Perfectly Ordinary People(117)

‘So you’re angry,’ I said. ‘You’re angry with them.’

‘I’m . . .’ Dad said. He looked around the room and for a moment I thought he’d finished, that he’d exceeded his word quota for the year and was simply going to beckon over a waitress and order dinner. Knowing Dad, it was perfectly possible. But then he turned back and, staring at the table, continued, ‘Yes, I’m angry, and grateful, and sad, and disappointed. I’m confused and resentful as hell. I feel lucky and saved and . . . violated, I suppose, in a way. I feel cheated, and . . . I don’t know . . . bereaved, perhaps, is the right word. And a bit undeserving as well.’

I glanced sideways at Jake and saw his eyebrow twitch at the shock of what had undoubtedly been the most heartfelt sentence my father had ever uttered to us.

When I turned back to face Dad, he was dabbing at his eyes, and I started to cry as well. Because Jake wasn’t the only one who hadn’t fully realised the extent of what had happened to my father at the moment he’d read that transcript. I realised that, faced with Dad’s silence on the subject, I’d probably spent more time thinking about how these revelations changed my own sense of identity than how they might have affected Dad. Compared to the earthquake he’d endured, I’d suffered nothing more than a few ripples from a distant tremor. Only now was I understanding quite how profoundly his life had been swept from under his feet. His identity: gone; his family: gone; mother, father, grandparents, surname, culture, belief system, date of birth: all gone. Every essence of the person he’d believed himself to be had vanished in an instant because of me, because of something I’d pushed upon him. I grasped only in that instant how hard it would have been for his parents to tell him the truth, and why they hadn’t. And I hated myself for my own failure of imagination, for my own lack of tact and empathy, that I’d dropped that bombshell so lightly.

Dad reached out with his thumb and wiped a tear from my cheek. ‘So yes,’ he continued. ‘I’m sorry it’s been hard for both of you. And it has. I’m not denying that at all. But just try to, you know . . . realise. It’s been really bloody hard for me too. I pretty much had a breakdown over this.’

We sat in silence for a moment, taking it all in, both Jake and Dad pretending to study their menus.

I was running through Dad’s little speech in my mind, trying to remember all the adjectives he’d used. I somehow didn’t want to forget any of them.

‘Undeserving,’ I said suddenly. ‘You said undeserving. Why?’

Dad looked up at me and licked his lips. He shrugged and I saw his eyes were beginning to tear again. ‘Well, they died, didn’t they?’ he said, so softly it was almost inaudible. ‘My mother, my father, my grandparents . . . They all died. Every single one of them was murdered. But for some reason, I got away. Christophe and Genny saved me. And for what?’

‘What do you mean, for what?’ I asked.

‘I mean, what have I ever done with my life?’ Dad said, his voice cracking as tears started to roll down his cheeks. ‘What have I ever done, other than live an ordinary, normal life?’

My own vision was blurring and my throat was too tight to speak. But then I saw Jake reach across the table and lay his hand on top of Dad’s.

‘Isn’t that why we fought, though?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t that the whole point?’

‘I’m sorry?’ Dad croaked.

‘The reason people fought and resisted the Germans and saved people and died in the war . . .’ Jake said. ‘Wasn’t it so that the Jews and the Roma and the gays and the communists and the disabled and everyone else who wasn’t a perfect, blond, blue-eyed German could live an ordinary life? Wasn’t it precisely so that you could live your ordinary life and get married, and have us, and we could grow up and not have to be Nazis? Wasn’t it so that we could all live normal lives?’

We sat silently for a moment. Jake’s eyes were shiny with tears, too, and it crossed my mind what a strange sight we must make for anyone looking on.

Dad swallowed hard and then flipped his hand over to take Jake’s palm within his own.

He sniffed and nodded slowly before continuing. ‘You know, maybe it was, son,’ he said. ‘Thanks for that. I think you may be right.’





Ruth. Part Eight.

Jake executed his part of the bargain first, tracking down Dad’s Uncle Joshua within the week. Abby helped him with this, by all accounts, contacting the Red Cross Holocaust Victims Tracing Center, who had quickly found the answers we needed.

Joshua Rosenberg had been living in New Jersey until 1997, when he’d died aged eighty-two. He’d had a happy life and had been married with three children, Craig, Thomas and Cindy, two of whom Jake managed to contact via email. Following this, Craig had written Dad a rather lovely message that Jake had printed and delivered to Dad. In it he said that his father had often wondered what had happened to baby Menashe, and would have been thrilled to hear that he’d survived and was living happily in London. He also said that if Dad ever wanted to visit his cousins in New Jersey, they’d welcome him with open arms.

As for my trip with Dad, it took a little longer to organise, but in the end, we flew from Stansted on the 3rd of September. The owner being such an obnoxious sod, it honestly wouldn’t have been my choice of airline, but as they offered the only direct flight on that date there really was no other option.