If the other three were confident that they had escaped, Birkita stayed watchful. She told Galena to do the same. Birkita wouldn’t rest until they were on a ship and out of sight of Britannia.
In her imaginings, she had pictured herself going down to the port and finding the captain of the Seva there. Had that happened, the gods would truly have been smiling on her. But she wasn’t surprised when he wasn’t. The gods had been good to have got them this far.
Down at the river they found a captain who said he was sailing for a place called Gesoriacum in Gaul. Birkita remembered it from the time when she had pored over maps with the Seva’s captain. It was not too far away from Caletum, the port she had sailed from a few months ago. The captain, a short man with a pot belly, had an honest manner about him. His opening bid, when she asked him how much he would charge for passage for the four of them, wasn’t outrageously high. In the end it was agreed that he would charge for the two girls as though they were one adult. The negotiation was good-humoured and the captain was happy with half the money now and half just before they disembarked. Birkita found out that he had children of his own and that reassured her a bit. He also seemed impressed with her apparent knowledge of ships and sailing. Her main concerns had been that he would have his crew throw them over the side once they were out at sea or try to take their money while they slept. For the first of these, she would just have to trust to her assessment of him. For the second she had her sword.
The vessel set sail late in the morning under a blue sky and with very little wind. Kelyn and Sevi were completely entranced, running from one side of the ship to the other as it pulled away from its moorings. As it sailed down the river, Birkita and Galena leant on the stern rail watching the land recede. Gulls screamed overhead, the sails flapped in what breeze there was, the wake of the ship paid out behind them.
For a long time they were silent. Then Birkita became aware that Galena was looking at her. Birkita turned her head. Galena’s face had become a little tanned during their journey. Her eyes were bright.
‘Thank you, Birkita,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
40
It is just before the lunch break on May 11th when Julia hears the news. (She has started to track the days.) She has been clearing rocks and stones from a patch of earth so that it can be planted with grass when Erika, one of the women who works with her, comes over and says simply, ‘There are to be more transports.’
By lunchtime it is clear that this is more than just a rumour. When Julia sits down to eat her meagre lunch, Suzanne has heard it too and what she has is more definite. Seventy-five hundred people are to be deported to the East. It is clear that it has to be true because of the logic and the detail of it. The ghetto is being beautified because some important people are coming to visit. But one of the things that can’t be ‘beautified’ or hidden away or papered over is the fact that there are just too many people in this small town. So with the implacable logic that is so characteristic of them, the Germans are going to ship out seventy-five hundred people on three transports, thereby reducing the overcrowding.
Now the rumours take over, lift off and begin to fly. Some say that it is the old people who will be shipped out because they make the ghetto ‘unsightly’ and – terrible though they know this is – Julia and Suzanne take comfort from this. But others say that it is able-bodied workers who will go – because the destination is some labour camp in the East and old people would be of no value there – it’s workers that are needed. People dare not ask themselves what this might mean for the old people – there are some things that it is best not to think about.
And for the first time, Julia and Suzanne hear the story of the children who came from Poland. It happened in the late summer of last year. One day, a train arrived in the ghetto and the wagons disgorged not adults but children, nothing but children, hundreds of them. They were emaciated and their clothes were little more than dirty rags. They looked like scarecrows and were covered in lice and sores. They held each other’s hands. The older ones helped the younger ones, trying to comfort those that were crying. It was raining the day they arrived and the bedraggled column of children was accompanied by a squad of SS men.
These children were placed in a special camp outside the Theresienstadt fortress itself. They were kept away from everybody else. A team of doctors and nurses was recruited from those already in the ghetto and was placed in isolation with the children. Nobody – neither children nor the medical staff – was allowed to leave this camp.
The children were given excellent care, special food, new clothes. They didn’t have to do any work. Slowly they began to recover from whatever terrible ordeals they had been through and appalling sights they had seen. They began to behave like normal kids again – playing, drawing pictures, making friends. But then one night, the children and all their caregivers disappeared – presumably put on a transport to the East.
So it is clear that whatever this phrase ‘transport to the East’ actually means, knowing the Germans, it is nothing good. The ghetto, which up until now is one of the most awful, meanest, most dismal places on the planet has now indeed become the Paradise Ghetto and people will do anything to stay here.
The ghetto is its own weird world with its own rules and so, while no one considers themselves a hundred per cent safe from transportation, some people almost certainly are. Children of mixed – that is, Jew and non-Jew – marriages; those who were awarded medals for outstanding bravery during World War One as well as their families; people who are classified as ‘prominent’; the municipal orchestra, the community guards – a sort of Jewish police force with no power to speak of – and the fire department are also, more than likely, excluded.
Julia and Suzanne are swept up in the contagion of fear which takes over the ghetto. The transports are all that people can talk about. About their destination, Suzanne says bravely, ‘It could hardly be worse than this’, but it is obvious that even she doesn’t believe these words. They are unable to write or even talk about the book. It still doesn’t have a title – they have only ever referred to it as ‘the book’. They are unable to sleep or think about anything but the transports.
Early on the morning of the 13th, the list for the first transport is posted and having fought their way through the milling crowd, Julia and Suzanne almost faint with relief to find that they are not on it.
However, the ghetto descends into turmoil.
People try to pull whatever strings they can to get themselves removed from the list. It appears that lots of children are going on the first transport. Inevitably this has resulted in situations where children are on the list but their parents are being left behind. Whether this has been by accident or by design is now of less concern to frantic mothers and fathers than that they try to get the situation remedied. They either want themselves added to the transport or their children removed. But the Germans have strict quotas – twenty-five hundred people per transport. Some parents find themselves in the bizarre position of trying to trade with other people to get on the transport. There are stories doing the rounds of parents not being able to arrange any of this and Julia can’t even begin to imagine what the torment of those parents must be like.
In the barracks, people are packing and saying their goodbyes. There is much crying. While Julia and Suzanne have mostly kept to themselves, this doesn’t mean that they haven’t made friends. Now, many of these are scheduled to leave on the 15th. They say their goodbyes. People make arrangements to meet after the war. In Prague. In Amsterdam. In Vienna. Wherever they happen to be from. All these different nationalities. Some talk of emigrating to Eretz Israel when the war is finally over.
There are tears and hugs. People offer words of comfort. Julia and Suzanne offer them to the people they have known but the words sound empty to Julia’s ears. Some people have made little gifts for those leaving – a drawing, a card – or they have given them a little bit of food – a slice of bread, a potato.
Fin
ally, the lights are put out on the night of the 14th. With full suitcases and backpacks everywhere an uneasy quiet settles over the barracks. Julia can’t imagine that anybody sleeps.
In the morning at first light she goes to the window and looks out. People are already moving down the street, hauling their suitcases and bags. Around each person’s neck is a string attached to a card bearing their transport number. For those left behind in the barracks there is a sense of unbelievable relief. But it only seems to last for an instant because everybody knows that, even now, the list for the next transport is already being drawn up.
It appears later that day. Julia has a blinding stress headache by the time she and Suzanne repeat their fight through the crowd. Julia checks and checks again. She asks Suzanne just to be sure.
‘We’re not on it, are we?’
Although trying to retain an outward calm, Suzanne is as pale as a ghost and her face is almost rigid with fear.
‘No, we’re not,’ Suzanne says.
The two girls embrace.
But of course, then the cycle starts again for the third transport, which is to leave on the 18th. Julia believes that their luck has to run out soon and her headache doesn’t lift. Her old life in Amsterdam, the book, everything is forgotten now as Julia’s life comes down to this transport. Where is it going? Will Suzanne be coming too or is it just Julia? What should she bring? Not that she has very much.
Suzanne makes one of those pronouncements that she is prone to making.
‘We’re not going to be on the third one,’ she says.
This just causes Julia to fly into a rage.
‘How the fuck can you say that?’ she screams. ‘You stupid fucking bitch and the stupid fucking things you say.’
But it turns out that Suzanne is right. There is no sign of either of their names on the third and final list. Julia can’t pull herself away. She keeps checking until Suzanne says to her softly, ‘We’re not there, Julia. We’re not.’
It is evening as they return to the barracks. There is a mournful calmness and sense of loneliness in the air. Julia has apologised to Suzanne who tells her she understands and that Julia has nothing to be sorry for. A lot of the time Julia finds Suzanne’s equilibrium anything from irritating through obnoxious to unbearable but tonight it is so comforting.
The barrack they return to is a mess. There are discarded items of clothing, broken crockery and papers scattered about the floor. Books have been discarded as no longer being of any use. There are empty or broken washing lines. Suzanne picks up a photograph of a family – it looks like three generations, grandparents, parents and children.
Under one of the bunks, Julia finds a little book. About the size of her hand and bound in dark blue, it has ‘AUTOGRAPHS’ written in ornate gold letters on the front. She leafs through it. It looks like many of the friends of whoever owned this book have signed it. ‘Best wishes,’ it says over and over again. ‘Best wishes for ’42-’43.’ ‘Best of luck.’ ‘Yours ever.’ ‘Love and best wishes.’ The last page reads, ‘To sweet, dear and fair Claire’ with an illegible flourish of a signature after it. Julia guesses it is male handwriting.
She closes the book. She isn’t sure whether to take it or leave it there. She hesitates but finally she takes it and puts it in the pocket of her cardigan.
Later, as she falls into an utterly exhausted and dreamless sleep, her last conscious thought is of ‘sweet, dear and fair Claire’ and to wonder who she was.
41
The next morning Julia wakes to a world without transport lists. Already the people who survived the last few days are getting on with their lives. Much of the debris of yesterday evening that was scattered around the barrack floor has already disappeared. Even things that might have appeared broken and beyond any kind of use or recovery in the normal world, have gone. Such things can be made to serve some kind of purpose in the ghetto – its occupants are infinitely inventive. And there’s something else – something that had never occurred to Julia before. There are lots of spare bunks.
It turns out there are ones right under and over the middle bunk that she and Suzanne have been sharing up until now. Julia takes possession of the lower one straight away. For the moment they have an entire three-bunk bed to themselves.
‘Now we have my place and your place,’ Julia says to Suzanne.
‘That’s a step in the right direction,’ says Suzanne with her usual glass-half-full view of things which, at least on this occasion, Julia is happy to accept.
It turns out too that whoever doles out the rations hasn’t yet got the amounts reduced proportionately and so for this breakfast, there is extra food. The quantity is almost enough to be satisfying but because her stomach has been used to so little, for a few hours at least, Julia has the illusion of being full.
The day is fine and she and Suzanne are put together in a gang with others cleaning a side street. This involves picking up all the garbage, then going back down the street, clearing any dirt or mud from between the cobbles, before finally mopping the street.
‘Mopping the street – have you ever heard of anything so fucking stupid?’ says Julia.
But the work is not too demanding, the warm sun is on their backs – at least for some of the day – and they are together. They talk about the plot and what is to happen next to Birkita. They talk too about the significance of the big clean-up.
Ever since it began at the start of the year, there were bonkes that the great beautification was for a visit to be made by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Now it appears that that is indeed what is going to happen. Nobody knows when it will be yet but the thought cheers Julia enormously. If somebody like the Red Cross is visiting here then maybe the war is indeed coming to an end. Maybe after this visit conditions will improve, there will be more food, and they can start thinking about when they will eventually leave here.
Julia is hesitant to talk about it. She doesn’t want to jinx anything by building up hopes. But she and Suzanne work away contentedly and by the time they are finished and head back to the barracks – Julia refuses to call or think of it as ‘home’ – they think they have worked out where the book is going next.
Julia is going to spend her first night in her new bed. To mark this occasion, and even though there is only cold water, she strips completely and washes herself all over. She doesn’t just feel she is washing away the dirt and sweat of the day. She has a real sense that she is erasing the horror of the last few days and the transport lists. Her skin feels tingly afterwards and she smells of soap as opposed to just smelling which is how she normally is.
Suzanne has had an all-over wash too and she is just sitting on her bunk, brushing out her hair when Julia returns. On an impulse, Julia asks, ‘Want to sleep at my place tonight?’
Suzanne looks up and laughs.
‘Your place,’ she says. ‘Yes. That’d be nice. Want me to bring anything? Wine? Some food? A house-warming present?’
‘No, no,’ says Julia, playing along. ‘Just yourself.’
The girls settle in together on the lower bunk. For a while they just lie facing each other looking into each other’s eyes. At length, Julia says, ‘We made it. We’re still here.’
‘I think this means we’re going to make it right to the –’
Julia puts a finger on Suzanne’s lips. No pronouncements. No jinxing. Not tonight.
Suzanne’s eyes are bright.
Julia leans forward and kisses Suzanne on the lips.
In the hours that follow, try as Julia does to imprint every moment, every feeling, every sensation, on her brain, to lose nothing, to forget nothing, to remember everything, it is just too much. The avalanche of bliss that descends upon her in the next few hours is such that she can only remember a handful of things – though more will return to her, often unexpectedly, in the weeks and months that are to follow. Sometimes they will be triggered by a word or a gesture of Suzanne’s. Or an expression on her face or a note in her voice. Or
a smell – maybe the most evocative of the senses. Or sometimes an urgent need not to forget. Or sometimes – it seems – by nothing at all. Vaguely too, on the edge of her consciousness, Julia becomes aware that other people in the barracks are doing what they are doing. It is survival. A celebration of life.
Julia remembers Suzanne showering – literally showering – kisses on her face. It is like it is raining kisses.
Later there is Suzanne with her face between Julia’s thighs. She cannot see Suzanne’s face – only the top of her head, her beautiful blonde hair. But Suzanne is using her tongue to bring Julia to the biggest, most long-lasting, most shuddering climax she has ever had. It is as though Julia has left her body and that everything – the ghetto, life in Amsterdam, her childhood, everything – are just small figures acting out dramas and glimpsed from a very long way off. Like through the wrong end of a telescope. After, Suzanne will say that she didn’t really know what she was doing – just that she’d always wanted to do it to Julia.
And then there is Suzanne lying open to Julia and she is doing to Suzanne what Suzanne did to her. And Suzanne is soon whimpering and then panting and then squealing with squeals that could be pain except Julia knows they are not. And then one of Suzanne’s hands grabs one of Julia’s, fingers interlaced, and squeezes it with a strength that Julia would not have thought Suzanne possessed. And Suzanne is trying to push Julia off with her hands, with her knees, and Julia sticks to her like a limpet until Suzanne gasps, ‘Stop, Julia. Stop. You’re killing me.’ And eventually Julia does stop and Suzanne moans softly as though she has just been badly hurt or even tortured.
Later they do the same thing to each other with their fingers. Maybe they sleep for a while during that night – Julia is not sure. In fact, there are times when Julia doesn’t know if she is waking or sleeping or dreaming or died and gone to a heaven she doesn’t believe in.
The Paradise Ghetto Page 29
