She’s been gone ten years today. New diary. When she passed it snowed badly. It took very long for the rabbi to arrive. Tante Malcha got nervous and opened all the windows for the spirit to leave and Mum’s body turned blue in the bed. It was so cold. In the picture I have of her it’s summer and she’s in the garden. Anyway it’s not snowing today, it’s weirdly warm for this time of year. I took the tram to Malcha and took off my scarf. It was too hot.
Basje hurt her ankle going down the stairs so we were missing a girl at the line today. We had to package at twice the speed. Terrible. Barely had time for a smoke during break! My second and third finger on right hand were swollen before but now better. Writing hurts, will not say much. Geertje wrote back, found no trail, will put in touch w someone. Sometimes I
Infection better now—fingers no longer size of sausages! Missed week at factory. They will take me back, Jan owes me. Called with Geertje’s guy today. Just like the last one: ƒ150 up front. Fuck them up the ass. Sometimes I think: I will go to the old house myself. I will take the train and I will go to the house. I will knock on the door and they will open the door. I will walk inside and I will not leave. What will they do? Call the police? So the police will come. I will say: try, drag me out. I will say: show me the papers. I will say, show me the deed. I will scream if they touch me, I swear I will scream.
Rice |
39ct. |
ƒ9.80 - |
|
Beans |
89ct. |
ƒ4.45 |
|
Bongo coffee |
1.69 |
ƒ4.08 ??? |
|
Matches |
39ct |
5.35 - |
Marianne? .45 |
Eggs (12) |
1.09 |
1.00 - (Ruben) |
?? Fish |
——————— |
|
0.22 - (Basje) |
* let landlord know |
|
|
ƒ4.45 |
0.05 - (LM) |
|
|
———— |
tl. 05202-6 P? Ank. yl. |
|
|
ƒ4.08 |
|
Walked by an open window and smelled polishing oil and remembered hiding under Mum’s desk while she was writing letters. Her leg hairs through her stockings. Before we left she had me clear out my room and fold my clothes into a suitcase and put all my toys into a box. She had packed her good shoes. That’s what we thought we could take with us in case of an emergency: a box of toys! Good shoes and a suitcase of dresses! I used to think about that box a lot, the way you think about the bit of the sandwich you dropped on the floor long after you’ve eaten the rest of it. I used to wonder whether anyone found my toys, and if they would send them back to me.
Mark, the donkey, came by this evening. The stove is broken. He said his cousin has an old one he can bring here. Okay, I said. I let him put his hand under my shirt. He wanted under my bra. No, I said, and he said: Have you never done this before? I put on big eyes and acted so scared. Never, I said, and shook in his hands. Be gentle, Mark! Take it easy on a virgin like me! Donkey. He will bring by the stove tomorrow.
Hand healing slowly. Long shift at factory. Basje taught the girls to blow rings. The trick: push your tongue out when you blow. Ha!
I’m thinking, What did they keep? What did they sell? I don’t know if it’s worse if they kept everything. Malcha told me she knew a woman who came back from the camps and then went to the family who was safekeeping her things. They told her that they had sold everything. Then one day she walked by their house and looked inside and saw they were eating from her plates, and using her silverware, and the meal had been cooked in her oven dish. I asked Malcha what she did then, and Malcha said the woman did nothing. That she walked on. I said, why didn’t she knock? Why didn’t she say, I see you didn’t sell my things, give them back now. Malcha said they didn’t lie because they were embarrassed. They lied because they were never going to give them back.
A bit of sun today! Such a small square of sun in the yard. Basje and I crowded into the square and had to hold on to each other like men on a sinking ship. She teetered and I screamed and said, No don’t fall don’t leave me! And she laughed so much she snorted and then Jan shouted at us to stop fucking around so we had to go inside. No more sun when I walked back home. Sad. New stove. Good.
2:30. Night. Nightmares nightmares nightmares nightmares nightmares nightmares nightmares nightmares
Soft sheep. A plate of buttered carrots. A big hug where someone holds you tight and long. Music & dancing to music. The smell of someone else’s coffee through a window. Slippers by the door. Dry sheets. Smiles! Smiles! Slow kiss. The bottom of a foot. The bottom of a foot. The bottom of a foot of someone you love. The bottom of a foot of someone you love when they’re lying on the couch and their legs are up over the armrest and they’re not wearing socks and it’s summer and you pass by and you see the naked bottom of their foot and you drag a finger down the middle and they
Went out to town with Shula & Basje & Lola. Good time. Small bar, no one was dancing, but we started dancing, and people joined. Sweat so much! Very drunk, not great. Shula stayed here, roads too slippery for biking back. We talked and talked and talked. It was so cold! I put four blankets on her and she was still shaking. She kept saying, You’re so lucky! You have all of this to yourself, you’re so lucky! And I look around and I see a room the size of a box that is a kitchen and a bedroom and a living room and the shower is a curtain and there is a mushroom that is growing from the rotten windowsill. I asked her about coming back. She said she was very young when they came back, that she probably did not remember things correctly, and I thought: Someone has told her to say this, when people asked. Someone told her to always wear long sleeves over her wrists. Anyway she is my age so she must have been around fifteen. You remember your life at fifteen. I didn’t say this. Her cousin once told me that Shula was the youngest kid to come back from the camps, which is probably not true, I don’t know. She was only there at the very end. Her family got their home back after the war but had to pay outstanding taxes so had to sell it in ’47. They all live in an apartment in Slotermeer now, all 6 of them. 2 rooms. I said, Don’t you ever want to go to your old home and go inside and scream and tell these people to get out get out get out? She said, No, we sold it. I said, So what? She said, It’s not ours anymore, we sold it. I said I disagreed with her: if you have to sell something because you’ve been tricked into poverty, then that’s not an honest thing. If you haven’t given it away out of free will, it is still yours, I said. She was too drunk to have this conversation. She started crying very loudly and I stared at the window mushroom until she fell asleep. In the morning we went to Café Goededag for breakfast. I ate three buns! Cheese was good. Mmmm
April! April! Does whatever it wants! Snow today. Poor baby flowers, poor baby birds, poor baby toes of mine. Frozen blue on the way to work, brrr! It’s Erev Pesach.
Seder with Auntie Malcha. Mostly we got drunk before the end of the plagues. Frogs! Blood! Drink drink drink. She has an old Haggadah from when they were kids and in the back there is a little drawing of a sheep that Mum drew when she was eight years old. Baby Mum, I can hardly imagine it. Sausage little fingers, baby. She was a baby once. It’s hard to think. Soft little baby in a blanket with tiny nails and tiny toes.
Danced with a man last night. What was his name? I don’t remember. He put his hands on the small of my back. I thought, touch me! I thought, touch me touch me touch me! And then he tried to kiss me and I thought I would be sick. Could not recall ever wanting to be touched by anyone, anyone ever. I pulled away and he would not let go and I shouted at him and gave him a big fright. How strange can the body be. I do not know it, I never know what it wants. Does anyone know their body truly? I wonder.
Busy. Basje’s wedding next week. Short on funds. Not turning on lights, but nearly summer, okay.
Wedding! Was lovely. Cried.
Went to visit one of Mum’s cousins up north. Took the train and there were so many fields. Saw two hares jumping out of grass. Remembered the time with the hare. Could not stop thinking of the moment Papa realized the animal was out of control. His face—horror. Uncle Shimon ran after the thing like he could catch it and he couldn’t. I started laughing in the train and could not stop. A woman in the compartment got up and left. I really could not stop laughing. I don’t think I was breathing at all. I smoked a cigarette to calm down & it helped. Mum’s cousin Rita was nice/sad. She had written to me & so I knew she was missing her left leg but I still startled when she got up from her chair. She wanted to look through photo albums together. We looked through photo albums together. She asked me if I knew who the people in the pictures were and I said no. Before I left she said that she had seen my father two days before they killed him and that he looked proud even though everyone’s feet were ankle-deep in shit, and that she wanted me to know that, that he looked proud. I don’t know why I need to know that. I don’t like thinking about it.
Stormed out, lost job, fuck them up the ass. Have decided to try out at the Bijenkorf! A fancy place, a department store, I can do that. I will dye my hair blond, I will put on a voice, they will not know. I can be just like any girl working at the department store. Maybe I will move out of this damp cave hole of a house maybe I will find something better I can be just like
Yom Kippur. On a Saturday this year. Stayed inside and smoked a whole packet. Wanted to fast but had a cucumber at four. Will God punish me now? Haha
Had my first week with De Leeuw. Smell like pickles & brine. Will possibly always smell like pickles and brine always from now on. I shower and it doesn’t go away. I doused myself in perfume and it only got worse. I will resign myself to it: I am now pickle girl. Got job through Shula who got me in touch with a cousin who still had a favor with the son of the owners. Nice people. Not quite Bijenkorf. Not quite department store. It’s getting colder. Today I smelled autumn in the air.
Birthday. Dreamt of Papa. Not nice.
Shula came over with a friend, Miriam, who was very unlikable. Would not stop talking. Did not take off shoes. She did tell one interesting story. She’d heard of a girl from the Prinsengracht who pretended to be a maid and got the family who now lived in her family’s home to hire her. She lived there for a half year pretending to be a maid and piece by piece took back things that had been left behind. First a fork, then a napkin, then a painting, then a necklace. By the time they figured it out she’d made a run for it. I listened to this story and it was like my blood was on fire inside of my body. I thought: I am going to do that. I didn’t say it, I just thought it, and Shula just looked at me for a long time like she could see it in my face and said it was a fantasy and things like this never happen anyway. Then Miriam said no one would hire me as a maid anyway, because I couldn’t keep a home and everyone would recognize a Jew face and that I smelled like pickle brine. Miriam’s face is worse than mine but I didn’t say that. I didn’t say a word. I went to the window and smoked in silence until they didn’t know what else to do and then they left. Good riddance. No, not Shula, I like her, poor thing.
The snow has started and will not stop. Basje is pregnant. She said she could dye my hair in their new kitchen, she has a big sink now and a window that can open all the way.
Craving rhubarb. With cream and sugar from the oven, mmmm. Mum in her straw hat in the vegetable garden pulling rhubarb. I close my eyes and I see it I see it. The fight they had where Papa said he was going to cut down the firs because they blocked the sun and Mum who loved the firs saying, Oh you’re God now? You’re God now and you get to decide where the shadow falls and where it doesn’t?
Little baby Jesus everywhere. They have no problem letting Jews into their homes as long as they’re carved from wood, do they.
She’s been gone eleven years today. Woke up with what I thought was a bad hunger and then as the day went on I realized it wasn’t hunger. Really want to hold something that she held. Asked Malcha if I could look through the boxes for Mum’s old diaries and Malcha said I could but that there probably wasn’t anything there, and that a lot got thrown out or burnt in ’42. Remembered the time she gave me a booklet to write in when I was a kid. I said I would keep a diary and then never did. Didn’t want her to nag me about it so I gave the notebook to some girlfriend and pretended it got lost. She found out and got so angry. Well. Look at me now, Mama!
More snow. Remembering the house when it snowed. The sound of snow falling from the branches like a muffled word. Hmph! The sun in the mornings and the shadows of the trees on the curtain. It was dark & evening the time we drove there in ’46. We parked by the front of the house and so I couldn’t see anything except that the lights were on inside. Do I remember what the family who lived there looked like? No. I think I looked inside but maybe what I remember is made up. A few kids, younger than me, at the table and a big dinner. It was a cold night, I wanted to run away when that woman answered the door but I just stood there. Do I remember what they said to each other? They were shouting, and Mum said something about being let in, about it being our house, and the woman said she’d call the police if we didn’t leave. Mum shouted: “Call the police! Let them come! Call them!” And then I cried. The woman closed the door and Mum banged on the windows for a long time. The police didn’t come. The ride back home was freezing. It was the year the window in the car fell into the door and we could not fix it. I kept sobbing and Mum got angry and told me to stop whining. She was smoking, no gloves. She was missing a few teeth and the rest were yellow. Some illness from the camps which some doctor told us about later but I forget the name of the illness. She held on for a few more miserable years and then died freezing in a small bed waiting for me to find her in the morning.
God—
I went to pick up my shoes at the shoemaker (sole) and I ran into an old neighbor. I didn’t recognize her at first. I was unlocking my bike and she stood across the street, an old goyish lady in a big winter coat and hair like feathers. She was staring at me. She stared in a way that I knew she would want to talk to me. I did not want that. She came to me just as I wanted to bike away and held my arm and said that I was Esther’s girl. “Aren’t you? Aren’t you Esther’s girl? You are, I know it.” I couldn’t say anything. It was like someone had put a stone in my mouth and now I could not speak. Who says my mother’s name other than Malcha? No one says her name to me these days. She insisted on speaking to me. She wanted me to come have tea at a café at the corner. I thought, Oh, she has someone waiting there who will get me and send me to the Germans. That’s what I thought! And then I thought: that can’t happen anymore. Isn’t that strange, how that works? You can think something that used to be true but isn’t true anymore but still believe it in your bones. I did sit down with her at the café. I didn’t want to stay long, I hated it. She talked a lot. First she asked about Mum and Dad and I didn’t want to say it, she understood what that meant and didn’t ask about them anymore. And then she wanted to say things about how she always liked our family, and that the other neighbors didn’t but she did. She said one time when I was three she had come over for lunch and that Mum was very nice to her. She kept saying she didn’t know what would happen. She wanted me to say that I believed her that she didn’t know. Eventually I said I believed her. What does it matter to me? I just wanted her to stop talking and I wanted to leave. She said that she later heard it was another neighbor who sent the Boots on us in ’42. I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care
When I went to leave she held on to my arm and said that I looked just like my mother, and that my mother was also such a pretty Jewess. I said please let me go. She said do you forgive me, tell me you forgive me. I said I forgive you so that she would let go. She did let go. Before I left I turned to her and I said, Who lives there now? And she said that a family without a father used to live there but the mother died a few years ago and that the two sons had since moved out. Only the daughter lives there now on her own. I said what are their names. And she told me their family name is Den Brave. They moved in during the hunger winter, from here, from Amsterdam. A son called Louis and another one called Hendrik and the daughter is called Isabel.
There was a girl called Isabel at the last address when I was still hiding up in Friesland. She was older than me. Hair so blond it looked white. One time the family wanted me to stay upstairs because there were Boots around and the parents sent her to bring me food and she held the plate like, Come get it then, and when I reached for the plate she dropped it to the floor and the food went everywhere and it made so much noise. She told her parents that I did it, that I dropped the plate. Every time I hear the name Isabel I think about that. Now an Isabel lives in my house. I’m sure this means something. What does it mean? I’m sure it means something.
Met this guy at the bar and we went to his place and he lived in this beautiful apartment on one of the canals. Ceilings so high! Everything was so clean. I wanted to know how much everything cost. I went around and asked him, How much was this couch? How much was this chair? How much was this mirror? And he said he didn’t know and kissed my neck etc. etc. He didn’t know! I can’t imagine. If you come into my house and ask me how much my chair cost I will tell you.
A lady came into the store today with a baby girl called Isabel. She kept saying, Isabel come here! Isabel don’t put that in your mouth! I wanted to put my hands over my ears, I don’t know. Children are just children, what did they do, she can’t help her name. But then she smeared her oily fingers on the glass and I asked the woman if she could tell her to not do that, and the woman said, Oh she’s just a kid! I was so angry. So what she’s just a kid! I have to clean that!
Wondering how Fred is doing. I saw a girl who looked like her today. It wasn’t her. When did I last see her? Before Mum found me, ’46, something. Missing how hot Fred would get at night. It’s cold here. She breathed so loudly in her sleep that it was almost snoring but she never snored. One time she told me every segment of an orange has exactly three seeds. Nonsense. Liar. What is so funny in telling small lies like facts? So I believed you, is that so stupid of me? Am I the stupid one? Her fingers were the longest fingers I’d ever seen. She was nice to me in that bed though, wasn’t she. So nice and so quiet in that bed. Kisses kisses kisses in the bed well what use are kisses in the end I wonder, it’s still cold here and where are you now so what use is
Found one of their names in the newspaper today. I was eating an apple and the piece I was chewing fell out of my mouth. It was a small print about a ship inspection down at the docks and they quoted two engineers and one of them was named “Louis den Brave (31).” It’s him isn’t it? It has to be him who else could it be. There’s nothing to be done with this. It is just a name. What can I do with a name? I can do nothing
Lola knows him. Lola knows him. Lola knows him. We had drinks at Goededag and I started telling her about the old neighbor lady, and the three siblings, and Louis den Brave in the newspaper and she said, “Oh I know that guy.” And I said, No you don’t, go away. She said she did! She insisted she did! He lives in Den Haag and he went with a friend of hers for a while and one time she visited that friend and he took them both out dancing. Lola said he’s a spender and a sweet talker and the worst kind of both and that he dumped her friend very suddenly just a few weeks later. That her friend was pretty broken up about this, that Lola had her on the phone crying a few times. I said it made sense that he was a fucker. And then that thing happened again where I started laughing and couldn’t stop laughing and Lola got worried. I smoked a cigarette and that helped. So then I asked her where he lives. She wouldn’t tell me. I asked her what bar he took them to. She said she’d tell me if I promised not to go there and to not bother him. I promised I would not bother him and so she told me the name of the bar. It’s Monday today. I will take the train on Friday.
He is more handsome than I imagined but otherwise he is exactly as I imagined.
I saw him and I thought, Do I remember him? Is that the face I remember seeing through the window, sitting at the dinner table?
He didn’t look like anyone to me. Mum was banging on the windows saying get out get out and his mother looked my mother in the face and said, This is not your house, and she closed the door in her face. And still he just looks like a man. Like any man looks like any man.
I wonder if I ask him about the hearth in the kitchen will he have anything to say about it. Will he say, That is my favorite place in the house. That is where it gets warmest and where I can sit on a chair and hold the bare soles of my feet to the fire. I wonder if I ask him about the creak in the hallway and the firs and my mother’s spoons will he know which spoons I mean will he have used them will he know
Basje is huge now, all belly. She bleached my hair in the kitchen sink. That stuff is a chemical weapon I swear. It’s been two days and all I can smell is ammonia. My scalp burnt something awful and now it itches. Every time I see myself in the mirror I’m not sure what I’m seeing. It’s not especially pretty and not especially ugly. Very yellow, very strange. Heading back to Den Haag on Saturday. I am borrowing one of Basje’s old dresses and her good lipstick.
It was terribly easy. I danced with one of his friends and while I danced with this friend all I did was look at him from across the room and look at him and look at him. Isn’t that it? Most people just want to be seen. I let him buy me a drink and gave him my name and then said I forgot his name several times even though he kept reminding me. I asked him to tell me about boats. He said, “You mean ships,” and I said oh I’m so stupid about these things, I don’t know anything, tell me about boats. He said: ships, you mean ships. I said: ships, whatever you want. He asked to see me again. I said oh but I barely know you. He said, Don’t you want to get to know me? I said, Who knows, maybe.
Pesach. Chag Sameach.
We went out to lunch. He likes to order for you and then he likes to watch you eat it. We took a walk along the boulevard. It was gray and windy the waves were high. My hat flew off and he caught it for me. I held it over my face, and he said, “What are you doing?” So I explained that I was keeping the water from my face so my makeup wouldn’t run and he laughed like this was a very funny thing to say. He said I was a strange girl and that he liked me. He asked to walk me home and I said that I’m staying with a friend in Amsterdam because I was looking for an apartment. I knew what he was going to say and then he said it: “You can always stay with me.” Oh? I said. Oh? Where do you live? He explained where he lived. I said, “Is that the only place where you live? Where else do you live?” And then he laughed again like I had said something very strange.
Have been bad with work & fired. Went home with Louis last night. A damp apartment, shared kitchen & bathroom. Housemate wasn’t home. He was all hands and a lot of mouth. Gnawed more than kissed. It was over quickly. In bed at some point he said, “I love how you have so much body” and I said what do you mean I have so much body? And he said “oh you know what I mean” in this sweet voice with his hands all over me. He isn’t bad I’ve definitely had worse for worse causes. I asked him to tell me about his family. He said there isn’t much to tell. I said tell me their names, what do they do, where do they live. He wanted to know why I wanted to know. I said, “I want to know about your life and where you came from.” He said that his parents were dead. That his brother Hendrik also lives in Den Haag and that he was an accountant. His sister Isabel lives in the east in their old family home. I asked, Alone? He said, “She has someone who helps with the house come by every other day.” I said that that still meant she lived alone. He said, “Then I guess she lives alone.” I asked if he ever thought of moving back, such a big family home, there must be space. He went quiet for a while and then he said that actually it was his. I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “The house. My uncle holds the deed but it goes to me.” I said, It goes to you? And he said that when he wants to start a family the house is his. When he marries. When he wants to have kids. My heart was beating so hard I was sure he could feel it. I was lying half on top of him, naked, he should have felt my heart going thud thud thud! But he didn’t. I said, “Is that something you want? To get married and have children?” And he put his hands around me tightly and said “Oh, when the right girl comes along” and then kissed me like he was trying to make me feel special.
I could make him marry me. I think it would be easy. I don’t think it’ll take me long. I’m writing this and I am seeing the words on the paper and my head is saying, this is crazy, this is a crazy idea, what are you saying you crazy girl. But then I think, haven’t people married for bad reasons always? I could’ve met him at a bar without knowing who he was or where he came from. I could’ve met him just as easily and he would’ve still fallen for me, because he is that kind of man. He has security and he has a good future and who doesn’t want security and a good future? There are worse men. It is an accident that he has something of mine. It is an accident that he can give it back to me. This could’ve happened any other way, too.
Saw a woman at the market today with a number that was two numbers off Mum’s number. I wanted to talk to her. What could I have said to her? There was nothing to say. One time Mum told me that she and the other Dutch people were the last ones to leave the camps. That the Red Cross came for the French and the Swiss and everyone and that the Americans kept saying, Oh you need to wait for someone to come get you to bring you back. And that some people just went because who was going to stop them? But some of them stayed and slept in the same bunks and some of them died in those days. Later they heard it took a long time because no one was coming. The Dutch didn’t send anyone to bring back their Jews. She told me she knew a father and a daughter who survived but the mother didn’t and they didn’t want to wait so they went with the Swiss Red Cross and ended up in Switzerland. They had a really nice time recovering there, nice beds and food and the dad was a dentist. He helped anyone who needed something fixed. They were there for a few years and then, when they came back here, they get this bill for something like thousands of guilders, thousands. The Swiss government had sent a bill to the Dutch government and the Dutch government said: pay up! They didn’t have the money of course. They were sent to the old factories in Eindhoven that they used like a big barn to send all the leftover Jews. I was in one of those for a while. Mum said that when she arrived at Amsterdam Centraal in that summer of ’45 in that dirty uniform the lady at the returnees reception table said that she should count herself lucky to have been in those camps, that at least she’d been fed in those camps. The whole of the Netherlands had suffered a great hunger, that’s what the lady told her. Mum didn’t know where I was, if I was alive or not, if they’d got me and sent me to some camp. She asked the lady at the desk if anyone with my name had come by. The lady said she didn’t know and that Mum needed to move along. Mum said she started screaming and pulling at the lady and that some goyim who worked there dragged her away and made her stay outside the station and that was the first time she saw Amsterdam again.
Yesterday Louis said, “I can tell you one thing about my mum. Her favorite animal in the world was a hare.” I thought I was going to die. He said, “She had these plates, no one was allowed to touch them.” We used to eat off those plates every day, and then that birthday party and the wild hare and one of them broke, and Mum wasn’t even that upset. Life happens, she said. We took almost nothing when we left. Mum kept saying, Don’t worry we’ll come back we’ll come back so soon, and it was a lie. I think now to how they found that house with everything still in it, Papa’s book still left open on the page where he stopped, and I am sick I am sick to my stomach. Whose stuff did they think that was? They must have known I can’t imagine they didn’t know. Who doesn’t know a thing like that? They must’ve known.
He will marry me and if he won’t marry me I will make him take me to that house and I will stuff everything into a big bag and I don’t care I will run all the way back to Amsterdam I don’t care I’ll do it.
Out of money & behind on rent. Took out a loan with little Daantje like I’ve always been told not to. I told Louis my friend wants me out of her apartment and he said I can come live with him. So easy! Come live with me! Should’ve seen these people in ’42. The first address we hid at, Mum and Pap and I, the people asked for ƒ1000 for the month and we stayed in a stinky small attic room with straw so we wouldn’t make any sound and Mum would have these whispered conversations with Pap saying, We can’t afford this for much longer and Pap said, How much longer can it go on? We’ll be back home in a month.
But then they couldn’t afford the next address for all three of us and just sent me ahead. ƒ300 a month for a 12-year-old, what a bargain! A cot in a pantry up in Groningen. A mother with a bird face and a dad who worked at a mill and was missing two fingers. They told everyone I was a cousin from the west. Their son told me I smelled like poop. Six months I was there, and then one day soldiers came by and then ƒ300 wasn’t enough and they sent me away and I—I thought, if Mum and Pap will come find me they’ll come here, and if I’m not there they’ll never find me. I screamed! I screamed the whole way! It didn’t help. Into the back of some farmer’s truck. Friesland, a cold winter. ƒ500 up front. That was the last of the money. Drenthe, nice people, two weeks, they had some dogs, and the dogs didn’t like me. Too much sound. I left that place on my own. Got my first period in a shed somewhere, God, hay rolled up in a ripped hem from my skirt—stuffed into my underwear, had no idea what I was doing, how long was I supposed to bleed? A day, two days, weeks? I didn’t know a thing. I wanted Mum. I slept under a meat hook for that whole summer. A grandma at the next farm knew I was stealing from her kitchen and pretended she didn’t see me. Bless her, the single good person left on this earth.
It’s a gorgeous May day. The sun is so soft and everything is in bloom and the air smells like an exclamation mark for something that’s about to happen. Louis is at work. Met his housemate. Maurice, who I know, who is Geytele’s cousin whose friend got me that second hiding address in Drenthe in ’43. He didn’t recognize me. It’s been over fifteen years and I am blond now. I am scared if he looks at me for too long he will recognize me, so I will stay in the room or I will go outside. I think I’ll get Louis to marry me. Have taken diary with me, have decided I am not worried: Louis does not notice me much or the things I have or the things I do. He wants me! Obviously. He does not notice me.
That’s what I imagine. That’s what I imagine a big love is like. Sometimes I think about Pap and the time he wanted to show me how to play checkers and I said no, boring game. I want to scream at myself. Now you’ll never know how he plays checkers or how he explains the rules and these are things you’ll never ever ever know. That’s what happens when people die. They take themselves with them and you never ever find out anything new about them ever.
I think that big love is like that but no one’s dead or dying. And then I think: it’s much better to just like a person a lot. Who makes good decisions when they’re in love? I know no one.
I thought I was in love with Martijn. He was a good kisser, and he kept the bed so warm, and God when I talked he looked at me like I was the smartest person in the whole world. And when I fed him he said, Mmmmmmm! As if he hadn’t tasted anything better in his whole life. But then he left and I was angry for two days and then I thought, Oh, it’s nice to have time to myself again. And when Basje told me he was sleeping with Janneke I thought, Good luck Janneke, so I don’t think that was love after all.
Louis wants to take me to a family dinner next week to meet his brother and sister.
The days are warming but the nights are still cold. Today I remembered when that lady decided keeping me in the basement was too dangerous and sent me out at night and that was also May and that was also such a cold night. They bombed somewhere nearby I didn’t sleep a wink. Louis does this thing in his sleep where he doesn’t hold me but just puts a very soft hand on my hip. I hate it, it drives me crazy. I want to shout, Either you hold me or you don’t touch me at all!! What is this hand, it’s nothing!! I roll away.
Dinner with his siblings last night. I was so nervous. I thought I would look at them and they would know who I was somehow. I thought I would see them and recognize them in a way that I maybe didn’t recognize Louis, like maybe I’ve remembered their faces where I didn’t remember his. I didn’t. They were strangers to me. I hoped she (his sister) would be a nice person and I had a plan where I would say how much I wanted to get away to the country and she would invite us for a weekend but none of that happened. She is awful. She is sour and mean and she looked at me like Louis had dragged me into the house under the sole of his shoe. She kept looking at me like she was trying to—I don’t know. She kept looking at me. She and Hendrik came here after for drinks, oh it was awful! But I didn’t show, I smiled and I smiled and I said, Oh it was so nice to meet you Isabel! So lovely! We hope to see you soon!
Her face, I swear. Not even honey could sweeten that vinegar.
A miracle. Louis got called to substitute for a colleague, work trip, something or the other. He will be gone a month. I said, I can’t stay here alone with Maurice. He said, Can you invite a friend to stay with you? I said, Can’t I stay with your sister? He said, Isabel? I said, Isabel. We are driving out in 10 mins. My suitcase is half-empty. I will fill up the rest.
I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. It smells the same. The walls. The things. The firs and the garden. The painting of the Veluwe Uncle Avrum brought that one time all wrapped in brown paper and oh they barely changed anything. These people—they—! The curtains are new. This bed is new. I can’t stop touching everything, everything. Mum’s room. I now touch things that she once touched. Her secretary—still here. The initials I carved into the drawer. Who do they think that is? Who do they think that is? Have they ever wondered? They have never wondered. These people do not wonder. I am here. I am here. I’m here I’m here I’m here.
Will anyone recognize me? Will the neighbors? Will the postman? Will the farmer on the other side of the dike? What will they do? Strangely I am not afraid and I am not worried. I woke up and the sun came through the window through the firs and the shadows on the curtains. I can just hear her, it’s like she’s downstairs: Oh you’re God now and you get to decide where the shadow falls? I was born in this room. Mum could not get to the hospital, I was born in this room, and these walls were witness, and this desk, and these windows too. The house wants me here even if no one else does.
She thinks I’m after her brother’s money. Ha. I have woken up in the night and I have taken a spoon. Tomorrow I will go to town and I will mail the spoon to Malcha and it will be mine again. No matter what happens at least I will have that spoon.
She’s taken care of Mum’s garden. It looks nice. I saw her harvesting the rhubarb today. She did it the same way I remembered, with the basket and the scissors. I stood there and tried to think, You thief, you’re a thief. It’s hard to think that at someone cutting rhubarb in the hot sun. Then she told me to roll up my trousers before I got on the bike and I did. I mailed the spoon to Malcha.
She has made the strangest trap of this house. She has drawn herself a circle and she lives inside that circle and anyone who comes in or leaves must answer to her rules, which she barks at you, like some prison officer. Madness. I barely move. She will not look away. I wake up and she is there. I turn and she is there. She will not speak to me. I left the house the other day and her anger almost felt like worry, she is making me go mad alongside her. I ask her, What are the joys in your life! What are the things you love or hate or want to do! She looks at me like she’s guarding the Queen’s jewelry. Like every word she gives me is some precious thing that I will abuse.
There’s a maid (Neelke) who comes and helps with the house. Poor thing.
Went looking for Father’s letter opener & she walked in and I said, I dropped an earring. I nearly ripped my ear off, taking it out quick quick. I thought my heart would beat out of my chest. She—I don’t know. She stood very close. Sometimes I think she knows. Sometimes I want to push her and see what she does. Sometimes I think she’s at my door at night. I wonder if I stay away again, if that will get her angry again. Maybe I should just leave altogether. Maybe this was the worst idea I’ve ever had. I’ve never met a woman so tall and she’s not even that tall at all.
Dreamt she was at my bedside watching me sleep & woke up and she wasn’t there. Can’t fall back asleep. She keeps this place so neat. Today she took out every piece of Mother’s hare china and rolled it in water with a hand soft like to a baby’s neck. She’s found a shard of the old broken plate in the garden and now keeps it on the mantel like some treasure. She’s all alone here. For years she has sat at the kitchen table all alone and taken my mother’s things into her hands and cleaned them.
Louis called today. Hearing him was a bucket of ice water. I think I’ve been dreaming or asleep since I got here. I can’t explain. I’m here. I can’t explain
If this was any other house I would leave. I would run from here. If I had no other purpose I’d be gone. I am going to go insane, she is going to drive me insane. A drink, I had a single drink with the maid, and she—what am I to her? What do I owe her? I’m the one who’s owed, it’s me, and she talks to me about her life, and she grabs me and I still have the bruise of her hand on my arm. Oh I have drunk too much I think…
I wonder if she remembers the time we almost met. After the war when I was sixteen and on that side of the door and she was only just a few years younger on this side of the door. Mum knocked and knocked and they wouldn’t let us in. Sometimes I can feel her eyes on me like it’s on my skin. I think she thinks I don’t notice. She looks at me like she wants to embrace me, hold me, and then I look back at her and she says the nastiest things. I want to see what happens if I crawl into the attic and hide and she can’t find me. Will she lose her mind? Will she turn the house upside down looking for me? I think she will. I want to see what would happen if I walked up to her and put all of my face in her face and she can finally have what she wants which is she doesn’t have to look anywhere where I’m not.
God help me. I can still feel her mouth.
Hendrik here now. She said—oh, she said, I think I have a fever. I said you don’t have a fever. But I feel it too now. My head is hot. I won’t sleep. I am sick. I am sick. I want her here. I want her in this bed, God, what have I done. I don’t know—Oh, what have we done. What a mess. No more, no, no more, it is done.
God let her not know herself. God let her have mistaken in herself. God let her like him more than anything. God let her be confused and God let her not know touch and not know the one kiss from the other and confused and God let her like him more than me. God take it away from me God take her away God please God please take her from me.
I think she wants to eat me. I think she would inhale me if she could. I think she’d crawl herself inside of me if she thought that’s where she’d find something that I’ve kept hidden from her. God help me. Would I let her? I would let her. God help me she looks at me. God help me I don’t want her to look away.
Have I ever been a body before? I don’t know. I think I’m a body now. Last night she woke me up from a terror and held me like a straitjacket. I could feel I had skin where she touched and where I had bone and where I was human. God what sense does this make, none none, no sense, no sense at all. She wakes up before I do and gets breakfast ready so I can have it when I am awake and it makes me want to cry. People have done this before, it is not special, and still I want to cry. I should run God I should run why am I here