The Safekeep(59)

February 8, 1961


God—

I went to pick up my shoes at the shoemaker (sole) and I ran into an old neighbor. I didn’t recognize her at first. I was unlocking my bike and she stood across the street, an old goyish lady in a big winter coat and hair like feathers. She was staring at me. She stared in a way that I knew she would want to talk to me. I did not want that. She came to me just as I wanted to bike away and held my arm and said that I was Esther’s girl. “Aren’t you? Aren’t you Esther’s girl? You are, I know it.” I couldn’t say anything. It was like someone had put a stone in my mouth and now I could not speak. Who says my mother’s name other than Malcha? No one says her name to me these days. She insisted on speaking to me. She wanted me to come have tea at a café at the corner. I thought, Oh, she has someone waiting there who will get me and send me to the Germans. That’s what I thought! And then I thought: that can’t happen anymore. Isn’t that strange, how that works? You can think something that used to be true but isn’t true anymore but still believe it in your bones. I did sit down with her at the café. I didn’t want to stay long, I hated it. She talked a lot. First she asked about Mum and Dad and I didn’t want to say it, she understood what that meant and didn’t ask about them anymore. And then she wanted to say things about how she always liked our family, and that the other neighbors didn’t but she did. She said one time when I was three she had come over for lunch and that Mum was very nice to her. She kept saying she didn’t know what would happen. She wanted me to say that I believed her that she didn’t know. Eventually I said I believed her. What does it matter to me? I just wanted her to stop talking and I wanted to leave. She said that she later heard it was another neighbor who sent the Boots on us in ’42. I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care I don’t care

When I went to leave she held on to my arm and said that I looked just like my mother, and that my mother was also such a pretty Jewess. I said please let me go. She said do you forgive me, tell me you forgive me. I said I forgive you so that she would let go. She did let go. Before I left I turned to her and I said, Who lives there now? And she said that a family without a father used to live there but the mother died a few years ago and that the two sons had since moved out. Only the daughter lives there now on her own. I said what are their names. And she told me their family name is Den Brave. They moved in during the hunger winter, from here, from Amsterdam. A son called Louis and another one called Hendrik and the daughter is called Isabel.





February 9, 1961


There was a girl called Isabel at the last address when I was still hiding up in Friesland. She was older than me. Hair so blond it looked white. One time the family wanted me to stay upstairs because there were Boots around and the parents sent her to bring me food and she held the plate like, Come get it then, and when I reached for the plate she dropped it to the floor and the food went everywhere and it made so much noise. She told her parents that I did it, that I dropped the plate. Every time I hear the name Isabel I think about that. Now an Isabel lives in my house. I’m sure this means something. What does it mean? I’m sure it means something.





February 27, 1961


Met this guy at the bar and we went to his place and he lived in this beautiful apartment on one of the canals. Ceilings so high! Everything was so clean. I wanted to know how much everything cost. I went around and asked him, How much was this couch? How much was this chair? How much was this mirror? And he said he didn’t know and kissed my neck etc. etc. He didn’t know! I can’t imagine. If you come into my house and ask me how much my chair cost I will tell you.





March 1, 1961


A lady came into the store today with a baby girl called Isabel. She kept saying, Isabel come here! Isabel don’t put that in your mouth! I wanted to put my hands over my ears, I don’t know. Children are just children, what did they do, she can’t help her name. But then she smeared her oily fingers on the glass and I asked the woman if she could tell her to not do that, and the woman said, Oh she’s just a kid! I was so angry. So what she’s just a kid! I have to clean that!





March 3, 1961


Wondering how Fred is doing. I saw a girl who looked like her today. It wasn’t her. When did I last see her? Before Mum found me, ’46, something. Missing how hot Fred would get at night. It’s cold here. She breathed so loudly in her sleep that it was almost snoring but she never snored. One time she told me every segment of an orange has exactly three seeds. Nonsense. Liar. What is so funny in telling small lies like facts? So I believed you, is that so stupid of me? Am I the stupid one? Her fingers were the longest fingers I’d ever seen. She was nice to me in that bed though, wasn’t she. So nice and so quiet in that bed. Kisses kisses kisses in the bed well what use are kisses in the end I wonder, it’s still cold here and where are you now so what use is





March 15, 1961


Found one of their names in the newspaper today. I was eating an apple and the piece I was chewing fell out of my mouth. It was a small print about a ship inspection down at the docks and they quoted two engineers and one of them was named “Louis den Brave (31).” It’s him isn’t it? It has to be him who else could it be. There’s nothing to be done with this. It is just a name. What can I do with a name? I can do nothing