Finding Rebecca: A Novel of Love and the Holocaust (46 page)

Christopher turned in his seat to
look towards the pianist in the corner of the room. He was young, perhaps not
even twenty years of age. The music lilted and swam through the massive dining
room. There was a small dance floor in front of the long grand piano. Several
couples were dancing now. Rebecca was coming towards him, a half smile on her
face. She reached a hand out to him. “Can I have this dance, sir?”

“I’m meant to be the one asking you,
you know,” Christopher replied with a diluted smile.

“Are you going to dance with me or
not?” Her smile was bursting through tense lips.

Christopher held up his hand and
Rebecca took it, leading him past the tables and onto the dance floor. It felt
so good to hold her, as if a warmth was flowing through her into him. They
stared at each other for a few seconds and she began to smile again, looking up
at him. “So you’re a spy?” A sputter of laughter followed the words.

“Not a very good one it seems,” she
replied. “No, I’m not a spy, Christopher. I just continued my work finding
Nazis with the Israeli government.” She looked away and then back at him. There
were several tables of people that were looking at them, but Christopher was
sure they couldn’t hear what they were saying.

“And here you are, dancing in plain
sight, with an admitted former member of the SS.”

The song ended and the other couples
on the dance floor parted to applaud the pianist, but Christopher held Rebecca
tight to him. He was staring at her, into her blue eyes as the music began
again and they began to dance once more. His hand on her hip tracked every
move; every slight movement of her torso and his eyes hers. The confusion of
earlier cleared within him and everything felt right again.

They danced for ten minutes or more
in total silence before they finally returned to the table where Rebecca found
her now-cold food. She ate it nonetheless. “I can’t turn down a meal now,
ever.” She smiled as she put the fork into her mouth. Christopher looked at her
and then away. It was after nine o’clock.

“When are you flying out?” he asked.

“The first flight is tomorrow
morning, at 6 am,” she answered, and put her knife and fork down. Christopher
nodded his head, not quite knowing what to say next. “I don’t care about that
now,” She said, “I just want to be here now.”

“Where are you staying?”

“With friends in Brooklyn. Where are
you?”

“I’m in a hotel here in Manhattan,”
he answered and already the longing for her was there. The feeling of loss was
with him already even though he could reach out and touch her across the table.

Once they finished the meal,
Christopher watched Rebecca eat dessert. He sat back in his chair and lit up a
cigarette. He offered her one, but she refused. They had only spoken of the
good times past. It was almost eleven o’clock now. It seemed like their time
together was already over, as if he was observing as a memory rather than
participating in the moment. He leant forward to her as she began to speak. The
smile was gone from her face.

“I’ve been doing much better lately,
with things, with the memories and the feelings I have inside.”

“What feelings?” he asked.

“I used to hurt like you do now for a
long time,” she said. She looked into her glass and then back up at him. “I had
those dreams that you have. I was in Paris a year or two ago and I heard some
people speaking German. I immediately went cold. I couldn’t move. The terror I
felt, just at hearing them speak. I was back in the camps again, hearing the
guards. I had to get off the street and be sick in an alleyway.” She looked
around the room and put the glass of wine back down on the table as Christopher
took another sip himself. “I know the terror, the guilt that you’re feeling.
That’s not why I started doing what I do now, but I thought that bringing these
animals to justice would make me feel better, so that I could at least sleep at
night.”

“Did it?”

Rebecca shook her head. “No, not
really. I still had the same mood swings, the same phobias of dogs and the
German language.” Christopher shifted in his seat. “It was satisfying to see
the murderers jailed or executed, but there will always be more. There are so
many still out there.” Rebecca looked down at the white of the table and then
up at Christopher’s eyes. “I think that I’m ready to leave it behind now. I
can’t do this anymore. I can’t constantly be reminded of the worst times in my
life.” Her voice lifted. “I see you here now and I know that the times we had
weren’t some dream and that there is real happiness still to be had, even in a
world which can create Buchenwald and Belsen and Auschwitz.” Christopher
nodded. “It’s so easy to hate, that’s what they did. So I tried to clear the
hatred out of my heart to forgive the Nazis for what they did to me.”

Christopher leant forward. “You’re
forgiving them?”

“I wasn’t going to be a victim
anymore, not one more day of my life. I was powerless as a victim. The SS
guards and their dogs and the doctors in their white coats still had power over
me, even though I was the one putting them in jail now. I found that by
forgiving them I held the ultimate power and the pain stopped. Now I know that
what they did to me and the people I knew is no longer going to hurt me and
that my life, my happy life will be the ultimate tribute to all the people I
saw die.” Christopher felt the warmth in his heart again. “To forget what
happened to them, now that is something to be guilty about, but living your
life, truly living your life, is not.”

Christopher stared for a few seconds
and shook his head so gently he barely noticed himself. Her blue eyes were
earnest. “So you’re thinking about leaving the Mossad?” he asked.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a
long time. I mentioned it to Ari, but….” Her voice faded and then came back
again. “He is a wonderful person and he deserves a great life.” She took
another sip of wine. “There’s so much pain still left from what we went through
and I know that you feel it. The only thing to counter pain is healing and the
only way to heal is to let go of the hatred and to forgive. It is the only way.
When I did it, when I let go of the hatred that was still burning inside me, I
felt like an incredible weight of suffering was lifted from my shoulders. I can
honestly say that what I feel for those people who fell into darkness now is
more pity than anything else, but not hatred, not anymore, that’s gone.”

 
“I am so proud of you.” He paused and
took a breath before he whispered. “Can you forgive me?”

She reached across and took his
hands. “I have nothing to forgive you for.” She smiled “I see that same pain in
you that I felt, Christopher, and the same guilt over those we were forced to
leave behind. You have to let it go. We all deserve to live the most wonderful
lives we can.”

The light of midnight in the city was
all around them as they stepped out of the hotel and into the street. Neither
had spoken since they left the table, as if they were both afraid to mention
what had to happen next. Christopher looked across at Rebecca, drinking in the
sight of her, for he knew this was a scene he would play and replay in his own
mind for years to come. The city lights shimmered on her tanned skin and
flickered in her eyes. When she turned to him she was smiling again but the
sadness was there to see in her face. They talked about Jersey and their
families again for a few minutes as they wandered the city streets, neither
having mentioned any kind of a destination or the fact that her flight was in
less than six hours. Christopher craned his neck to look up the length of the
buildings surrounding them as they went. They walked, four, five, six and seven
blocks before Christopher asked her.

“So how were you going to get home,
or at least back to where you’re staying?”

“You know what? I hadn’t even thought
about it.” She shrugged her shoulders, exaggerating the movements as if she
were a child again.

“Maybe if we don’t talk about leaving
we won’t have to and this night can last the rest of our lives. Maybe this
doesn’t ever have to end.”

“Maybe,” she said, looking directly
ahead as they crossed the street onto the next block. “Is this going to be any
easier if I leave now, or wait a few more hours?”

“Ask me that question in a few hours’
time.” Christopher smiled. They walked on. The questions were burning
Christopher’s tongue and finally he broke. “So will you come to Jersey to see
me? Maybe you could stay a while, a few years at least anyway.” He knew she
could see the rueful smile on his face. Her eyes flirted with his before she
looked away.
 
“Last time we saw each
other, on that jetty in Jersey eleven years ago, you said that next time we
met, the next time we saw each other would be to get married.”

“That does sound wonderful, but you
know I’m married to someone else now, Christopher.”

“Why should that stop you?” His
facetious tone covered the truth.

“I…I don’t know Christopher. Who
knows if we’re even meant to be together anymore?”

“Meant to be? What does that mean? I
thought you didn’t believe in fate? I asked you that years ago.”

“I remember. That seems like five
lifetimes ago.”

“I’m not going to push this. You know
who I am now. You know what you want. Only you can choose what you’re going to
do. I can’t force you and I certainly wouldn’t want to.”

“I can’t just go back to Jersey
tonight and be a wife to you, a mother to your daughter.”

“Marriage is your thing Rebecca, not
mine. We don’t have to get married.” He smiled and saw her smiling too but it
faded quickly.

They walked on in silence for the
longest minute Christopher could remember.

“Perhaps I should leave now. It must
be getting late,” she said as a taxi whirled past.

Christopher looked at his watch. It
was almost 1 am, but he put his hand into his pocket without saying anything.
Rebecca raised her arm to flag down a taxi and he knew that they had only
seconds together now.

She turned to him. “Understand,
Christopher, leaving you again is the last thing in the world I want to do, but
I have to do it. I have to go.” She was crying again and he went to her and
took her in his arms. He felt her against him as if he could take an imprint of
her on his body. “I love you, Christopher, I always have. I never stopped and I
never will.” Her eyes were on his now. He had his hands on either side of her
neck. She broke away and held out her arm for a taxi and it pulled up.

She hugged him again and he resisted
the feelings inside him driving him to kiss her, and pulled away from her. She
was staring at him, the door to the taxi open now. They held each other’s gaze
for a few seconds. Her eyes seemed to glaze over and more tears fell. She took
Christopher’s hand and then let it go and gott into the taxi. He was holding
the door now. He reached down and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll be waiting for
you, Rebecca,” he said and closed the door. And the taxi pulled away, her face
in the back window fading into the night.

The sky was silver grey, the dull
October light leaking through the gap in the curtains as Christopher awoke
alone in his bed. The sound of Hannah and the two Stefans downstairs at
breakfast filtered through the wooden floorboards mingling with the whistle of
the wind through the trees outside. It was nine o’clock on a Saturday morning
and he was the last one up. He drew himself out of the bed. It had been better
in the months since he’d seen Rebecca. The nightmares had lessened. He made his
way into the bathroom and looked at himself. The flecks of grey were coming
through in his stubble. Christopher smiled to himself and lowered his head to
shave. Ten minutes later he was downstairs in the kitchen with his father, his
cousin and his daughter and it was she who spoke up as he walked in.

“Something arrived for you this
morning.” The letter was sitting in the middle of the kitchen table. “I wanted
to open it up for you, but Grandfather told me not to.” Hannah said.

Christopher tore the letter open and
took out a single sheet folded in half. There were only seven words written on
it.

“Who is it from?” Hannah asked.
Christopher’s father was in the corner making tea. Little Stefan was seated at
the table eating his breakfast. Christopher looked through the back window at
the old treehouse, still hanging onto the tree where Uli had built it. His
heart was a raging sea.
 

“Who’s the letter from, Christopher?”
Stefan asked, glancing across at his son.

Christopher handed the letter to his
father, a smile spreading across his face. “I want you all to come with me. I
want all of us to be there.” Stefan read the letter and pushed a hand through
his thin, grey hair as he finished it, letting it drop to the table. Hannah
picked up the letter and scanned through it before showing it to Stef.