Together in Another Place (3 page)

BOOK: Together in Another Place
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‘Not
too loud,’ a well-dressed man advised him, not unkindly.

The
curtain drew back to reveal an elaborate backdrop for a dance troupe. They were
dressed in very short skirts and matelot tops and began a high-kicking routine
that soon had onlookers clapping along.

‘There
are some who frown on what goes on in this place…’ Simon was now told and he
heard a hollow but appreciative laugh as they watched with rapt attention a
routine that would have been unremarkable in any other venue.

‘I
prefer it to the alternative…and so should they,’ Simon answered, somewhat
haughtily.

‘That’s
what I think,’ was the man’s reply. His eyes hadn’t left the scene being acted
out before them.

‘Are
you…alone, here, like me?’

The
man nodded then bowed his head.

‘Yes,
my wife and children were taken…today,’ he confided over the din of the music.
‘The SS have their ways…and the OD people act them out or…’

‘They’re
put on the train too?’ It seemed devilishly cruel to have separated them here.
How could they possibly know where a reunion might be held?

‘Yes.
One way or the other…we’re in this together, every one of us.’

The
confession was said on a sorrowful voice that ended the brief conversation
between them; it left Simon to reflect on the devastating consequences of his enquiry
but he did not have to do so for long.

Harriette
appeared before a simple set, a homely scene that was revealed as a curtain was
drawn away and the orchestra played the introduction to a song that he had come
to know well. He was soon captivated by her softly modulated voice, the
comforting lilt as she sang out the words of a piece that lasted for only a
moment. Thoughts would turn to home in all who listened, to scenes at bedtime,
perhaps, or of people who were at one with their surroundings and circumstances
and not of a place where boundaries were rigorously enforced.

Harriette
danced in graceful joyous steps, a brightly coloured package clutched to her
bosom as if it had long been awaited.

‘Tralala...tralala...tralala,’
she sang as the tempo of the orchestra’s introduction set the mood.

‘At last a little package comes,

And all are glad...both young and
old,

What I hold near I’ll soon
unfold...

How glad all are...when a lovely
package comes,

For the cloudy skies give way to
sun,

It’s wrapped real tight...tralala...tralala,

It’s hard to see how it can be
undone,

We can’t open it soon
enough...tralala...tralala,

When that little package comes...tralala...tralala,

For when we do the sick are
healed...quick as a jot,

And
on a card we will write our thanks to you, a lot!

Still
clutching the package Harriette waved and smiled happily as she skipped off the
stage.

‘Bravo!’
Simon called out but she paid no heed to that.

Simon
went outside and walked in the gathering gloom to what passed for a stage door.
He would chance it; he’d seek out the girl who possessed his thoughts. The
orchestra had struck up again with another familiar tune and cabaret stars took
their turns to entertain the audience.

‘Where
do you think you’re going?’ a hard voice called out. An orderly soon barred his
way as Simon opened the door and chose to step inside.

‘I’ll
be glad to see...and speak, to Harriette. She’s finished...I presume?’

‘You
presume too much walking in here like this.’

‘Maybe...’

‘You’re
insolent too...’

‘No...I’m
just curious about her. I wanted to say thank you...just to tell her that.’

‘Wait
here,’ the orderly instructed and Simon was surprised to hear it said. ‘Do you
think you can manage that?’

The
man tilted his head in enquiry and his stare upon him made Simon hesitate.

‘Yes,
certainly...I can do that,’ Simon assured him, and then he paused. ‘I can do
that as long as I have your word that she’ll be told that I’m here. I’m Simon...’

‘Let’s
see if she’s as keen to see you...’

‘Thank
you...’

‘I’ll
do it this one time...’

‘I
can’t ask any more...I live for the day.’

‘As
we all do...’

The
man was gone. His unremarkable overall, with its star, was in bleak contrast to
the colourful costumes of the women on the stage he had seen before and again tonight,
especially Harriette’s.

Simon
tapped his feet impatiently on the boarded floor, wondering if the young woman
he longed to be with again had gone on stage for another act. The cast, on
nights like this, were usually made of well-known stars, or troupers; Harriette
would only be in a supporting role if called for, he could only assume now.

The
noise was deafening even in the confined space of the back stage area where he had
been ordered to wait. The little jigs he soon chose to perform, swirling his
cap as he did so, went un-noticed.

It
was just as well for he tripped on something that had gone unseen. He crashed
to the floor and recognised soon enough what it was, someone’s pathetic
bundled-up possessions – perhaps those of a detainee who had been transported
and had had no time to gather all that remained to them. He was relieved not to
have dropped his cap; finding it in the gloom and on this dusty floor would not
have been easy.

‘‘Do you remember...do you
remember,
’ he
began to sing, confident that no-one would hear him,
‘do you remember how I told the stars...that I loved you?’’

The
rest of the words to the song didn’t come easily to mind, but the tune did, so
he hummed
 
and then lapsed into
Harriette’s soft refrains...
tralala...tralala
...as
best as he could. It didn’t sound so believable coming from his lips.

‘I’ll
make something for you,’ he now decided as an idea came to mind.

He
said it wondrously for the door at the end of the short passage where he stood
had opened and there she was, his lady Harriette. She still wore her costume, a
long frilly, flouncy dress along with her bonnet that had been partly tied with
a ribbon at her throat.

He
hoped that she hadn’t heard him trying to sing or the gasp of amazement to see
her silhouetted in the doorway.

‘Is
that you, Simon?’ she asked querulously.

‘Yes...I
couldn’t keep away.’

‘Can’t
this wait, please?’

Simon
took in her dismay on finding him here.

‘I
guess it can,’ he replied easily, ‘but I wanted to tell you how much I loved
the song, the solo you’ve sung. I wanted to ask...may I see you afterwards?’

‘There’s
roll call....then lock up...there’s so little time.’ She made it sound as if
her words would persuade him that she was right to point out the obstacles to
meeting again.

‘It’ll
only be for a moment...’

‘Very
well,’ she answered hesitantly. ‘Come back...meet me here. And now I have to
go...I’m sorry.’

‘Your
audience awaits you...’

‘As
you seem to do,’ she dared to admit, touching his arm as she did so, and before
she was lost once more to his view. The door closed and he had to adjust to the
semi-darkness once more.

‘You’d
better be off,’ a familiar voice, that of the orderly, instructed from behind
some props.

‘No
one’s ever alone here,’ Simon muttered but his comment elicited no reply as the
orderly drew closer.

He
knew this to be the case only on account of the man’s foul breath; it reeked of
some ersatz substance that he chose to smoke and that passed for tobacco.

Obediently,
Simon left the building and decided to linger by the hall’s entrance. The
concert would soon be over, in fifteen minutes or so; he wouldn’t have long to
wait.

Above
him, somewhere beyond the patchy cloud that drifted on the freshening breeze, a
concert of a different kind beat out its droning rhythm. Another bombing raid
was in progress. He knew well enough that he, along with so many others, would
soon be taken somewhere to break up the charred and mangled wreckage that had
fallen from the sky and to salvage some metals for reuse by their captors.

‘Go to
it,’ he encouraged on a whisper. ‘
An eye
for an eye...
so, do anything and everything necessary to end this nightmare
for us here below.’


‘I
could never tire of you doing that,’ he said with evident pleasure.

Harriette
had responded to his first tentative kiss. She had gripped Simon’s hands as if
to do so would exercise some restraint upon their actions. Conceding to his
gentle entreaties had been enough. To be courted so carefully in the
surroundings of a detention camp was an affront to all reason. She had dared to
concede, in the days since the concert when Simon had appeared so unexpectedly
back stage and in a show of his touching devotion, that she was
enamoured
of him. Mother had even been
told of it, how her emotions and rational ways of thinking had been thrown into
turmoil by this smiling young man, a man who wore his hat as if to proclaim,
carelessly sublime, that he would survive anything just as long as he had her
for company.

‘And
I also have something from you,’ she said with a tremble in her voice. It had
been so unexpected, so wonderfully special, his gift to her.

She
opened her hand to reveal a small metallic band that Simon had fashioned in
secret and in no time at all. Within a clasp he had fixed a small piece of
quartz, its pale translucent brilliance evocative and significant. Permanence
and innocence he had confessed to her; it also symbolised eternity, boundless
time as he had chosen to think of what had been found beyond the camp’s
perimeter fence. The stone meant that to him and all that he would take
wherever he was after Westerbork...a place remarkable only for the camp, but
made bearable by her presence beside him whenever that was possible.

‘Shall
I fasten it for you?’ he now asked, concerned with the baleful look she had
given him for only an instant as the meaning of his gift possessed her once
more.

‘Yes...please.’

She
said it softly and then turned so that Simon could do so. His hands drew away
her plaited hair and the simple hook and eye was closed against her skin. It
was all that the rudimentary clasp would allow.

‘I’ve
done better,’ he smiled. ‘The shop near Rembrandt’s Square was where I
worked...Pa’s place.’

Harriette
turned and was surprised to see him blink back tears. She raised her hand to
touch Simon’s face in a moment’s consolation for a memory that had risen up
within him, unbidden.

‘You’ll
always be together...’

‘Yes...there’s
that belief to hold on to,’ he replied before brightening. ‘The metal strands
will fade...it will look lovely against your skin...simple as the band is.’

Harriette
noted the evident pride in his work and the way Simon had spoken of it.

‘Keep
it hidden…under the collar of your dress…’

‘Very
well…’

‘It
will spare you any enquiry…especially from the people watching over us…and the
other lot.’

Simon
chose now to conceal his gift as he had advised her to do. Then, he placed a
single, soft touching kiss to her neck as he said something that obliged her to
turn and face him.

‘May
God, and your family, help you lovely Harriette…wherever you are.’

Right
then she couldn’t hold back her tears; nor, could she keep from embracing him
and she kissed Simon’s cheeks in a rush of emotion. The happy-go-lucky young
man who had caught her eye, the smiling face under an ungainly cap, a suitor in
an alien place, had said something profound and quite unexpected.

‘Go…go
now, Simon, please,’ she whispered, brushing away her tears with sweeps of her
fingers against her cheeks. She couldn’t keep from wondering why she was so
tearful, how she could be overcome or lose control of her emotions? Was she
being worn down by all that she and everyone around her had to endure in this
place? ‘You’ll be late for roll-call. Don’t get into trouble…not over me.’

Even
then, after all that had passed between them in recent days, and now his
special gift, she couldn’t concede to an emotion that she had striven to
disclaim in present circumstances…that she had found a love particular only to
her and Simon.

He
said it for her.

‘I
could love you…’

‘I
know…I know it too, and that is what hurts me.’

Harriette turned
away and pushed on the barrack room door. Others rushed past but she was
oblivious to them all. After a fleeting glance, and to see if Simon would leave
her and save himself any trouble, she was lost to his view.

BOOK: Together in Another Place
9.34Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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