The Time Between

by Bryna Hellmann-Gillson

  ‘Wait a minute, Pam, I need to tell you, it’s not going to be all fun, so if you don’t want to see it, we’ll skip the film. The thing is, I want to write a review for the newspaper. It’s a German film called De Eeuwige Jood. You can tell by the title it’s not a comedy. We want to warn people that it’s propaganda and ask them to stay away.’

  ‘If you have to go, of course I’ll go with you.’

  He didn’t often ask for her help and, if the film was really awful, she could close her eyes. What was an eternal Jew anyway? They’d been around a long time, but eternal? It wasn’t going to be about Adam and Eve because, even if they were in the Old Testament, nobody could claim they were Jewish.

  A misty rain started just as they left the house and, walking as fast as they could, they didn’t talk. The air smelled of wet leaves and grass, and the setting sun had tinged the rain clouds pink. She would have liked to stand somewhere alongside a canal, watching the ducks swimming in slow circles and feeling the moist air on her face. Not thinking, just looking and feeling, that would be the pleasure.

  Getting to the cinema early meant they didn’t have to line up, and there was less chance somebody they knew would see them. While Ted bought the tickets, Pam stood a few yards away looking at the poster of De Eeuwige Jood. Eyes glared in his dark, scarred face, a hooked nose hung down over a thick-lipped mouth, he was the devil, the Jew that good Dutchmen were supposed to hate.

  ‘I’m sorry, Teddie, I don’t think I want to see it,’ she said when Ted joined her.

  ‘You don’t have to, Pam. I promised to turn my story in this week, but I can take you home after supper and come back. Come on, here’s the restaurant.’

  It would be a shame if just seeing the poster spoiled their meal, and she decided to stop thinking about it and enjoy the food. There was stew on the menu, just as she’d hoped, and pudding too. The waiter took two meat stamps from each of them and one each for butter. ‘That’s two weeks’ worth,’ she said, ‘I hope it’s worth it!’

  He leaned across to her and whispered, ‘There’s more where they came from.’ When she looked surprised, he said, ‘The cook doesn’t ask if the stamps are genuine as long as they look it. All he cares about is having enough to go shopping with tomorrow.’

  The stew came, there were more pieces of potato and carrot on their plates than meat, but the gravy was delicious.

  ‘Do you remember Uncle Abel’s wine cellar?’ Ted asked. ‘I’ll bet that’s making some German general happy.’

  That made them both laugh, a glass of wine was so impossible that it was a joke.

  ‘I like Tommy,’ she said. ‘I kept thinking he reminded me of somebody, and then I thought, doesn’t he look like a Rembrandt portrait? Do you know the one I mean?’

  ‘I know the painting, and I know who you mean, the man in the red cape that Aunt Rezi has a print of. He was a mayor of Amsterdam and Rembrandt’s friend.’

  ‘That’s right! Is that Tommy’s family?’

  He nodded. ‘And he looks even more like his great-great-great than anybody else in the family. Maybe it’s a coincidence, I mean there’s almost 300 years between them, but you noticed it.’

  ‘I remembered the red hair, there was so much of it, and the big nose.’

  ‘Not so big!’

  ‘No, I suppose not. But it’s odd Tommy has a mustache too, isn’t it? Most young men don’t. Do you think he’s trying to look like the painting? It's so old-fashioned.’

  ‘He is in a way. He’s a baron, his family’s been important for a long time, and he always seems to know what to do without having to think about it. Tommy’s one of those people who joined up, you know what I mean, because it was the thing to do. He’s not like us.’ He looked at the empty tables around them and lowered his voice, ‘We’re fighting for our lives, but Tommy wouldn’t have any trouble with the Germans if he sat back and let them run the show. He’d just never do that. Never.’

  It must be wonderful to know who you are from the very moment you’re born. Once she’d started to think about it, had to think about it, she’d realized there were parts of herself she’d never noticed. ‘I have to think about being Jewish, but I don’t even know where to start. Isn’t that strange? Actually,’ she laughed, ‘I never thought about being Dutch either. You know, I was just me. I still don’t see why people think those labels important.’

  ‘Not labels, loyalties. You’re right, labels are wrong, they’re a way to feel superior to other people.’

  ‘Or hate them.’

  ‘Or hate them. But you have to know where your loyalties lie, because they’re so much a part of who you are.’ He smiled. ‘I’m not much help, sorry.’

  ‘Yes you are! But, Teddie, I can’t just say I’m Jewish so now I know who I really am. Maybe I never will. It’s like trying to understand a poem somebody wrote hundreds of years ago. If you really want to understand it, you need to know so many things that aren’t in the poem.’

  ‘That’s true, Pam, that’s exactly the way it is. All of a sudden we have a religion, no, not just a religion, a couple of thousand years of history, even a crime we have to be punished for. And they want us to feel ashamed and guilty about all of it. Though that’s nothing new, plenty of us were ashamed long before Hitler said we should be.’

  ‘I wasn’t, nobody in our family was. Only we weren’t proud either.’

  ‘Maybe we should have been.’

  ‘I don’t want to be proud of something I didn’t do myself. Someday I hope I'll be proud, because I did something brave or important or useful. That’s why I want, no, I need to be useful, like you and Adrian and Tommy.’

  ‘Sure you do,’ he began, then hesitated. A group of young men and women had come in and taken a table a few yards away. When they saw Ted, they waved. ‘People I know from the uni,’ he explained, waving back. ‘Sorry, what were you saying?’ and then more quietly, ‘Keep your voice down.’

  Turning her face away from the other table, she asked, ‘They won’t say anything about your being here, will they?’ She hadn’t told him about the girls and their SS friends and wouldn’t now.

  ‘Of course not! They’re good kids, all of them. They don’t give a damn what the Germans think. Go on, tell me.’

  ‘I heard about a place where they take care of little children during the day if their mothers have to work. I want to go there and ask if I can help. Maybe they aren’t allowed to hire Jewish people, but they don’t need to know, do they? I think they’ll have me.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Down the street from the Hortus, across from the theater. There’s a school for teachers there, and next to it is the nursery where they practice working with children.’

  ‘Hold on! That theater, isn’t that the one they closed down? It was just for Jewish actors for a couple of years, and now they’ve all been deported.’

  ‘Oh, that’s awful! But what’s it got to do with the nursery?’

  ‘I don’t know, but you’d better find out. If the Germans are in charge of the nursery too, that’s not exactly the safest place to work. Maybe before you go there, I ought to ask around?’

  She shook her head, ‘No, please, let me go and see what it is. How bad can the people be if they’re taking care of children?’

  ‘Do you like children?’

  ‘I don’t know! I’ll find out, won’t I?’ She ran her finger around her plate and lapped up the last of the meat juices, sighed with satisfaction and said, ‘Pudding.’

  When they stood up to go, Ted asked, ‘All right?’

  'It was wonderful, Teddie, thank you.’ It might not happen again for years, or ever, but it had happened, and they were both pleased with the meal and each other. When they reached the theater, she didn’t look at the poster again. Inside the lights were already out, and they found seats just as the music started and the title of the film spanned the screen. After a line of credits, a jostling group of unshaven men looked up at the camera, some of them grinning, and a deep
voice said in Dutch, ‘We Germans had an opportunity twenty-five years ago to look briefly at the Polish ghetto. This time our eyes have been opened by the experiences of the last decades.’

  The faces faded and they saw a wall covered with flies. The narrator went on, ‘Jewish houses are dirty and neglected.’ The camera moved through filthy rooms full of broken furniture and down muddy streets where spindly-legged little children and old bearded men wandered. Pam gasped and put her hand over her mouth. She wanted to close her eyes, and for a moment she did.

  When she looked again, there were rats swarming up from a sewer and the voice said, ‘Wherever rats appear, they bring ruin by destroying mankind's goods and foodstuffs. In this way, they spread disease, plague, leprosy, typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery, and so on, just like the Jews among human beings.’

  Somebody sitting behind them said loudly, ‘This is disgusting!’

  ‘Shh!’ another voice warned.

  ‘I’m going!’

  Pam wanted to look around, but Ted put his hand on her arm. In front of them, more people stood up and left. ‘Can you sit it out?’ he asked, and she nodded, but she kept her eyes shut.

  ‘Unlike rats,’ the narrator said, ‘Jews have the uncanny ability to change their appearance and to blend in with their hosts. It is an intrinsic trait of the Jew that he always tries to hide his origins when he is among non-Jews.’ That’s what they’d talked about, she and the twins. Adrian had said he wasn’t a Jew anymore, and she’d said the nursery didn’t need to know. Were they wrong? Was the film right? It was something to think about, but the voice from the screen was so insistent, so loud that she couldn’t shut it out.

  Suddenly somebody was making a passionate speech, his voice rising hysterically and interrupted every few minutes by a crowd roaring. It was Hitler. Standing on a podium surrounded by dozens of men in uniforms, a gigantic swastika in the background, and what seemed to be an audience of thousands in an enormous stadium, he shouted, ‘If international finance, Jewry inside and outside Europe, should succeed in plunging the nations into a world war yet again, then the outcome will not be the victory of Jewry, but rather the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!’

  When the lights went on, Ted whispered, ‘Incredible, a masterpiece of a film.’ He stood and looked down at her. ‘I shouldn’t have brought you.’

  ‘It’s all right. I didn’t really watch. I missed the masterpiece part. You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Pam. It’s a terrific piece of work. Although the only people who will approve of it already believe every rotten thing it said. Did you notice how few people were here, and how many left before it was over? Documentary, was it? It won’t fool the Dutch!’

  ‘I was so ashamed,’ she said. ‘People can’t think we’re like that!’

  ‘Like what? That we all live in slums and buy and sell rags and junk to each other, and we’re all as rich as the Rothschilds? That we control the stock markets, the banks, the newspapers and the governments that are too weak or stupid to stop us, and we’re living in broken-down houses in the Polish ghetto while we do it?’

  ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘Who says it has to? Propaganda never does. You invent a lie, and you keep saying it over and over until everybody knows it’s true, that it’s always been true. The misled and mistreated Aryan race can thank Hitler for getting people like us off their backs. What was that last bit? Oh yes, “Germany has raised the battle flag of war against the eternal Jew.” Same old stuff really.’ He sounded almost cheerful, as though the film had confirmed everything he’d always believed.

  They walked home without speaking. Adrian hadn’t come in yet, and she made tea and brought it into the living room. Ted was stretched out on the sofa looking up at the painting they had to sell. ‘There they are,’ he said, ‘the prosperous Dutch at play. Those were hard times for other people then too, but they wouldn’t have known. Or cared.’

  The elegant company were assembled on the terrace of a castle. There were trees nearby, a long castle wall and a tower in the background. Everyone wore the big white ruffs around their necks that showed how rich, lazy and well-cared-for they were. One man was playing a lute, there was a book of musical scores lying on the table, a dog was sniffing another dog, and other men were clearly flirting with one especially pretty young woman.

  ‘Doesn’t it remind you of Miriam’s birthday party?’

  ‘Yes, it does!’ Pam laughed. ‘There’s even somebody wearing a straw hat like the one I wear, only it’s a man. And those clothes! Can you imagine dragging all that stuff around?’

  ‘I have a feeling they spent a good part of their time sitting around being waited on. Ask Tommy next time you see him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dare!’

  ‘No, on second thought, don’t. He doesn’t like being reminded that his ancestors had all the fun and none of the worry. For the last three hundred years, they’ve had money and property and respect. Remember what I told you, that the Germans won’t touch him unless he does something stupid? They admire titles, Hitler especially does. He’s an Austrian, and almost everybody there has a title, even if it’s only Herr Doktor or Herr Direktor. But Tommy’s not like that, he’s completely down-to-earth.’

  She stood up, walked over to the painting and put a finger lightly on the face of the young man with the lute. ‘I hope the Germans love him as much as I do.’

  ‘Some will, Pam.’ He got up and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Can I make you a promise? That we’ll get him back for you?’

  ‘Yes, that’s nice, thank you. In the meantime, I still have my cows that nobody else wants.’

  ‘And me.’

  ‘And you and Adrian and Ma and Pa.’ She drew in a deep breath, sighed and said, ‘They probably do want to leave the country.’

  ‘I don’t know, Pam, but if they do, they’ll want you to go with them.’

  ‘Well, I won’t. Would you or Adrian?’

  ‘They won’t ask us, they know we’ll say no, but you should go. Wait a minute, let me say what I think. I know you want to help, and God knows there’s enough to do. But we don’t want anything to happen to you, you do see that?’

  ‘Nothing’s going to happen to me! I’m not stupid, I know there are places I shouldn't go and, if I’m stopped, I know what to say. Besides, who are you to say we should be careful? After tonight, I mean!’

  ‘Point taken! We were as careful as anybody could be, but you’re right, it could have turned out badly. Luck, I guess, that it didn’t.’

  ‘We’ve always been lucky! When I saw those people in the film,’ she stopped, unable to think how to describe what she had seen or what it had made her feel. ‘Suppose we’d been born there?’

  ‘In Poland? That’s where Pa’s grandfather came from, did you know that? Nachman Chaim, his name was, Pa never heard his last name. His father wanted him to be a rabbi, all the first sons were, but he said no, he wanted to be a doctor. He came from Bialystok, it's a big city, they had money, and his father finally gave in. He went to Germany to study, and then he married a Dutch woman he met there, they came here and he changed his name to Nathan Chambers. He knew what he wanted and he got it. Not luck exactly.’

  ‘For us it was!’

  ‘Yes, and if we’re careful, our luck will hold.’ He stretched, yawned and said, ‘Go to bed now.’ Pushing her toward the door, he said, ‘I hope you get that job, Pam.’

  Getting herself ready for bed, she opened her closet. What did you wear when you applied for a job? Would they ask if she liked children? She couldn’t lie, she’d just have to say she didn’t know any. Maybe they’d put her to work in the kitchen or making beds, to start at least. She could do that and feel good about it. She would meet new people, do things she’d never done before, find out what else she was good at besides memorizing poems, discussing plays, taking exams.

  In the dark she saw the starving Jewish children in the Polish ghetto. They had p
ut up their hands to her, asked her for something. She felt tears gathering behind her eyelids and pain someplace near her heart. It seemed, after all, that she did know some children.

  PULS MEUBEL was contracted by the Gestapo to collect the furniture, linens, bikes - whatever the neighbors hadn't already stolen - from the houses in which deported Jews had lived. Everything was sent as 'a gift' to Germany.

  12 Jo, May 1942

  Biking around the city, Jo thought about her parents and the year they’d spent hiding in the attic. Papa had his routine, his morning and evening prayers, his half-hour of exercises to keep fit, the books he reread with a pencil and paper at hand. Everything was timed to the minute. It was Jo’s job every morning to check his watch against the clock downstairs. He had always been an orderly man, and that had helped him organize a life suitable to the time and place they were in.

  Mama had never been a reader and couldn’t start now. What she liked best was talking to Elsie, who knew everything that happened in the neighborhood and was the only one who could make her laugh. Watching them one evening, Jo thought her mother might not want to leave Elsie, even if it were safe to go.

  This May morning the Jewish market was crowded. Farmers were selling new beans and early lettuce, fresh green vegetables not seen for months. Things you needed food stamps for, like butter, coffee, sugar and cigarettes, were scarce and sold out the minute they appeared. There were tables where people had put out their household goods, silver, dishes and books. Jo saw two women arguing about who had seen a fur coat first. The man selling it was watching them, probably deciding he could ask even more for it.

  Who had worn it? Was it his wife? Had he made a lot of money and wanted her to show it off? It was beautiful, was she? She must be sorry it had to go. Mama would want to wear a coat like that, she wouldn’t. Everything for sale had a story, and most of them were sad.

  But the sun was shining, the noise of voices was cheerful, and there were no soldiers in sight. She did the shopping for Elsie, found a bag of hard candies to surprise her parents and started home. At the end of the market she stopped and looked back. She had seen something odd, what was it? Behind the last stall, standing with his hands linked behind his back, was a young man with a scraggly red beard. He looked angry, no, not angry so much as defiant. It was as though he were thinking, ‘Go ahead and look, I don’t care!’