Finding Rebecca: A Novel of Love and the Holocaust (10 page)

The knock on the door came again,
louder this time. “She says it’s important.”

He drew his hand away from her face
and pointed towards the door. “Just let me see what this is about. I’ll be
back.” Christopher buttoned up his shirt and opened the door, just wide enough
for him to slip through before closing it behind himself. Alexandra was sitting
at the kitchen table with Tom.
 
Christopher smiled at her but she didn’t smile back, instead throwing
leaden grey eyes up at him and then back at Tom who was seated opposite her.
Tom looked nervous, and immediately excused himself to his room as Christopher
sat down.

“What is it?” Christopher asked. “Is
everything all right? You seem…”

“I need you to come with me right
now.” Alexandra replied. “Are you ready? I drove down to get you….”

“What’s wrong? Is it Father?”

“He’s fine. It’s something else. I
can’t tell you now. I have to show you. Please, just get ready and come with
me.” She stared at him for a few seconds after she spoke. Eventually he nodded
and went back to the room. Sandrine was fully dressed and sitting on the bed.

“I have to go,” Christopher
explained. “I think there’s something wrong, Alexandra’s here.”

“What is it?” Sandrine seemed
genuinely concerned.

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me
but I have to go right now.” Christopher was putting on the same socks he had
worn the night before and sat down to put on his shoes. “I’m sorry, but you’ll
have to see yourself out.”

“I’m ready to leave. I’ll walk out
with you.” Sandrine said and stood up.

Christopher raised his head, and let
his laces fall untied. “No, really my sister is out there. There’s something
wrong. I don’t want to upset her.”

“Upset her? What are you talking
about? Are you ashamed of me?”

Christopher walked around the bed to
where she was standing and took hold of each of her elbows. He went to talk and
then stopped, the breath hurting his chest as it came. “No, of course not, it’s
just that I don’t want to upset her. If there’s something seriously wrong...”
He took his hands off her. “Please, just let yourself out after we leave?”

“Maybe I should just climb out the
window, shin down the drainpipe?”

“I don’t have time for this.”
Christopher said. Sandrine sat back down on the bed facing away and out towards
the window. Christopher put one hand on the doorknob and turned around. “I’m
sorry Sandrine, I have to go now. Can we talk later?”

“Of course. You go. I hope everything
is okay,” she said still facing away from him. Her voice was soft, distant, as
if she were in the next room, talking through the wall. Christopher tilted his
head to say something, but no words came and he left her there, alone on his
bed.

Alexandra was standing up as
Christopher strode up to the table and he led her out the door and down the
stairs to the street. She put her little umbrella up for the walk to the car,
fifty yards away across the street.

“What is it, Alex? What’s going on?”
Christopher asked as his sister went to start the car.

“I don’t know myself. Father told me
to get you, that he had to tell us both together, and that it was very
important. That’s all I know, I swear.” She pushed the keys into the ignition
and the car rumbled to a start. “Christopher, who were you talking to in your
room? Was there someone in your room with you?”

“No, of course not. Come on, let’s get
home.”
 

They didn’t speak for the duration of
the ride to the house. Christopher thought about Sandrine, alone in his room,
and closing the door behind her as she let herself out to walk back home and he
felt ashamed of himself.

The rain was stopping as Alexandra
pulled in and Christopher closed the car door behind him. Christopher waited
for his sister before pushing the front door open and stepping into the silence
of the house. Christopher stopped and looked at his sister but she motioned for
him to keep going towards the closed door to the kitchen, at the end of the
hall. Christopher pushed open the door. Rebecca was sitting at the table. Her
full lips curled into a massive smile and as she started to laugh her light
brown hair fell down across her forehead, momentarily covering her blue eyes
before she pushed it behind her ear. She was taller now, maybe about five foot
seven and up to Christopher’s shoulders. The picture of her he had harbored in
his mind was nowhere near as beautiful as she actually was. She was a woman
now.

“Surprise,” she whispered and
Christopher’s father yelled and Alexandra hugged him and started laughing.
Christopher felt his mouth open and closed it as Rebecca stood up. She kissed
him on the cheek and threw her arms over his shoulders and around his neck. His
heart was beating so hard that he thought it was going to burst through his
chest and onto the floor. Christopher looked at his father, who was absolutely
beaming. Christopher brought his hands from his sides onto the middle of
Rebecca’s back. He stood back and looked at her and realized he hadn’t spoken
yet. There was a young man with her. It wasn’t Peter. He was blond, with a
tanned face that looked somehow older than Christopher guessed he was. The
young man was watching Rebecca as she pulled away from Christopher. It was the
man she had mentioned in her last letter. It was Jonathan Durrell.
“Christopher, this is Jonathan, Jonathan, this is my oldest and dearest friend,
Christopher Seeler.”

Jonathan stood up and seemed to try
to smile but it came as more of an expression of pain. The handshake he
proffered was firm and he looked into Christopher’s eyes before he let go and
sat back down without saying a word.

“So?” Stefan said. “What do you think
of your surprise?”

“It’s amazing.” The smile on Christopher’s
face was beginning to hurt. “What are you doing here?”

“We got off the ferry last night.”

“It’s such a pleasure to see you and
to meet you too, Jonathan,” Christopher said and stood back from her. He saw
the awkward look on his father’s face.

“Come on Alex, let’s leave these three
to talk for a while.”

“Well, I was hoping we could go for a
walk.” Rebecca said, staring at Christopher who looked back at her and then
away at Stefan and Alexandra.
“
Down
to the beach, the Lion’s Mane or the Angry Horse?”
She smiled at him and his heart was aflame.

Jonathan was sitting down, staring
out the back window. “I’ve not spent too much time in this part of the island
before,” he offered.

“You’re from St. Brelade?”
Christopher asked, although he knew perfectly well where Jonathan Durrell, son
of the former Bailiff of the island of Jersey. Everyone knew the Durrell’s
mansion.

“Yes, quite.” Jonathan replied. “It
was strange to have to go all the way to England to meet a girl from home, but
Rebecca captivated me from the first moment we met.”

“Yes, it’s not raining too
badly.
 
We’re going to go out for a
walk now.” Christopher said. His father nodded his head and looked down at
Alexandra, whose smile had melted.

Christopher led Rebecca out of the
house and into the grey morning. She looked more beautiful than ever but he was
having difficulty looking at her. They turned on the road down towards the sea,
the road that led past her parents’ house. Rebecca was walking with Jonathan on
her right, Christopher on her left. Christopher had thought this would have
been easier.

“So what are you doing here? I knew
you were coming back, but I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

“I’ve missed you so much all these
years I’ve been away,” Rebecca smiled.

Christopher kept his mouth shut,
breathing in and out through his nose as they walked. He could feel Sandrine
against him and see Jonathan Durrell down on bended knee. When was he going to
say it? “So I heard the good news. I hear congratulations are in order.”
Christopher finally said. His eyes dropped down to the muddy gravel below their
feet.
 

“Yes, we’ve come back to get married.
We’ll live in the house to start, until my practice picks up and then we’ll
find accommodation of our own,” Jonathan answered.

“Congratulations,” Christopher
managed. “I’m delighted for you both.

The silence was broken by the sight
of Rebecca’s parents’ house. The front door had been freshly painted. Jonathan
turned to Christopher. “I’ll leave you two to talk. I’m going to call back into
the house.” Jonathan shook Christopher’s hand again and walked down the
driveway to the house Christopher had not been inside for more than ten years.

“He knows your parents?”

“They were over to visit twice in the
last year.” Rebecca looked away from him as she spoke. Her voice was not
celebrating the new relationship she had forged with her parents. It was as if
she were embarrassed more than anything.

“Things have changed. That’s a good
thing. How are you getting on with them? How is Peter getting on with them?”

“I’m getting on better with them. It
was easier not living there, not being privy to…” she took a breath to
continue. “I’m glad I went to live with Peter in England. I had to do it. Peter
wouldn’t see them when they came. He said that they were only interested in us
because I had Jonathan as a suitor, and they were only there to see what they
could gather up for themselves.”

Christopher didn’t answer, just
looked back at her. The wind was picking up and sweeping in across the channel.
It was a smell as familiar as any he knew. They were on the beach now, the wet
sand hard beneath their feet. “I missed you so much when you left, and when I
found out that my father had kept your letters from me I felt that I’d let you
down, that I’d said I’d always be there for you no matter what.”

“You were fifteen years old, you did
so much. I never would have made it through without you.” She took his hand and
the guilt of the pleasure he felt at the touch of her spread through him.
Sandrine came to him and the rational part of him tried to focus on her, not
Rebecca, but Christopher dismissed those thoughts as quickly as they had come.
He watched her mouth as she spoke again. “I thought about you so much back
then. I never forgot you. Jonathan had a lot to live up to.” She almost
laughed. “I never thought it would come to this, you and I here, back on this
beach, and me living back with my parents.”

“And you getting married to the son
of the richest man on the island?”

“Yes. It seems like a dream
sometimes. I feel like I’ll wake up and we’ll be back in the tree house with
Alexandra.”

“It’s still there. It’s still hanging
on for dear life. Uli did a good job. You know he’s married now?” They spoke
about Uli and his wedding for a few minutes. Her reaction to the news was
similar to his, as he still couldn’t believe Uli was married. They talked about
when they were children. Christopher did not ask about the wedding, about what
kind of a man her husband would be or even how they met. The truth of it was
that he didn’t want to know and he had only found that out himself earlier that
day. Each minute with her was a pathway to discovering emotions that he had
tried to drown within him, but which had somehow learned to swim. He longed for
her to reach across to him, to take his face between her hands and kiss him but
she didn’t and instead they just talked for another ten minutes or so until
Jonathan came to get her for their lunch engagement.

Christopher shook both their hands
and they left him standing alone on the beach. As they walked away Rebecca
turned and smiled at him. Christopher stood there alone, watching them leave
until they disappeared into the house and a squall blew in off the sea and the
rain set in again.
 

It was two days later when
Christopher found the letter pushed under his door. Tom was bending to pick it
up when Christopher stopped him. It was a single piece of paper folded. There
was only one sentence written.
 

                                   
Gunde
de viznay bin lion’s mane xes

It wasn’t signed. It didn’t need to
be. Christopher held the letter tight and stared out into space. He smiled as
he thought of her and the unreasonable thoughts of romance that were ghosting
through his mind. In less than five seconds, he had already broken up the
wedding and run away with Rebecca, not before smiting her father once and for
all. Sandrine crept into his mind. It had been he who had pursued her, but that
had seemed like a long time ago, before Rebecca had come back. Tom asked who
the letter was from, and cocked his head to the side, rubbing nonexistent
facial hair between three fingers with a smile on his face when Christopher
answered.