Chocolate Girls (57 page)

There was a silence. Edie became aware of the thumping of her own heart. She glanced at David, saw his set, serious expression as he watched his father. Hermann Mayer stared for some time into Anatoli’s face and Edie thought, oh no, he doesn’t recognize him. He has no idea who Anatoli is! It seemed so wrong that they should not recognize each other, as if this recognition was needed to verify the past.

Slowly, Hermann Mayer made a move to shake hands, once again, for all the world as if he was meeting a formal business aquaintance, but as his hand moved towards Anatoli, Edie could see the violent tremor in it. As their hands met, in stumbling speech he said,

‘Anatoli Gruschov . . . I see you now. How could I ever forget you? You . . . who brought me back from the grave?’

A second later the two men were clasped tight in each other’s arms. Anatoli seemed almost to be supporting Hermann, who had crumpled forwards on to him, and in a moment, out of the tense silence, came the weak, retching sound of sobs. Lost in the distress of memory he clung to Anatoli, snatches of speech coming from him, exclamations which sounded almost like curses, howls of pain, then the same phrase, the only one Edie could distinguish, again and again . . . ‘
Was ist der Sinn meines Leibens?
’ What is the point of my life?

His anguish washed over them all. Edie saw that Anatoli was also in tears and her husband’s emotion and Hermann’s broken distress made her weep also. Hermann kept touching Anatoli, his face, shoulders, hands as if in blessing, and yet there was profound distress in his every speech and gesture, and sometimes the words, that question, were spat out like a curse, as if Anatoli was the only one who could give answer.
Was ist der Sinn meines Leibens?
Anatoli, tears wetting his cheeks, said nothing, just held him tightly and wept with him.

All their eyes were on the two men for many minutes, until Annaliese, to the side of them, raised her hand to wipe her cheeks and Edie glanced round the room, to see that there was no one who had not been brought to tears by the meeting of the two men. David, red-eyed, was crying silently, but it was Gila, sitting with her hands over her face, who sobbed and sobbed as if she was a conduit for all the grief in the room, so that both Edie and David went to her and held her. Edie stroked her back, feeling not only the wiry strength of her, but love for the beautiful girl whom her son loved taking root in her own heart.

They were on the bus back to Tiberias, riding through a sunset the colour of blood oranges as the bus pulled away, its rays touching the golden dome of the Bahai Temple so that it glowed with fire. David and Gila were in the seat across the aisle. Once again Gila seemed wrung out and exhausted, needing to sleep.

It was the first time Edie had had a chance to speak with Anatoli alone. For part of the day he had sat talking quietly with Hermann in his room, emerging at last only to say that Hermann was exhausted and needed to sleep. Then Annaliese had sat talking to him, seeming also to need to pour out her feelings. Gila fell asleep, her face pale and drawn. David gently made her more comfortable, putting a cushion under her head as she lay on the couch while he and Edie went for a walk outside, up to the
Merkhaz
, or market on the Carmel, looking round at the shops and stalls and coming back with peaches and watermelon, bread and roasted chicken which Annaliese had asked them to buy, and gave them to eat before they left to catch the bus.

They watched the streets of Haifa recede behind them in the glowing evening, then Edie took Anatoli’s hand.

‘You never really told me what happened at all, did you? With Hermann – in Bergen-Belsen.’

Anatoli sighed. He seemed spent with emotion. Edie felt very tender towards him. She wanted to hold him close and give comfort.

‘Why didn’t you tell me all of it?’ She felt a little hurt.

‘When we talked about Hermann that time, I had only just met you,’ Anatoli said. He put one arm round her shoulders, resting it on the back of the seat, while the other hand loosely clasped hers. ‘And what a day that was.’ He kissed her forehead and she smiled, a little appeased. ‘All the detail was not necessary. Belsen was . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Well, you cannot easily say what it was like. Hell on earth – that is all.’ He stopped for a moment, looking ahead of him. ‘There were so many who suffered . . . I suppose that was why it is easier to hold on to one, and my mind has remembered Hermann. But of course there were others we saved from death. Many of them died later though. I suppose I did not think that loading you with the details was necessary. Even though it must never be forgotten, it is not healthy to dwell on it. You know that until today Annaliese did not know exactly how we met, Hermann and me?’

Edie could hardly believe this. ‘He’s never talked to her about it? All this time?’

Anatoli shook his head. ‘She says not. Not in any detail. It is too shameful.’

‘
Shameful?
What do you mean? Was he a collaborator or something?’

‘No, no – nothing of that kind. He was a victim. I mean that sort of shame. Being in the hands of torturers who have the power to destroy you.’

Edie glanced down at the scar on her arm. Yes, in a very small way she understood that shame.

‘First he was in Auschwitz, then Bergen-Belsen . . . You know that Belsen was not supposed to be a concentration camp? It was a transit camp. They were trying to move people away from the other camps when they wanted to hide their crimes. But most people who were supposed to “pass through” Belsen never came out again. By the time the camp was discovered the inmates had been left to die. There was almost no food. They were starving. You see in Auschwitz, if you were weak, they sent you to the ovens. In Belsen there was no quick end. When we entered the camp the dead lay everywhere . . . Piles of them, literally, everywhere you looked. You have seen on the newsreels? Really, Edith, I don’t even like to describe it to you . . .’ She squeezed his hand.

‘Trying to bury the dead became such a monstrous problem that after a time they had to bring machines to collect the bodies. But in the beginning we had to dig pits and carry them one by one. For a whole day this was my work – to bury the dead. One man taking the ankles, another the wrists and lowering them – no, throwing them, the task was so overwhelming – into the pits. From the pile I threw another of these bags of bones on top of the others. We threw another across him. And then we heard him call out. I can never forget it. The starving have such small voices, thin as a reed, and he had had no drink for hours, days probably. This voice said . . .’ Anatoli’s own voice cracked as he said the words, ‘“I am alive! Help me!”’

Edie stroked his hand.

‘We both stopped, the other fellow and me, and looked. We were both thinking the same thing, I am sure, for those first moments: we might as well leave him there, he’ll die anyway. But, without looking at each other – we were also somehow ashamed – we climbed down into the pit and brought him out again. He weighed only about five or six stone and I carried him in my arms to the hospital. He was suffering from typhus: I thought he would not live. They found a small space for him on the floor because it was so crowded. And that was when he spoke to me, whispered to me for my name, my home address . . . When I think of Belsen the first thing to come to my mind is Hermann Mayer’s eyes. His sockets were hollowed out. He had the face of death – I don’t know how he lived.’ Again, an enormous sigh. ‘And you know, he doesn’t know why he lived either.’

‘What happened to him after that?’

‘Well – I did manage to see him once more in the hospital. He was still alive the next day. After that, I never knew of course. Until you wrote to me I had no idea what had happened to him. He did not contact me. It seems that meeting David, his son, has opened the past for him again. Annaliese told me that by the end of May ’45, when he was only barely recovered, a thousand Belsen inmates, including Hermann, were transported to a camp on the Dutch border, called Lingen. It was for displaced persons. From the little she knew, it was a disaster. Conditions were appalling. They were put back in huts just like those at Belsen but with roofs full of holes and with no beds, no electricity. There was very little food and even the bread was often inedible. They thought they had been sent back to a concentration camp. You can imagine the effect on them. And what was worse was that as well as the Belsen Jews there were a lot of others – Russians and Poles who were Jew haters, all together. It was a fiasco. You know, though—’ for a second he smiled. ‘Annaliese said that some of the best help in the camp came from a lady who worked for the Quaker Relief Team. Hermann has never forgotten her. She was called Jane Levenson, and she was one of the people who helped to get them out of there. They transferred to another camp called Diepholz, near Osnabruck, and then back to Belsen.’

‘Back to
Belsen
! Why would they do that? How terrible!’

‘Yes. Indeed. But there they could get help from the Central Jewish Committee. They advised Hermann to write and make enquiries to Berlin – to see if anyone had returned home. That was how Annaliese discovered he had survived. Actually, I don’t know what would have happened to him had she
not
survived. I suppose he would have been put in an institution. He was in the most degraded state, mentally and physically. It was she who arranged their passage to Israel and she has cared for him ever since. They had no one else. He already knew that his wife had been killed in England. Of course he did not know he had a surviving son.’

Anatoli’s hand tightened on hers as they both looked across at David. He was leaning back against the window, asleep, Gila resting against his chest. He looked so very beautiful to Edie, yet so young and vulnerable. Her miracle baby. All the sadness of events, thoughts of the chain of people which had brought him to her, washed over her and she felt her heart expand to take in all of it, all of them. She felt no jealousy, no need to possess or control. Just love. They were all family now.

August 1959

‘Go on – are you going to read it to us, then?’ Ruby said.

Edie was sitting out on the grass in front of the wide terrace at Cadbury’s, a small circle of friends round her as they all ate their lunchtime sandwiches. She had their rapt attention.

‘Oh – all right then,’ she said, with mock reluctance. The letter had been tucked in her pocket all morning and she was sure she’d been able to feel it, warm against her leg as if it was glowing! She opened the crinkly blue pages of David’s letter, written three days after she and Anatoli had flown home to England.