgs says that food supplies are running short even for Latvians but I reckon Aunt Brigita wants to keep the best stuff for herself. When I say this to Mama she slaps my wrist and tells me to keep my uncharitable thoughts to myself, but I still think I’m right. We have been here for two weeks now and my aunt hasn’t once even bothered to come and say hello.

  When breakfast is finished Mama gets me to make up all three camp beds. I do it even though I bang my head.

  Uncle Georgs brings up the morning paper just after eleven and Omama settles down on her bed to read it. Mama has all her cottons and wools with her so she often knits or sews for a couple of hours. I am allowed to read one of the books that my uncle has passed up. Most of them are a bit childish and concern horses or dull family sagas but it’s less boring than just lying on my bed.

  At lunchtime another tray of bread and coffee is passed up. Sometimes there is a little fruit. It tends to be bruised or under-ripe but it is good to have something other than bread so we eat it.

  In the afternoon the heat tends to get so oppressive Omama lies down on her bed and falls fast asleep. Mama tries to read but she too often falls asleep, worn out by heat and worry. Sometimes I join them but most of the time I just lie on my back and stare up at the woodworm-ridden beams over my bed and I think about what I am going to do when I get out of here.

  Most of my plans involve Uldis.

  I really miss him and think back to when I last saw him. He said he would visit, so I am holding out for that moment but the frustrating thing is that I can’t do anything about it stuck up here.

  Sometimes when Mama and Omama are asleep I feel a bit hot and flustered thinking about Uldis. I relive our last conversation in painstaking detail, trying to remember exactly what he said and how I responded and whether I came across as mature and romantic or a bit silly and I remember what it was like to kiss him properly in the dark back row of the Rīga cinema before the Nazis came. Then a reality check slaps me round the face like a wet salmon and I remember that Jews are no longer allowed to go to the cinema and I replay the look on Velna’s face and hear the spiteful laugh of Marija Otis right up close to my ear.

  It is nice to remember all the things that Uldis has said to me, though. I feel sure that he will honour his word and bring us food when he can, but thinking about him makes me feel hot and funny and a bit frustrated and the walls seem to close in on me. I am always relieved and half-glad when Mama rubs the sleep out of her eyes and yawns and says that perhaps we should play a board game before supper.

  The game kills the final few dull hours of stupefying heat and boredom and Uncle Georgs is visibly relieved to be handing us our last tray of the evening.

  “Goodnight,” he whispers as he descends the ladder and clangs us back inside our hot prison.

  We eat the soup that he has brought us and if it is the Sabbath, say our special Friday night prayers.

  Mama’s routine seems to keep us calm.

  We have been up in Uncle Georgs’s attic for just over a month.

  By now we no longer complain or argue much. Georgs has urged us to keep our voices down.

  One evening we have a reminder of why we are hiding.

  We are laughing in low murmurs over our board game and then we hear the doorbell go downstairs and the sound of Uncle Georgs’s two dogs barking. We freeze. Usually it is a friend or neighbour of Uncle Georgs but something about the way in which this sound goes on for a fraction longer than usual makes us glance at one another and then sweep the game under one of the beds.

  Mama goes over to the window and clicks it open as softly as she can. The three of us stand by the window in our coats even though it is boiling. I can barely find enough breath in my body to keep from falling over.

  There are harsh voices downstairs. Men’s voices, loaded with authority and disrespect. I can hear Uncle Georgs protesting at something and then the hysterical chirp of Aunt Brigita’s voice, which is the only bit of her I ever hear, cutting into what her husband is saying.

  Then we hear it.

  Footsteps, pounding up the stairs towards the first floor.

  It sounds like at least two men, possibly more.

  All we can do is stand huddled by the window, staring at the circular grey bell on the wall.

  “Why doesn’t he ring it?” I whisper.

  Mama flashes her eyes at me. It means “be quiet”.

  I strain to hear.

  I am listening for the sound of those shelves being pushed back to reveal the hidden loft hatch. I know the scraping sound it makes because I hear Uncle Georgs do it every time he comes to see us.

  I strain so hard that I can hear blood rushing around inside my head.

  Nothing.

  The footsteps seem to be running in and out of the first-floor bedrooms.

  Then they pound downstairs again and we hear the front door being opened and Uncle Georgs saying something in a polite voice.

  The door shuts.

  Then the yelling begins.

  Aunt Brigita screams at my uncle all evening.

  I feel sick, hearing the hysterical tone of her voice go on and on at kind Uncle Georgs.

  He tells her to be quiet.

  “They will hear you!” he says. “And so will half the neighbourhood. Be quiet, woman, unless you want all of us to end up in the Central Prison!”

  There’s a stunned silence and then the sound of my aunt storming upstairs. But instead of going to her bedroom and slamming the door, we hear the sound of the shelf being dragged aside in a frenzy. There’s a loud bang on the loft hatch and a curse as the ladder falls down out of control.

  The sound of hard-soled shoes clicking up the metal ladder then the face of my aunt appears through the hatch.

  Mama is very composed. I admire her at times like this. You would think from her calm tone of voice that she was greeting Aunt Brigita at a party, rather than in a poky hot loft which my aunt has managed to avoid for a month now.

  “Why, hello Brigita!” she says. “How lovely to see you. I was so hoping that you would be kind enough to come and visit us.”

  This takes the wind out of Aunt Brigita’s puffed-up sails. She never did know what to make of my mother.

  Her face is very red and pinched, though. And her grey hair is shoved up into a prim bun. With her thick-rimmed black spectacles she reminds me of a teacher I used to hate at school.

  “Hello, Aunt,” I say in a subdued voice. Brigita doesn’t even look at me, or at Omama who is glaring at her from her bed in the corner.

  “I hope you are satisfied,” she says in a high, trembling voice. “We have had the Gestapo here tonight.”

  “Yes,” says Mama in a mild tone. “I thought I heard them.”

  “We could all have been shot,” says my aunt. Her hands on the floor of the loft are shaking. “It was not my idea that you came here. We must all suffer because of you.”

  “Uh-huh,” says Mama in that strange, neutral voice. “Even though we are the family of your own dear brother.”

  Aun
t Brigita flushes a deeper shade of purple.

  “He made his choice when he married you,” she says. “It is not my fault that my brother turned out to be so stupid.”

  Mama stares at her sister-in-law in astonishment. I’m doing the same. Although she’s always been a bit snippy she used to manage to be polite to us. Now it’s like that veneer has been stripped away to reveal a deep hatred underneath.

  We are getting used to being hated, but not by our own family. I feel sick to the pit of my stomach. Is there nobody who likes us any more? What have we ever done to these people except invite them to sit at Mama’s table and eat our lovely food?

  I can see Mama struggling for words but she needn’t have bothered.

  Omama has pushed herself up into a bent walking position and is standing above the hatch and glaring down at my aunt.

  “You bitter, shrew-faced old misery,” she says. I hide my face behind my pillow. When Omama gets going there’s no stopping her.

  “What do you know about suffering?” continues Omama. “Here in your fancy house with all your expensive things and your silly clothing and your husband who works hard to give you what you want.”

  Aunt Brigita has started to descend the ladder but Omama reaches down with her walking stick and grabs a lapel of her white silk blouse.

  “May God have mercy on you,” she hisses. “And teach you some compassion, for His sake.”

  Then she makes a stabbing motion with the stick and Aunt Brigita practically jumps the last few rungs of the ladder onto the safety of the carpeted landing.

  We hear her bedroom door slam and then there is silence.

  “Well,” says Mama. She shuts the hatch and sits down so hard that I hear a bedspring snap. Her face is very pale. “That told her, Mama. But maybe you should tone it down a little in future? We are guests in her house, after all!”

  Omama snorts and gives her big Jewish Grandmother shrug. Then she winks at me.

  “We might lose everything else, but we still have our pride, eh?” she says.