by Rikke Barfod
“In the beginning, Isaac didn’t like me. I heard him say to Uncle Ruben: ‘How can my friends visit when she cries all the time? I can’t stand it. And Auntie Leah is just so weird.’ I did not hear what Uncle Ruben answered. They went into another room.
A couple of days later, I was standing near Isaac in the hall waiting for Aunt Hannah. Isaac was playing with his scarf and hit a vase. The vase fell on the floor with a big thud and broke. Auntie Hannah came running. She shouted loudly, telling him it was a very expensive vase. I could feel him getting sad, so I said, ‘It was my fault. I hit the vase by accident when I was swinging my scarf around’.”
Ursula giggles.
“You know nobody can scold me. I am blind. I think Isaac started being nicer after that. He had many friends who came visiting. Sometimes I played board games with them. I got really good at it. When we played hide and seek I could always hear their breathing and smell their feet. It was nice knowing that they liked playing games with me.”
Ursula smiles, remembering. Her whole body exudes happy memories.
“I re-discovered the bright patterns of colour; the beautiful shapes moving behind my blind eyes like the kaleidoscope Pappi once gave me. I could sit for hours watching. Once I said to Mutti, ‘There are so many colours’ Mutti burst out weeping, ‘I know, you poor little girl’.
I wished I could tell her about the colours: How they became all golden when she was happy and disappeared into grey and black when she was sad or got angry. I tried to tell Isaac. ‘You mean like when I shut my eyes’? he asked. He sounded interested. ‘I don’t think so. They sort of fill you up from inside’.
‘Must be because you’re blind’, he said and blew his nose very loudly. But I appreciated it when he talked like that, saying: ‘because you’re blind,’ not like the others, who wrapped the words around so delicately as if a small gust of wind would shatter them.
‘Your poor eyes’. that was Auntie Hannah.
‘Your eyesight is gone? Maybe it’ll come back’, that was a stupid dinner guest ‘..not having the sense of seeing promotes so many other faculties to develop’ ...some professor. It made me angry. I remember stamping my foot, shouting, ‘I’m blind, so there’! Uncle Ruben went ‘umm’ and ‘ahh’ then said, ‘I think I understand. Better to call a spade a spade’.
He was nice, like Isaac. You know, at first I really disliked Isaac. I was not used to boys. He was so matter-of-fact. ‘Of course you can do it. Just feel’, he would say when I wanted to try something like climb a tree for the first time and didn’t know if I dared.
I did fall down once. When I heard the wind rustle by, I tried to flap my arms like a bird. It didn’t work, though. When I hit the earth with a thud, I cried. I hadn’t expected the jolt to be so hard. And I landed on some stones, cutting my arms. Mutti made such a fuss when she saw my arm covered in blood.
‘Don’t wrap her in silken shawls, Leah’, Uncle Ruben boomed. Fortunately, he was at home. ‘You get a few knocks in life’. He understood. The nice glowy, golden feeling spread inside of me and I stopped whimpering.
‘I’m fine. I’ll go out and climb again’, I said, when Uncle Ruben had bandaged my arms and felt my legs. Pappi laughed when he heard about it. ‘That’s my girl’, he said. ‘Not afraid’.”
The pictures coming from Ursula are happy and full of light. How cool she is.
“God. I didn’t understand about God. ‘Do you believe in God’? I asked Isaac. He laughed, ‘With Hitler ravaging the world, how can there be a God’? ‘Maybe he’s something we can’t understand, like the colours inside of me’, I said. Isaac went still. ‘Perhaps’, he said after a long time.”
A bird begins chirping outside. Another one joins in. I shift on the chair. A tractor starts up in a field. Ursula has fallen silent, then she continues.
“We were about to start eating one day; my stomach felt like a big knot, but I didn’t want to wait any longer. ‘I want to go to school’. I heard my words falling like hard peas onto the plates.
‘That’s a good idea’, Pappi said. ‘Especially now that your Danish is so good. Much better than mine, I know’. Mutti sounded worried, as usual. ‘But how can she, she can’t see’?,
‘Morten says there’s a school for blind children near Osterport’, I said.
‘Why not? She can take the tram’, Isaac said. And in the end it was agreed. We would go and talk to the head of the school next day.
Pappi and I went. As we got nearer, I could hear children laughing and best of all the sound of running feet in the school yard. I tightened my grip on Pappi’s hand. ‘Pappi, they’re running. Are they all blind’? ‘It seems so. They all wear that black armband with yellow dots that all blind people wear – same as yours’. Excitement burst through me. Would I be able to run too? Then a black thought shot through me: ‘they fall, though, don’t they’?
‘No, Matoki, sweetheart. They run just like seeing children. Oops, yes one did just fall. Ah, I see, his laces have come undone’. ‘His? Are there boys, too? ‘Lots’, Pappi said. How strange. I thought how lucky I am, that I am used to Isaac and his friends.
We went up some stairs and into a room. ‘Here is the headmaster’s office’, Pappi said. A woman’s voice greeted us.
‘Ah, so this is Ursula’ she said. ‘I am the headmistress, Mrs. Bruun. How are you, Ursula’?
I curtseyed and answered in Danish. Mrs. Bruun asked a few more questions then said, ‘Work hard on your Danish this summer, then you can begin in the second grade after the holidays’. I felt a big smile spreading all over my face. Mrs. Bruun asked Pappi, ‘Does she know any math’? Pappi answered, ‘No, but we have a Danish tutor for her. He can probably teach her math, as well’.
So it was agreed. I skipped all the way home. Happiness was such a beautiful golden feeling inside. It was contagious. Pappi suddenly started singing and running along the pavement, holding my hand. We were laughing as we ran up the stairs to the flat. Pappi was being so silly. Even Mutti joined in when she heard us.
Chapter 13
Ursula
Copenhagen
1940
“I talked with Isaac a lot whenever he had time, while I waited to go to school. He was almost twelve and had a lot of friends. He told me about what was happening in Germany to the Jews who had not got out in time.
‘You know, my father and mother left when they saw what was happening in Nazi Germany. For years they tried to persuade your parents to do the same. I believe it was your mother who wanted to stay where she was’.
Isaac also told me what Hitler was doing. ‘But why doesn’t Hitler like Jews?’ I asked him. Isaac didn’t answer. Maybe there was no answer. ‘But Isaac, I don’t believe it. Nobody can be that evil. Why should they? People won’t let it happen’. I said. ‘Do you remember when you left Heidelberg’? ‘Of course’. ‘Well, do you know what really happened’?
I giggled, ‘No, only a story about trolls’. Isaac grinned ‘Yes, in a way it was. Hitler had given an order to smash all Jewish shops. All windows were broken. The streets were littered with glass. That’s why they called it Kristallnacht. People threw stones, burned the synagogues and …”
I didn’t know all this. Maybe I should go to the library and borrow some books about it.
“Yes, I remembered the smell of burning that night. But why did the people do it? Isaac answered, ‘I think that it was because Hitler said that the unemployment, the inflation, and all the wrong and bad things happening in Germany was the fault of the Jews. That Jews were like leaches sucking the money from the Real Germans. Suddenly people didn’t like Jewish people anymore, and Jewish people couldn’t work or have jobs or go to the same places as other people. That’s also why they couldn’t take you to hosp...’ He stopped.
‘Could my eyes have been fine, if I had gone to hospital’?
‘Maybe’.
A deep well of black sorrow filled me. ‘Do you mean that maybe my eyes would have been fine, if I had gon
e to hospital That Night?’
‘I don’t know’. I could hear Isaac kicking at the legs of the table. The whole table shook every time his feet hit the legs. The thoughts I had buried so deep surfaced: To see the sunshine and the birds flying. To see people’s faces, the ocean. All the things I missed. It was like a knife twisting into me.
‘I hate Hitler’, I threw my cup at the floor. I heard it shatter. But the anger didn’t make me feel better. The colours went away.”
I nod in agreement. All you feel is black inside when you’re angry.
“Why do nice people suddenly become bad? Isaac said ‘I don’t understand it either’. ‘Then how do you know that what you tell me is true’? Isaac’s voice sounded hesitant: ‘One of my friend’s family is hiding a man who just escaped from a concentration camp. He wasn’t even a Jew. He has told us such unbelievable things’.
I felt Isaac’s thoughts. They were black, horrid and scary. It was too awful. I didn’t want to hear more and put my hands over my ears. ‘Why can’t the Jews just come here’? I asked. ‘You know, even the Danish government won’t let them in’. ‘You were lucky. I heard Uncle Jacov say that the authorities felt so sorry because of what had happened to your eyes; and because my father sponsored you all’.
After talking to Isaac, I felt very scared. It had felt better believing in trolls. I couldn’t grasp the implications of what I’d just heard. I began to listen to the grown-ups when they were talking about Hitler and forgot that I was in the room. It was the same scary feeling. Even if they sounded normal, I could sense the grey fear underneath. And I noticed that nobody spoke to Mutti about it. They always talked about something else as soon as she came into the room.”
9th April 1940
“One very early spring morning the air kept on rumbling and whining. I heard the grown-ups getting up and pulling the curtains away from the windows. Anna, the maid, went down into the street. She came back and said the streets were full of papers, falling down from the sky – and the strange noise was planes flying low. She had brought a piece of paper back with her. Uncle Ruben’s voice shook when he read the paper out loud. It said in bad Danish, that the Germans had occupied Denmark. It was the 9th April. I screamed and hid beneath the table. All Isaac’s stories about concentration camps filled my head.
Mutti too cried. She insisted that we go to America this very minute. Pappi said, ‘We’ll wait and see.’ His voice sounded like the air had been sucked out of it.”
I am seeing the pictures in Ursula’s mind like a film. I had no idea. I didn’t know all this about the occupation. It must have been so creepy. So unbelievable.
“After the occupation, all talk about school stopped. Mutti was too scared to let me go outside. Instead, they would arrange for me to have a private tutor to teach me Braille.
‘Why can’t I go to school? I want to be with other children’. So, Auntie Hannah arranged for some girls to come visiting. They were very polite but they were scared of me. They probably thought I couldn’t hear either. It wasn’t fun like it was when I played with Isaac’s friends, who treated me as just another kid.
I heard one girl whisper to the other one: ‘Why on earth did we have to be brought here? I had arranged to meet Malene at the library’. ‘Yes, and I was going to play with Lisa. It’s only because our mothers know her aunt. Anyway, let’s get it over with’. ‘She looks stupid with those glasses’, the first one whispered. ‘We’d better make a noise, so she can find us’, answered the other one, giggling.
Of course I found them, without them making a noise. Their adenoidal breathing was so heavy you could hear it a mile off. And their feet smelled, mixing with the sweet fragrance of the lilies on the table. After that I refused to see them again.
The angst went away. Many grown-ups came and talked to Uncle Ruben and Pappi. They said that the Danish government would not let Hitler do anything to the Jews in Denmark. It was safe to go to work, to school and to the synagogue. I didn’t go there much. It was mostly Pappi and Uncle Ruben. So life went on. The whole house hold was turned upside down preparing for Isaac’s Bar Mitzvah.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“It’s sort of a Jewish confirmation. You have to memorize a lot from the Torah and read it in the synagogue. And then you have a big party. Isaac really didn’t want to do it, but Auntie Hannah said he had to. The party was nice. Lots of food.” Ursula smiles at the memory. “I had mine when I was twelve. For girls it is called the Bat Mitzvah.
After some months, Mutti began going for small walks with me. Uncle Ruben told her she must. One afternoon as we were walking a most scary thing happened. A rough voice suddenly shouted: ‘Halt’! I felt Mutti beginning to shake.
‘You’re not supposed to walk this way’ the gruff voice went on. ‘Didn’t you see the sign,’? I gave a start when I heard that he spoke in German. Mutti answered in a whisper, ‘No,’ and quickly dragged me away. She was almost running. Her fear leapt from her hand to mine like electric sparks.
‘Why couldn’t we walk that way’, I asked her. ‘I don’t know. It was a German soldier’ Her voice was full of black and grey scared squares. Mutti told the story at dinner. ‘He was pointing at us with a gun’.
‘Must have been because of the Finsen Institute’, Uncle Ruben said. ‘Something happened there today I heard. I don’t quite know what.’ From then on, Mutti didn’t want to walk on the streets with me anymore. She wanted to go to America. ‘The Bernsteins have already gone’, she said, ‘and yesterday when the Rosenkranzes were here, they talked about going’.
‘How can you go’? Isaac asked. ‘They go to Sweden first and then fly from there’, she answered.”
“Why Sweden?” I ask.
“Because Sweden is neutral, of course,” Ursula answers.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that people can escape to Sweden. I heard them talking about it. There are no Germans in Sweden.”
It hits me like a ton of bricks: she is speaking in the present tense.
“After a couple of weeks, I was allowed out again, if I went with Auntie Hannah. She had lots of friends she visited all the time. She also took me to the National Museum. When nobody was looking, she took my hand and whispered: ‘Feel’. It was weird feeling the old things. They sort of vibrated in my hands. We only got caught once. The guard was very angry at first, but when Auntie Hannah explained that I was blind, his mood changed completely and he took us into a special room where he allowed me to touch things from the Danish Bronze age. I touched jewellery and bowls they had used. I felt I could almost see the people who had worn and used these things.
When Pappi had time, we went out walking. He was fun to be with. He made up lots of games. Once we were out walking he said, ‘Two steps forward and one backward’. We walked like that for a long time. I heard some people mutter: ‘stupid’ when we bumped into them. Another time he suddenly crowed like a cock.
‘You’re crazy.’
‘Oh no. I am very clever. Other people are crazy. They stand there gaping and don’t understand where the cock is.’
It was more difficult at home; even if he joked around, Mutti didn’t laugh like the others. She just sighed.”
“It can’t have been easy for her,” Mum interrupts. “She must have felt very lonely.” Mum’s voice sounds very sad.
“I think she was. But not when she was with Auntie Hannah.”
“He sounds fun, your father,” I say.
“He is. And most of the time he is happy. When he is at home he sings and plays his violin. I used to dance when he played. Sometimes the others danced too. Even Mutti. I was happy when Auntie Hannah took me shopping. It was fun visiting the shops; they always gave you a taste of something or another. Once I asked, ‘Why am I not allowed to go to school when I can go out with Auntie Hannah’? ‘It’s too dangerous’, Mutti said.
Morten came back. He had learned Braille so he could teach me. It was fun reading all the dots, but writing was more
difficult. The year dragged on. On my tenth year birthday, I got a surprise. They had cleared out a large box-room and made it into a bedroom for me. It was nice having my own place away from Mutti’s sadness and Pappi’s snoring. Best of all, there was a window I could open and smell the air and hear the birds. Mutti hated opening the window in their room. There was also a small bookcase for my books. Auntie Hannah gave me a porcelain angel just like the one I had at home in Heidelberg. The best was the cushions. Really soft ones Mutti had made. They felt like our plush sofa back home. They smelled the same way too, sort of dusty. I loved stroking them back and forth. Uncle Ruben gave me an old gramophone and I started floating away on the music. I could sit for hours listening to the records; but I was still bored. To break the boredom I tried to write stories in Braille. Actually, I am not very good at it. I learned to play the piano. I would have liked to play the flute, but Mutti insisted on the piano. It was difficult finding the keys.
The only breaks were when somebody took me to concerts. It was beautiful being out, hearing lots of people talk, smell the perfume from the ladies, feel the presence of life, and listen to the music.
Oh, My god, she lived almost like a prisoner.
Chapter 14
Ursula
Copenhagen
1941
“One afternoon Uncle Ruben put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around looking at me. He said to Mutti, ‘Leah, you can’t keep the child locked up here forever. She is looking pale. Children need to be outside playing’. Mutti mumbled something. ‘Leah, everybody else goes out. The Germans are not doing anything to us. Let the girl go to school’. Mutti wailed, ‘But they’ll see she is Jewish’.
‘Why should they’? said Isaac. ‘We all walk around like we did before’. His voice sounded impatient.
‘I can take her on the bike on my way to work’, Uncle Ruben said. ‘I go that way anyway, now that I don’t have much petrol for the car’. And so, it was decided.”
