Let Me Whisper You My Story (11 page)

A
T THE END
of 1945, with the tiny girl who had slept with me at night, we went by train to Prague and from there flew in a former war plane to England. With other children from different countries, many from Theresienstadt concentration camp near Prague, I flew in the belly of the silver-grey whale with wings. I carried a small case with a little clothing given to me by the Red Cross, and put Miri’s journal inside. Around my neck, tied double, trailed the world’s longest scarf.

There were two long planks inside the aircraft on which we children and two adults working for the Red Cross sat. A Red Cross lady told us that men had jumped out from this plane in parachutes to fight the Nazis. I thought about how they would have dropped slowly and dangerously to the earth, unable to avoid being hit, praying to reach the ground safely, their parachutes billowing like pillows above them.

The Red Cross had gathered about twenty Jewish children from many nations to fly to England. Another group would follow soon. Some children were being
taken by train back to their homelands to surviving friends or relatives. Still others were going to other countries. I sat listening to languages I did not understand. The one great comfort was that we were all Jewish, we didn’t have to wear a yellow star on our clothing and no-one made nasty comments.

Some of the children delighted in the occasional dipping of the plane and the groan of the engine. Others turned pale and told each other they felt sick.

A boy clutched his stomach and said something that had to mean, ‘Here it comes.’ A paper bag was handed to him in time, but the smell lingered. We pulled faces and children uttered about the smell in different languages, holding their noses or pointing and laughing, understanding each other perfectly.

One child began to sing and the others joined in. They forgot their giddiness and sang their own songs in different languages to different melodies. I had no voice and no song to sing. I tried to remember our Sabbath songs from long ago, but they’d vanished.

The tiny girl, Sarah, looked at me and asked, ‘
Gehörst du zu mir?
’ (Are you mine?) She pulled at strands in her hair and asked everyone around her the same question. Eventually an older girl stopped singing and put her arms around her. ‘
Ja.
’

I wanted to feel part of this group. We had so much in common. I wanted to join in the singing, to add my own song. The war was over. No more Nazis in trucks, no more bombs. That was something to sing about. I strained my throat. Nothing happened.

There was laughter among the girls and boys as the
plane swerved and we were tossed together. I snuggled up to a girl next to me. She wore a floral dress and a red cardigan. There was a small white bow in her wavy brown hair. Her pale eyes were too large for her face. There was something about her that reminded me of myself at a younger age. She said something to me in another language. She couldn’t speak German. She put an arm around me. This was a language we both understood.

I wondered what was going on in the minds of the other children. What were their memories? How had they survived? Had they been hidden like me?

Hours passed. The plane touched down with a bump that woke me. The girl next to me no longer had her arm around me. She was sitting upright, her eyes shining. The lady who had accompanied us shook me gently and said to me in German: ‘We are here. We are in England. Wake up, sleepyhead.’

Out we tumbled one by one, from the hatch of the air force plane. We were on a runway, where other planes sat, left over from the war. We were herded onto a bus and driven from the airfield along neat streets where buildings were still intact and trees and flowers bloomed and people walked freely.

Some older girls tried to talk to me in their own language. I shrugged politely and pointed to my throat:
I’d talk if I could, but I can’t.
They nodded. There was no teasing, no surprise on their part, but I longed to talk to them.

The stocky woman who spoke to me in German was called Martha. She had grey hair, parted down the centre,
with pins holding it in place on each side of her face, and pink cheeks. She told the children, ‘This is Rachel. She can’t speak yet but one day she will.’ She said this in several languages, ending in German.

Papa, please, I want you to tell me that it’s okay for me to speak now.

As we drove through larger towns bomb damage became obvious. Sometimes whole streets were levelled but other streets were untouched, just like in Germany. In the countryside cows grazed in meadows and thatched cottages were unmarked by war.

We stopped at country inns to eat and use the bathroom. The inns were old with low ceilings and white stone walls. We ate sandwiches. Butter was still being rationed, so jam was spread across the bread. We drank milk. Ladies with cheeks the colour of rosy apples served us. They spoke in English, this strange language that I would have to learn. The other children all said, ‘Thank you,’ in English as we’d been taught on the bus.

Towards evening, when our eyes were tired and I, in my silent world, felt lonely and cut off from the other children, we arrived at the outskirts of Hartfield village. Peter, our driver who could speak many languages, pulled up by the side of the road. Martha moved from her seat and stood near Peter at the front of the bus.

‘All right, children, I want you to listen.’ She paused while Peter translated quickly into several languages. ‘Hartfield is a beautiful English village, a whole thousand years old, in Surrey, about two hours by bus south of London, the capital of England. Hartfield House is where you will be staying. It has been kindly donated to
house Jewish children war refugees while we get you settled. You must be well behaved. You are on your way to a new life.’

The children were sitting in groups according to the language they spoke. French girls sat together. Hungarians had become inseparable. Italian and Polish children had found someone to sit next to who spoke the same language. I sat near the back of the bus beside a German girl.

‘My name is Greta,’ she said.

Greta chattered nonstop, smiling and pointing out of the window as we had travelled from the airfield.

After Martha had told us a little about Hartfield, the bus rumbled along the street again. Twilight had turned into evening, and the night lights showed a small village with a row of shops, lines of old houses, a church and a pub.

‘My aunt and uncle live in England,’ Greta explained. ‘They will come for me. They shall be my new parents. Look, I can just see some cows in the meadow. At least I think they’re cows. It’s getting dark quickly, isn’t it? That is a very long, long scarf you are wearing. Is it a scarf or a rope? It’s long enough for you to use it to swing from a tree. I shall live in a big house again, and have my own horse. Our house is next to Buckingham Palace, and I shall ride each day with Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. They know I am coming and any day now will send a royal coach to collect me.’

I nodded, but although I was a lover of daydreams, I thought it very odd that she knew the royal family and that they would send a royal coach.

‘We shall all learn English, Rachel,’ Greta continued. ‘You will too. When your voice comes back you’ll speak perfect English. In fact, I have started to forget German. After all, I am English now, and soon to be reacquainted with the royal family. Did I tell you that the King and Queen of England have invited me over for dinner as soon as I am settled?’ She sighed. ‘I shall have to get some new clothes, I suppose.’

She patted her frayed cardigan and smiled as the bus turned a corner and I fell against the side of her, but not even a bump would stop her. Greta continued talking on and on about her royal connections.

I remembered how I used to curl up in the wardrobe and make up wonderful stories of fairies and farms and cows and meadows. It made me feel better. I even believed my stories. But Greta was too old for fairy stories.

‘In the palace, they have some of my father’s artwork. He was a famous painter, you know. His work hangs in all the major galleries throughout Europe.’

Nothing would stop her chatter.

Sarah sat in her little floral dress, a bow in her hair, with Martha in the front of the bus. In the driver’s seat sat the sad-faced man called Peter. He wore a speckled grey coat and a tweed cap. Occasionally he translated words from one child to another. Greta told me that he spoke every known language in the world, and it had been told to her that he could even speak Martian, should there be an alien landing.

I smiled. This was so funny. Imagine serious Peter welcoming a little green man to Earth. Greta looked
puzzled, then annoyed. ‘I don’t know why this is so amusing for you,’ she said in a haughty voice. ‘It is all quite true.’

At the end of a lane we turned into a winding driveway. The twin lights of the bus caught the outline of a grand house. We rattled down the driveway to the entrance where Peter parked. Martha stood up and cheerfully said to us, ‘When you are rested and settled and have learnt some English you will attend school in Hartfield village. This is to be your home for now.’

School? A real school? With desks and a teacher? I thought of Miri, Mama and Papa. I hadn’t seen my family in three years now. Freddy had become my teacher and I was a really good writer and reader. In German. Now I had to start again. Learning a new language. And I couldn’t even speak.

Lights had been turned on inside the mansion and as we stepped down from the bus, we could see quite clearly that it was like a house from a fairy tale. It was three storeys high and had tall chimneys and large, friendly windows. Vines trailed around the brickwork. Beautiful trimmed hedges and flowers framed the house, and Martha told us that beyond the house were woods and orchards. So much space. I couldn’t wait until morning when I could see everything perfectly. If I could have dreamt of a fairy castle when I was in hiding, Hartfield House would have been it. The only thing missing was my family.

‘Oh.’ Greta took in a deep breath. ‘It’s wonderful. Just like I imagined. I wonder how long it will be before the royal family will come to visit.’ Her laughing blue eyes
twinkled with hope as I tweaked one of her fair plaits. Falling in behind the others, everyone talking at once, we filed through the open front door into our new life.

We walked into a glorious wood-panelled hall, heavily decorated with paintings, and with a big chandelier hanging on a golden chain from the ceiling. Martha told us, ‘The war is over. This is now your home. You are safe. However,’ she went on, ‘I want you all to remember that the English people too are on strict rations. You must eat everything on your plate and be grateful, for the authorities have raised rations for Hartfield House. You are lucky.’

Tiny Sarah attached herself to Martha’s dress and sucked the material. Martha picked her up and Sarah buried her face in Martha’s neck.

Lucky? We children stared at each other, each taking in her word. Lucky because so many had died and we’d survived?

O
THER PLANES WOULD
bring more children but we were the first group to arrive at Hartfield House. There were two dormitories, one for boys and one for girls. As the dormitory for girls was larger, some of the smaller boys slept in our dormitory as well. Bright-coloured quilts covered the beds, and the walls had flowered wallpaper on them. On each side of the dormitory were wardrobes and chests of drawers, and at the very end was a large window overlooking the garden. Even now, at night-time, we could see a silhouetted tree doing a shadow dance outside.

‘Look,’ Greta said to me. ‘Our names are on our beds. And clothing and hair ribbons too. Rachel, our beds are side by side. That is because we are friends, like sisters. Would you like to be my sister? Just until I find my family, of course, then we shall go our separate ways.’

I nodded. Although I loved the way Greta talked with such enthusiasm, I wondered about her. We were the same age, yet Greta seemed much younger than me. Would the endless chatter drive me crazy in time?

Still, it had advantages and took my mind off other things. Memories of my family constantly flooded my thoughts. Where were they? Were they alive? They had to be. How could I carry on without them? The Red Cross would find them, but Europe was filled with lost people now.

I carefully folded the world’s longest scarf and put it under my pillow. I thumbed through Miri’s journal, deciding that the time had come for me to put it aside. I’d try hard to get on with my life here, to make the most of things, and sometime in the future, I’d give the journal back to her.

Memories of

white clouds

and bright sunlight

bouquets of flowers

remind me

the world can still be beautiful.

T
HE NEXT DAY
we explored the grounds of Hartfield House with Martha and Peter. There were carefully manicured garden beds with deep red and pink roses and grass so evenly lush that it didn’t look real. We ran around the gardens and to the fringe of the woods nearby. I saw a rabbit behind a tree and tried to catch it. It twitched its nose and hopped away.

A dog suddenly barked. Children who had been laughing ran, some screaming, to the house. ‘It’s all right,’ Martha called out. Some of us knew that dogs sniffed
out Jewish families from hiding places, that they were set upon Jews. It would be a long time before any of us could approach dogs, let alone pat them. I knew that I’d been lucky. Dogs did not frighten me. Just soldiers.

We never saw the dog again. Martha told us later that it had been taken away. She explained patiently that not all dogs were vicious, and that one day she would bring a puppy to Hartfield House for us to play with. Some children flinched and turned away. Martha bit her lip and talked about something else.

‘F
ROM TOMORROW WE
shall be learning and talking only English,’ Peter told us one bright blue day when we’d been at Hartfield about four days.

This was good news for the others, but not for me. I couldn’t talk. Still, I could learn. I would understand English in no time, but I wouldn’t be able to practise my speech. I really wanted to talk again, and in my mind I begged Papa to let me speak.

I really need my voice now, Papa
.

Martha put an arm around me while the other children talked to each other or made signs to be understood and giggled together. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said in German. ‘Your voice will come back. I’m taking you to see a top doctor. Be hopeful.’

‘T
HERE
’
S ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
wrong with her vocal cords.’

‘So, what is it? Why can’t Rachel talk?’

I was sitting on a chair in a doctor’s office. Martha sat nearby while my throat was prodded and probed.

I listened carefully as they talked away in English. I’d been having English lessons for four weeks. It wasn’t a long time, but it had become the common language for all of us. Because of this, we learned quickly. Already I could understand some of what the doctor and Martha said, and guess enough of the rest for it to make sense.

‘You know, Doctor, I spoke to her in German last night and she was slow to react.’

‘She’s not the only child at Hartfield who wants to forget their old language. Does she ever cry? Laugh? Make sounds? Scream?’

‘I’ve heard her scream in her sleep,’ Martha said, her voice lowering to a whisper.

‘What do you dream then, Rachel?’ the doctor asked. He didn’t expect a reply so he didn’t wait for one.

I dream of Mama and Papa and Miri, my cousins, my aunt and uncle, I wanted to tell him. I dream of Gertrude and Freddy and I wonder if they are all right.

The doctor leaned back in his chair, tapped his pen on the desk and studied the wall opposite as he concentrated. ‘I have another child refugee patient. He can’t hear, though there’s nothing wrong with his ears. You know him: that boy named Jacques. I think the sound of bombs around him in France frightened him so much he just stopped hearing.’

‘What are you saying, Doctor?’

‘I’m suggesting that the children spend time together. They might open up to each other, having been through similar experiences.’

‘You think they can help each other? How can a mute girl and a deaf boy help each other? Still, we have to try something, anything, if these children are to be healed.’