Appel Is Forever: A Child’s Memoir

12. We Have Come Back

12 WE HAVE COME BACK It is late afternoon when the train pulls into the Central Station of Amsterdam. After a long wait, someone comes for us in a small open truck. We tumble on and Mama is muttering that it is verschrikkelijk1 that no one was there to get us. As usual, I can't bear to hear her grumble and scold and I try to say that it really is all right: "Look we are on the truck now, aren't we? It's all right." When Mama scolds and grumbles my mind feels as if the "outside shell" that holds everything together is going to explode. My mind's "inside" grates as if the pieces are all broken up and put together again badly, without fitting just like the ice blocks that grind against each other in the spring breakup. I have to try to calm Mama or I'll really break into pieces myself. We come to the Stadionkade, a pretty street of apartments on one side and a canal and sand flats on the other side. Vaguely, I remember that here lives one of the gentile families Mama and Papa knew "before." It is only a few streets down from where we used to live. The street door opens, I go up first, up a carpeted, steep, long staircase. I travel up on my hands and knees and the upstairs door opens. I see Mrs. V and hear myself cry out, "We've come back but Oma and Papa are dead." When I am aware again, I am in a bathtub of warm water with Mrs. V standing by the side. I am conscious for a few more moments and after that I know nothing any more. When I wake up, I see that I'm in a bed with white, clean sheets. It is warm, soft, and comfortable. As my eyes open, Adrienne, who is my 1 "Terrible." 86 In Amsterdam, 1936. With Oma (maternal grandmother), 1937. Mama, Papa, Daantje, and me with my paternal grandmother, Mientzjen Sax Mehler, in background. This photo was taken on Shabbat. I'm happy to wear my "Palestina" dress. Daantje and me on the way to Copenhagen, Denmark, winter 1945-46. I'm holding Daantje by the shoulders. Home again in Amsterdam after a half year in Denmark with foster families, spring 1946. My passport picture, 1947. I thought, "Whatever comes, I am determined to be all right." Ine first happy summer on the farm, 1947. Here I am in Tante garden. Rena's vegetable The house on Eggleston in Chicago, 1948. For two days I could not stop crying. Young adulthood, 1958. I have a B.A. and am married. Suzanne Mehler Whiteley, 1998. (Photo credit: Joyce Lopas) WE HAVE COME BACK age, opens the door to look at me and to say hello. I do remember that I played with her when I was little. I do remember that this is their attic room, one flight up from their apartment proper. I see Adrienne and hear her talk to me. I cannot say anything. It is as if my mind is a soft mushy substance that oozes out of its container. I cannot properly contain myself. I feel crazy as I look at Adrienne. Is it really possible that nothing changed here, Adrienne lived here at her home and at the same time we were in Bergen-Belsen? The moment Adrienne closes the door, as she leaves, I stand up on the bed. There is a mirror hanging on the wall over the bed. Light from the dormer window opposite is cast off again by the mirror. I see a big head with a few tufts of hair and eyes I do not recognize. I pull at the hair but it does not grow longer. I look and see an ugly girl, such an ugly girl, in the mirror. I cannot look long and soon lie in the bed again. Somehow it is clear that I have slept into the afternoon of the day following our return. I feel utterly crazy. I can fit nothing together with anything else. The clean, white sheets, my unrecognizable ugly reflection, the light beams angling into the room, being alive here while Mama and...