The Safekeep(58)

August 5, 1960


Stormed out, lost job, fuck them up the ass. Have decided to try out at the Bijenkorf! A fancy place, a department store, I can do that. I will dye my hair blond, I will put on a voice, they will not know. I can be just like any girl working at the department store. Maybe I will move out of this damp cave hole of a house maybe I will find something better I can be just like





October 1, 1960


Yom Kippur. On a Saturday this year. Stayed inside and smoked a whole packet. Wanted to fast but had a cucumber at four. Will God punish me now? Haha





October 12, 1960


Had my first week with De Leeuw. Smell like pickles & brine. Will possibly always smell like pickles and brine always from now on. I shower and it doesn’t go away. I doused myself in perfume and it only got worse. I will resign myself to it: I am now pickle girl. Got job through Shula who got me in touch with a cousin who still had a favor with the son of the owners. Nice people. Not quite Bijenkorf. Not quite department store. It’s getting colder. Today I smelled autumn in the air.





October 30, 1960


Birthday. Dreamt of Papa. Not nice.





November 11, 1960


Shula came over with a friend, Miriam, who was very unlikable. Would not stop talking. Did not take off shoes. She did tell one interesting story. She’d heard of a girl from the Prinsengracht who pretended to be a maid and got the family who now lived in her family’s home to hire her. She lived there for a half year pretending to be a maid and piece by piece took back things that had been left behind. First a fork, then a napkin, then a painting, then a necklace. By the time they figured it out she’d made a run for it. I listened to this story and it was like my blood was on fire inside of my body. I thought: I am going to do that. I didn’t say it, I just thought it, and Shula just looked at me for a long time like she could see it in my face and said it was a fantasy and things like this never happen anyway. Then Miriam said no one would hire me as a maid anyway, because I couldn’t keep a home and everyone would recognize a Jew face and that I smelled like pickle brine. Miriam’s face is worse than mine but I didn’t say that. I didn’t say a word. I went to the window and smoked in silence until they didn’t know what else to do and then they left. Good riddance. No, not Shula, I like her, poor thing.





December 2, 1960


The snow has started and will not stop. Basje is pregnant. She said she could dye my hair in their new kitchen, she has a big sink now and a window that can open all the way.





December 15, 1960


Craving rhubarb. With cream and sugar from the oven, mmmm. Mum in her straw hat in the vegetable garden pulling rhubarb. I close my eyes and I see it I see it. The fight they had where Papa said he was going to cut down the firs because they blocked the sun and Mum who loved the firs saying, Oh you’re God now? You’re God now and you get to decide where the shadow falls and where it doesn’t?





December 25, 1960


Little baby Jesus everywhere. They have no problem letting Jews into their homes as long as they’re carved from wood, do they.





January 5, 1961


She’s been gone eleven years today. Woke up with what I thought was a bad hunger and then as the day went on I realized it wasn’t hunger. Really want to hold something that she held. Asked Malcha if I could look through the boxes for Mum’s old diaries and Malcha said I could but that there probably wasn’t anything there, and that a lot got thrown out or burnt in ’42. Remembered the time she gave me a booklet to write in when I was a kid. I said I would keep a diary and then never did. Didn’t want her to nag me about it so I gave the notebook to some girlfriend and pretended it got lost. She found out and got so angry. Well. Look at me now, Mama!





January 21, 1961


More snow. Remembering the house when it snowed. The sound of snow falling from the branches like a muffled word. Hmph! The sun in the mornings and the shadows of the trees on the curtain. It was dark & evening the time we drove there in ’46. We parked by the front of the house and so I couldn’t see anything except that the lights were on inside. Do I remember what the family who lived there looked like? No. I think I looked inside but maybe what I remember is made up. A few kids, younger than me, at the table and a big dinner. It was a cold night, I wanted to run away when that woman answered the door but I just stood there. Do I remember what they said to each other? They were shouting, and Mum said something about being let in, about it being our house, and the woman said she’d call the police if we didn’t leave. Mum shouted: “Call the police! Let them come! Call them!” And then I cried. The woman closed the door and Mum banged on the windows for a long time. The police didn’t come. The ride back home was freezing. It was the year the window in the car fell into the door and we could not fix it. I kept sobbing and Mum got angry and told me to stop whining. She was smoking, no gloves. She was missing a few teeth and the rest were yellow. Some illness from the camps which some doctor told us about later but I forget the name of the illness. She held on for a few more miserable years and then died freezing in a small bed waiting for me to find her in the morning.