Free Together in Another Place by Jan Vivian Page A

thoughts – work,
concerts, even a shop to buy some goods that hadn’t been seen for some time near
their homes in Amsterdam.
    ‘You
can trust me…’
    Harriette’s
admonishing tone, moderated by fear, was punishment enough for him.
    ‘I
know…’
    She
brushed wispy strands of hair from her slender high cheeked face. How could her
family have been swept up by the authorities and brought here? The family’s tenuous
Jewish bloodline had made them guilty, by association. Your ancestry was even
counted in fractions; ’one and a half’ set the line.
    They
watched in silence as the orderlies gathered along the new trackside, waiting
to muster the family groups that began to alight from the carriages of a train
allowed entry to the ring-fenced encampment. From afar, everything looked perfectly
normal.
    Close
to, the men met fearful enquiring stares of the many newcomers. Where would
they be taken to? Would they remain together and be of comfort to each other in
the over-crowded barrack blocks? The countryside they had passed through had
been so peaceful and unremarkable.
    They
were met by looks that lacked any fulsome reassurance.
    ‘I…I
must find my parents…and, be with my sister, Betty,’ Harriette whispered as the
sight of the displaced provoked the fear of kin being lost to her. People would
be assembled and leave, for the east; that was the weekly solution the
authorities were soon called upon to make, the orders handed down from the
Reich’s Marshall himself. The names of the ‘chosen’ were called out by their countrymen.
    ‘It’s…it’s
too ghastly to contemplate.’ Harriette spoke out an intrusive thought.
    ‘When
can I be with you, again?’ Simon asked it, unwilling to concede to the girl’s
melancholy.
    ‘You
will see me at the concert, tomorrow.’ Harriette chose to reassure him.
    Tuesday’s
were special…for entertainment of the highest quality, performed by renowned
artists who were captives just like their humbler brethren. Membership of a talented
élite bought time, deferred the moment when they too were transported to another
place and an uncertain future. She had merely offered to take part in a chorus
line or to paint stage props, anything to occupy her mind and pursue an
interest that she loved. She had made some progress; she had been asked to
rehearse a song chosen for her and felt that to be a singular honour.
    ‘Are
you sure?’
    ‘Yes,
Simon, so let that be enough.’ She had heard his eagerness to know that their
separation would not be endured for long.
    Simon
watched Harriette walk away, indifferent to how her lovely floral print dress had
become grubby and wrinkled. He drew comfort from seeing her wearing it in these
drab and desolate surroundings. The girl had a wondrous spirit for life and a
happy laugh. She allowed the real person to appear when he had said something
by way of a compliment that amused her. He felt close to Harriette then, when his
words expressed his pride to know her and Harriette had sought him out in the
audience after she had been chosen to help in entertaining the detainees.
    Then,
she would dance and sing on a makeshift stage, the wood plundered from a
synagogue in a nearby town. She charmed fellow inmates with a clear voice and
gently cadenced words that took them all, far too briefly, to a different world
and time. At such a moment, Harriette was a wonder to him, a wondrous girl with
long auburn hair who enthralled him.
    ‘How
can I survive, anywhere…without you?’ he dared to call out before closing the
gap between them. He was disconcerted to have confessed to his worst fear…that
of being separated from her.
    ‘We
can’t let ourselves go,’ she said gently and touched his arm. Her eyes sought
some acknowledgment from him that it should be so.
    ‘I
have already… let go .’
    He
gave an expressive shrug and smiled before clasping her hand to his chest. With
the other he held his cloth cap.
    It
had been the first thing Harriette had