Remember Me (14 page)

Marianne began to bounce the ball, obediently, doing the accompanying actions.

Charlie Chaplin went to France
To teach the ladies how to dance
And this is what he taught them
Heel toe
Over we go
Don’t forget to twist.

Marianne wondered what Elisabeth had died of. Perhaps from breathing in the fine dust that had already turned her white blouse gray.

She didn’t feel like playing ball anymore. She was twelve, not a little girl. She leaned against the coal shed, shutting her eyes against the glare of the sun. In London she’d never thought about where coal came from. It was just there, brought in from outside in the brass coal scuttle. Warming cold rooms. Coal so shiny black it sparkled. What must it be like working day after day in all that blackness? Like moles burrowing underground.
Are the miners ever afraid? Don’t they miss seeing the sun?

Marianne went back into the kitchen.

“Excuse me, Auntie Vi, the lady at the library said if you sign this form, I can join the library.”

“Library, is it? Dai, you sign it, please, before you go back to work.”

“Give me the card. Clever as well as pretty, are you?” He signed it.

They are so nice to me. I couldn’t wish for a better billet, so why do I feel so uncomfortable?

When she reached the library, Marianne sat down on the wooden bench in the cool lobby and tried to think things out. How could she explain to anyone that she felt as if she couldn’t breathe, that these kind people were smothering her? No one could be part of a family that quickly. She knew Mr. and Mrs. Roberts were looking for someone to fill the gap left by Elisabeth, but they weren’t giving her time. How could they love someone they’d only known for five minutes? It was like being sucked down into a whirlpool – no way to escape. It sounded silly to be frightened of people being nice. She looked at the clock.
How many hours till bedtime? Tonight I’ll have to go to sleep with that awful doll staring at me. Perhaps I can move it to the floor and put it back in the morning before Auntie Vi notices.

Marianne handed in her form. She asked the librarian if there were any stories about Wales, and was given a book of Welsh legends. The librarian told her about Merlin the magician, who had been born in South Wales and became advisor to King Arthur and his knights. “He will come and save the land if we need him,” the librarian said seriously. “Only sleeping he is, in a cave in the mountains.”

That night it took Marianne a long time to go to sleep. She heard Uncle Dai come upstairs and go to bed.

Something woke her. She felt cold lips on her forehead, and then a whispered “
Nos da
, Elisabeth.”

She lay very still and, from under almost closed lids, watched Auntie Vi go to the chest and put the doll back in its usual spot. Then she shut the window and went out.

Marianne waited five minutes, then crept out of bed and opened the window again. There was a moon.
I know you’re out there somewhere, Mutti. Please come soon – please come and get me.
Then she took the doll and put her facedown on the chest, and went to sleep holding her bear.

A
fter breakfast on Sunday, Auntie Vi tied Marianne’s hair with a ribbon she took from Elisabeth’s drawer, and they set off for Greenfield Chapel. There was a big sign outside, which said:
GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN HE LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS
. The roof was almost flat, not like a church spire. But as the sermon was mostly in Welsh, Marianne couldn’t tell whether there were any other differences. It was very noisy.

The reverend shouted up to the rafters and to the congregation.
No chance of anyone dozing off here!
The only good part was the singing. Marianne didn’t think their school choir could ever produce music that was so magical.

The voices stopped suddenly when the sound of the air-raid siren signaling danger filled the air with a great wailing, floating up and down in a terrifying series of notes.

A man hurried up the aisle and whispered something in the preacher’s ear.

“It is war,” Reverend Thomas said in English. “God will punish the wicked and bless the meek. Let us pray now for a conclusion to the evil that fills the world.”

The prayers in Welsh went on until the long, one-note sound of the all clear.

Their walk home through the streets was slow. Every few minutes they stopped to talk to neighbors, whose comments in both languages ranged from how the Germans would never conquer the French, to the atrocities in Belgium in the last war, and to the dire forecasts of parachutists landing on the beach momentarily.

Marianne stuffed Elisabeth’s hair ribbon in her pocket. War meant only one thing to her at this moment – she and her parents were on opposite sides of the English Channel. There would be no more letters. She was alone.

Lucy had said they’d be back in London by Christmas. Would the war be over by then? But what if Lucy was wrong? How many more birthdays and holidays would there be, spent apart from her father and mother?

After dinner, when she had helped Auntie Vi clear up, Marianne excused herself and went to write to Bridget. She’d just written the date – September 3, 1939 – when Auntie Vi called her downstairs. “Mairi, come down here, please.”

Marianne did as she was told, though she felt like saying, “Please call me by my real name.” Her name was all she had left of her life with her parents. Changing her name couldn’t turn her into Auntie Vi’s daughter.

“Look who’s here to say hello,
bach.
It’s Mrs. Jenkins from next door. Come and say
shwmae
.”

“
Shwmae
, Main Now you call me Auntie Blodwen,” said their neighbor.

“
Shwmae
, Auntie Blodwen,” said Marianne.
Another aunt!
Then she said to Auntie Vi, “I was just going to write a letter to my friend Bridget in Canada.”

The two women looked at each other. “No, Mairi. Not on a Sunday. Sinful, that is.”

Mrs. Jenkins said, “Terrible to declare war on a Sunday. They should have waited.”

“There’s glad I am our Elisabeth was spared this day,” said Auntie Vi. “I’ll just go and make a pot of tea, Blodwen.”

“And where are you from, Mair,
bach
? You don’t sound like a girl from London. Not that I have much to do with people from there. Swansea’s as far as I go. Cardiff once or twice to see my
mam
.”

“I’ve been living in London since last year,” said Marianne. “But before that I lived in Germany.” The moment she saw Auntie Blodwen’s face, she realized her mistake.

“Never! So you speak German, then? Did you ever see Hitler?”

“I don’t speak German anymore, and Jews kept away from Hitler.”

Auntie Vi came in and poured tea. Mrs. Jenkins drank hers so quickly, it was a wonder her tongue wasn’t scalded.

“Have a Welsh cake, Blodwen, do,” said Auntie Vi.

“No, no, I must be getting back. Company’s coming for supper.” She was suddenly in a great hurry.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything about coming from Germany. People might not understand that I’m a refugee, that I’m more anti-Hitler than any of them. Or is it because I said I’m Jewish?

Marianne went upstairs to get her book, then remembered she wasn’t supposed to do that on Sunday. “Can I go for a walk, Auntie Vi?”

“Don’t forget to take your gas mask, and be home in twenty minutes.”

As Marianne walked down the street, she saw Mrs. Jenkins on the step of her house. She went inside quickly and shut the door.

Is it all going to start again? Even here?

That night Uncle Dai climbed up and down the stepladder to make sure all the blackout curtains were in place.

Auntie Vi came in with her Sunday face on.

“Don’t tell me it’s Sunday,” said Uncle Dai. “If the German planes bomb the street because they can see our light, that’ll be a bigger sin, especially as I’ve signed on as a warden for
A.R.P
. duty. Mairi,
bach
, hold the ladder steady, please.”

Now seemed a good time to say it. “Excuse me, Uncle Dai,” Marianne said. “Would you mind calling me by my real name?”

She’d been wanting to ask him ever since she got here. She had to keep some of her old self. She’d start with her name.

“Now, we don’t want to be putting on airs like those stuck-up Londoners, Mairi,
bach.
”

“Well, Uncle Dai, I’m not really a Londoner, and …” Marianne faltered.

What could she say? She didn’t really know who she was anymore.

Uncle Dai got off the stepladder. “Your parents sent you away. We are taking care of you, right?”

Auntie Vi came in. She
must
have been listening.

“Leave my little girl alone, Dai. It’s the Lord’s will. They took my Elisabeth and sent me Mairi. Her parents sent her away for a purpose. Stands to reason. We’ll do what’s right and proper. You’ll start Sunday school next week.”

I
t was a relief when school started. The students were housed in two separate buildings, in different parts of the town, and were always having to run from one class to the other. Marianne ran to be in time when it was English! She didn’t want to miss a word of Jane Austen’s
Pride and Prejudice
, which Miss Barry had begun to read with them. She dawdled when it was math. Once she and Celia arrived so late, they had to hide in the cloakroom till recess. It was easy to make excuses and fun until Miss Lacey warned the school, in Assembly one morning, that war or no war, there’d be report cards as usual. Marianne knew that one day her mother would want to see those!

Miss Lacey reminded the girls that they were all one family, that their parents had sent them away to be safe from air-raid attacks, and that they should make the most of their new experiences of living in a Welsh mining town. “Write regularly to your parents and try not to worry them.”

Marianne dreaded being told to write to her family.
If only I could!

When Miss Barry called attendance on the second Monday in their temporary classroom, three girls had gone back to London. Miss Barry said, “Don’t keep your problems to yourself. Come and tell me after school, so I can try and help.”

That day six girls waited to see her. Marianne had so many worries she didn’t know where to start, and she didn’t think she could explain things to Miss Barry without sounding emotional, something English girls didn’t do! She wrote to Bridget instead, waiting till Auntie Vi was shopping, so she could write without her foster mother peering over her shoulder.

A
untie Vi said, “Put down the
Echo,
Dai. I want you to listen to Mairi sing the national anthem.”

Uncle Dai folded the newspaper, and Marianne sang, and Uncle Dai joined in the
Gwlad, Gwlad
– Wales, Wales part after the first verse.

Marianne knew it almost by heart – she only had to glance at the words occasionally.

“Getting better, you are,” said Uncle Dai, “better than the soloist at the Sunday school concert if you go on like this. Elisabeth had a beautiful voice, didn’t she, Vi?”

“Beautiful and good through and through she was.”

“I’m supposed to find out what the words mean,” said Marianne, thankful to change the subject from Elisabeth. “For school.”