Finding Sophie
Page 10
“Yes, Papa. I've never seen Aunt Winifred all fluttery like that.”
Papa says, “She seems a charming lady.”
I don't know my father well enough yet to know when he is serious or joking, so I keep quiet. Perhaps after the Nazis, everyone seems charming to him.
One afternoon we're in the garden. I'm weeding the border under the kitchen window, and Papa's resting, watching me from Aunt Em's old basket chair.
“How happy you must be here, Sophie,” he says.
“I am, Papa.” I sit on the grass beside him, scraping damp soil from my fingers.
“Have you always been happy with Miss Em?”
“Mm.”
He's leading up to it. He's going to say it – tell me we'll be happy in Germany too.
“Mama and I hoped for this so much. Your happiness, until we could have you back home with us.”
I jump to my feet.
I'm not brave enough to tell you, Papa. Not brave enough to say you left me too long. I can't go back with you! I love you, but I can't go back.
“My hands are filthy, Papa. I'll wash and then I'll bring down some of my sketches to show you, if you're not too tired.”
“I have a better idea. Help your old papa up the stairs. I want so much to see your room, your studio.”
Papa sits at my desk, catches his breath. “This is a beautiful room, Sophie. When I was a student in Heidelberg, I lived in a little attic room – up four flights of stairs. It was much smaller than this one. From my window I could see the walls of Heidelberg Castle. Germany was beautiful once. A good place to be an artist.”
Papa looks at all my drawings carefully. Once or twice he makes a comment about perspective, or the shading on a face. “This one, Sophie, this one is my favorite. I like all your work, but this one is special.”
“It's Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath. I'll ask Nigel to frame it – he's really good at carpentry. I want you to have it, a present to remember me by.”
The minute I say it, I know I shouldn't have. I didn't mean to blurt it out like that. It's as good as telling him I'm not leaving.
Papa looks at me. He smiles. Does he understand? We make our way downstairs, one step at a time.
I don't see how there can be a happy ending. Papa knows it too, that's why he hasn't said anything yet. We're all trying not to upset each other. No one seems to want to start talking about what comes next. Not Papa, not me, and certainly not Aunt Em. I'm under twenty-one. … I may not have a choice. According to the Home Office letter, I don't.
This is Papa's last week with us. Aunt Em and I are having breakfast. Papa's coming at ten and we're going to the National Portrait Gallery.
Aunt Em cuts her toast into neat triangles. “When we started out together, Sophie, I tried never to think about this moment and how hard it was going to be to part with you.”
“Please talk to Papa! Tell him you need me. Why can't he stay in England? Why has no one thought of that?…. Someone's at the door. Much too early for Papa.”
“I suggest you go and see who it is, Sophie.”
“Papa, you're early. Come in. We were just talking about you.”
“Jacob, how nice. Would you like a cup of tea?”
Papa sits down. “Nothing, thank you. I have something important to tell you. It cannot wait. I cannot wait.”
“Papa, I have something to say too. …”
I mustn't put off telling him any longer.
“You will let me finish, please, Zoffie?”
That old German name. I can't listen to this.
Aunt Em puts her hand over mine.
“Before I left Germany, when I was still in Munich, in the hospital, a nurse helped me to write a letter to the British Home Office. I told them about you, Zoffie – how it is important that we find each other, that we must be together because we are the only ones left, you and I.”
Papa takes out a letter. “This arrived with the early post today. It is from the Home Office.” He reads:
We are pleased to inform you that the Ministry has agreed to extend your permit to remain in the United Kingdom indefinitely. After five years, you may apply for naturalization.
“Oh, Papa, it's wonderful.” I throw my arms around his neck.
“Sophie, stop. You are choking me.”
“I am very happy for you both,” Aunt Em says, “for all of us.”
“I am a lucky man. Do you know, Miss Em, your brother and Dr. O'Malley wrote on my behalf? They sponsored me. So now, I can begin again. A small studio, no stairs, I promise. I shall plan gardens, teach drawing. What do you think, Sophie?”
“Let's put up a sign: JACOB MANDEL – LANDSCAPE GARDENER.”
“There is one more thing I want to say. Miss Em, dear Miss Em, Charlotte and I had Sophie with us for seven years, and then she came to you for another seven years. The question is, what shall we do with her now?”
This time I don't hesitate. “I think you should share me. I would like that very much,” I say.
“I agree one hundred percent,” Papa says. There is a pause.
“Thank you, Jacob.” Aunt Em's eyes are bright. “That sounds like a perfect solution.”
I live with Aunt Em and see Papa most days. He rents a little flat close to Hampstead Heath. We walk, and go sketching together. On Fridays I cook supper for him and I've learned to say the Hebrew prayer for lighting the Sabbath candles. Marianne joins us whenever she can.
It's hard for Papa to talk about the war, about the past.
“I want to ask you something, Papa. You don't need to answer me if you don't want to.”
“What is the question?”
“How did you go on when … after Mama … in the camp, how do I say it?”
“Aushalten – Endure? Each day, in my head I drew a garden and I tell myself, one day I will find my Sophie. One day we will draw gardens together.”
The End
Prewar Berlin and the war years from 1939–45 in England and Wales is the world I grew up in. It was a world of disappearances and good-byes that no one had time to explain to a small girl. Perhaps the adults did not have the answers.
I was the same age as Sophie when I left Germany on a Kindertransport for Britain. Like her, I carried a doll.
Finding Sophie is not my story. It is a work of fiction based on historical events.
Although most of the ten thousand children saved from Nazi oppression by the Kindertransporte were Jewish, they came from all kinds of religious and economic backgrounds.
After the war, many of the young people discovered they had lost one or both parents and decided to stay in the country that had sheltered them.
Copyright © 2002 by Irene N. Watts
Published in Canada by Tundra Books,
75 Sherbourne Street, Toronto, Ontario M5A 2P9
Published in the United States by Tundra Books of Northern New York,
P.O. Box 1030, Plattsburgh, New York 12901
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2002101143
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Watts, Irene N.
Finding Sophie
eISBN: 978-1-77049-052-9
1. World War, 1939-1945 – Refugees – Juvenile fiction. 2. Jewish girls –
England – Juvenile fiction. I. Title.
PS8595.A873F55 2002 jC813'.54 C2002-900798-4
PZ7.W336Fi 2002
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and that of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation's
Ontario Book Initiative. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.
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