White Lies

by Rudolph Bader

  “Great. I must say I’m very happy for you. When am I going to meet her?”

  David promised a meeting in the near future. Then he continued telling Andrew about his feelings for her, about her fine character, about her gorgeous looks and about all her other attractions. In the end, Andrew had to put an end to their talk, otherwise David would have gone on and on with his eulogy. After a serious promise to introduce Marie-Claire to his best friend as soon as possible, David agreed to call it a day. The two men downed their last drinks and went home.

  Over the following weeks, Andrew and Rebecca had the pleasure to make the acquaintance of Marie-Claire and to experience David in his new role as a fond lover. This new setting as a quartet, as Andrew remarked to David, gradually changed their friendship. Their old camaraderie as two buddies had disappeared, and they were now two couples, well, as he’d said, a “quartet”.

  Marie-Claire proved to be a very charming woman, although Andrew was a bit disappointed at first. He didn’t really consider her beautiful. Her face was a bit too broad, with slightly drooping eyelids and puffy cheeks, and she wore a pair of quite thick spectacles. Her figure was a little too full for Andrew’s taste, and her legs a bit too short. However, he managed to check himself and to see her as his friend’s partner, in which role she didn’t have to be sexually attractive for himself, and her otherwise very charming nature had to be enough for him. As, during their second or third meeting, he reached this more mature view, he felt a bit ashamed of himself. He ascribed his former error of judgement to the silly old male camaraderie he’d enjoyed with David and admitted to himself how some of their comments had been of a sexist nature. He realized that as a man you no longer needed a sexist view of the world when you’d found true love with a woman. And, after all, he was very happy for his friend. It was so obvious that David loved Marie-Claire and found her the most lovable and beautiful woman in the world. This had to be enough for Andrew. And it was.

  * * *

  He coughed. The dust coming down from the top of the old wardrobe and spreading over his head was nearly choking him. He got an old dining chair and stepped onto its faded green fabric seat. He tested its stability before he planted his full weight on the chair and stood up, stretching to reach the whole area on top of the wardrobe. With the torch in his left hand, he searched the otherwise dark space and, to his surprise, he detected a cardboard box at the back, right in the corner. He had to put the torch aside to reach the box with both hands, before he pulled it out of its corner. When he got hold of the box at last, he carried it down, carefully stepping down from the old dining chair.

  He cleared a space on the dusty floor of the attic, which he cleaned with a broom. Then he placed the grey box, which was heavier than he’d expected, between his feet on the floor and bent down to open its lid.

  Andrew gasped.

  The box, which he’d never realized had been hidden on the top of the wardrobe for so long without being detected, appeared to be full of old black-and-white photographs. But as he was carefully digging deeper with his hands along the rough sides of the uneven piles of photographs he felt the edges of what appeared to be old school-books, not the thick textbooks but the slim books you were given for your own school-work, exercise-books, books for mathematical constructions or for your own essays.

  He pulled out one of the books. He found it full of hand-written texts. His heart began to race as he recognized his mother’s handwriting. This must be her diaries!

  Andrew took the box. He went home, took a shower to get rid of all the dust and dirt from his parents’ attic, made himself a nice cup of tea and settled down at his desk with the old box in front of him.

  With the air of a religious ceremony, he opened the box again and took out all the old photographs, placing them on his desk. Then he took out the pile of school-books.

  When he’d cleaned their covers with a slightly wet cloth he detected the faint pencil-marks on them. Clearly legible, the captions said, “Quest 1”, “Quest 2” and so on. All in all, there were seven school-books, and as he flipped through them he saw that they were all full of written text in his mother’s fine and regular hand-writing.

  This was it.

  Andrew picked up his mobile phone from the living-room and called his mother.

  “Hiya, Mum. Listen. At last! I’ve found your old diary.”

  “Oh, my dear boy, are you sure you’re prepared for what’s written down there?” Nora responded.

  “I think I am. But now is the time to stop me if you don’t want me to find out all those things you’d kept hidden from me, from us, from your family.”

  “Our family couldn’t have coped with it. You know that. For one thing, they just don’t want to know about the past. Then there is the uncertainty of how they would react to the truth about my old father. They’re not interested in history and could never understand some of the things. Whereas you have always shown such a keen interest in history and in your grandfather’s life during those dark years, I feel - no, I’m fully confident - that you can deal with those things in the right spirit.”

  “You may be right. I can only tell once I’ve read your diary in full.” He paused before he continued. “But tell me. Is it okay for me to read it now? Do I have your permission, your authorization?”

  “Yes, you do. Now let me get on with my things. Remember, I don’t want to hear any comments about the diary from you before you’ve finished reading it right to the end. Is this understood?”

  “Yes, Mum. I promise.”

  With that, Andrew rang off and sat down at his desk again. He knew he had at least three hours before Rebecca would come back from her Sunday visit to her friend Karen. So he decided to start right now. He hesitated for a few moments, wondering whether he should take notes as he was working his way through the text of the diary, but eventually he decided against it. He would just read the whole thing as if it was a novel he was reading for his own pleasure.

  Before delving into the diary, however, he let himself drift off in his thoughts. He knew he would find out more about events and people of the past. He wondered why he couldn’t find out anything about that woman called Anna, the woman who had been Granddad’s first love, or about that horrible old man called Wolfgang, who had tried to blackmail Granddad. He had tried to find their names on Peoplefinder and on Facebook, but no success. His mother wouldn’t tell him if any of those people were still alive.

  Andrew suddenly realized that it would be a good idea if he brushed up his rusty German. Flicking through the pages of the diary he’d found several German words and expressions in the otherwise English text. Well, he would see. But he decided to do something about his German anyway. To be honest, he admitted to himself that he found it a very interesting language, and to him it sounded very nice. Somehow, the complicated word-order of the spoken language gave the English listener the impression of a higher degree of intelligence, to some people perhaps the aura of arrogance, but to him it sounded beautiful and intriguing. He remembered that Marie-Claire thought it a barbarian language. She believed that there wasn’t any language more beautiful than French, but that was a normal view shared by many people. In the end, Andrew thought, there was beauty in every language. Some sounded a bit nervous and stressful, like Arabic, while others sounded so languid and well-rounded, like Russian, and yet others sounded utterly mysterious, like Japanese. He regretted his lack of linguistic expertise and envied David’s vast competence in so many languages. Only a few days ago, David had told him in confidence that he was now learning Turkish, explaining to him the wonderfully sweet aspect of that language. Andrew remembered how he admired his friend’s ease with which he explained some Turkish grammar to him, the vowel harmony of the language, the agglutinative nature of its syntax and the fine simplicity of its vocabulary, enriched as it had become over the centuries by its contacts with Arabic through religion and w
ith Farsi, the Persian language, through mysticism, while Turkish had for a long time influenced those other near-Eastern languages through government and military matters, due to the Ottoman Empire. To Andrew, yet another proof of how past history will always influence the future.

  Andrew was shaken out of his thoughts by the town hall clock striking the hour of three in the afternoon.

  Part Four

  The Diary

  Preamble, inserted much later

  When I decided to explore my father’s past I had no idea of the scope my enquiry would eventually take, neither did I expect to meet with such a lot of people with such great hearts. I had assumed I would just spend a fortnight in Germany and Switzerland before returning to England with a full account of everything that had happened with my father during the Second World War. Little did I know that my search would lead me to many more places and take more than six months. Most of all, I started out with a naive conception of the challenges and temptations my father had been faced with, and I had to realize that my conceptions had been those of the post-war generation.

  Seventeen

  This is perhaps not a diary in the strictest sense of the word. The word “Diary” is derived from Latin and means “a daily report” or “a daily notebook”. In my case, I will probably be unable to keep to a daily routine. I have neither the inclination nor the time to add my regular entries on a daily basis. Also, I could never muster the necessary discipline.

  I used to write a diary that could more aptly be called such when I was a young teenage girl in Gosforth. I diligently wrote down my daily reports, but when I re-read them after about nine months I realized the futility of my enterprise. My daily entries consisted mainly of a list of persons I had met during the day, of the food I’d eaten and sometimes of descriptions of the clothes certain friends had worn on that day. There were only very few real entries of substance, and they concerned things I’d discussed with Margaret or with my parents, mostly with Dad. However, after all, my diary appeared completely worthless to me. So I destroyed it.

  Now, in my middle-age, I have therefore decided to write down only or mainly my experiences which appear to be of a certain importance. I have a presentiment about my search for my father’s past. While I am confident that I won’t really find out any spectacular things, I nevertheless expect a few unpleasant surprises, simply because my father’s reticence and stubborn silence about certain parts of his life have made me curious, and because some of the things he told me don’t match with what I have learnt about life in Germany during the Second World War. This is the reason behind my diary: to understand things more clearly and, should there emerge certain unpleasant things, to protect my father while at the same time to preserve my findings for future generations in my family. As it appears, my son Andrew has already shown a keen interest in history and in his grandfather’s role during those difficult times.

  My entries will be mostly undated because they normally comprise my experiences over several days, if not several weeks. I begin with March 1996.

  * * *

  To begin with, I decided to start my search with a visit to the German Embassy in London. Unfortunately, however, the staff there was extremely arrogant and didn’t want to have anything to do with my quest. One of their office minions, however, happened to leave the building at the same time as myself. He saw my disappointment and asked me if he could help. I told him I was looking for information about my German ancestors during the War, but obviously the Embassy was either unable or unwilling to be of any assistance.

  “What is it you’re looking for?” he asked.

  I told him I was looking for a starting point in my enquiry into my father’s past. I had assumed there was some sort of office with all the relevant records, probably in Berlin. But since I hadn’t found anything of relevance on the Internet, I thought the Embassy might have an address of such an office.

  “Was your father Jewish?” the young man asked.

  I told him no, but he may have had something to do with the Jews. I believed he had helped them in some way or other. He’d obviously been in a concentration camp for a short while.

  “Then your best bet is to start from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Paris. Its headquarters are in Los Angeles, but Paris isn’t so far, and the Paris guys are just as efficient. If it’s rather the documents of the Jewish Holocaust you’re after, then visit the Jewish Documentation Centre in Vienna. I’d start in Paris if I were you.”

  I gave the young man my email address and he promised to send me the relevant addresses and contacts. I thanked him, and before I could ask him why he was helping me he had disappeared down the stairs to the tube station.

  When I had the contacts, I phoned the Paris centre and asked if it would make sense to call there in person. They said yes, they might be in a position to help me. They added they might be interested in my case, too.

  I hadn’t expected to travel to Paris originally, but when it became necessary, I didn’t hesitate. It dawned on me that my search might take me to many more unexpected locations. So I negotiated with George about a longer absence from home. At first, he wasn’t really happy about my zeal and particularly about the prospect of having to fend for himself for a longer period, but after several serious discussions about what really matters to me in life he consented. In a way, it was a learning process for both of us. I had not been aware of how important my quest really was to me until these negotiations with George, whilst he had never been conscious of how much my personal happiness actually mattered to him. In the end, we came to the conclusion that I was free to roam the entire Continent in search of the truth that I was looking for. He agreed to look after himself for whatever length of time I needed. I had his promise that I wouldn’t have to be under stress if my search took longer than expected. Also, I wouldn’t have to worry about money. We had enough to finance my enterprise for up to six months if necessary.

  So I packed my suitcase and travelled to Paris by train. The people at the Centre were very keen to help me. They took down everything I could tell them about my father and told me to come back two days later. I killed the time walking around Paris, enjoying the spring atmosphere in that lovely city. I spent hours just sitting in street cafés sipping a strong café au lait and watching people.

  The result of the Centre’s research was disappointing. They found no trace of a Didi Woolf or a Dieter Wolff. According to their records there had been no survivor of any of the German concentration camps by that name. I told them that he had probably changed his name, to which they replied that they couldn’t know all the new names that people had given themselves. When we discussed this aspect of my father’s case they became suspicious.

  “Why did your father change his name? Why should he have felt the need to change his name at all? Are you sure he was in a concentration camp?”

  This suspicion made me angry. My father had obviously suffered, and now these wisecracks were questioning the facts that I had gathered from him. They even seemed to insinuate that he’d done something to be ashamed of, something that forced him to change his name in order to escape the law. I decided to find out more about his name change before I could face such suspicious bureaucrats again.

  The only person who obviously knew my father’s original name before the war was probably that awful man Wolfgang. I was afraid of facing that man, but it became the only reasonable next step. So I went through my notes to find his name and address. The only bits of information that I had told me that he was called Wolfgang Löffel (the German word for “spoon”, quite a strange name, I found), and that he lived in Gera, a small town in Thuringia, which was in East Germany. Well, it was no longer a separate country, with the great reunification that had taken place only just over five years ago. I only had the name of the town, no exact address, but I knew he had been born in 1921, one year before Dad. So he was seventy-five now. I thought about m
y chances of finding out more from him without giving him a lot of money. I also thought about other things I might try to find out once I was in Gera. Of course, one other person that I was extremely curious about was Dad’s childhood sweetheart Anna. She might still be alive, and she might still live in Gera. People in East Germany normally either fled the country, risking their lives, especially between 1961 and 1989, or they stayed put, not having the means to move to other places. So there was a slight chance she might still be in Gera. She probably had another name as a married woman, but Wolfgang Löffel had to know her name.

  My decision was taken. I had to travel to Gera. The idea dawned on me that I would have to do quite a bit more travelling. But where to go first? I knew I could also travel to Switzerland, where Dad had spent several years as a refugee after the war. I had read that Switzerland had very accurate records in their council offices and archives.

  Because of my impending travelling plans and because of my wish to be independent in my search, I took a train back to England, where I only spent two nights at home. Of course, George was overjoyed, but he had to let me go again. The reason for my quick visit home was my need of a car. Two days later, I drove back to the Continent in my VW Golf. I only stopped for petrol and for coffee in France and reached the city of Bern, the small capital of Switzerland, late in the evening.

  * * *

  My time spent in Bern was very interesting. I had studied German and visited several places in Germany, where I had acquired a certain skill in detecting various German dialects. I was proud enough to boast that I could understand most people in Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich, and with some alcohol inside me I could even imitate several phrases with a Berlin accent. However, what I encountered here in Switzerland was really completely and utterly unexpected. When I asked someone for directions in the hotel lobby on the first morning, I got a friendly answer that I thought couldn’t be German. I repeated my question, but the good woman who tried to explain things to me made her answer even longer this time, probably giving extra bits of explanation and embellishing her statements with flowery terms. All I could gather were sounds that didn’t make sense to me at all. They were something between Dutch and Czech, the rhythm and the intonation had no similarity to any German dialect that I had ever heard. I couldn’t even detect the word endings and the beginnings of new words, and I had absolutely no idea of the topic being treated. In this case it was probably the required directions through the streets of Bern. I was suddenly reminded of that time back in Newcastle, where we couldn’t understand the Geordies at first. I begged the woman to speak High German, the standardized variant of the language that I had studied at university. She switched over, so I could understand at last. However, even speaking proper German for her had a very strong accent, with very funny vowels and very guttural consonants. While I was leaving the good woman, on my way to the council offices, I promised myself to study the special features of Swiss German when I had the time.