The Mascot (23 page)

I
resolved to put everything aside in order to help my father solve the riddle of his identity.

Later on that first night in the safety of the dark kitchen, he began to talk to me again.

“I'll tell you about the end of the war,” he said, “when we fled Riga and took refuge in Germany.” He began rummaging in his case.

During my childhood I had never heard my father use such words—“fled” and “refuge”—in relation to his time in Europe during the war. In fact, the period from the war's end until his arrival in Australia was another black hole for us all. He had offered us only the scantest of details about what had gone on, as if by magic he had, first, resurfaced after the war in a displaced-persons camp outside Hamburg and then, in a second sleight of hand, emerged into the bright Australian sunshine.

And, bizarre as it may sound, none of us ever pushed him to reveal more about that period of his life. We gratefully accepted whatever morsel he fed us, never pausing to digest what we'd been given.

“Here they are,” he said brightly, pulling out a slip of paper.

“Why are you looking for them?” I asked.

“I wanted to check the date when I arrived in Germany. It should be printed here. Let me see…” My father adjusted his reading glasses, and I seized the moment.

“Here, let me do it,” I said, snatching the piece of paper from him before he could protest or shove it back in the case.

I looked down at the yellowed document. It simply stated my father's name, his nationality (Latvian), his date of birth, and his place of birth, which was given as Riga. At the bottom of the sheet, there was the imprint of an official border-entry stamp dated October 21, 1944. My father would have been about nine years old by then.

My father stared at me intently. After a pause I asked, “Why did you flee Riga?”

“We had to escape the Russians before they entered Riga.” He warmed to his story right away. “I tell you, it was chaos. Suitcases were piled up all over the place in Valdemara Street. Uncle was pacing up and down the room, staring at his watch. I sat quietly on the couch. I didn't want to get in anyone's way. You see, I was worried that if I did, one of them would stop and think to themselves, ‘Why are we taking him with us? Why do we need another person to worry about, another mouth to feed?'

“So I sat there in my new navy suit and cap that Auntie had brought to my room the night before. She told me that I would no longer be a soldier, that it would be too dangerous to be one from then on. I loved being a corporal, so I was very annoyed. But I could sense the tension in the apartment and knew better than to create a fuss. Later I learned that Auntie had stoked the stove in the kitchen one last time for the purpose of burning every single one of my uniforms.”

My father seemed wistful for a moment. “See this, my case,” he said. “I had it with me as well. It was brand-new then—Uncle had presented it to me as a gift for my belongings—it looked much better than it does these days.” He flashed a grin at me and said, “Like me, you could say.”

“Where was Zirdra?” I asked my father.

“She wasn't coming with us,” he answered. “I don't know the exact details, but I seem to recall that she had been sent to work with a Latvian medical brigade.”

My father continued with his story.

“As we headed toward the main railway station in Riga, I noticed that the streets seemed to have changed dramatically: like people's faces, they looked grimmer and grubbier.

“Suddenly I remembered that I had not said good-bye to the sergeant nor to Commander Lobe. I turned to Uncle and begged him to take me to them. He said that it was impossible, but I would see them soon in Germany, which pacified me. ‘Germany,' I thought, ‘the place that everybody talked about all the time, as if it were heaven, or a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.' It was only natural that the commander and Sergeant Kulis would be there, too. It seemed that all the Latvians around me were going there.

“It was a scramble at Riga station. People were milling about everywhere, and trying to find any vacant seats on the train was nightmarish. Although Uncle had reservations, people had occupied our seats and refused to budge, even when he waved our tickets authoritatively in front of them.

“Uncle and I moved further down the train toward the front carriages. We found free seats there, which I guarded until he came back with Auntie and Mirdza.

“I must have fallen asleep on Auntie's lap. At one point, I opened my eyes briefly and saw Uncle sitting opposite me. I could see his reflection in the carriage window as he stared into the darkness beyond it. His face was tired and worried—I'd never seen him like that before. Then I must have nodded off again.

“The next thing I remember was being gently shaken by Auntie trying to wake me. I sat up bleary-eyed and she began to smooth my hair.

“‘We're here,' she said.

“‘Germany!' I exclaimed.

“‘No, silly, the ship that will take us there.'

“I peered through the dirty train window and saw that we had indeed reached a port. The ship was more like a ferry.
Steuben,
it was called. It was going to take us to Gotenhafen, a German port on the Baltic.

“We made our way up the gangplank and onto the deck, which was loaded with cargo boxes and cases. There were people who'd boarded before us and were already sleeping in the corridors and even on the floor of the dining cabin, as we passed through it.

“Uncle must have been a person of some status, because a steward led us to a cabin that was spacious enough to accommodate us all. It was a lot more than most people seemed to get.

“I don't remember much after that. I'd been only half-awake, and I quickly nodded off to sleep in my narrow top bunk.

“Over breakfast, Uncle told us that we would be in Germany by that evening. I was excited by the news, but suddenly I began to worry about what would happen to me. ‘Will my secret be discovered by these Germans?' I asked myself. I'd met quite a few German officers in Riga, and they'd always terrified me. They were arrogant and behaved as if they could do anything, even read your mind. They'd have no difficulty discovering that I was Jewish.

“I went back on deck and stayed there all day, staring at the murky waters through the swirls of mist. At one stage, I started to hatch a plan of escape for when we'd docked. But I felt muddle-headed and told myself to wait until I saw the lay of the land before trying anything.

“The fog thickened gradually during the afternoon. ‘At least the Germans won't see me,' I reassured myself.

“By early evening the lights of a harbor pierced the mist. Uncle joined me on deck. He leaned over the rail, quietly contemplating the vista of the town that was slowly crystallizing before us. ‘Gotenhafen,' he said.”

My father smiled wryly. “Gotenhafen,” he said to me. “God's harbor.”

“In the months that followed, we took refuge wherever we could, as if we were on the run. Families, contacts of Uncle's, I guess, took us in for various periods. I don't know who arranged this for us or how. We slept wherever we could—on living room floors, huddled by brick ovens—sharing whatever food our hosts could provide.

“At one stage we stayed with a family I think were called Siegel, but my memories of names are confused because we moved so frequently. But we were there for perhaps a month or so, and for the first time we had a room to ourselves.

“I didn't see much of Uncle in that period. He was away from the house for days on end. I suspect that he may have been seeing officials, trying to get a place of our own or arranging passage farther on.

“When he wasn't away on business, he'd usually arrive home in time for dinner, when we'd all crowd around the table together. There'd be Mr. and Mrs. Siegel and their two sons about my age, who'd always want me to join in their games and other antics.

“But I wasn't interested in that sort of thing. I had more important things to do. I'd quickly figured out my way about town. I hung around the railway station. Nobody paid any attention to a kid. But I paid a lot of attention to what was going on and I soon worked out how the black market operated.

“Before long, the Dzenises and the Siegels had me out bartering for them on a regular basis. I traded clothes and valuables for food and medicine. One time, Uncle ordered me to barter the silk stockings that Mirdza had smuggled with her from Riga. Uncle had confiscated them when he'd discovered them. I remember the way he scolded her: ‘God knows who you think you are or where you think you are going,' he'd said. ‘To a fancy ball or something!'

“Seeing me roll the stockings into a ball and stuff them into my jacket was the last straw for Mirdza. She scowled at me viciously. I think she has hated me ever since—especially when I came back with horsemeat, bread, and pickled cucumbers in place of her precious stockings.

“Mr. Siegel was a hearty type who loved his food, and when he saw my booty, he slapped me on the back and tousled my hair. Everybody was pleased except for Mirdza, who glowered at me from the opposite side of the table, even though she, too, feasted on the gains from my black marketeering.

“It was crazy when you think of it—a child having the knowledge and skills to do this. They would've starved without me. I was more resourceful than all of them put together. They were like the children and I was the father.”

For an instant I had an image of my father as an Oliver Twist–type character—a street urchin with a smeared face—not dressed in rags, admittedly, but in a sailor outfit, darting in and out among the crowds.

“Then one night over dinner, Uncle made an announcement that our departure from the Siegels was imminent. We would be leaving for an unknown destination where the authorities had promised us an apartment of our own.

“Two days later, we were told that we had an hour to gather our belongings, and by midmorning we found ourselves waiting in the freezing cold at the railway station. There were long queues of other refugees who were in the same situation as us.

“We ended up waiting there all day without food, wondering what was going to become of us. Finally, an official told us we were going to Essen.

“That night we departed for Essen, hoping that we would end up in our own quarters, no matter how tiny. We were in Essen for only a matter of hours before boarding another train headed for Dresden. We'd barely reached Dresden when it came under siege from intensive firebombing. That would make it February 1945. The authorities thought that we'd be safer elsewhere, so we were evacuated to the grounds of a castle in a place called Moritzburg, on the outskirts of Dresden.

“When we got there, the place was overflowing with people wrapped in blankets huddled together in groups. To my child's eyes, it seemed like there were thousands of people assembled there. We found a spot on the ground as well and wrapped ourselves as warmly as possible.

“Auntie warned me to stay by her side, but, of course, I didn't. I wandered among the throng. They were different nationalities, too—as well as Latvians there were Lithuanians, Estonians, and Germans. I heard other languages I didn't recognize being spoken. They must've all been on the run from the Allied forces.

“The bombing of Dresden intensified during the night. The noise was tremendous, even from where we were, and the sky was lit up almost as if it were daytime. Everybody was fearful—you could see it on their faces—and some appeared on the verge of panic.”

My father stared intently at me.

“You know what I did next, son?” he said then, without waiting for a response, “I climbed up the steps overlooking the grounds and shouted for everybody to remain calm. I told them to trust me, that we would be safe.

“What's even more amazing is that they listened to me. They were like a frightened flock of sheep, but somehow the sight of me, a mere child, speaking confidently, calmed them.”

My father shook his head in disbelief. “But the truth is that inside I hoped that they would all be bombed. I wanted us all to disappear into oblivion. That's what I really felt.”

“Even you, Dad?”

He nodded. “I'd had enough. The war, the fighting, the crisscrossing of Germany without any idea where I was being taken…”

My father rummaged in his case again. “Look!” he exclaimed, removing another photograph. “Here I am at Moritzburg Castle.”

He held the photo out for me to see. Although the image was slightly unclear, one could indeed tell that it was my father, now about nine years old, dressed in a cap, a sailor's jacket, and trousers. In it, he smiles shyly at the camera, just as he was doing at this moment, a man in his sixties, as he waited for my response. I could only stare at it in amazement.

“After another day, we were moved on again, this time to Schwerin, in the northern part of Germany, where finally we did get a place of our own. But it was a dump! There was no other word for it: a dark, damp single room, with a single gas ring in the corner for cooking, and heating that didn't work. There was no bathroom—we had to share with at least a half-dozen other refugees on the same floor. Still, Auntie did her best to make it cozy so that it felt like a home.