by Jan Vivian
‘Yes,’ he nodded and she heard his surprise that she should think of that moment now. In a sliding caress of his fingers he touched her cheeks and then cupped her face in his hands so that she would meet his gaze upon her. ‘Whatever happens…I am near you.’
‘I have your necklace…’
‘Yes, I am glad. I also have something else for you. I wrote a letter to you…early this morning.’
He shrugged his apology for the scrap of paper that it had been written on and that he now gave to her.
‘I have nothing to give you!’ she gasped in surprise as she felt him close her hand over it.
‘You have given me everything I could possibly want, here in this place.’ He touched his head. ‘I have memories…I have your song…what we have spoken about…a kiss and a touch. I have them all here until we are together...in another place.’
‘But where do you mean? Where is that?’
She saw him sigh deeply. Then Simon shrugged and repeated what he had just told her.
‘In another place…’
‘Where is that?’ She goaded him to put her mind at rest. She now saw him press his lips together for an instant.
‘Heaven only knows…’
‘Oh, Simon, don’t…don’t say that…don’t!’
She had kissed out the words against his cheek and he had nodded dumbly in response to every kiss.
‘Move on…move on, now!’
Intrusive calls were heeded and they began to walk, hand in hand, hustled along by the inexorable press of people all around them on the narrow path.
‘We board the train in groups…I suppose?’ Simon spoke dully, taking in the faces all around them. He recognised those from his block, how they moved, their eyes staring at the familiar surroundings of the camp and their companions.
‘Stay close to me,’ Harriette commanded on hearing a moment’s uncertainty in his voice. ‘Follow me, please? I need to gather up my things.’
She tugged on his hand and they walked purposefully, brushing past people as they did so. Harriette was gone for only a moment as she went through the door where he had often said good night and where men and women now stood in silence, observing those that were leaving them. They offered words of encouragement and fortitude.
‘I met someone special…and I did it right here.’ Simon marvelled at his good fortune and could even concede to a moment’s sense of elation.
A lovely young woman stood in the doorway once more; she was buttoning up her jacket and then chose to fasten a thin scarf at her throat. The sun was in her hair as she looked around at familiar but all too temporary surroundings. She met his unwavering gaze upon her.
‘I love you…I love you like I have never loved any one before,’ he told her as he sought to take the case from her hand.
Without any sense of shame he kissed her, first on her hair then on her mouth as she instinctively looked up at him. He kept his lips on her skin in the only communion of feelings that time still allowed to them.
‘You have my letter, still?’ he asked in concern.
‘Yes…yes, Simon.’
‘I need to know…I’m sorry that I keep asking it of you.’
‘We…must go,’ she said sensing that official eyes were upon them. Her case was taken from him and Simon did not resist for he had his own things to carry.
They could walk hand in hand along the cinder path that led to the track where a train awaited them, a train they had seen depart from the camp in weeks gone by and that they would now board.
‘We do that together…we go on, together.’
‘It wasn’t meant to be…’ she ventured.
‘Oh, and who said that?’
They squeezed each other’s hands a little tighter as they spoke out their feelings, noting that with each step that they took drew them inexorably nearer to the line of people gathering at a checkpoint that marked the end to a way of life in Westerbork. They also glanced at the shabby wagons behind the steam locomotive and how inadequate they were for the journey of those all about them.
‘My other self…spoke to me,’ Harriette continued.
‘I don’t know her,’ he replied. ‘I saw only you. Besides, what wasn’t meant to be?’
‘That I would meet you…and that…and that I would fall in love with you,’ she confessed.
‘I’m glad to have heard you say it…at last.’
His smile teased her but Harriette knew exactly what Simon meant. With his help she had overcome her fears and accepted that it could indeed happen, even here, in a transit camp.
‘I’ll hold onto everything I have found with you, Simon.’
She had stopped him from walking on and he saw a look of torment in her eyes as Harriette studied the scene before them, of so many people travelling towards an uncertain future. It seemed so ordered and yet unreal, just as the concerts she had been a part of had been a diversion from the reality.
Harriette gave a startled cry.
‘There! I’ve seen my parents…Betty is with them…look? There, on the stretcher.’
Simon chose to clasp the hand she held out to point at her family.
‘Go to them,’ he said out of consideration for her. ‘I will have you near me. I’ll know that it is so until we arrive where we are going…near or far.’
‘Walk with me…do that, please?’
‘I…I cannot do that,’ he said haltingly as he realised the significance of their separation. ‘You belong with them…at this time.’
He saw a moment’s look of understanding, the acknowledgement that what he had told her was the inescapable truth for them at that moment. Simon kissed her only once and not even a soft considerate smile could calm her or stop the tears that now coursed down Harriette’s cheeks.
‘I’m doing this a lot,’ she spluttered.
‘I feel them too…’ he chose to confess.
‘May our God keep you until we meet again,’ she now said in a faint voice before she broke free of his restraining clasp. It had offered a parting caress to her hand. Simon saw Harriette clench her lips to stem any further expression of what moved her.
‘And you, Harriette!’ he called after her as she began to walk away from him. ‘My letter tells you how I feel, Harriette, my lovely Harriette!’
And then, in an instant, she was out of his sight as the crowd surrounded him and he was obliged to continue walking in the direction she had taken.
‘We’ll always be together in another place. I believe it will be so.’
Simon spoke out but no one who truly mattered to him now, not his family or his girl, could hear him and he, along with the multitude walking towards that train, would have to face the future in their own distinct and private ways.
●
Kamp Westerbork
2 March 1944
My dearest Harriette,
You must know from me directly that you have made each day a wonder, that our circumstances and this camp, where we were destined to meet, have become so very special. The world outside is now a very different place and may soon touch your life and mine like never before.
I feel fortunate to have met you and to have been in your company. I have seen your smile and heard you sing; I have watched you dance and treasure every moment that we have shared, brief as each one was.
Because of you, I have felt that we were together in another place. I will pray that we will be reunited somewhere and, God willing, quite soon. Words alone are all I have to tell you that I love you; they are all I have to pray that you are kept safe and that you are spared from hurt and evil.
I believe that we will meet again.
I also know that my life could have been so much worse; I may never have met you. Had that been so, how empty the world would then have been for me.
From your grateful and loving,
Simon Gerritse.
●
TOGETHER IN ANOTHER PLACE
Imagine a camp not so very far from your own home, where you are ta
ken because of your faith and customs. Imagine the elaborate deception, and coercion of some inmates, by the occupying authorities to conceal the true purpose of gathering families, gypsies and others in one over-crowded place where they are cared for, their children educated and where the men are often given work. Imagine being entertained by some of Europe’s finest cabaret stars, men and women who are prisoners just like you. Imagine an almost weekly roll call that determines who stays and who will leave in dingy freight wagons for an unknown destination – but you cling to hope, your family and fellows. Imagine being kept in ignorance over many days and in unspeakable conditions until you reach…Auschwitz and Sobibor, in particular.
The author has sought to do so following a close look at a photograph that appears on a leaflet of the Hollandsche Schouwburg that he visited in Amsterdam – for a second time.
The author failed not to be overcome by emotions; nor could he keep from writing out a love story. People would still live and be together, in another place…
ISBN – 978 0 9571026 4 4
Jan Vivian is a self-published author of fiction. He is of Dutch birth and lives in England with his wife near Stratford upon Avon. Novels and short story collections have been self-published as E-books and some in paperback.
