BY THE END OF APRIL, I gave up waiting. Apparently, the whole thing with Judy was over, and I blamed myself for not taking Erica more seriously when she’d said, “For Judy, those kinds of things are more of an adventure. She can take it or leave it.” No wonder Erica didn’t talk about it! She must’ve been hurt by Judy’s abandonment. Or else that too had left her cold. There was nothing and no one else in the world to her but Inge. Erica’s love life replaced all logic. That’s how it had been with Dolly and Judy, and that’s how it was again. And I had to admit that I, too, had been her main subject of interest once, albeit with less preponderance.
I plodded on at the office and worked overtime, which I was paid extra for. We needed the money. I was working for two now. Erica was borrowing from me on a regular basis—she always said, “I’ll make it up to you later.” The remainder of Ma’s inheritance was still in her savings account. She didn’t ask about it, and I didn’t dare bring it up. We both just “forgot” about it. As far as I know, it’s still in there. Every now and then, I take out the book and hold it in my hands. It’s always traveled with my other papers and turned yellow over the years.
Once again, I found myself living largely alone. In the evening, I took my work home with me. It was a welcome distraction, and I took great satisfaction in carrying out the tasks my boss had entrusted to me in preparation for his departure. In all my brooding loneliness, his appreciation was a comfort. It was a cordial goodbye. He said he would never forget me, “You were the best secretary I ever could’ve asked for, if you ever need any help …” At that moment, neither of us expected me to actually take him up on those words, but I’ve been his secretary in New York for years. He helped me out tremendously when I wanted to leave Holland after the war. But that’s getting off the subject. When the new director took over the accounting firm in Amsterdam, I got along with him too. At the office, I’m always the best version of myself.
I resigned myself to wait and see what happened. I was amazed by the fatalism that had gripped the population, but it also brought me a certain sense of anxiety. Maybe it would all work itself out. Who knows, maybe I’d gotten carried away with all my worrying about Erica. Even my colleagues at the office calmed down after the boss left. Not being constantly reminded of the danger seemed to come as a relief. The new owner became the main subject of discussion.
Erica and Inge spent the night in Egmond once a week. I lived for those evenings, when they’d let me into the sanctuary of their union. I didn’t know what Erica did in Amsterdam. All she told me was that she spent her evenings at the bierstube and then went back with Inge to her guesthouse. So, she spent night after night sitting in a bar at Inge’s feet? How could she stand it? I thought back on the waiter’s suggestive little smile and shuddered.
Then came the blow, at least for Erica, and in a way for me as well because I drew my conclusions from it. On May 4, the women’s orchestra ended its engagement and left for Germany. Erica showed up unexpectedly at the house that night, defeated.
“Didn’t Inge know this was coming?” I asked innocently. Erica shrugged.
“Of course, but she didn’t want to say goodbye.”
“Come on!” I said. “You don’t really believe that!”
She didn’t respond and disappeared into her room. In the middle of the night, however, she came in and sat on my bed. She was still fully dressed and in a frantic state, as if she needed to get something off her chest. At first, she talked about Inge. In her misery, she told me all kinds of things they did together that I didn’t want to know and were painful to hear.
“She knew,” she finally said. “She’d known for a week. The orchestra was supposed to stay until the end of the month and then play in Rotterdam. That was the official plan. But last week she heard they’d been called back. They weren’t allowed to talk about it. She didn’t dare tell me. It was top secret and too dangerous to discuss. Even with me. She didn’t trust any of the others. She was afraid my reaction would attract attention.”
“Well that says a lot,” I said alarmed. “If they’re calling Germans back to Germany …” I didn’t finish the sentence. Erica dug into in her skirt pocket, pulled out a crumpled envelope and handed it to me. It had an American stamp on it and had been sent via registered mail.
“I lied to you,” Erica confessed. “She wrote back within a week. I already spent the money.”
The images of the following period have replayed in my mind hundreds of times, and now, thirteen years later, the details have consolidated into a single memory. All it takes is a single glance for the feelings to come rushing back, to know that, despite the agonizing pain of losing Erica, she depended on me for half a year, and, as much as I could allow it, had been mine.
What came afterward, the haunting question as to why I imposed certain restrictions on our relationship, my regret over a decision that I didn’t doubt for a second at the time, but that later I couldn’t understand—that was the legacy of the time, a legacy that has nestled into my tissue like a tumor, harmless as long as new cells can grow around it. Sometimes, during sleepless nights, that growth takes on a life of its own, and it takes all the willpower I have to save myself, to cast off the doubt and regret and rebuild myself anew. Nothing will ever change what happened. We can’t go back. On the surface I’ve moved on, the slate’s been wiped clean, my life has continued.
But now that I am coming to terms with the most critical period of my life, the only time that really mattered, I’m compelled to take one last look at what happened during the first months of the occupation.
I now see that the shock of Erica’s extreme unreliability hadn’t fully hit me. I was too caught up in the strange, incomprehensible satisfaction it gave me. And then, before I had the chance to regain my balance and make one last wild attempt to help Erica flee the country, the Germans invaded.
It’s too late, I thought, it’s just too late. Unsurprisingly, my initial reaction to the invasion was entirely focused on Erica. In my state of mind, I considered Erica’s precarious position to be more important than the disaster that had befallen our country.
I still remember how she sat by the radio for hours, feverishly tense at first, but soon utterly dismayed. It became a kind of vigil.
For me, that’s where the war began, in Erica’s room. The image of her leaning into the radio as if she were attached to it represented the invasion, the battles, the bombings, the defeat of a proud people. I saw only Erica, shattered, so completely paralyzed that the voice coming from the speaker was the only thing she had to hold on to.
And I could tell by the way she shook her head in disbelief that, in addition to her despair, she was staggered by her own recklessness. It was upsetting to see her like this, though deep down I felt a gnawing sense of atonement. Inside me was a smoldering flame of satisfaction that even my pity and fear couldn’t extinguish.
I worked more than necessary to cover our living expenses because constant activity was the only way to escape my unbearable thoughts. But every time I came home from work or from running errands in town, where people huddled together in small groups or gazed at each other wide-eyed in the street, I found Erica as I’d left her. That’s how we entered the occupation period. Erica had burned all her bridges. No work, no money, no family, no friends—she’d lost everything. She had nothing and no one but me. In an effort to bring her back to reality, I tried to talk about Inge. Where was she? Would we ever hear from her? My intentions were good, but Erica saw it differently. She shook her head furiously, as if my question had been too much for her, as if thinking about Inge would destroy her. It made we want to bite my tongue off. Even now, I shudder to think of how harsh and stupid I was, the cruelty of my mistake.
But there wasn’t much time to dwell on it then. We had to make plans. Under the circumstances, we were better off living in Amsterdam. I foresaw that commuting back and forth through occupied territory would eventually become too complicated. Who knew what would happen next? We seemed better off moving back to the city on our own free will than waiting around to be evacuated with the other residents. I was pessimistic from the start, and yet, in hindsight, I was acting intuitively. I never could’ve imagined the misery to come. I told Erica to find us a place to live, because I had to work.
“But remember, not on the Achterburgwallen,” I warned.
She responded with a long, penetrating look.
“Madame has conditions,” she said sharply, “Madame is boss now.”
The caustic comment saved us from a major blowout. The position of caretaker and guardian angel that I’d taken up so naturally had gone to my head. Erica saw through it. Her proud resistance brought me back down to earth, and thanks to her we were able to enter into this abnormal period in a healthy way. Despite her dependency, she remained my equal and didn’t give me the chance to take the upper hand. I’m still ashamed of my momentary imperiousness, especially since I’ve had to suppress a tendency to dominate a number of other times since then. But it wasn’t so easy for me either. My need to protect Erica didn’t stand a chance against her desire for autonomy. She was so independent that it was hard to know how to help her, and she was unburdened by obligations. The concept of yours and mine was of no interest to her. In her eyes, it all came down to the uncertainty of the situation. The way she saw it, I happened to be in a more advantageous position, but if the roles had been reversed, she obviously would’ve taken care of me too. It was just a coincidence that the opportunity never presented itself. That’s how Erica saw life and that was the philosophy I had to contend with. It was up to me to keep things in balance.
In the summer of 1940, Erica went off on her own again. Yes, she felt the significance of the bond between us and continued to call our new attic apartment home; yes, she was warm and considerate toward me, but she remained fiercely independent. She didn’t have a job and she wasn’t looking for one. She was too busy. I knew what she was up to as if she’d told me herself, but I played dumb. With fear in my heart, I’d wait for her to come home. Sometimes she was gone for days. It was so like her to get involved in underground activities. It was small acts of sabotage that paved the way for organized resistance. It seemed innocent at the time, and at first it didn’t have much impact. I made things easy for myself and for her by not talking about it, by pretending to be naïve. I spent my days at the office, earning money for both of us. But inside me was the growing conviction that Erica wouldn’t survive the war if she stayed in Holland. Apart from the persecution of the Jews (which seemed like nothing at first, but I, in my pessimism, saw it as a ticking time bomb), my knowledge of Erica’s character was enough to make me worry about the other dangers she might face. To be honest, I was more worried about her actions than her ancestry. She couldn’t compromise, make the best of it, and try to stay out of harm’s way like the majority of the population. The circumstances of her life were too unusual for that. She had constructed her raison d’être piece by piece, and her only hope for future happiness was to challenge fate, which had always been her sworn enemy.
I had to protect Erica from herself. That’s the way I saw it.
Didn’t I admire her initiative, her courage? Wasn’t I proud of her? In a way, I was—no need to claim otherwise. At the same time, however, I realized that heroes like Erica are doomed. They’re too spontaneous, too unstable. It’s the heart that calls us to action—as it should be—but for the action to be successful the mind has to take over. I knew that, no matter what, Erica’s heart would continue calling the shots. And so, I quietly made plans. I sold the jewelry my grandmother had left me and used the money to buy a false identification papers. I bid my time, waiting for the right moment to persuade her to leave. Meanwhile, I tried to sabotage her work. It’s true. I kept her from her dangerous activities by assigning her the time-consuming task of collecting our rations. And Erica, in an effort to do her part for our household, stood in line for hours. At the end of the summer, when she still refused to flee and told me there was no point pursuing the matter any further, I went so far as to fake a nervous breakdown and kept her at my bedside for three weeks. I’m not ashamed of it. I had one goal, to protect Erica. Didn’t I have the right to try? Eventually, the underground movement replaced her. Call me selfish, call me immoral, I don’t care. I did what I had to do and had no qualms about it.
In November, we received a surprise visit from Ma, the Comrade!
I was home alone, and her unexpected visit sent me into a panic. Please God let her be gone before Erica comes home, I thought. It was still an hour before dinner, but she might be early. The odds were slim, but there was a chance.
I was almost rude to Ma. I said I was extremely surprised to see her, didn’t invite her in, pretended to be in a hurry, said I was right in the middle of cooking and that Erica generally didn’t come home for dinner. But she followed me up to the kitchen and made easy work of climbing the stairs.
She was wearing the uniform of the National Socialist Women’s Organization. The girlish-looking suit, with the little hat perched sideways on top of her overly long black hair, looked ridiculous on her. Her cheeks were covered in rouge and her lips had a bluish tint to them. The dark lines along her eyebrows and eyelashes accentuated her flaxen, wrinkled skin. But she was lively and quick to tell me how her role as group leader made her feel young again, how it had enriched her life. She made a great effort to convince me of the importance of her position and convey just how indispensable she was to the cause. I listened tacitly while my thoughts jumped back and forth between repulsion and pity and other calculations.
But my desire to avoid a meeting between Erica and Ma took precedent. In a last-ditch effort to get her out of the house, I suggested that we go out for a drink, “You know, at that cozy bar around the corner?” I didn’t have any alcohol in the house and hated to see her go dry, I said. But it was no use. Ma hadn’t seen “the child” for so long; she’d deliberately chosen this time of day to drop by because she knew Erica would be home. That drink could wait.
“What are you doing here?” Erica said when she walked into the kitchen around six-thirty.
“Well, young lady …” Ma began. She stood up and smoothed her narrow skirt. For a moment, she gasped for words, but Erica didn’t wait.
“Come on, Ma, buzz off. You’ve got no business here,” and with a scathing glance at Ma’s outfit, she added, “Nazis aren’t welcome in this house.” She swung open the door and nodded toward the stairs.
Apparently, Ma had been prepared for such a reception.
“I’d watch my tongue if I were you, young lady,” she said. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? I know more about you than you think.”
Erica sized her up and laughed scornfully. I felt the blood drain from my face. Just a few weeks before, I’d gotten my hands on a few yards of high-quality wool on the black market, and, at Erica’s insistence, had a seamstress use it to make her a kind of sleeved vest and a pair of pants. I hadn’t protested against the strange get-up because Erica had argued that she needed something warm to wear with all the coal rationing. The suit made her look like a teenage boy, but at least it would protect her from the cold.
“I’m going to count to thirty,” Erica said. “If you’re not on the stairs by then, I’ll push you down them myself.”
“Erica!” I cautioned, in spite of myself. But she ignored me. She’d gone deathly pale, wheezing as she began to count painfully slowly. The roles were reversed, that much was clear. I realized that Ma must have presented Erica with the same ultimatum back when she was in control, and God knows what the circumstances had been back then. It wasn’t any kind of normal manifestation of parental authority.
Ma didn’t make any motion for the door. She laughed defiantly, tugged down her corset in the vulgar way that fat women dressed too young for their age do, and took a few steps back. Trapped between her and the stove, I just stood there in the steam of the boiling potatoes, my legs shaking, barely able to support my weight. I never knew it could take so long to count to thirty.
“All right, Ma, Erica,” I said, trying to bring things to a close.
Before I knew what was happening, Erica had grabbed me by the wrists, jerked me out of the kitchen, and pushed me so hard into my room that I tripped and slid across the floor. She slammed the door shut behind me. I just lay there, stunned by the shock and pain of my fall, and listened to the scuffle unfolding in the hall, the shuffling feet, the stumbling on the stairs, Erica’s hoarse panting, Ma’s screams. Then came the voice of our downstairs neighbor who’d come out to see what was going on. People on the other floors shouted for an explanation as well. The house exploded into chaos.
Finally, Erica came back upstairs and said, “Well, that’s done.” She wiped her hands as if she’d just finished a chore. The sober remark was accompanied by Ma’s shrieking in the entry hall, curses and threats alternated with explanations to the neighbors. No one seemed to answer her. The residents in our building were all “good” people. I heard doors closing and knew that everyone had gone back to their own apartments. After a while, Ma had blown off all her steam, and I heard her footsteps heading toward the door to the street. A few seconds later, the door shut behind her. After that, Erica went into the kitchen. The sound of the pan in the sink, the murmur of water echoed through me. She drained the potatoes. As I slowly crawled to my feet, I realized with renewed shock that Erica was headed down the stairs. Moments later the door to the street closed behind her. I could feel her standing on the stoop, lighting a cigarette, her fingers trembling. Through my bedroom window, I saw her hurry across the street and disappear around the corner.