Life’s a Scream

My papa lived only another five years. As if she’d known that time was short, my mother had powered through Poland and Germany to find the man who was her whole life. When I saw him for that first time after the war in Haneli’s little cellar I somehow knew, because of my mother’s desperation perhaps, that every day would be a gift.

My father was now seventy-seven years old and had spent the last five years in conditions that had killed many thousands of younger men. After the war he had headed for home in the hope of finding my mother and me but had collapsed, and, when he’d come to, could no longer remember his address. The only address in his head was that of Utz Droemer. The Red Cross didn’t have either the time or the facilities to go looking for his real home so they’d contacted Haneli, who’d been glad to look after him. In spite of the hell he had lived through in Terezina and in spite of his age, under her care he’d gradually grown stronger.

We all crowded into the dismal cellar and after the initial shock of his debilitated appearance I threw myself into my father’s arms and sobbed. When I looked at him again he was the old, smiling, handsome Papa that my mother had promised me and that I had held close to my heart. Five years is a long time to a ten-year-old, but as I stood there in that little cellar, with everyone around me in tears, it really didn’t seem as if we had been apart at all.

At the house the Totenhoefers continued to look after us. Matka and Papa decided they should stay on and my father divided up the house so that the Totenhoefers had the rooms upstairs and we the two downstairs. The bathroom was shared. This meant that my father had to climb upstairs to wash. He said it would help build up his muscles but it was torture to see him pull himself up the stairs, step by agonising step, refusing to be helped. In the end, Matka couldn’t stand the pain of watching him. She found a huge pannier-like pot which she filled with water and heated in the fireplace, then filled an enamel bath in front of the fire. Every time she washed him I saw tears in her eyes. He was so thin and weak, and it took a long time before he got a bit of flesh on his bones. How I hate the Nazis still for what they did to my father.

With Papa home, for the first time I saw my mother relax. It was as if, now that they were together again, she could go back to being the wife she had enjoyed being before the war, as if she believed that our trials and tribulations had ended with the reunion with my father.

Matka never worried about herself. She maintained that she had the appetite of a bird; my father would joke that it was a vulture. My mother would cut our rations into three equal parts. I saw her once eat her whole day’s ration at one go. She said it saved time and she might as well feel full for a little while as be perpetually hungry.

I refused to be separated from my father. I don’t think my mother minded, although sometimes I wondered if she wasn’t just a little bit jealous. After all, we had been through so much together and now I was deserting her. But I think she was pleased that I got on so well with my dad. She loved him so much.

Herr Boettcher was a gardener by profession. He was about my father’s age and they got on famously. Most of the time they reminisced about life before the war, sometimes they talked about the Great War, although they had been in different battle zones. When spring came at last, Herr Boettcher and my father decided that they had had enough of sitting around. Herr Boettcher commented that the earth in the garden was very good and it was a shame nothing was growing there, so they began to make plans for cultivating it. I found it very exciting. My mama wasn’t so enthusiastic. She was afraid that it would be too much for my father in his frail state of health. She needn’t have worried. Now that he had made a positive decision and had a goal in sight he was a changed man.

The first thing Herr Boettcher wanted to do was cut down several trees to let in some sunlight. They would also provide wood for the fire. Since my time in the forest I’d had a thing about trees and I hated this plan. In old Borja’s stories the trees had personalities and could be hurt. I tried to explain that to Herr Boettcher but he just said you had to get your priorities right. If you needed food, sacrifices had to be made. He and my father almost became sacrifices themselves. Maybe in his younger life Herr Boettcher had had a way with felling trees but time and ageing sinews turned our tree-felling into a farce.

Herr Boettcher asked his grand-daughter Henny to climb up and attach a rope to the top of the first tree so that it would fall away from the house. He then cut a big chunk out of the trunk and everyone pulled – and pulled, and pulled. The tree, a beautiful old English oak, hardly moved. Just when we thought we were getting somewhere the rope broke. We all staggered backwards. Herr Boettcher was at the end of the rope and he tripped and fell into a muddy fishpond that hadn’t been cleaned out in years. My father fell on top of him. After the initial shock, and finding that neither of them was hurt, we all fell about laughing.

Later we felled the tree and one other. My father pretended not to care although I knew how much the trees meant to him. He’d chosen to build the house on this spot because of those big oaks. They reminded him of England. But Papa said he could at last sit in the sun and warm his heart.

Once the land had been cleared, or nearly cleared – we never did manage to get rid of the massive roots of the trees – we were press-ganged into helping prepare the ground for planting. I loved it, although I got in the way more than I actually worked. Matka came up with a solution that kept me from under everyone’s feet and made me feel happy and productive. She dug over a little patch of earth at the side of the house and gave me some seeds to sow. It was amazing how quickly they sprouted and before long I had rows of lettuces, radishes and carrots. They were the pride of my life and I spent hours touching them, making sure they had enough water and getting quite vicious with any snails or other pests that tried to harm them.

When we weren’t gardening I would sit on my father’s lap or cuddle up beside him on the bench on the covered balcony at the front of the house. We’d chatter about everything from Spitfires and cricket, to wildlife and the stars in the sky. He would enthral me with stories about England, and amaze me with his knowledge and love of animals, especially elephants. Thirty or more years later when I worked in a circus and they asked me if I’d lie under an elephant and let him walk over me, I had no qualms about it. I remembered my father had told me that elephants would never step on anything soft.

I guess at this time my father and I were a bit of a drag on my poor mama. It was summer and the air was warm so most of the time we just sat about in our pyjamas. Matka wasn’t too keen on that. She had always been very disciplined, even the camp hadn’t managed to knock that out of her, but in the end she had to acknowledge defeat and let us slum around as we liked. While we lazed, happy in each other’s company, she spent most of her time in government offices trying to get financial aid or some assistance to repair the house. I felt a bit guilty about not going with her when, until recently, we’d been together all the time – but not guilty enough to want to leave my papa now that I had him back. It seemed that now he was with me I didn’t need Mascha any more. Much later she told me that she was glad I stayed with my father. She didn’t want him sitting by himself, dwelling on the past. Anyway, she was much faster on her own.

I have never in my entire life known anyone as strong and determined as my mother. And she had more love in her heart than anyone. I always wanted to be like her but I will never be that strong.

Mama’s relentless efforts were rewarded at last. Our little family was granted a reparation payment by the German government and was able to make repairs to the house. Her ultimate achievement was getting central heating installed, which made my father very happy.

I’d finally been forced to go to school. The other kids hated me. I hated them back. The big boys took me round the back of the bicycle shed and beat the shit out of me every day after school. Suddenly I had become a victim again, a non-person, ein Untermensch. They joked about my father as well. When they passed my house on their way to school they mocked him for sitting on the balcony all day in his old dressing-gown and to my fury called him grandad.

Years of being told to keep a low profile had taught me to bide my time. I decided they could say what they liked – for the moment. My chance to get my own back came soon enough. Once, on being pulled behind the shed, I let myself go limp and when Heinz, the leader, thought I was ready for the hit, I jumped on him and bit into his cheek, hard. Heinz never touched me again. Years later I ran into him in the interval of a play at the Schiller Theatre and with great satisfaction I saw that he still bore my toothmarks on his cheek.

Matka went to the school after a complaint was made against me for biting this supreme Herrenvölkler. The headmaster demanded that I apologise to Heinz or be removed from the school. My mother said that in no circumstances would I apologise and yes, I would leave the school at once. No one mentioned the fact that I had been beaten up day after day.

Now I had sorted out my problem and defended my father’s honour I quite fancied the idea of staying at the school, but Mascha said it was a matter of pride and that people like that had nothing to teach her daughter. I had twice as far to go to the new school and the problems were just the same. But I was going to win respect. I was never going to be a victim again.