Read Online The Sixth Lamentation by William Brodrick - Free Book Online Page B

performing on
stage. From what she said it was rather like Tommy Cooper. He made an amusing
aside, and then dropped down. Everyone laughed, including Madame Klein. They’d
never had children, and extended family were out of reach and touch. So she
found herself alone. She told me the first few years were the worst, and
getting worse. And then she had an accident.
    Madame Klein was an atrocious driver, always banging into things. On
this day, for once, it was not her fault. A van collided into the side of her
car, breaking her right wrist. She never played the piano professionally again.
However, the van had been driven by a young woman who worked for a Jewish
children’s welfare organisation, ‘Oeuvre de Secours Aux Enfants’ (OSE) . Its
headquarters had moved from Berlin to Paris in the early thirties, after the
Nazis came to power. It became Madame Klein’s life, just when she thought she
had nothing to live for.
    You have to understand what it was like then. Thousands of refugees
had flooded into France, with children separated from their parents. You’ve
seen something similar on the news. It still goes on. Then, as now, people did
what they could. So Madame Klein was out each day, doing I don’t know what. It
was not something she talked about. But she often took her husband’s violin.
    On some evenings there were meetings with friends she’d made through
OSE. I was never present. But the same men and women came. To my child’s eye
they were always dressed in black and arrived in a long shuffling line after
dark. They gathered in the salon, with its low lights and drawn curtains. I
thought it was terribly exciting. And I was desperate to know what they talked
about. So I started listening at the door.
    You’ll find, Lucy, as you get older you start seeing yourself from
the outside. Particularly your childhood. You’ll see a child enacting her part
innocently while you watch, knowing what is going to happen, unable to
intervene. As for me, the need to intervene, if I could have done, comes later.
For now I can see myself in my nightie, with bare feet, bent over by a great
white door with beautiful shining brass handles. I’m trying to breathe as
quietly as I can, looking through the keyhole at those gesticulating arms and
solemn faces.
    They never seemed to converse. It was always an argument, even when
they agreed. What was going to happen next? That is what they fought over. Were
they on the verge of the greatest pogrom they had ever known? And what was to
be done? The killings had been under way since 1930. Within months of Hitler
becoming Chancellor, there were camps. I remember one voice from the far side
of the room say fearfully ‘If they’ve killed us in the street, they’ll kill us
in the camps.’ And then a deep voice by the door spoke, so close to me I almost
jumped back. It was Father Rochet. ‘You are not safe in France. You’re not safe
anywhere.’ There was the most dreadful silence after that. Through the keyhole
I could just make out an old man with a stick propped between his legs. He
still had his dark hat and coat on. I can’t recall his name, but I’ve thought
for years about his face, caught in the yellow lamplight. He had a look of
recognition: this was an old, familiar warning.
    When I heard a chair scrape, I ran upstairs. Sitting on the landing
with my arms around my knees I would hear them all troop out, as if in rancour,
and from the window see them disperse into the night, in twos and threes, often
arm in arm.
    In time, these meetings occurred more frequently Events in Germany
and France were followed closely Some talked about emigration. There was no
need, said others. The Germans have got us out of their hair, we’re safe. Not
yet, said Father Rochet.
    He always stayed behind, Father Rochet, to confer in private with
Madame Klein. I never found out what they talked about. Back by the keyhole, I
only saw them huddled round a table, like mother and son, whispering. God