Finding Rebecca: A Novel of Love and the Holocaust (8 page)

Christopher saw Uli smiling as he
nodded his head.

“You know I don’t remember the first
time I met her either. It was like she was always there, always with me, from
even before I was born.” Stefan said.

“I never had anyone like that. I
never had what you had.”

“You still can. It’s all there for
you.”

“It’s still there for you, too.”

“Christopher and Alexandra are more
than enough for me. Christopher is...” and Christopher jerked his head around
the end of the stairwell, just far enough that he thought Uli wouldn’t see him
but his movements were clumsy and slow and he smacked his cheek against the
banister. The stairs shook slightly and Christopher was sure he would be caught
but they didn’t notice, and kept on talking. “We’re so alike,” his father
continued, “too much so sometimes. That’s why I took the decision about
Rebecca, when she left I mean.” Christopher froze.

“With the letters she sent?”

 
Christopher felt his eyes almost bulging
out of their sockets and the nausea came again.

“Yes. I knew that his feelings for
her were blinding him. Sometimes I feel bad, for her as much as my own son. She
still doesn’t know that he never saw all those letters she wrote him. I glanced
through a few of them myself and I knew I had done the right thing. The things
she said…. they would have distracted him too much. He can be such a hotheaded
boy, led by his emotions. Who knows what he might have done? Gone over to her I
expect, and where would this family be then?”

“I’m sure you did the right thing
Stefan. I know it wasn’t easy.”

“I never meant to hurt him. I kept
every letter she sent with the intention to show them to him one day, when he’s
ready. I loved her as a daughter myself, there’s nothing I want more than to
see her back here one day, and if she was ready, with Christopher, sure.”

“What if our father had done that to
you? Barred you from seeing Hannah?”

“He never had reason to.”

“What if he had?”

“I don’t know Uli, I really don’t
know. I think I would have found a way. I think…”

“And you say that you and Christopher
are the same?”

“Yes.”

“Do you still send her money?”

“Yes, when she needs it. She
understands that she can’t see Christopher now, that she would be too much of a
distraction to him. Usually she sends the money back, usually, not always. She
used to threaten to come back, to tell him the truth, but I knew she couldn’t.
If she could come back I wouldn’t need to keep her letters from him.”

Christopher wrung his hands together
and pushed them hard into his face. They were still talking in the kitchen, but
he couldn’t hear them anymore just the rushing of his own blood and the
quickening pulse racing electric through his veins and he got up, stumbling up
the stairs and found his way to the top and into the bathroom and stared into his
own eyes again. He crouched down into a ball, his arms wrapped around himself.
He thought about Rebecca and the times when she needed him and he wasn’t there.
The times when she had reached out to him and he had not answered and the
hatred for his father surged through his veins. Christopher heard a knocking on
the door.

“Christopher, are you in there?”

He waited for a few seconds, not
knowing what to say but then the surge came again. “Get away from me. Just
leave me alone.” He threw his head back down into his hands, his chin tight
into his chest and waited for an answer that took thirty incredibly long
seconds to come.

“Christopher,” his father said, his
voice more faint and distant than before. “Christopher, are you all right in
there?”

Christopher leapt to his feet and
yanked the door open. His father was standing there at the door. He looked
sick. “Where are the letters?” Christopher shouted, trying not to slur his
words. His father jerked his head backwards as Christopher thrust a finger in
his face. “Where are Rebecca’s letters?”

Stefan drew a breath and moved his
lips but never made a sound.

“Where are the letters?” Christopher
was square against his father now. He was taller than his father, not by much,
but enough that he was looking down on him. The sound of thundering footsteps
up the stairs brought Uli to them. “I asked you a question. Where are they?
They’re mine…” Christopher reached forward to grab his father by the lapels.

“Don’t you touch me,” Stefan spat
through gritted teeth and Christopher drew his hands away. The door opened and
Alexandra was there, her eyes thin slits and her hair a mess.

“What’s going on?” she asked but
nobody looked towards her.

“How could you do that?” Christopher
roared but the words caught in his throat as the tears came. “How could you do
that to me? How could you keep Rebecca’s letters from me? She needed me, and I
wasn’t there for her. I said that I’d always be there for her….”

“It wasn’t an easy… I’m sorry
Christopher. I thought you’d get over her in time and we could move on with our
lives. I was going to give them to you when….”

“Where are the letters, Father? Where
are my letters?” Christopher said through angry, hot, deep breaths.

“Christopher, just give me a chance
to explain first. I had to try to do the best thing for both of you. You know I
think of her as my own.”

“Where are the letters?”

“Christopher, we’ve all had a bit too
much to drink and I think that it would be best if….”

“If you kept his letters, give them
to him, Father.” Alexandra said.

“Stefan, give him the letters.” Uli
said.

Christopher stood, staring at his
father, his face a few inches from his. He had never stood this close to him
before and had never seen that flash in his eyes.

“Come with me.” Stefan said and
pushed past Uli on the stairs and down into his study. Christopher walked
behind him, his eyes fixed on his back as if trying to pierce a hole in it.
Stefan walked into the study. He stopped in front of the bookshelves above his
desk and reached up behind the picture of Christopher’s mother for a leather
bound box. He opened a drawer and took out a key and opened it. Christopher saw
the letters on top “I had to open the letters to see if she was all right, and
to get an address, I had to see….”

“Give me my letters, Father.” Christopher
said, his voice almost calm now. The impulsive anger had given way to something
far worse.
 
He held out his hand and
Stefan placed the pile, about five letters, into his hand.

“Go to bed, Christopher,
it’s time you…”

“No Father, no. You don’t get to tell
me what to do anymore.” Christopher left him there alone in the study.
 
He walked past Uli, still standing at
the top of the stairs, but Christopher didn’t look at him and walked onwards to
his bedroom. He turned the light on and sat down on the bed, spreading the
letters out on the quilt. He heard a knock on the door.

“Are you all right in there?”
Alexandra said.

“Yes, I’m fine. I can’t talk to you
now, Alex, I’ll speak to you tomorrow.” He heard her mutter a faint good night
and then she was gone. He picked up the first letter. It was almost three years
since Rebecca had written it, since she had touched it. He pulled out the piece
of paper from the envelope and read the first few words, skimming through the
lines, looking for anything important, almost too eager to finish and move onto
the next to read the letter itself. Sentences stood out. She had gotten a job,
collecting glasses in a bar that a friend of Peter’s worked in. She was
thinking of her parents more, but had not contacted them. Peter was happy and
said he would never return to Jersey again, although she hoped she would. No
address.
 

Christopher placed the letter down on
the bed and opened the next one, written to arrive in time for Christmas 1934.
He scanned through it and came to the address in the middle. They had found
somewhere more permanent to live, in a place called North End. She finished the
letter by asking about Alexandra and his father. She said she missed them both,
but especially him. Christopher gritted his teeth crumpling the delicate letter
in his fist, crumpling the words that she had written to him. He took another
look at the address, before moving onto the next letter, dated February of
1935. Her first words were to ask why he had never written to her. She supposed
that he was very busy, or that the letter might have been lost in the post. She
wrote her address again in large letters decorated with colored pencils and
lined with tiny blue flowers. She was doing well and back in a local school
during the day, working in the bar at night. The letter was short. She asked
that he write back again at the end and that he might even come to see her that
summer when school stopped.

Christopher lay back on the bed,
staring up at the ceiling and thinking of her as she wrote the letter. He had
told her he would always be there for her, no matter what. And now his father
had made him a liar. He ripped open the next envelope. This letter was only a
few words.

May 12
^th
1935

Dear Christopher,

Please reply to this. I am worried, I can’t come back to see you but wish
that I could. Your father told me that you are trying to move on but please
just let me know that you are all right, that you don’t hate me.

Love

Rebecca

Christopher came to the last letter.
The dread inside him was building, as if he knew what it said. He gasped as he
saw the date, a full year and a half since the previous letter. He tried to
remember where he was on that day when she wrote it, but he couldn’t, and read
on.

November 13
^th
1936

Dear Christopher,

This is not a letter I ever thought I would write, because before this I
could never imagine my life without you. You have always been there whenever I
needed you. I suppose I was naïve to think that you’d always be there for me,
even when I left Jersey and even as I sit here, alone in this room in
Portsmouth. I knew that you would be angry that I left without saying goodbye
and that it took me so long to write to you but I never thought that you would
be so angry that you would not reply to me, or never want to see me again. But
I understand, your father has explained everything to me. I know that I haven’t
been the easiest person to be around. I still remember that first day we met,
when you found me crying in the bushes and I think that if you looked for me
today you would find me the same way, just in a different place. But I will be
all right. You know me, I’m a survivor, and I am where I need to be at this
time in my life. One day I will come back to Jersey and we will see each other
again.

I miss you. I always will.

Love

 Rebecca

Christopher felt the wet on his face
and the heat of the pain inside overtook him and he lurched forward, the letter
falling out of his hand and onto the floor. He sat there for a few minutes
before he finally got up, to walk to the window and stare out into the black
nothingness of the night.

Uli left two days later. “Go back to
Berlin and find yourself a wife, Uli,” Christopher laughed as they hugged.

“No way Christopher, you know me- I’ll never buy into that
old con.” Christopher laughed again as Alexandra hit him in the chest and
Stefan glared at him. Christopher was still not talking to his father, but his
anger had faded over time. Stefan assured him that Rebecca was safe. He knew
little more than that. She was gone and it was time to get on with his own
life, at least until she came back, and if she didn’t, at least he would know
that her parents would never hurt her anymore. Christopher thought over the
words and actions of his father and much as they hurt him, he accepted the
situation as it was. Rebecca was gone.

It was only six months later that
Christopher received the letter from Uli, just before Christmas in 1937. He had
met a 24 year old teacher, Karolina, and they were to be married in the spring.
They had only known each other a few weeks. Everyone was shocked except Stefan,
who said that nothing his brother could do would surprise him anymore.

They arrived at Lehrter Stadtbahnhof,
the main train station in Berlin on a fine morning in April 1938, three days
before the wedding that Christopher had thought he would never see. It had been
seven years since they had been in Germany, for their grandmother’s funeral.
Christopher watched his father as the train pulled in, his face hardly
betraying any emotion at the return to the city of his birth. Alexandra smiled
as they stepped out onto the platform. “It feels like we’re coming home, truly
it does,” she said turning to Stefan.