It Was That Night

by Rikke Barfod

  It’s afternoon and Mum and I are on the way to Granny and Granddad. Jacov is sleeping.

  “So, we brought my father back with us,” Mum says when we have sat down.

  Granny looks as if she’s suddenly woken up from a nightmare. She puts her hands over her heart. Granddad removes his pipe and puts it on the table with a clang. He asks:

  “How is he?”

  “Frail and old. Bitter. But he is smiling a bit more. I just wish I had gone to see him much earlier.”

  Granny shifts in her chair, trails her fingers through her hair, ends up folding them in her lap.

  Granddad says: “Has he … err, Ursula.”

  “Oh, Father, you’re impossible. No, he has not yet met her.”

  Mum explains the whole story about Jacov’s old house.

  Granny and Granddad look at each other and politely continue to listen to Mum. Mum ends by saying: “So, unfortunately, Ursula got so sad that she had disappeared when we came back with Jacov. It was actually Claire who made him understand that Ursula was more important than his bitter feelings.”

  Mum goes silent and looks at Granny. “I think I should tell you that Mogens has moved away for some time. All this has been a bit too much for him.”

  The corners of Granny’s mouth turn downward. “I’m sorry to hear that, but Inga, is it right to have Claire mixed up in all this?”

  Mum shrugs her shoulders, “Mother, she is involved whether she wants to be or not. And without her, I don’t think things would have succeeded as well as they have done.”

  I look at Mum in surprise. I didn’t think I had done anything.

  “I actually came to invite you to dinner tonight, so you can meet Jacov, my father.”

  Granny sits studying her nails, as if they are the most important thing in the world.

  “Is he very angry with us?” she finally asks.

  Granddad throws her a surprised glance.

  “No. Just so very sad. But he has come through all the horrors as a beautiful old man.”

  “Beautiful?” I splutter.

  “Not to look at, you nit, but inside. Imagine having seen and experienced so much evil which cannot even be described, and to come out as if not exactly whole, but still as a human being.”

  Again, Mum surprises me. I wouldn’t have guessed she felt like that.

  On the way back from Granny and Granddad’s I ask Mum, “How come you never said anything to them about being able to see things that nobody else saw, and that Jacov had been found?”

  “I don’t really know. It was easier not to. They wouldn’t have understood. Claire, I’ve been thinking. If it will help you, I want you to read the rest of my diary. Maybe you will understand then.”

  Again Mum astonishes me. I feel a blush creep onto my face.

  “Err,” is the only intelligent answer I have.

  “I think it’s better this way, so you don’t have to do it secretly,” Mum says and laughs. But I want to read through it first. There are things I don’t want my teenage daughter to read.”

  How on earth does Mum know I have been sneaking upstairs to read more? To change the subject, I ask: “Mum, weren’t you mad at Granny and Granddad when they didn’t tell you about Jacov being alive?”

  “Absolutely. As I told you I moved to Copenhagen after college and didn’t see them for some years.”

  “That can’t have been easy for them.”

  “At that time, I was so angry they had kept it a secret from me. It wasn’t until I talked to Hannah..”

  “Hannah?”

  “Isaac’s mother, my aunt. You know, before I met Mogens I lived with Clara. She persuaded me to visit Hannah, so I could learn about being Jewish. After having talked to Hannah, I understood a bit more how it must have been for father and mother. I began to forgive them. And I did miss them, of course, so I contacted them again.”

  “But Mum, it wasn’t Granny and Granddad’s fault that they couldn’t understand about being able to see things. Dad doesn’t understand it either.”

  I suddenly feel elated that I am able to understand someone else’s viewpoint – even if they don’t understand mine.

  Mum sounds sad. She unlocks the door: “No, but it doesn’t make it easier, does it? And they should have told me that Jacov had been found.”

  “I agree,” I say and jump on my bike to go for a ride in the forest.

  Granny and Granddad come for dinner. I meet them outside. Granny is wearing her visiting hat, and Granddad his new jacket. Granddad squares his shoulders and looks at Granny.

  “Well, here goes,” he says.

  They enter hesitantly, as if they are unsure of their welcome. They ooze uncomfortableness. Granny keeps fiddling with her necklace. Granddad takes his pipe up from his pocket then puts it back again.

  It must be very weird for them, I think. To meet the man they’d hoped they’d never meet.

  Granny looks horrified at the scar on Jacov’s face. I am so used to it by now I don’t even notice it anymore. Jacov’s clothes look like he slept in them, and there’s an egg stain on his shirt. Granny pulls herself together, goes straight to Jacov, takes his hands in hers and whispers, “I am so sorry.” Wow, she speaks German. She bursts into tears. Jacov wipes them away with a handkerchief. It is almost clean.

  “Don’t be sad,” he says. “I have a daughter now – and a granddaughter.”

  “But you lost so many years,” she cries.

  Granddad comes forward. He too speaks German. “I am glad to meet you,” he says, very formally.

  Jacov says something that makes me hold my breath in surprise.

  “I think you are sorry to meet me.”

  “No,” Granddad says. “I mean it. It is an honour to meet my daughter’s father. Maybe now I will understand her more.”

  “Maybe not,” Jacov says. “This little one,” he points at me, “says the light disappears when thoughts are black. For so many years I lived with not even black thoughts – I don’t know...” Here his German goes funny. I am learning that’s when he slips into speaking Yiddish, a sort of Jewish language.

  “Ach jah,” he ends saying. “I found a daughter and a granddaughter – or rather they found me. Even if I didn’t meet Ursula.” His mouth turns down at the corners. He shouts: “How could I be so stupid, as if my feelings about a house were worth more than Ursula.”

  Both grandparents look very uncomfortable. They are saved by Isaac entering the room. Mum comes in and introduces him to Granny and Granddad. “Come and eat,” she says. “I have been trying to make something Hannah told me that Leah used to make: Gefillte Fisch.”

  I wrinkle my nose. Mum has been in the kitchen all day. The whole house stinks of fish. I wish Dad was here. To see us all act normally, eating this strange thing that actually tastes good. The conversation is mostly about the food, and how my school is going.

  I cannot answer that. I haven’t been to school for several weeks.

  Jacov says, “Sarah, this tastes really nice.”

  Both grandparents look surprised on hearing the name Sarah. Granny’s arm stops in mid-air with her glass. Mum says, “Yes, from now on I would prefer to be called Sarah. It fits me much more comfortably.”

  Granny grips the big pearl on her necklace and looks as if she’s just eaten a sour lemon. But she doesn’t say anything.

  Fortunately, Ellen rushes in just as the atmosphere is getting tense. Seeing us all sitting down eating she stops in her tracks. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you had guests.”

  Jacov asks, “Your friend?”

  “Yeah, this is Ellen,” I say. “Ellen, meet my grandfather Jacov.” I hear Granddad’s fork fall down on his plate when I say the word grandfather.

  Mum asks Ellen if she wants to eat dessert with us, and Ellen sits down beside me on the bench.

  Dinner is finally over. Ellen and I hurry upstairs and flop down on my bed giggling hysterically.

  “Oh, my God,” I say. “Was that awful.”

  “W
hy, I thought they were all having the time of their life.” Ellen grins,

  “It really is strange that you seem to be rather normal and yet associate with ghosts and things.”

  I throw three cushions at her. She retaliates. We end up laughing so much that we have to put our hands over our mouths, so as not to scream aloud with laughter.

  “But honestly, when are you coming back to school?” Ellen asks, when we can’t laugh anymore.

  Chapter 38

  Claire

  3rd May 1983

  I’m back at school next day. Fortunately, I haven’t missed too much as they have been busy with the play about the Jews escaping. The play is good. It’s about a baker’s maid who betrayed the eighty Jews hiding in the attic of the Church in Gilleleje when they were waiting to escape to Sweden. Apparently, she was in love with a German soldier and probably hoped he would like her. Prissy-Lissy is the baker’s maid. She is good. I have a small part as a woman who is hiding Jews.

  Kirsten has decided that the whole class is going to Germany next year to see the Sachenhausen and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. I feel I have heard enough about concentration camps from Jacov.

  “Umm.” Jacov says, when I tell him and Mum about it. He sounds petulant. “Why on earth would you want to submit children to that? The war finished a long time ago.”

  “I think it’s a good idea,” Mum says. “It is important that the Holocaust is never forgotten. And that children will learn and understand not to bully those who are different in some way, from themselves.”

  Oh well, when she puts it like that.

  I’m at home doing homework when the phone rings. Oh, God, that’s Peter on the phone saying he wants to come over. He has heard I’ve been to Germany. He wants us to do the German essay together. I don’t know why. I think my heart is bursting out of me. The door bell! That’s him. Deep breaths!

  We go up to my room and sit down at my desk next to each other.

  “Don’t you think school stinks,” he asks turning to me.

  “Not really, I just wish grammar hadn’t been invented.”

  Peter grins, and we open the books. “What does this mean?” he asks pointing at a word in the book.

  My face gets all hot when he accidently touches my hand. Suddenly he puts his arm around me. My body feels warm and light at the same time. I don’t know what to do and just smile goofily. At that moment Ellen waltzes in. Her face becomes as white as mine is red. She stares. Oh Lord, how could I forget she too fancies him? I should have told him not to come.

  “Ellen,” I croak.

  She whirls around like a spinning top, almost cannons into Jacov who is entering with tea. He just manages to dump the tray on top of the bookcase and get out of her way. It’s too much. I spurt after her.

  “Ellen, honestly, he just wanted us to do the German lesson. I didn’t know that …”

  She is so furious that her words fall over each other. “You know I fancy him? How could you? I thought you were my best friend.”

  She storms out of the house. She is on her bike before her feet have even left the last step.

  I stand looking after her, totally lost. Peter comes out.

  “What was all that about?” he asks. When I answer him, my voice sounds as if it comes from far away.

  “Peter, it’s better you go. We can do it another day.”

  Fortunately, he doesn’t argue. I burst into tears as soon as he is out of sight. Jacov drags me into the kitchen, sits me down and makes me tell why I am crying, and why Ellen rushed off.

  “What shall I do? I don’t want to lose Ellen,” I wail.

  “Why don’t you go and tell her exactly what you have told me?” Jacov asks.

  “I can’t. She won’t listen. I know her,” I sob.

  He gently pushes me away. “You think you know her. Give it a try.”

  “Well, it can’t be worse than it is now,” I think.

  It can. Ellen is so mad, it almost looks as if smoke is coming out of her ears.

  “Ellen, I’m so sorry. But it wasn’t my fault. He just did it. I didn’t …” I stop. Ellen doesn’t even listen. Her words hit each other, like stones falling on a tiled floor. Her arms flail like a windmill, she kicks her legs at me. I have to back off. I try saying something again. She throws a book at me. It misses. Finally, I leave.

  I can’t bear it. This is so bad. Not having Ellen is like losing my right arm. It can’t get any more awful, can it? It does. I’m inclined to believe that hell is better than this.

  Thursday, 5th May

  Ellen glares at me and turns away when I sit down. She starts hanging out with Lily. At break they are always together. Prissy-Lissy begins tormenting me again when she realizes that Ellen is not going to stick up for me.

  Sunday, 22nd May

  I keep having nightmares. I am sucked into a black hole, while an orchestra plays Bach in a completely hideous wrong octave. Slimy arms reach out for me. I wake up screaming. Fortunately, Mum doesn’t hear anything. I can’t bear this anymore. Next day, I walk over to Ellen’s house again. Mrs. Birk, her mother, answers the door.

  “I’m so sorry, Claire, She won’t see you. She is in such a state – there’s nothing I can do. It will pass, you know. We also miss you, Claire.”

  I nod mutely and turn away. I am getting desperate. I don’t know what to do. I grab my bike. I just have to get away. After hours of riding, I end up in the forest not far from my secret place. I’m tired. I might as well go and sit down out of the wind. It’s so peaceful here. I look at the beech leaves. They have that beautiful light green shimmering spring colour you don’t find anywhere else. I sniff at the different smells wafting with the wind. Birds are busy building nests. Two tiny dandelion fairies wave at me. They look very sweet in their yellow frocks. I wave back but I don’t want to talk to them right now. I begin to cry. It’s so unfair. The worst is that there is nothing I can do; it feels like being inside a barrel that’s squeezing me from all sides. It’s hopeless. I scream from self-pity, desperation, loneliness. Those colours Ursula talks about are now swirling black weird hideous shapes.

  I wake up. It’s pitch dark. “Oh, God, where am I? Am I caught in my nightmare? Where’s the light?” Reaching for the switch, something scratches my face. I hold my breath in fear – then remember. How could I be so stupid to fall asleep? I’d better get home. I begin to crawl out. An animal snorts. What is it? A badger? I sit quiet as a mouse. Something wet licks my hand. It sniffs and a rhythmic beating hits my legs. It barks. I recognize Charlie, Ellen’s dog. But what is he doing here?

  Ellen’s voice shouts: “Charlie.”

  Is Ellen here? Why? I hear other voices. A torch shines right into my face.

  “You daft idiot,” Ellen cries, “You …”

  She is interrupted. Mum rushes forward and grabs me. “Claire, I’ve been so scared. What were you doing?”

  “I fell asleep,” I mutter.

  Mum shakes me. “How could you be so stupid. If it hadn’t been for Ellen insisting on bringing Charlie ...”

  I turn towards Ellen who is still shining the torch on me. “Thanks,” I mutter.

  “Don’t mention it.” Ellen being polite! Panic rises from my stomach. She has to listen to me.

  “Mum, I need to talk to Ellen alone, I’ll come right back afterwards.”

  Mum nods, and walks a little way away from us and waits.

  “Ellen, I really am sorry, I didn’t mean to …” I stop, remembering what Jacov said: ‘Say it as it is.’

  “Listen, I’ve fancied him as long as you have. But I swear, I never encouraged him. I just got so happy when he rang to come over, that I didn’t even think ....”

  Ellen starts talking so fast that she stumbles over her words, shouts: “Ouch!” and begins laughing hysterically.

  “What is it?” I ask, concerned.

  “I bit my damn tongue. Okay, that got me down to earth. So tell. I promise to listen. That’s what him your German grandfather also s
aid. He told me to listen. What was that about fancying Peter?”

  Had Ellen been talking to Jacov?

  I start telling the sad tale all over. Ellen starts laughing again. “You should have seen Peter’s face. You know what they say about a sea of emotions passing over someone’s face. That’s how he looked, the double dealing scum.”

  “But Ellen, I never did anything to lure him to me.”

  “I believe you. And I did miss being with you. It’s just …” She twists her hair, bites her lip. “I am sorry that I let the others tease you. And then when your Mum called and said you’d gone missing, I got really scared.”

  “So, are we friends again, then?”

  Ellen gives me a bear hug. “Course we are. Just never scare me like that again.”

  “But what about Peter?”

  “He probably wanted free help with the German essay and thought he could get it by pretending to … Anyway what an idiot. You know he actually asked me if I wanted to come to the cinema with him on Saturday. Fat chance.”

  Ellen takes my arm. We begin walking over to Mum and Charlie.

  “Oops, I need to bring my bike.” We turn back to the big oak tree where I put the bike.

  “Listen, Christian just asked me to go to Burger King with him after school. He is actually sort of nice when you get to know him.”

  It seems that the moon and sun shine at the same time. The leaves rustle. We all walk home arm in arm.

  Chapter 39

  Claire

  Monday 23rd May 1983

  Mum’s shaking me.

  Darn, I’ve overslept. My head feels fuzzy. When I sit up I am attacked by a cough ending in a big sneeze.

  Mum says, “I’d better phone Kirsten to let her know you’re not coming today.”

  “Why ever not?”

  Mum puts her hand on my forehead. “You’ve got a temperature,” she says. “Probably comes from sleeping on damp ground.”