Page 52 of The Girl with a Secret
In late September, when the leaves were starting to change color and the wind off the Irish Sea had turned bitter, her letter to Peter came back unopened, withAddressee Unknown, Return to Senderstamped across the envelope in stark, black ink. Rosa gazed down at the crumpled letter in dismay. So, Peter had noteven received her letter! He had no idea where she was, and more alarmingly, she had no idea wherehewas. Was there any way to find him? The prospect of never seeing him again at all filled her with a deep sorrow, akin to grief. She’d feared for their future friendship, but she’d still thought she’d see him someday.
What had happened to him? she wondered. Had he been sent off somewhere to volunteer? Or worse, had he been interned, as she had?
In October, she made the journey to Douglas to inquire whether there was a Peter Gelb at any of the male camps on the island. There wasn’t.
Back in Port Erin, Rosa couldn’t keep a deep disappointment from settling over her like a fog. She would never be able to find him, she thought, even when she was released from Rushen… whenever that was. A tribunal had been set up to examine cases for release, and an announcement of who had been chosen was made every night at five o’clock. A steady trickle of internees was being released in this way, but none of the Herzelfelds had ever been on such a list, and Rosa sometimes doubted whether they ever would be. Her father, at least, had made a full recovery from his injuries, although his arm pained him on occasion. He’d been moved to isolation after the attack, to avoid any further aggression.
Rosa’s mother had been able to see him twice, at the monthly socials now held for married couples at Collinson’s Café, the only time husbands and wives were reunited, although there was talk about creating a camp for married internees to be together. Some of the local residents were against it, fearing it would create greater security risks.
“I think it’s ridiculous!” Mrs. Kneale claimed in her staunch way. “Keeping married couples apart for no good reason! It’s not right.”
Meanwhile, news of the war continued to filter in, through newspapers and the nightly updates on the BBC. Although it had been declared that the Luftwaffe had officially lost the Battle of Britain, at the start of September, German planes began to bomb London, with almost nightly raids for the next two months, battering the city.
Rosa became aware of a growing hostility of the Manx residents toward their German visitors; shopkeepers who had always been cordial and even friendly now acted with a decided coolness toward the internees who bought their goods. Residents cast darkly suspicious looks at groups of internees walking past, and there were more complaints about the fact that the whole island had become a detention center, a simmering resentment for all the barbed wire. A concert of internee musicians had been canceled, deemed inappropriate “considering.”
“Considering what?” Mrs. Kneale fumed. “Most of the musicians, I heard, were Jewish, and some were famous, back in Germany. I’d have liked to have heard them, at any rate.”
“So would have I,” Rosa replied. “Perhaps another time.” She was becoming more philosophical about these little setbacks and disappointments, trying to find pleasures where she could.
Sometimes, at night, she heard the drone of bombers heading to Glasgow or Belfast, and once she’d been woken by the muffled thuds of bombs being dropped, and the sky glowing red from the ensuing fires.
“Liverpool,” Mrs. Kneale told her the next morning, over a meager breakfast of porridge made with water; rationing had started to bite. “They bombed the docks. It might not go well for us, if there was a great deal of damage. The steamers with supplies come from there, you know.”
Over the next few days, it was announced that, due to the damage, no steamers would be heading to the Isle ofMan with supplies, and no internees would be leaving, either. This continued all through the fall, with limited arrivals or departures, lending a subdued note to residents and internees alike, as supplies became scarce and internees who were due to be released couldn’t leave.
Rosa tried to keep busy with the kindergarten, as well as her own classes. She helped Mrs. Kneale in the kitchen and took long walks along the seafront, trying to ignore the jagged barbed wire and look out to the horizon instead, where anything was possible, one day…
Sometimes, she lay on her bed and held her sliver of emerald up to the light as she wondered where her friends were, and more importantly, how they fared. She’d had another letter from Sophie, early in the new year; her sweetheart Sam had been posted to Hawaii, and she was desperately worried for her family in Belgium as she’d had no news but it looked like they had brought in restrictions for all the Jews.
Just like Germany,Sophie had written.How can it be? I feel so guilty, for being here, safe and well, when they are not. Sometimes it is all I can think about…
Yes, Rosa knew all about guilt, and how crippling it could be. She wrote Sophie back, encouraging her to look toward the future, just as she was trying to do.The Luftwaffe have taken a beating, and from what I hear and read, London is still holding strong. Hitler will be defeated, Sophie, and one day we’ll all be living somewhere safe. We’ll be at Henri’s, toasting our freedom and our futures! I’m sure of it.
At least, she wanted to be sure of it. She held onto it like a promise, when she knew, in her heart, it was only a hope.
The months passed drearily enough, although still offering some small yet precious pleasures—a party for the children inthe kindergarten, with games and cake, made from preciously hoarded butter; a new dress sewn by her mother, cut down from one of her evening gowns in bright pink taffeta. It was the nicest dress Rosa had had in a long time, and when she wore it, she felt beautiful in a way she hadn’t since being in Berlin. She allowed herself to feel beautiful, which she hadn’t done after Ernst; her mother clapped her hands and laughing, proclaimed she was very glad indeed she no longer had a “drab pigeon” for a daughter.
Rosa had no further news from her friends, save a letter from Sophie saying she was no longer working at the Jewish Community Center, but she couldn’t say where she was. From Hannah and Rachel, there was nothing, and the nightly news on the wireless Mrs. Kneale had finally acquired made Rosa fear for them, just as she knew Sophie did.
Then, in April, when spring was just starting to warm the air and the buds on the cherry blossoms were beginning to unfurl into riotous, pink bloom, Rosa was summoned by Dame Joanna.
One of the great lady’s aides came to find her at the kindergarten, where she’d been bent over a primer, listening to a little boy haltingly sound out his first words.
“Miss Herzelfeld?”
Rosa had glanced up in surprise, one hand on the boy’s shoulder as she murmured her encouragement. “Yes…?”
“Dame Joanna wants to see you immediately.”
As Rosa straightened, the blood rushed from her head and, for a second, she felt so dizzy she swayed where she stood. The aide’s face was severe and unsmiling. What could the head of the whole camp possibly want with her? Rosa wondered. Had something terrible happened? She did not think it could be good news; releases were announced publicly, in the evening, not by a private summons to the head of the camp. What had gone wrong? Her mind raced as she thought of her mother, whomshe’d seen only that morning, and her father, a few weeks ago at the café social. Was one of them hurt?
“Thank you,” she murmured, and putting down the primer, she followed the aide to Dame Joanna’s office, in a repurposed boarding house along the high street, every step she took filling her with yet more dread.
“Ah, Miss Herzelfeld.” Dame Joanna’s smile was kind but brisk. “I have had word that you are to leave us.”
Rosa stared at her blankly, the words not making any sense. “Leave you…?”
“Yes, as soon as possible, as it happens. You can take the first ferry tomorrow morning, and then the train to Liverpool and onto London. Someone will meet you at Cockfosters Station.”
