Finding Sophie Read online

  Stanley says loudly, over the music, “Bit soon to be fraternizing with the enemy, isn't it? Time to go home, Fräulein.”

  Nigel's face is so white, every one of his freckles stands out. He lets go of my hand, walks over to Stanley, grabs his arm, and pushes him out of the back door. “Wait for me,” he says over his shoulder.

  Someone cranks up the gramophone. Simon comes over to me, and we finish the dance. Luckily it's almost over.

  When I get outside, Mandy is already there. The twins have a sort of built-in radar about each other. Mandy is staunching a stream of blood from Nigel's nose. Stanley is on his hands and knees, shaking his head. He stands up, and I see he has a black eye.

  Mandy is furious. “You're a fine pair,” she says. “Look at you. This is supposed to be a dance celebrating Victory, not the start of a new war.”

  Reverend Peter comes out to join us. “I have no idea what this is about, however, I suggest you shake hands and then come into the kitchen for repairs. There should be some ice there,” he says.

  Stanley mumbles something and walks off.

  I pick up the riding crop. I feel like hurling it after him. Instead I hand it to Reverend Peter.

  “Thank you, Sophie. You know where I am if you need me.”

  Nigel speaks for the first time. “Thanks, Mandy. I think the bleeding's stopped.” He shoves the bloody handkerchief in his pocket.

  “I'll go back in, then. Hurry up or you'll be too late for the judging.” Mandy goes back in to the dance.

  “Sorry, Nigel.” I say.

  “For what?”

  “You know.” Does he expect me to say that I am the cause of the fight because of where I've been born?

  Nigel leans against the wall of the alley.

  A thin black kitten twines its body round my legs and begins to scratch my stockings. “Ow.” I pick up the kitten and stroke its fur. “Are you hungry?” The kitten begins to purr. “Nigel, you don't have to fight my battles. I've been called names before.”

  Nigel says, “Remember when you and Mandy were being bullied by that gang in the village? Didn't I sort it out? No one's going to get away with calling you names while I'm around. If that Stanley what's-his-name so much as looks your way again, you let me know.”

  “I told you. I don't want anyone to fight about me. People like Stanley aren't worth it.” I smile at him. I don't want him to think he's not appreciated. “Now, let's take this poor starving animal inside and feed it.”

  “Okay.” Nigel leans forward and strokes the cat's ears. His head is very close to mine; his hair brushes my cheek.

  I smile. This is almost as romantic as the shipboard scene when Paul Henreid and Bette Davis share a cigarette in Now Voyager.

  “What's the joke about?” Nigel asks, as we go back inside.

  “I was actually thinking about smoking.”

  “Smoking! I didn't know you smoked, Sophie.”

  “I don't.”

  Mandy wins first prize for her witch costume, and Nigel walks me home.

  If I was asked to say the best thing about this evening, it would have to be the touch of Nigel's hair on my face. The worst thing – that horrible Stanley. How dare he? Time to go home, Fräulein.

  I am home. This is my home and no one's going to say or do anything to change that.

  I'm always early for my volunteering at the hospital – partly because of what Sister would say if I weren't punctual, but mostly because I enjoy it more than anything I do for the war effort. Peace effort, I suppose I should say now, even though the war in the Far East is still on.

  A hospital's a world of its own, quite different from what goes on outside. I should think working here is a bit like being in the forces. I'm on the lowest rung, like a recruit – someone who's just joined up – but I feel useful.

  The porter recognizes me now. “Nice day, Miss,” or “Looks like rain.” Most of the nurses seem pleased to have an extra pair of hands, and even talk about the patients in front of me as if I belong.

  I know that the bandages I've rolled will be used for wounds almost at once. When I arrange a vase of flowers, or plump a pillow, or make up beds with the corners tucked in tightly, I'm doing something useful. Last week I was allowed to sterilize the thermometers. I admit polishing bedpans is not what I enjoy doing most, but Sister-in-charge actually said, “Well done, dear.”

  For the next five Saturdays, I'm on women's surgical. My favorite is the children's ward. I love the babies; they're not afraid to tell you if something hurts – they scream. Adult patients think they're a nuisance.

  I've barely put on my apron when I'm told to wipe all the wheels on the screens that are put round the beds for privacy. When I've done that, it is time to bring in the supper trays. There are twenty-four women on this ward. Poor things, they're having boiled fish tonight – white fish, with lumpy white gravy. You can smell it all the way down the corridor.

  I'd changed the water in the flower vases when a voice, with the trace of a foreign accent, says, “Please make sure beds thirteen and seventeen get the first two trays. The women are on salt-free diets.”

  I look up and say, “Yes, Nurse.” Pick up the trays and put them down again, very slowly and carefully. I need to be sure. I say, “Excuse me, Nurse, didn't we see each other on V-E night …?”

  “The nurse pauses a moment, then says, “Sophie? You can't be Sophie, my Sophie.”

  We hug each other. “Marianne, I've been thinking about you all week.”

  “You've grown up. I can't believe it. Do you still sleep all the time?” Marianne takes my hands in both of hers and beams.

  “Your hair's different and you're not taller than me anymore,” I say.

  We laugh and hug again. I can feel tears threatening to well up.

  The Ward Sister appears. Her snowy cap sits on her gray hair at a precisely correct angle. As I look down, I can almost see my face reflected in her polished black shoes. She crackles starch with each breath.

  “What is the meaning of this unseemly display? I would have thought you knew better, Nurse Kohn. This is a surgical ward, not Piccadilly Circus.”

  We freeze as though posing for a family portrait.

  “Your cap is crooked. Straighten it. Pull down your cuffs.”

  Marianne adjusts her uniform.

  “The supper trays are late. I will see you at the end of your shift, Nurse Kohn.”

  “Yes, Sister. I'm sorry, Sister,” Marianne says. I pick up the trays again and overhear Marianne explain: “Sophie is a great friend. I haven't seen her for over seven years. I'd lost her.”

  And then Sister's reply: “That will do, Nurse. There will be no further emotional outbursts on my ward.”

  When supper is over, I wipe the trays down before stacking them neatly on the trolleys to take them down to the kitchen. Marianne whisks in to refill a water jug. She whispers urgently, “My half-day's on Wednesday, let's meet. Are you still at school?”

  I nod. “We finish at four. I can meet you anywhere.”

  “Outside Goodge Street tube station – four thirty. I'd better go.”

  She glides out. No one ever runs in a hospital; it's the first rule they teach us.

  I cycle home in a daze. I can't wait to tell Aunt Em that I've found my ghost. There is a car parked outside number sixteen. A Ford. Which of Aunt Em's friends owns a Ford? I know it's not Uncle Gerald's. Unless he's changed his car, and that's pretty unlikely in wartime. I've got to stop thinking “wartime.” It isn't anymore, even though we're being told everything's going to be in shorter supply because of the people in Europe, who have a lot less than we do.

  “Aunt Em?” I call, as I enter the house.

  “I'm in the sitting room, dear.”

  We don't usually use that room, except for visitors. We're “kitchen people.” Aunt Em is sitting in the armchair. A strange man, at least one I haven't seen before, is holding her wrist.

  “This is Sophie, Dr. O'Malley.”

  “How do you do,
Sir?”

  The doctor drops Aunt Em's wrist, smiles at me, and says, “Good. We'll soon have you back to normal. Hello, Sophie.”

  “Aunt Em, what happened – did you fall?”

  “Your aunt had a little dizzy spell and called the surgery. Very sensible thing to do.”

  The man in the tweed jacket, with leather patches at the elbows and the lilt in his speech, isn't our lovely Dr. Baines, who'd taken out my tonsils, painfully, a couple of years ago and nursed me through measles and mumps.

  “No need to look so worried, young lady. Dr. Baines is taking his first holiday since 1938, and I'm covering for him. Why don't you help your aunt to her room? Meanwhile, if I might use your telephone, Miss Simmonds, I'll phone a prescription through to Boots Chemist. There's one open late on Baker Street.”

  When we get upstairs Aunt Em says, “I'm all right now, Sophie. Put a clean towel out for Dr. O'Malley. I'll be tucked up in bed before you know it.”

  I run down as Dr. O'Malley is replacing the receiver. “Now I'll just wash my hands and be off. I've two more calls to make tonight.”

  “Will Aunt Em be all right?” I force myself to ask. I have to know.

  The doctor puts his hand on my shoulder for a moment. “Yes,” he says. “Now that the war is over, the strain is showing, that's all. People are tired. They haven't had enough to eat, enough rest, or any holidays for six years of war. Worries about family, getting through air raids. Making do month after month. I call it war fatigue.

  “All your aunt needs is some ‘peace’ and a bit of spoiling. I've told her not to go back to work for a few days. Dr. Baines will be back by then. Good night, Sophie.”

  I put a white cloth on a tray, and two digestive biscuits on a plate beside the cup and saucer. A jug of milk and the small glazed brown teapot for one, which Aunt Em has had for years and years.

  Tomorrow I'll pick some lilies of the valley. There's a clump behind the apple tree. I'll put it on her breakfast tray.

  I knock on Aunt Em's door. She's lying against her pillows, her eyes closed. I start to tiptoe out again. …

  “I'm not asleep, Sophie, just resting.”

  I plump up the pillows, put another one behind her back, and pour her tea.

  “How lovely. It's nice to have my own resident nurse. Sit down and tell me about your day.” Aunt Em nibbles a biscuit.

  “Tomorrow. I have to cycle down to Boots' now for the prescription. Back in a jiffy.”

  When I get back, Aunt Em is asleep. I put the medicine, a spoon, and a glass of water beside her. On a note I write: WAKE ME IF YOU NEED ME. Underneath I draw a picture of a lady stranded on a mountain calling help.

  I leave both doors open. It is almost eleven before I am in bed. I don't feel the least bit sleepy.

  I want to think some more about finding Marianne again, to get used to the idea. Keep her to myself a bit longer before telling Aunt Em about a girl I knew for only two days when I was seven – a girl who's so important to me because she took care of me as if she were my older sister.

  I open my new sketchbook and begin to draw.

  It is the first time I'd been to a station. I draw the train and the smoke belching up into the roof, which is as high as the sky. I draw a woman wearing a scarf over her head, tied like a kerchief.

  I draw hands waving handkerchiefs and mouths shouting good-bye.

  I draw the little girl looking at steps too big for her to manage.

  I draw the inside of the compartment. There are seven children – four girls and three boys. The seats are hard. Wood. How do I remember that?

  It's as if I'm sitting there again, instead of on my own soft mattress. Sometimes that happens when I draw. It's as if I'm right inside the picture.

  I am squeezed in the middle of the row, between Marianne and a girl with long braids. A boy puts my rucksack overhead. …

  Papa says, “Take Zoffie to your mother. It's our best chance.”

  Chance. Chance of what? Is she going to her grandmother's?

  “What about you?” asks Mama.

  “What about me? I'll trust to luck. Go to work, dig my ditches, come home. Wait for what the next day brings.”

  What luck is Papa waiting for?

  “For how long, Jacob? Face the situation. You are safe only if I stay here with you. I want to stay. I will never leave you.”

  “Take the child to Dresden. Disappear with her.”

  Disappear?

  “Zoffie is half yours. Mother will close the door in our faces.”

  Zoffie says, “I want to go to Grandpa with the long beard. I don't want to disappear.”

  Mama is angry. “Now see what you've done.”

  Papa says, “Bed, Zoffie.”

  The girl overhears him telling Mama: “He is an old man, by now over the border in Poland, who knows where. We must get the child away somehow.”

  Zoffie sits up in her bunk and opens her storybook. She shows the pictures of Hansel and Gretel to Käthe. “This is Hansel and this is Gretel. Their cruel stepmother left them alone in the forest. They could not find their way home. The birds ate the breadcrumbs that Hansel dropped on the path to help the children find their way back. Hansel and Gretel walked and walked. They came to a house made of gingerbread and icing sugar. They ate a piece of the door. It was a knob made of chocolate, and it grew right back again.

  “A cruel witch lived in the house. She put Hansel in a cage, to fatten him up for a pie. Each day she said, ‘Let me feel your finger,’ but Gretel had given her brother a twig to push through the bars to trick the old woman. The witch got tired of waiting for Hansel to get fat, and lit a big fire in the black stove. She opened the door to put on more wood, and Gretel pushed her inside. The witch went up in smoke.

  “Then Gretel freed her brother and a little bird showed them the way home and they lived happily ever after.”

  That must be the night her parents decided to send her away to be safe with Aunt Em.

  Wednesday's my favorite day of the week because we get a double period of art. Miss Potter, the art teacher, has brought three objects for our still-life project. When she cuts the orange into quarters, we gasp longingly; it's ages since most of us have even seen an orange. Miss Potter says she'll draw lots after class, so four lucky people will each get a piece.

  She arranges the orange quarters on a thick blue platter, and places a plain glass tumbler beside it. The light from the window bounces off them so that the glass catches the colors, like a prism.

  After a while Miss Potter comes and stands beside me. She doesn't say anything, she doesn't have to. We both know I'm not concentrating today.

  The sight and smell of the orange brings back so many memories that I connect with Marianne. My mother had put an orange in the pocket of my dress before we left Berlin. We were given more oranges on the boat, by the sailors, and again when we arrived in England. Marianne had said she couldn't bear the smell of oranges and offered me hers. I remember being too sleepy to keep awake long enough to answer her.

  It's a relief when the bell rings.

  Mandy and I hurry so as not to be late for library duty, which is supposed to be a privilege. We've been revising all the catalog cards, making sure that every book on the shelves has a matching card and that all the cards are in alphabetical order.

  “You're miles away, Sophie,” Mandy says. “Is it because of meeting your friend?”

  “That's just it. I don't know if she's a friend or some stranger I spent two days of my life with, and I've built it up out of all proportion.”

  “What does it matter? Either way, you'll have lots to talk about. It sounds rather like being evacuated,” Mandy whispers, but not quietly enough. The librarian materializes.

  “Girls, you are not here to gossip. Get on with your work, please.” She glares at us.

  Rather like being evacuated. I suppose it was – not knowing where we were going, or who'd take us in, and saying good-bye to our parents, except that I'd never actually said good-bye
.

  The difference I hadn't talked about to Mandy was, the Nazis on the train stole or spoiled our things and twisted Käthe's head off.

  Mandy mutters, “Stop biting your nails, Sophie. They're just beginning to look decent.”

  Four o'clock comes at last. Washing my hands in the cloakroom, I look in the mirror and see my face. I have two bright red blotches on my cheeks. Nerves.

  Mandy says, “Put your hat on, take three deep breaths, and calm down. This isn't an exam.”

  “Suppose she doesn't turn up?”

  “Then you'll go home and listen to the radio, or draw, or go for a bike ride, or talk to Aunt Em, or read. Come on, Sophie, pull yourself together, as our ‘revered’ headmistress would say. Tell you what – why don't I walk to the tube with you? Let's hurry, though. Dad went back to his unit today, so Mum will want cheering up.”

  On the way to meet Marianne, I try to explain to Mandy. “You see, she's the only person in England who remembers me from before. I'm not complaining or anything – I know I'm lucky – but you've got Nigel and your parents, and two grandmothers and a grandfather, and goodness knows how many uncles and aunts and cousins.”

  “You've got Aunt Em,” Mandy says.

  “You know perfectly well she's not really my aunt. Even her name's not real. I started calling her Aunt Em after the aunt in The Wizard of Oz.”

  “Okay, I forgot. You have my permission to be as nervous as you like. Look, is that her? The nurse by the telephone kiosk. She's waving.”

  “That's her.” I wave back. “Come and be introduced.”

  “Next time. I'll see you tomorrow.”

  I cross the road to where Marianne's waiting.

  “I'm a bit early. I couldn't wait to see you again,” Marianne says, smiling broadly.

  “Me, too.” We shake hands rather formally, and that makes us laugh, breaking the ice. “I hope you didn't get into too much trouble with Sister.”

  “She went on a bit about decorum, and setting an example. She's actually quite decent under all that starch. Sophie, I cannot get over how tall you are. What happened to you?”