My Family for the War

by Anne C. Voorhoeve

  “Happy birthday,” said Walter shyly. Poor Walter was so bashful he didn’t know where to look. His eyes darted across the narrow car several times, here and there, finally colliding with Amanda’s smile, and an entire minute passed before I heard him breathe again.

  This is not going to work, I thought with apprehension. Later, when we were spreading out our blanket in the park and Walter took a few steps away toward the water’s edge, I whispered to the Shepards, “Don’t be so nice! Just act as if he wasn’t there!”

  They were utterly baffled. “But he’s our guest, Frances!” Amanda said.

  “That may be,” I answered, frowning, “but someone who’s been starving for a long time can’t eat a whole cake in one sitting.”

  The Shepards looked at each other and simultaneously broke out in suppressed laughter. By the time Walter returned, though, they seemed to have understood my point, because Gary asked, “Would anyone care to come with me to rent a boat?” and after a little hesitation, Walter set off with him across the grass of his own accord.

  “Don’t you want to go with them?” asked Amanda in surprise.

  “Actually, I would,” I admitted. “But I think it’s better if they go by themselves.”

  I lay on the blanket with my foster parents, arranged my straw hat, and felt disappointed and magnanimous at the same time. In less than ten minutes their boat approached, stopping at the shore a few yards from us. “Come on, Mum! Frances! A short round before lunch!” called Gary, who shared the oars with Walter.

  I jumped up. “Don’t you want to go?” Uncle Matthew asked his wife.

  “Oh…” Amanda stretched lazily and gave me a meaningful glance. “Yes, actually. But I think it’s better if she goes by herself.”

  Sitting in the bow of the boat—being warmed by the sun and rowed around by my two best friends—the day came pretty close to how I imagined bliss. I sat up straight and smiled at the rowers, as I imagined would be expected of the only lady on board.

  There was a lot going on along the shore. Swarms of Londoners had come to the park; there were children standing in line at the ice cream cart while adults played cricket, and a few brave souls joined the swans in the water.

  Walter and Gary sat next to each other in the middle of the boat, rowing at a leisurely pace and conversing with some effort. I helped several times by contributing German or English words, until Gary suddenly interrupted himself mid-sentence and observed, “My gosh, Frances, it’s hard to believe how good your English has gotten.”

  “I’ve been in England for almost five months,” I answered modestly.

  “Me too,” said Walter. “But where I am, I’ll never really learn it.”

  “We’ve got to get you out of that sweatshop!” determined Gary. “Let’s talk to my parents. Maybe you could work at the theater.”

  Walter shook his head. “My father would never allow it.”

  “How old are you? Sixteen? Fifteen? Parents need to accept that children make their own decisions at some point,” Gary said with a fierce determination that could only mean that Walter’s problems were not the only ones on his mind.

  “Have you heard from the navy?” I asked.

  “I have!” A broad grin spread over his face.

  “And? Are you in?”

  “Well, what do you think?” Gary responded with pleasure. “Everything starts in six weeks. I’m just starting to realize what a great honor it is. The Royal Navy only takes the best, and I’m one of them!” His satisfied gaze wandered over the lake, but when it landed on Amanda and Uncle Matthew, it clouded over immediately. “But I hate to do this to them,” he muttered.

  We looked over at the Shepards again, who had caught sight of us and were waving happily. Walter whistled quietly through his teeth. The boys pulled in the oars, letting the boat glide sideways to the landing, and Gary grabbed the hitch so I could climb out first.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” he asked.

  I didn’t move. All at once, every fiber of my being resisted leaving the boat. It felt like—with this one small step—the summer that had just begun might actually come to an end.

  Amanda and Uncle Matthew had already set out plates and cups on the picnic blanket. There were sandwiches, cold chicken, fruit, and cake, but no ants, thankfully. Before we ate, we each took a small lit candle in our hands and made a wish for Gary for this next year of his life. Walter wished, “May you never fall in the water,” and everyone laughed, including Uncle Matthew and Amanda, because they had no idea what he meant.

  It was difficult for me to come up with the right wish for Gary without giving away what he had yet to confess. “I wish that you always find the right words,” I finally said, and the others applauded.

  Then Gary wanted to hold the candle himself, because he had a wish too: “I wish,” he said, looking earnestly at Amanda and Uncle Matthew, “that you will always remain my wonderful parents, even if I sometimes disappoint you.”

  We were all quiet, and I had to think about how Amanda’s and Uncle Matthew’s parents had abandoned their own children when they were not much older than Gary.

  Apparently it was nothing unusual for adults to play blind man’s bluff and hide-and-seek in English parks. I, who had mastered the art of hiding in my earlier life, was surprised to discover how much fun it was to be found! My hiding places were so easy that at first, the others intentionally overlooked me so I wouldn’t feel stupid. Soon, though, Amanda and Uncle Matthew saw through my game; they snuck up so conspicuously that I roared with laughter as they grabbed me and dragged me back to the starting point.

  When it was Walter’s turn to find us, I was standing behind a tree peering at him, when out of nowhere someone grabbed me from behind and a dark flash streaked before my eyes. Instantly I saw the world in black and white, something raced through my body like a strange energy and exploded. Someone was holding on to me by my jacket. They ran two or three steps with me, and then I was loose, running past the pond, jumping over other people’s picnics, dashing across the cricket field.

  I didn’t come to my senses until I reached the entrance to the zoo. I had bolted across half of the park, and my jacket was gone. Panting, I looked around and tried to remember where I had come from. The memory only returned slowly. Gary’s birthday. Hide-and-seek. The tree. What on earth had happened to me?

  Confused, I crossed back over the lawn. The Shepards met me halfway across, Gary holding my jacket in his hand. “Frances, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, I wasn’t thinking…”

  Gary was white as a sheet. He gave me my jacket back, and I saw that the buttons had been ripped off. Bewildered, I turned the jacket over and over in my hands, inspecting it, until Amanda draped it around my shoulders and led me back to our blanket.

  Walter, who had kept watch over our things, pressed the buttons he had gathered into my hand. “This never would have happened with a zipper,” he said, and I laughed so loud that the Shepards went another shade paler.

  “This has got to stop!” Gary declared in a strange voice that didn’t sound like his own. “Being afraid all the time, running away, waiting for everything to calm down by itself. We have to start defending ourselves! I’ll probably never find a better time to tell you this. Mum, Dad… I’m not going to Oxford. I’m enlisting in the Royal Navy—this summer.”

  I held my breath. Gary’s parents stood utterly still, thunderstruck. Then Uncle Matthew said, “Now, I can understand how a young man might have such thoughts. But I hope I don’t have to tell you, Gary, that spur-of-the-moment decisions seldom make for good results in the long term.”

  “This isn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. I’ve passed the entrance exam.”

  “Entrance exam? Are you saying that you’ve already arranged everything behind our backs?” Uncle Matthew asked quietly.

  I watched Amanda with growing concern. Several emotions crossed her face in rapid succession—disbelief, shock, fear, rage. “There’s no need to even discuss
this!” she gasped.

  “Like your parents, Mum? I have different plans for my life than you do, and we don’t even need to discuss it?” Gary countered. Amanda flinched. “Come on, I know you won’t do that to me,” said Gary nervously. “Of course I don’t expect you to say yes, but I do expect you to support me, because you know what it’s like!”

  “And what if there’s a war?” Amanda snapped at him.

  “Then I’ll go to war, and then I’ll come back, and then I’ll go to university, Mum,” Gary added emphatically. “I wouldn’t enlist if I thought I could die!”

  She lurched as if someone had hit her, turned around as she staggered backward, and ran off across the lawn. “Dammit!” Gary cursed in despair and ran after her, followed by Uncle Matthew. Walter and I stayed alone with the picnic basket, the blanket, and a handful of buttons.

  In the distance, we could see Gary and his parents arguing. “He’s a bit naïve, isn’t he?” Walter said, shaking his head. “He doesn’t know much about war, and nothing about death.”

  “We hope you’ll visit us at home soon, Walter.” Amanda was the last to offer him her hand as we dropped him off in front of the theater. She sounded tired. In the three hours since Gary’s announcement, mother and son had tried so hard to interact normally that they were completely drained, and I began to find that worse than the argument itself. Gary didn’t stick around very long after we got home either. He packed his things in the beautiful new suitcase, and Uncle Matthew drove him back to school.

  I closed the front door behind them and started upstairs to my room. My heart felt like a heavy weight I was dragging around.

  “Frances?” I turned around. Amanda stood in the doorway to my room. “You knew about it, didn’t you?”

  Suddenly I was scared. “Gary knows a secret about me too,” I whispered. “I’ll tell you if you want.”

  I sat on the bed. Amanda smiled weakly. “Not necessary. We have a treaty with Germany—there won’t be any war. Hitler has high regard for England, and Chamberlain has no intention of provoking the Germans. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Suddenly we’re counting on Hitler.”

  I didn’t answer. The pressure to tell her about my secret afternoon missions mounted and urgently wanted to be told, but the moment passed.

  “Excuse me, do you need a cook or gardener? Any kind of domestic help?”

  I thought back to the speech full of mistakes that I had recited mechanically in the spring, and was surprised at how different it felt to stand on strangers’ doorsteps now. Friendly and confident, I looked the lady of the house in the eyes and realized immediately that she was impressed.

  “Are you Jewish?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’m asking for my parents, who are still in Berlin. I arrived in January on one of the kindertransports.”

  The word kindertransport always made a good impression. Many people had read about them or heard about them on the radio. “Goodness. How old are you? Do you go to school here? Of course you do, my children wore the same uniform! Would you like to join me for a cup of tea?”

  “That would be nice.” I followed her into a large, bright house, and we sat in the kitchen.

  “I’m Mrs. March,” said the lady. “I already have help, of course, but I do know someone…”

  “You do?” I asked excitedly.

  “Mrs. Soderbergh. The poor thing just had a stroke. She can’t afford a nurse, but I’ve heard that her maid Grace is quite overwhelmed.”

  I set down my teacup.

  “I don’t know if she would mind if I sent you to her, but if you were to tell me where I can contact you, I could find out myself,” Mrs. March suggested.

  “That would be… that would be…” My voice failed. I tore a piece of paper out of a notebook, wrote my address with a trembling hand, and gave it to Mrs. March.

  She studied it for some time and then looked at me with surprise. “You’re staying with the Shepards?” she asked.

  “Um… yes,” I admitted after a brief pause.

  Suddenly I realized she was scrutinizing me more closely and, I thought, more sternly. “Does Amanda know what you do during school time?”

  My head sank. “No,” I confessed meekly.

  “Good heavens,” Mrs. March mumbled. “And she always seemed to have her household in such good order. Aren’t the houses that take you children in screened?”

  “There are too many of us—they haven’t been everywhere yet!” I was beginning to find Mrs. March not very nice at all anymore.

  “Well, Frances”—she threw a reevaluating glance at my address—“I will see what I can do. You will hear from me!”

  A moment later I was standing on the street. I didn’t know if I should be happy or afraid. What would she do—help my parents, or betray my secret to the Shepards? At any rate, I certainly didn’t want to visit any more houses. I had to talk to Amanda before Mrs. March did!

  I had hardly pushed my bicycle into the front yard when my foster mother approached me. Oh no! I thought, horrified, when I saw how pale she was. She knows already!

  “It wasn’t like that at all!” I implored.

  And then I saw that she had a letter in her hands—in both hands, as if it were too heavy for just one. “Frances, dear, something arrived for you…”

  But she made no move to give me the letter. Finally I simply took it from her, and was about to open it when I realized that I knew the envelope. It had my own handwriting on it.

  My most recent letter to Mamu and Papa. But the address had been crossed out and a stranger’s hand had written something next to it. It said “Addressee unknown.”

  I remember a few things about the following sixteen hours: me lying in bed shivering, Amanda cradling me like a baby, Uncle Matthew on the phone to Germany, trying to reach Theodor Todorovski, a friend of my parents’ who had still had a telephone when I left. The Liebichs hadn’t had one for ages, Aunt Ruth and Uncle Erik had never had one—and even if they had, it would have been of little use to us, since they must have disappeared with my parents. Otherwise they would have accepted my letter.

  Disappeared. My head, my chest, my stomach—everything consisted of just this one word.

  The letter came the next morning. Mamu’s handwriting, a foreign stamp. “They’re in Shanghai,” I whispered. “In Shanghai, and they didn’t tell me!”

  “That’s not Shanghai, that’s Holland!” Amanda hastily tore open the envelope and showed me two pages filled with writing that immediately blurred before my eyes. “Oh, Frances, how wonderful! They made it—they got out!”

  I looked at the pages in my hand and tried to push away the memory of the previous night to make room for what the letter meant. My parents hadn’t disappeared. They were safe. They were in the place where newcomers were welcomed with baskets full of chocolate.

  And: They were only letting me know now. They hadn’t waited to come to me. They were in a different country.

  Groningen, 27 June 1939

  Ziskele, my darling, by the time you read this letter, you’ll already have discovered our surprise: Papa and I, Aunt Ruth, Uncle Erik, and the children are in Holland! I can’t tell you now exactly how it happened—just this: We crossed the border in the night.

  We have been staying in a hotel for three days, five people in one room. Yesterday Papa was admitted to a sanatorium, where he was immediately given a bed and medical attention. The Dutch don’t send escaped Jews back to Germany. We can still hardly believe it. Our financial situation is precarious—people who smuggle Jews across the border charge a steep price! But Erik and I hope we can get jobs this summer with some fruit farmers.

  I’ll also write down Papa’s address. Please write him often! He needs our support to get healthy again. I’m convinced he’ll be able to in this wonderful country.

  Ziskele, our plans to see each other again soon will have to wait. Considering our situation, you’re better off with your foster parents, who can surely be persuaded to keep you a little longer. B
ut in the meantime, we can tell ourselves that we’re only separated by a few miles, and that’s almost as good as being together! One day!

  Hugs and kisses,

  Your very happy Mamu

  Amanda was sitting with a lady in the living room. I heard their voices in the hall and thought twice about going in, but they had already heard me.

  “Frances? Would you come here… ?”

  If Amanda’s bolt-upright posture was any indicator, this couldn’t be all too pleasant a visit. “Hello, Franziska,” the lady greeted me. “I am Mrs. Lewis, from the Refugee Committee.”

  “Good morning,” I answered, surprised that the committee would make an unannounced visit before noon, as I would normally have been in school at this time.

  “You look so pale,” observed Mrs. Lewis. “Are you all right?”

  “Frances received a letter today from her parents. They’ve fled to Holland,” Amanda said nervously. “But otherwise you’re quite well, aren’t you Frances?”

  Disconcerted, I kept silent.

  “There’s been something of a misunderstanding,” she continued. “Mrs. Lewis believes that, instead of being in school, you spend the afternoons calling at strangers’ houses hoping to find positions for your parents. I’ve already assured her that she must have you mixed up with another girl.”

  She looked at me with an expression that said: “Please say she has you mixed up with another girl!”

  “It wasn’t every afternoon,” I whispered.

  That backstabbing Mrs. March! She didn’t call Amanda with her news—she ran straight to the committee!

  Before my eyes, my foster mother seemed to turn to stone. “It was only a few weeks in March and the last three days!” I cried in despair. “I couldn’t tell you because…”

  “Why didn’t the school notice anything?” Mrs. Lewis demanded.

  “I don’t really go to school,” I defended myself. “Until the summer holidays, I’ve been placed in the first grade, where I help some with the little ones. But the teacher doesn’t mind if I leave early.” I looked to Amanda again, who had begun to breathe deeply, in and out. “I couldn’t tell you,” I repeated mournfully. “At first because I didn’t know you, and then because it was too late.”