Our Otto,

Our son took his first step today. Can you believe it? Not quite eight months old and already he’s making a bid for freedom – but can you blame him? Perhaps this is why he’s so quick to walk, because he knows he is trapped and wants to be free. I cannot blame him for that.

I’m sorry to say that, although he’s quick to walk, he’s hardly speaking. For which I blame myself, since I’ve imposed silence on him for so long, it’s not surprising he barely whispers a single sound, let alone a word. So he still hasn’t said ‘Mama’, though I think he probably should be saying such things by now. Mrs X certainly seems to think so. She is very kind to us, especially since little Otto came. She loves to hold him, to coo and – I think – pretend that he is hers. Of course, I allow this, how could I not? With everything that they are doing for us, I am grateful to be able to offer this small thing in return. When she visits us in the cellar, when she stays while we eat, I try to make myself invisible, so she can be just with him, so she can imagine they are alone together, that he is her son. You’ll be happy to hear that she brings him treats, things from the black market that she never brought me: a peach, a tiny piece of cake, a cube of chocolate … Of course, little Otto adores Mrs X in return, for all the attention and the treats. He reaches for her with chubby, grasping hands when she opens our door and his face lights up in a grin. It’s my greatest delight to see him happy and we both look forward to these visits all day. I hope you have some light in the darkness of your days too, whatever it is, I wish it for you.

Ever Yours,

Marthe

Clara holds his hand across the car. The letters – originals and Pieter’s translations – are on her lap. She presses her other hand atop them as they bump along.

‘Did I thank you, for doing all this?’ she asks.

Pieter smiles, not taking his eyes off the road. ‘Perhaps a hundred and fifty times.’

Clara sighs. ‘Okay, so I’m starting to get annoying. But I just, I just … It’s so kind of you. I’m not sure I’m brave enough to do it alone.’

Pieter laughs. ‘Not brave? You could do anything you wanted alone. I’m touched that you wanted me to accompany you, but this is not from weakness, not at all.’

Clara looks out of the window, at the limitless fields, at the light white sky.

‘I don’t know what you see in me,’ she says, ‘but I certainly don’t see it in myself.’

Pieter smiles. ‘Yes, well, isn’t that always the way? How many of us actually see ourselves clearly?’

Clara considers this. ‘I’ve never really thought about it before.’

Pieter squeezes her hand. ‘You’re doing a wonderful thing,’ he says. ‘And I think, somehow, that it will make a difference.’

‘What do you mean?’ Clara frowns. ‘How? To whom?’

‘I don’t know, I can’t explain. I just do.’

They fall into silence, the car speeding along, the fields flashing past, the letters clutched on Clara’s lap.

 

When Herzogenbusch at last comes into view, it is dark grey against the white sky. Clara feels it before she sees it. Her gaze is pulled, suddenly, unexpectedly, from the gentle lull of another wheat field to the horizon of the road. She shivers. And, until Pieter finally pulls into the parking lot outside, the car skidding slightly in the dirt, Clara says nothing. She says nothing as she gets out of the car, clutching her letters. She walks silently, stoically, behind Pieter as he makes his way to the gates. She pretends not to see the offer of his hand, continuing to press the letters to her chest, as if they are her final possession on earth, in danger of being snatched away, and she will protect them at all costs.

Through the gates they enter an office. Pieter signs the guest book for them both and leaves a donation in a large plastic box, a sign above in Dutch and English, inviting visitors to support the maintenance of this memorial to tragedy, to ensure that future generations will be able to visit and won’t be able to forget.

‘Do you want to take the guided tour?’ Pieter asks.

Clara looks up at him, having not heard a single word. ‘What?’

‘The tour,’ he says again, softly, gently. ‘We can go around on our own, or we can take the guided tour. Another one is beginning in ten minutes. You could ask questions and—’

Clara shakes her head. ‘No, no. I can’t.’

‘It’s okay,’ Pieter says, ‘we don’t have to. We’ll go on our own.’

He offers his hand again and, this time, Clara, transferring her grip on the letters, takes it. As they leave the office, Pieter picks up a guide to the camp, dropping a few extra coins into the plastic box. They walk out into a square, dirt ground, flanked by buildings. Neither moves.

‘There’s a museum and a memorial centre,’ Pieter says, softly.

Clara shakes her head.

‘There’s a preserved section of the old camp.’

Clara nods.

They walk on, Pieter leading the way by a few steps, Clara clinging to him. When they reach the rebuilt barracks, Pieter stops. Clara shuffles up to his side. They stand, pressed together, in silence.

Row upon row of very narrow bunk beds, hard wooden slats covered only with a thin burlap bag stuffed with a few fistfuls of hay, are stacked three rows high.

‘Do you …?’

‘Tell me.’

Their words overlap. Reluctantly, Pieter lets go of Clara’s hand and opens the leaflet he holds. For a few minutes, he reads.

‘Approximately 31,000 people, mostly Jews but also Gypsies, resistance activists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, were imprisoned here between the beginning of 1943 and the autumn of 1944. Most were transported to the death camps but 750 died here – 421 of inflicted natural causes and 329 were shot.’

‘Shot?’

‘Yes.’

‘Otto,’ Clara says. ‘I don’t know how he …’

‘Perhaps we can find out,’ Pieter says. ‘They preserved the place where the prisoners were …’

‘Shot?’

‘Yes, and perhaps they’ll have a memorial there, with names. I imagine that would be usual practice.’

‘Usual?’

‘I only meant, to commemorate the dead,’ Pieter says. ‘I believe it’s the case in all the camps.’

‘Oh,’ Clara says. ‘Then we must go there.’

‘Are you sure?’

Clara gives a half-nod. ‘I have to go to the place where he died.’ She takes a deep breath, then another. ‘I’m guessing he won’t have a grave.’

‘No,’ Pieter admits. ‘They dug mass graves, unmarked, or they cremated the prisoners, so …’

‘So, I’ll have to read the letters where he was killed. Either where he was shot or, if not, here, where he slept.’

Pieter nods. He folds the leaflet then takes Clara’s hand again. Slowly, they step away from the barracks and back out into the dirt square.

‘It’s this way. Beyond the barbed wire, just outside the prison walls.’

It takes them less than five minutes to reach the place of execution. It is marked by a thick, white stone pillar just a few feet taller than Pieter. Engraved into the stone is a long list of names. Clara lets go of Pieter’s hand and traces her finger slowly down the letters, pausing at each one in a minor act of presence, a recognition of their life and death. When she nears the end, Clara crouches down. And then, her finger stops.

‘He’s here,’ she says. ‘Otto Josef Garritt van Dijk. He was shot.’

Pieter doesn’t say anything, but he crouches down beside her, slipping his arm over her shoulders. Clara doesn’t cry or make a sound. She barely breathes.

At last, she stands again. Pieter, his knees cracking in the silence, does the same.

‘I’m not going to read them in any order,’ Clara says, addressing the memorial stone, rather than Pieter. ‘I’m just going to begin with my favourite and then go on from there. I hope you don’t mind. And, don’t worry, I’ll read every single one.’

She waits, as if expecting a response. And then, when none comes, as the wind whistles across the flat fields, Clara unties her bundle of letters. Then she begins.

Clara doesn’t rush on to the next letter, nor does she look to Pieter who stands quietly behind her. Instead, she fixes her gaze on the thick stone memorial.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ she asks, softly. ‘She loved you very, very much.’

The air is still now, the wind having settled, and the sky feels heavier, denser and darker, as if a rainstorm is gathering above them.

‘Would you like another?’ Clara asks.

She reads the next letter carefully, slowly, enunciating each word, as if her listener is an old man who struggles to hear. She reads the next in the same way, pausing again at the end to converse a little with the memorial, to comment on what she’s just read. Then she turns to the next.

And when, at last, Clara’s fingertips are white with cold and the last of the light is slipping behind the horizon, she finishes the final letter, Clara stops then steps up to the memorial and places her bare hands flat on the stone.

‘Thank you for listening, to Marthe and me,’ she whispers. ‘And I hope that brings you some peace, to know how very much you were loved.’

All of a sudden a loud crack sounds through the air, like a gunshot. Clara and Pieter both start and she turns to him. And then, the air shifts again, fizzy and cracking, as if an electric storm had just lit up the sky. They look at each other, Clara shocked into silence.

Pieter gives her a startled, astonished smile.

‘I think he’s thanking you, for reading to him.’

Clara nods, her fingertips tingling, still unable to speak.