Finding Rebecca: A Novel of Love and the Holocaust (14 page)

The lights on the car cast out thirty
or maybe forty feet in front of him, but as he looked in the rearview mirror
there was nothing but blackness extending behind. He thought about Cassin and
the shotgun and the whisky. It seemed almost impossible that Rebecca was his
daughter…and he saw the cow on the road but he was going too fast and swerved
off into the dark by the side of the road. The steering wheel collided with his
chest and he was upside down and then on his side. The car creaked, and he felt
the stabbing agony in his chest and up through his left arm. His head came to
rest on the earth and his legs fell down. He heard a whooshing sound in his
ears. The pain was so bad that he could almost see it, pulsing through the air,
and he saw his family and Rebecca and then nothing.
 

Alexandra was there with his father.
She was crying. Stefan wasn’t angry. He bent over further, now coming into
Christopher’s view. Christopher could feel his left eye closed. He couldn’t
open it, and then the pain came, trickling up his spine at first and then in
great waves and he arched his back and saw the white sheet lift and fall with
his chest. He tried to reach up with his right arm to where Alexandra was
standing, but couldn’t move it and felt his father take his other hand, felt
the warmth of his fingers wrapped around his. There was a window behind where
they were standing and white sunlight was streaming through. He wanted to tell
someone to draw the curtains, that it was too bright but the words came out as
a splutter that rocked his head back and forth. His father pursed his lips,
shushing him, and put his hand on his forehead. Christopher tried to sit up but
fell back. His vision cleared as the pain increased and he raised his fingers
to feel his swollen eye.

“I’m sorry about the car, Father.”
 

Stefan shook his head. “No, no, I
don’t care about that. Don’t worry about that.”

“I had to do it…. I had to stop her.”
His vision dimmed once more and the light was magnified, blurring everything
and everyone in the room. “It was her father, it was Monsieur Cassin, I had
to…” And the darkness descended upon him again.

It was night when he woke up again
and as he looked around the room, he saw his father and sister, both asleep in
chairs on opposite sides of the room. His vision had cleared and the pain was
more regular now, more of a surging current as opposed to the waves he had felt
before. He watched them sleeping for a while until he closed his eyes again.

Alexandra was there, looking at him, as
he woke up and he moved his eyes around the room, searching for his father.
“Where is Father?” Christopher said. A smile spread across his sister’s face as
she touched her hand to his forehead.

“He had to leave, he’ll be back soon.
He was here with me all night. How are you feeling now?”

“I feel fine,” he lied, looking down
at his body as it lay motionless in the bed in front of him. His left arm and
left leg were both in thick white casts and his head ached like nothing he’d
ever felt.

“How did Father react to my borrowing
the car?”

“Not well, as you can imagine, but he
only mentioned it a couple of times. We were just so worried. Why did you do it
Christopher? We have that clothes that they found you in. They stink of
whisky.”

“Who found me?” Christopher said,
embarrassed in front of his sister.

“Mr. Baines, you almost ran over one
of his cows.”

Christopher was about to tell
Alexandra to express to Mr. Baines how sorry he was when Rebecca walked in. She
was alone, holding a bunch of flowers. Alex smiled as she saw her and took the
flowers. “I suppose I should leave you two to talk,” she said and left.

Rebecca tilted her head to one side.
There were tears in her eyes as she sat down next to the bed. Christopher tried
to sit up but couldn’t. He tried to read what she was going to say by the look
on her face. It was impossible to tell whether she was upset at the letter or
the accident or both. He waited for her to begin speaking.

“How are you feeling? I was so upset
when I heard about what had happened.”

“I’m doing fine, just a little sore.”

“I got the letter that you wrote. My
father gave it to me.” The evening sun was golden through the window and the
room was full of ethereal light, each speck of dust now a precious ingot. She
was more beautiful than he could have imagined possible.

Christopher tried to sit up again,
but felt a sharp dart of pain up his side and he slid back down. “I didn’t mean
what I wrote in the letter…I…”She took his hand where it lay on the bed.

“Stop, Christopher,” she whispered. “I know.” She was smiling
now. “I know who you are.” She took his hand to her mouth, kissed it and held
it to her cheek. “Oh Christopher, how could you imagine that I ever would
believe that?” Christopher’s heart soared within his chest and all the pain was
gone now. “How could I believe what my father said? You’ve always been the best
thing in my life. I always knew that, I just forgot for a while. You were
always in my heart, from the first moment we ever met. I have loved you all my
life.” Her tears had gone.
 
“I was
out that night at Jonathan’s house telling him that the engagement had to end,
that I didn’t love him and that I was going to be with you.” Rebecca leaned up
and kissed him. It hurt. Christopher didn’t care. “It’s always been you,
Christopher. It always will be you.”
 

With nowhere else to go, or
nowhere else she wanted to be, Rebecca moved into Christopher’s apartment and
was waiting for him when he’d recovered enough to join her there. The official
story was that Christopher still lived with his father. He had his mail
delivered there and was seen in the house enough to make it somewhat
convincing. There was no way they could openly live together, unmarried, and
although everyone knew, no one mentioned it, at least not to their faces. Living
together was easy, at least for that first year. It seemed like the lives that
they had always wanted were laid out in front of them and that the golden
sunsets of those summer days would last for the rest of their lives. But the
mood both on the island and beyond was beginning to change.

By the summer of 1939 there was fear
everywhere and from that fear Christopher could feel the resentment building.
This was his home too. This was his island as much as it was theirs.
Christopher, along with everyone else, was becoming more obsessed with the
politics of the country of his birth. There was no escaping it. Even Uli
admitted that the country might be headed towards war after the rest of
Czechoslovakia fell in March. It was difficult to empathize with his uncle’s
excitement at reclaiming Germany’s place among the nations of the world and
making up for the crimes perpetrated against her at the end of the Great War.
Christopher could not be like him, could not share in the patriotic pride
swelling in Germany at the rallies where Herr Hitler held the gigantic crowds
in thrall and entranced them with his words. The Seelers were finding it harder
to be German, to associate themselves with the book-burning hordes but they
weren’t from Jersey either, there was no mistaking that. Conversations about
politics hushed when he approached as if his friends were unsure of his
allegiances, even though they had known him all his life.

Uli knew what side he was on, even if
Christopher didn’t. Uli had rarely mentioned any measure of politics in his
letters in the past but as the year had worn on, it was a subject that was
becoming more and more difficult to avoid. Uli truly seemed to believe that
Hitler didn’t want war and that he and his Nazis would stop once Germany had
retaken the lands stolen from her after the Great War. Uli mentioned these
truths as he saw them in passing, preferring to comment on the Christopher’s
life and to recount stories of the domestic bliss that he and Karolina had
launched themselves into. But Stefan saw things differently, and was becoming
visibly upset by the situation in Germany. Christopher could feel the
disapproving glances and hear the insidious whispers in the darkness of the
movie theatre as the encirclement and public humiliation of the western powers
by the Nazis played on the screen in front of them in the newsreels.
 

Only Tom, his old friend who had
moved out when Rebecca had moved into the apartment with him, would speak to
him frankly, even joking about divided loyalties should he and Alexandra end up
married. Tom looked at Christopher as he made the joke, as if trying to gauge
his reaction to the issue of marriage. Christopher smiled back at him, putting
his arm on his shoulder. No further words were exchanged on the topic. Two
weeks later Tom proposed to Alexandra. They walked into the house on a Sunday
evening in May with wonderful smiles on their faces to announce the news. Tom
hugged Stefan, Christopher and Rebecca in turn. They sat down to have drinks
together and laughed. It was perfect, perfect in every way.

War was declared on a Sunday, as
Christopher sat in the pub with Rebecca, Alexandra and Tom, who were with them talking
about their wedding the previous week. The inevitable question of when
Christopher and Rebecca were to be married was broached just as the bar owner
announced it and a hush came over the crowd for a few seconds. A few people
cheered and shouted
God save the King
and
God save poor Poland,
but
Christopher could only think of Uli in Berlin, and Karolina, pregnant with their
first child. Tom tried to make a joke about divided loyalties, but Christopher
barely heard him, and if Alexandra did, she didn’t react. Rebecca slid her hand
across his and assured them that this would all end soon, probably by
Christmas. Christopher drank the rest of his beer and stared across at Rebecca.
He looked around the pub. The other patrons, most of whom he knew, at least in
passing, clinked their glasses together, toasting the King and wishing death to
the Germans. There was loud cheering and then someone started singing
God Save the King
. Tom took Alexandra by
the hand and stood up.

“Perhaps we should be leaving,
Christopher,” Rebecca said.

Christopher looked at her and around
the pub again. “No, I think I’ll stay if that’s all right.” Tom nodded and
Christopher walked to the bar alone, to order a beer. Christopher was standing
beside Jacques La Marque and Sidney Morris, both men in their fifties,
fishermen on the island. They greeted him with a nod as he sat down and stared
forwards.
 
They didn’t look him in
the eye, although he sat between them, and Sandrine pushed the beer towards him
with a sympathetic smile. It was on the house, she said, and Christopher
thanked her. In the background, the sounds of
God Save the King
swelled and filled the room until all were
singing it except him. He raised the glass to his lips and let the beer run
down his throat and then looked at the ground. The song ended and the
conversation ignited all around him. Christopher thought of Uli in Berlin. Was
he sitting there tight-lipped as he was, as the crowd rejoiced and sang the
national anthem? Christopher doubted it somehow.

Jacques leaned forward, looking past
Christopher to Sidney. Both men had served in the Great War, and now too old
for this one, reflected upon the times and what would become of the island. It
would be over quickly, Sidney said. Hitler would take Poland and then be done
with it. Britain and France were too strong, and the Nazis would be beaten
back. Sidney took a long pull on his cigarette, looking first at Jacques, then
at Christopher before answering. He shook his head and laughed, saying that he
admired Jacques’s sense of optimism, and then sang along with the rest as they
began to sing again. Christopher lit a cigarette, staying silent though he knew
the words to the song. The words swirled around the room mixing with the smoke
in the air. Christopher and Rebecca stayed there for another hour before he
went home to tell his father that they were at war with the country of their
birth.

The letter came six weeks later.

October 12
^nd
1939

Stefan, Christopher and Alexandra,

First of all congratulations to Alexandra on getting married! It seems
like all the best people are getting married these days. What about you
Christopher? Isn’t it time that you gave up your freedom forever and subjugated
yourself to a woman? No but seriously…. Alex and Tom, we were so sorry that we
weren’t able to travel to Jersey for the wedding. It seems like these
politicians seem to have other things on their minds than my travelling for
your wedding. Thank you for the nice letter you sent me, Alexandra, and the
photographs enclosed. It’s amazing how your father could have produced a
daughter quite so beautiful. Questions could be asked, but I don’t suppose now
is the time. I look forward to meeting Tom again as your husband as opposed to
Christopher’s friend, who used to scuttle around the house in those ill fitting
shorts that left little to the imagination. At least we know that your children
will have fine legs when they do come.

On the subject of children Karolina is doing very well, pregnancy seems
to suit her. If it’s a boy we are playing with idea of naming him Stefan, after
Stefan Zweig of course, our favorite novelist. Karolina seems to want to come
up with names for a girl, but really what’s the point when I know I’m going to
have a son? The question of what kind of a world my little son or daughter is
to grow up in is an entirely different one however. And this brings me on to
the serious part of this letter. With all that’s going on in the world at the
moment one has to decide what is worth fighting for, what is worth sacrificing
for. I have been considering joining the army for some time now, just as you
did, Stefan when last our country called, back in 1914. I was too young the,n
but now I feel it’s my turn. Once Germany has reclaimed the lands stolen from
her after the last war the German people will once more be safe from the
threats of Bolshevism and be able to take her place among the great nations of
the world. The fact that conscription has been introduced for all able-bodied
men up to the age of 41 reinforced my decision. There is no escape from this. I
am joining the Wehrmacht, and by the time you receive this letter the process
will be under way.