Anca's Story--a novel of the Holocaust Read online

  I felt the eyes of the class on my empty hands. “I brought nothing because I have nothing. Everything, every possession I had, was destroyed or left behind. Not a single token or memento survived with me.”

  If the words brought a lump to my own throat still there was indifference from my audience and I knew that, if I did not soon capture their minds I would never move their hearts. I asked, “Tell me this. How many of you have lost a parent?”

  There was a stunned silence. Two hands rose awkwardly.

  “Forgive my intrusion, but what happened to them?”

  Mr. Wilkinson cast an anxious glance at me, but I ignored his concerns, directing my attention to the two children whose hands hovered hesitantly above their heads.

  “My mother was killed in a car accident, a few years ago.”

  “I am sorry. So very sorry.” I turned to the second child, a boy. “And you?”

  “Cancer. My father died of cancer, soon after I was born. I never knew him.”

  The class shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Mr Wilkinson looked on, unsure how to respond. This was not what I had been invited to discuss.

  I said, “Thank you. You are brave to talk about it. But I asked with good reason, to make a point. Most of you have two parents. Two of you have lost one. I lost my father when I was twelve years old. But not to cancer. Not to a car accident.”

  I paused, struggling to control the quaver in my voice. “He was murdered. Murdered in cold blood, by a firing squad outside our home, while my mother, my younger brother and I were forced to watch.”

  I had their attention now, this class of bright-eyed children that had no acquaintance with evil. I chose my words carefully.

  “History states the war began in nineteen thirty-nine, when Germany invaded Poland. Perhaps it was so. But for me the war began with my father’s death.

  “My story begins as the war entered its final year, just a few weeks after my father’s execution. In a storm-swept cemetery in Medgidia, Romania, in the early spring of nineteen forty-four...”

  4.

  We stood in silent reverence, my mother and I, before the pitiful mound that marked my father’s grave. Driving rain lashed the sodden black earth, each drop drawing another grain of soil into the murky pools that formed unbidden at its base.

  At the head of the grave a crudely shaped rowan cross defied the elements, proud against the rolling clouds that had advanced afternoon into premature evening. A flash of lightning briefly cast shadows as it lit the sky, greeted by thunderous applause.

  I clasped my mother’s hand tightly, fighting a losing battle to hold back tears that joined with the rain to trace the contours of my face. Instinctively I ran my tongue over my lips, the salt stimulating my taste buds, conjuring welcome, evocative memories.

  The Black Sea, near Constanta. Salt spray lingering in the air as the spring wind flung the waves against the foreshore, the surf frothing, foaming, against the beach. Nearly two years had since passed, but the memories were as if it were yesterday. It had been soon after my tenth birthday. The spring of nineteen forty-two. A special holiday for his little nurse, as Papa always called me. To recuperate from some malady long since over.

  “Papa, I will never forget you,” I said to the rowan cross. “Never.”

  My mother glanced at me. “Anca?”

  “It was nothing, Mama. Just thinking out loud. But we should be going now, for Nicolae is tired. You surely must be, too.”

  To reply, to acknowledge my assertion, was pointless. Words were cumbersome, even unnecessary at times like this. A clash of thunder drowned out any reply she may have made as we turned to leave.

  “The storm is receding,” I observed quietly as we found ourselves on the main road, a short distance from our home.

  “It is as well, Anca,” my mother concurred. “You and Nicolae will sleep better for it. There is enough noise through the night without nature adding her own.”

  I smiled agreement. These past few weeks I had hardly slept of a night, kept awake by the constant drone of passing trucks and tanks.

  Behind us a vehicle’s throbbing engine spewed unseen exhaust fumes into the early night. Heads down, our eyes scanned the truck as it passed. In the tenebrous dusk their uniforms were unclear. Not that it mattered anymore. Iron Guard or Gestapo, Papa had said they were of the same breed. Whatever their nationality. Whatever their chosen name.

  Only when the truck had passed into the darkness did we breathe again.

  The rain had begun to ease now and by the time we reached home it had reduced to a fine drizzle, but still the smell of wet hair and sodden clothes quickly permeated every corner of our small domicile.

  Nicolae, by now asleep, was laid to rest on a threadbare rug. I gently towelled his hair with a dry cloth while Mama brought a thin counterpane to lay over him. Fortunately, Mama’s coat had borne the brunt of the storm’s attack and Nicolae’s clothes were still dry. I slipped shoes from his tiny feet and made him comfortable as best I could, gently stroking his rouge cheek, a smile hovering on my own lips in the certain knowledge he, at least, was resting peacefully.

  5.

  Mama forewent the pleasure of dry clothing and made immediately for the parlour to prepare a simple repast. Only once Nicolae and I were fed and in our beds would Mama tend her own needs.

  With some effort I braved the discomfort and declined to change my own clothes, beyond removing my thin, inadequate coat.

  An oil-burning lamp held the darkness at bay while I fostered a small wood fire in the grate. As the flames gained confidence the room slowly brightened and I turned out the lamp, conscious that fuel was precious and we knew not when more might be available.

  When the meal was ready Nicolae was gently awoken and we sat cross-legged around the fire, enjoying the warmth, drawing comfort from lambent flames that cast flickering shadows around the sparsely furnished room.

  For a while the dull clatter of wooden spoons against clay provided the only accompaniment as cutlery chased food to hungry mouths. It was a meagre offering of a bland maize-based gruel, enhanced by a few welcome slivers of mutton which Mama had somehow acquired. But we were grateful now for what we would have viewed with contempt just months before.

  Papa had been provident to our needs, but upon his arrest all but our most basic goods and chattels were seized by the Nazis, and after Papa’s execution we were overnight reduced to a state of indigence, without an income or pension of any sort.

  Somehow, Mama obtained the odd bani to keep us fed, though whenever I tried to enquire how she would become agitated and instigate a discussion of some other matter.

  Nicolae, too tired to talk, and warmed by the fire, fell asleep again even before he had consumed what little food had been made available for him.

  Despite my token objections, Mama poured the remainder into my bowl, from where it quickly disappeared.

  While Mama carried Nicolae to bed I took the empty bowls and rinsed the earthenware in a pail of rain water reserved for the purpose. Clean water was as precious a commodity as food and fuel now, and we used it sparingly.

  At last it was time to sleep and I gratefully relinquished my wet clothes to Mama, who draped them as best she could before the dwindling fire in the hope they might be dry by morning.

  It had been a long day and for once, my constitution fortified by the warm meal, I was able to join Nicolae in slumber with fewer than usual of the hours of tossing and turning that had marked my recent bedtimes.

  6.

  I next opened my eyes to a flood of sunlight through the broken window pane. Dust sparkled as it floated timelessly above me, ensnared in a rectangle of light that slew through the gloom of my chamber to play casually upon the splintered wooden floor.

  Through the jagged shards of glass the branches of an olive tree diluted the sun’s glare as she forged her way above the horizon, a few defiant clouds daring to challenge the welcome orb that announced the arrival of each new day. I reached out a hand in
to the beam of light, enjoying the warmth against my skin, the dust swirling anxiously around my extended limb, as if trapped by some invisible border.

  Outside, the dawn chorus was already under way, a welcome aubade to the new day, for the social and political upheavals of recent times seemed to have had no impact on the fauna around us.

  I could hear Mama as she went about her chores, determined our abode should be respectable at the beginning of each day, cleaning and clearing what it had been too dark to tend the previous evening.

  A smile crept across my lips, broadening as I became conscious of it. Happiness was not a commodity in great supply at this time and I welcomed it with open heart. Perhaps it was a sign that things were to change for the better.

  I rose quietly and washed from a bowl of water prepared the night before. For nearly a year now we had been obliged to follow this cumbersome routine, to allow to settle the sediment that spewed forth from the communal faucet a few roads distant.

  Nicolae slept undisturbed through my ablutions, as I wished. We had always shared a room, since before I can remember, but I had reached that age now where privacy was beginning to assume increasing importance.

  This was a difficult time for me. I was aware of the changes taking place, yet unable to fully understand them. There was no-one of whom I could seek explanation, for Mama still thought of me as a little child.

  And now... Now I found myself without a mentor in the form of teacher or friend, in whom I could confide.

  I donned a smock and went to the kitchen, where Mama was still busy with her chores, and after exchanging perfunctory salutations, I passed through to the garden, to view the church clock on which we all relied for our time-keeping. It was a symbol of our village, defiant of the coming and going of those below. A sign of security and continuity in moments of national crisis.

  As with King Carol’s abdication. We, the entire village, I should not be surprised, had stood, studying the hands of the clock, in order to bow our heads in reverence on the hour of his son’s succession.

  All but Papa, whose contempt for the new King Michael lost him many friends. I’d heard it whispered this had been a pertinent factor in his arrest. As much so as the workers’ strike in the Ploesti oil fields. But as yet, the political machinations of the adult world were quite beyond my understanding.

  For me, the clock was simply my guide to attending school.

  Papa had always been insistent that my schooling was of the utmost importance. And so few children were able to benefit from an education, least of all girls, that I ought perhaps to have felt privileged.

  But even when Papa were alive I had gained no enjoyment from my scholarship, surrounded by peers who seemed to look down on me because of my background. Because my father was of the labouring classes, a humble engineer of the oil industry, not part of the intelligentsia.

  Despite this I had made a few friends, and my preceptor had, at first, given me encouragement and helped me to learn.

  But then, after the workers’ strike, when Papa was arrested, everything changed.

  7.

  Mama had insisted I continue to attend class, despite my protests. She said Papa would have wished it so. That it was for my future. That I would have to support Nicolae if anything happened to her.

  And of course, she was entirely right. It is a peculiar feature of childhood that, the less years you have behind you, the more difficult to plan for that which is still to come. But at the time I could not help thinking she just wanted me out of the house.

  This was a belief that had been reinforced just days previously, when I had been sent home from school early, heavy with sickness.

  I had entered the house to find Mama in the company of a uniformed soldier. I was stricken with panic, fearing he had come to remove her as they had Papa. But fear turned to wild incomprehension as realization dawned he was there as her guest, made welcome in our very home, his jacket draped over a chair, his boots at the door.

  After all she had said of them.

  After what they had done to Papa.

  I had run to my room, flinging the door shut, overwhelmed with tears.

  Tears of confusion.

  Of frustration.

  Of betrayal.

  My thoughts were myriad and it took some while for Mama to comfort me to a state where I could converse rationally.

  Through her own tears she had tried to justify herself. He was Romanian, like us, she had said. Not a German. An officer of the Iron Guard, not of the Gestapo.

  As if this somehow lessened the crime.

  But when I demanded to know the precise nature of her entertainment she screamed incoherently at me and ran to the privacy of her room, shouting that the welfare of her children had to come before all else.

  Of course, I was too young then to appreciate her sacrifice.

  The bell began tolling its notice of time’s passing, intruding the present into my thoughts once more, and I realized I would be late. I hurried myself to the road, shouting a final farewell to Mama as I left.

  8.

  I learned of the resettlement plans when I arrived home that evening.

  It had not been an easy day for me. There were no easy days any more.

  My teacher, whom once I might have confided in, now treated me as if I had personally wronged her.

  My friends – as I once considered them, and as I tried, desperately, still to do – were also distant, my family ostracised.

  They made no accusation. How could they? I had done nothing.

  But from the day of Papa’s arrest their attitudes had changed.

  I received no explanation.

  Nor, in truth, could I expect one.

  Their stance was not new to me. Only their target.

  I was not a gypsy. Nor a Jew. Nor even a Slav.

  My crime... My crime was that of my father. Dear Papa.

  I reached our door, pushing against the splintered wood. Rusting hinges announced their objection. I peered into the gloom, stepping over the threshold, pausing while my eyes adjusted to the light.

  “Anca?”

  “Mama.”

  I perceived my mother, seated on a wooden stool by the unlit fire. Nicolae lay asleep on the floor beside her, a sack-cloth providing a little warmth on this cool spring evening. I rushed to hug my mother and we embraced as though our parting had been of weeks, months, not the few hours that had passed for day.

  The ensuing silence warned me all was not well. I relaxed my hold, looking into her eyes, searching for a clue.

  I could see she had been crying, and felt tears moisten my own eyes in empathy, but I fought them back, conscious of some vague sense of responsibility.

  “What is it, Mama? What has happened?”

  My mother clutched me gently to her breast. I felt her chest rise as she took a deep breath while she composed her response. The words, when they finally came, were not unexpected, but no less unwelcome for that.

  “We are to move, Anca.”

  I remained motionless, allowing the news to sink slowly into my mind. Mama turned away, unable to meet my gaze.

  After Papa’s execution we were told we might be moved to another town. To ease the ill-feeling, they had told us. The officer had seemed a kindly man, soft spoken, his concern for our welfare apparently sincere. Yet he wore the uniform of those who had killed Papa. How could we trust him? Believe him?

  “Where to?”

  I asked the question only to break the silence. The destination was of no importance, the reply unfamiliar and instantly forgotten. I had already prepared a more relevant question.

  “When are we to leave, Mama?”

  “Tomorrow. Noon.”

  The answer stunned me. “Tomorrow? But...”

  My words faded as I realised my objections were unsound. We had so little to pack. Such belongings that had not been punitively seized by the Nazis had been quickly sold. Our furnishings – those which we had not bartered for food – had been broken up
to keep a fire at night for Nicolae. Our clothes were few beyond those we now wore. And now we... I... Had no friends even to bid goodbye. I became conscious that Mama was speaking again.

  “First we must go to Bucharest. There we will be given further directions. We must be at the station before noon, Anca.”

  The station. Memories flooded by mind. I was on the train. Constanta. The hiss of steam. The lurch forward as the wheels struggled for grip. I was eleven. My first ever journey by train.

  “Are we going somewhere, Mama?”

  Nicolae had awoken. My thoughts jolted back to reality. The present. Cold reality.

  Nicolae’s eyes shone bright with curiosity, as if he had been awake all the time. Perhaps he had not slept. It was not easy to sleep anymore. I could shut my eyes, but events would not allow rest. They followed even into my dreams.

  Perhaps Nicolae shared the same experiences, I did not know. He was only six. Soon to be seven. I was not even sure when.

  Time meant little to me. To anyone.

  An unknown future.

  A present ridden by fear.

  Only the past held happiness.

  Certainty.

  Nicolae’s little fingers clutched my own. His face came into focus, his eyes on mine.

  “Anca?”

  Mama had moved to the parlour, preparing a meal. I realized Nicolae was looking to me for the answer. I had none to offer.

  “Rest, little one. It is late.” I took his hand, offering a smile and the reassurance of a firm grip. He smiled back, gripping my hand tight. That special bond between brother and sister.

  Mama shortly brought our meal to us and we consumed it with grateful thanks. Long past was the time when we might pick and choose from the bowl, leaving anything that had no appeal. Now every morsel was relished, for we never knew how long might pass before the next.

  As we scraped our platters clean, Mama said, “Dear Nicolae, please try to sleep now. We have a busy day tomorrow.”