Retribution And New Beginnings (2) She looked. His accent suddenly seemed more pronounced. "I am an old man. Old and sick, so what threat do I pose?” He said as if he were reading her mind. “I am also very cold, but my senses are not yet dulled enough to not notice that you have coffee brewing. Please share a cup with me, then I will state my business and you will never see me again." They made eye contact and she began to feel intrigued at what the old man might have to say to her, but she also felt stubborn towards the manipulative stranger who wanted to share her coffee. Rudy felt that he was getting nowhere with her. Aware that his air under such circumstances could be intimidating, he changed his tone, and with a downward glance at the floor he asked her … "Bitte?" Without answering him, she led him to her kitchen. It was her choice, and because of that, she felt more in control of the unusual situation. Or at least less out of control. She had no idea how much it took of him to say that one word. It was not normally in his vocabulary, in English or any other language. Disregarding what seemed to him as bordering on pleading, he followed her and sat at her large table. She poured coffee for the two of them, and placed a plate of muffins on the table. At first, she did not sit, and remained standing by the warm oven. The old man sipped his coffee, but he only stared at the muffins. For Helen, the silence became almost unbearable. She stared at him with an expression that screamed out ‘What?’ but it went unnoticed. Rudy stared at the muffins wondering what the hell he was doing there. His medication did not do much for clear thinking. "Speak to me?" Asked Helen to break the silence, as she took a seat opposite him. Fear and anger had now turned to concern for the obviously sick old man whom she had invited into her home. "Whatever you have come to say, please say it. You can meditate on the muffins until hell freezes over, but they will not help you, so spit it out." Without a word, or an upward glance, Rudy’s hand slipped into his pocket and he took a firm grip of the Lugar. Helens colour drained from her face as she saw what he held. "This is for you." He said as Helens cup crashed to the kitchen floor. *** She had waited for him in life, and so Marie-Christine would wait for him in death also. Clutching the photograph of the uniformed Rudy to her ample breast, she opened her bottle of Chateauneuf de Pape and poured herself a last, but large glass. Her latest prescription of sleeping tablets would be more than adequate or the purpose she had in mind. Coldly, she had calculated how many would be needed to send her to sleep permanently, without causing vomiting. Marie-Christine had it all worked out. She felt more in control of her death than she had ever been in control of her life. It would be her last brave act for him. For Rudy. She needed to plead his case with her God on his behalf. *** Frozen to the spot, Helen stared wide-eyed at the Lugar in the strangers hand. Her heart seemed to stop as she contemplated the prospect of an untimely death at the hand of the stranger she had allowed into her home. All this and more flashed through her mind in a fraction of a second and she suddenly understood why it was said that your life flashes before you when confronted by death. ‘Why?’ was her only question. Why would he want to harm her, why was he there, why kill her? And then suddenly, why was he not even looking at her? Rudy had not even heard the crashing noise that the cup had made, so intent was he on his handling of the gun. It rested in his hand and he looked at it as though it carried some awful disease that he didn’t want to catch. He placed it carefully on the table, and gently pushed it towards a very frightened Helen Strycek. “I want you to take this,” he said, still without looking at her, “you may need it.” “I … I …” Helen wanted to protest that nothing on earth would make her need a gun, but the words would not pass through her lips, and so the gun remained in the middle of the table. She stared at him, her heart thudding. She had never been in a situation that even remotely resembled the one that she now found herself in. Helen had no idea how to handle it, how to handle the old man or how for that matter, to handle herself. Her hands visibly shaking, and her voice trembling, she raised herself up from her seat, pointed at the doorway and demanded that he leave. “I had a sister, you know.” Helen felt that the authority she should have had in her own home had diminished totally as Rudy disregarded her order. Once again she felt powerless, and trying to regain some of her composure, re-took her seat whilst disregarding her outburst as he had done. “She was so pretty. She was one of those children that everyone loved. She had a happy face, and long curly hair that was almost like a bluish black. No-one loved her like I did though. No-one could have. I would have died for her.” He looked up at Helens eyes to see if she believed him or not. He had got her attention, and he could see that she was frantically trying to work out where their conversation was going. He felt relieved that he was rising above the effects of the drugs, and was at last getting remotely near to where he wanted to be with her. “I would have died for her,” he repeated “but instead I killed her.” With great strength, Helen tried to show no reaction and sat stock still while she waited to see where his confession was leading. “An accident maybe, but it was my fault. Not a day goes by where I do not think of her, love her and wish that it had been me who died in her place. Her face haunts me. Her expression, her fear as she was swept away by the river current, and looking back at me, her big brother, for help. Her ’big brother!’ What a joke. I would laugh out loud if it wasn’t so tragic. You see, I couldn’t swim. I was afraid of the water. A coward. She was five for Gods sake, only five and I could do nothing as I watched her drift away. I say I would have died for her and I didn’t. What type of man does that make me? What type of person? Worthless!” “You were a child.” Offered Helen as she could not think of anything else to say. “I was twelve. Old enough to be responsible and old enough to keep a child from slipping into a river. For that act of carelessness, I have served a life-long sentence that has proved worse than if I had been incarcerated for my crime.” Unable to see where he was leading, Helen decided to give the rambling old man a prompt and asked him why he was telling her about his sister. To her frustration, he appeared to ignore her question. “I didn’t fight in the war, you know. I didn’t reach the ‘standards’ required, so I was shipped off and stationed at one of the ghettos. It was harrowing there. We had no idea what the real agenda was at first, and so to me our role there seemed pointless. I was so young and I couldn’t understand why these people were being persecuted and why so much hatred was aimed at them. They were treated inhumanely, and I distanced myself from it as much as I could have done. “Rumours flew around as to what their real fate was to be, and I remember feeling so much fear for them. Their lives had been taken from them, their wealth, their homes and their hopes for the future. All gone, stolen by my country and its vile regime. For what? Even after all these years, I can still find no real answers to my questions. I am sad to have lived this long and to find that I can make sense of none of it.” Helen felt that the old man needed t get something off his chest and so she allowed him to continue without interruption. The quicker her did it, the quicker he would leave. Noticing that he hadn’t drank all of his coffee and it had gone cold, she poured him a fresh one. He thanked her with a brusque nod of his head. “The rumours then began to become facts. Camps were built and they started clearing the ghettos out. Everyone needs a purpose in life, to be wanted and needed and so these people held on to the hope that they were needed for a purpose that would ensure their survival. I knew different, and like I watched Heidi being swept away by an unforgiving current, I watched these people being taken away by an evil and inhumane regime. What could I do? Nothing but watch it happen.” Helen remained silent. “I was powerless. Powerless to help anyone except myself. I kept my nose clean and my opinions to myself, I maintained a low profile and I did my job without being zealous. I still see the faces, they come at night as I am trying to sleep and if I disregard them, they enter my dreams. Some of the families, especially the ones with young children are so vivid in my mind that it all seems like it happened just yesterday. “There was one family in particular, the Bernstein’s, that are foremost in my memory. They had twin girls who were pretty and very loved by their parents. I am not sure how old they were, probably around three years. The mother was sickly and the father was weak from lack of food. I knew they were to be shipped shortly, and I felt frightened for them. I could do nothing for them, and I remember looking at them and thinking, ‘even if I could, I wouldn’t.’ Please understand that when you are faced with that type of situation, you look after yourself because no-one else will. I decided the Bernstein’s would have to take their chances with the rest of them, and I tried to divorce myself from reality and persuaded myself that they would ‘be alright.’ But I did not sleep that night.” Helen watched Rudy intently as he spoke. Gone was the fear and the gun seemed as innocuous as the sugar bowl. She wondered what it was about her that made people want to confide in her. She glanced at the kitchen clock and hoped that his story wouldn’t take too much longer. Her stomach was telling her that it was time to eat. “So, with the pit of my stomach lodged in my throat, I managed to get out of my bunk without waking my fellow soldiers and dressed in my uniform. I found my way unnoticed to where the Bernstein’s were living and got inside. They were all asleep and the mother had both twins in bed with her, one on either side. Gently, I tried to take the one nearest to me, but the one on the other side woke and began to cry. Quickly, I put my hand over her mouth to quieten her and took her from the bed. “It was most unfortunate that the mother also woke, and she saw me. Fear must have gripped her like a vice for there in the dark of the night, her child was being taken by a soldier in uniform. What went through her mind, I can only guess. Before she could make a sound, I pointed my gun at her and the other child and I remember whispering, “Silence. I am doing this to save you. You must trust me.” “She said nothing. Not because she trusted me, but because she lived in a confusing and terrifying time and my gun gave her no option. She had already seen people shot for no apparent reason, and she had no reason to believe that I would not shoot her. I left her lying there, holding her child tightly for all she was worth. “During my time there, I had become very friendly with a local girl. Even under those extenuating circumstances, we had formed a bond which transcended all the evils surrounding us. It was the secret affair as it had to be. It was to her that I took the child as I had nowhere else to take her. I ran a gauntlet to get to where she lived and she was horrified to be woken at that time in the morning. Fear reigned. I pleaded with her to take care of the child, to find somewhere, someone to raise her. She refused at first and fought me on it, but she knew about Heidi and how I hadn’t saved her, and so she could see that it was my retribution. “She knew of a woman who lived alone in the mountains, a recluse who’s husband had died young and so she lived off the land and rejected the world. Had she survived, she would have had a child around the same age as the Bernstein girl so she might agree to bring the girl up as her own. She said it was doubtful but she would try. Somehow, she got the widow woman to agree, and that is the story of how you, Helen Bernstein, got to be raised in the house in the painting.” *** Marie-Christine clutched the picture of Rudy in his uniform as she began to feel the effects of the alcohol and drugs. She felt drowsy, but at peace with herself and the cruel world that she had lived in. The time was right for her to leave, to move on to the world she truly believed existed for her when her soul left her body. Fear, she believed only existed for those in material form and death, merely a release from an unpleasant confused dream. As she drifted towards unconsciousness, she forced her eyes to stay open so that her last sight would be of her beloved Rudy. Eventually she could keep her eyes open no longer, and she drifted gently into oblivion. *** Helen visibly shook. The dream, the nightmare - it all made sense. A monster that she could not see, taking her from her mothers arms, and being torn in two. Having a twin would explain that riddle. Her mind raced and reeled. Should she be happy that she now knew the truth? Or angry because he should have left her in ignorance? She did not know. “This must come as an awful shock for you.” Offered Rudy, fully aware that he was making an understatement. “You must know that I have struggled with the effects of my actions for years. I have on my conscience that I took only one of you. That was dangerous enough, and it would have been impossible to have taken you both. In saving you, I felt that I was condemning your sister, but I had no choice. Together you would have stood no chance. Separated, at least one of you might survive. Do you know what they used to do to twins?” “I do, yes.” She whispered almost inaudibly. “My twin. Did she … did she … survive?” “I am sorry.” “My parents?” “Your father did not survive the forced labour. He became sick and … well … he was sent to … “ “Please don’t say it!” Helen exclaimed with horror and despair in her voice. Tears for a family she could not even remember ran down her cheeks. She had never felt so much desperation in her life, emotions that she was unaware of surged through her very being, through her soul and she felt as though she would never recover from the strangers story. She also knew there was more for her to deal with as she could tell by his eyes that he had not finished his story. “Your mother.” Rudy stiffened slightly as he tried to find the right words. “Your mother did not survive the ghetto and there is no easy way to tell you this.” Her eyes met his and she could almost read the story of the tortured being behind the cerulean gateway to his soul. Whatever this man has done, she thought to herself, rightly or wrongly, he has paid the price a million times over. “Two days after I took you, she saw me as I patrolled the ghetto. Luckily I was alone. Your father tried to hold her back, but she struggled and got free of him. She ran at me, yelling something I could not understand. When she got to me, she pummelled my chest with her fists, screaming about her baby. I tried to stop her, to calm her but it was pointless. The poor woman was distraught. “Her cries attracted attention - too much attention and I could see other soldiers making towards the fracas. Helen, she would have exposed me and I would have been labelled a sympathiser and probably shot. I pushed her away from me and she fell to the ground. For the second time, I held the gun to her head, I told her to be silent or I would shoot her. I thought that I had got her to be quiet, then as the others got within hearing distance, she screamed at me again. “’My baby! He took …’” “I pulled the trigger. I shot her, Helen, I murdered your mother.” Helen looked at the gun on the table. Now she knew why he had brought it. “Now you know the truth.” Rudy noticed the way that she looked at the gun. “It is there for your retribution if you choose.” Helen picked up the gun, and turned it around in her hand. The cold steel chilled her as she took on board the history of the lethal inanimate object. “Put it away.” she demanded as she handed the Lugar back to him. “Who am I to pass judgement on you for what you did in situations that are beyond my comprehension, as I didn’t experience them personally. It must have taken a lot of courage for you to tell me all this. Though I don’t know whether I would have preferred living the rest of my life without this knowledge. But what‘s done is done.” “Do you want to know what became of your adoptive mother?” “I have no interest in her. I still have nightmares because of her cruelty. Locked in that dark cellar, fearful of beatings and wetting myself in the process. I hate her.” “She loved you.” “How can you sit there and say that?” Helen felt years of anger and bitterness well up inside her. “How can you claim that she had an ounce of feeling for the child that was thrust upon her? She hated and resented me as much as I hate and resent her.” “But how can you sit there claiming that you cannot judge me because of the situation I was in, yet you find it so easy to judge the woman that hid you from the evil that would have destroyed you in the same manner that it destroyed your true family? A woman that, in a different way, was in the same situation as myself?” Helen had no answer, because she knew he was right.. Perhaps the old woman’s story deserved to be told. “I am listening.” “She took you in.” Rudy spoke quietly and precisely. “She didn’t want to but she did. It was a time of great fear when nobody trusted anyone else. She had to keep your presence secret, and so she had to be stern. If she felt there was a possibility of anyone approaching the house, she would hide you in the cellar. You were too young to understand Helen. “After the war, you assumed the identity of ’Helen Strycek’, as it was better that way. But there was still fear. I had money, family money and lots of it. I found a family that wanted to emigrate to Canada, and I financed them on the understanding that they would take you with them. My friend, the one that took you to the old woman also needed a new life. I was incapable of giving her the love she deserved and so she also emigrated here. I financed her also and she promised to watch over you for me. You will know her as Marie-Christine. She was your guardian, always in the background watching over you. She helped you to get where you are today.” “Wherever I am today has been down to me, and hard work. How dare you say otherwise.” Helen felt very much on the defensive. “I don’t dispute that, and I take nothing away from you. Your success has pleased me immeasurably. But think about it. Have you ever been turned down for a loan or mortgage? Or car finance? Even in the days when, on paper, you could not possibly afford the repayments? Mm?” “So?” “It was because I guaranteed everything for you. Marie-Christine watched your every move. Don’t get me wrong, all your decisions and ventures were your own, you weren’t influenced in any way. We just paved the way for you. You deserved that. You deserved the best chance of a good life. The rest was down to you.” Helen thought deeply on his words. “The old woman kept track on you also through me. Marie-Christine used to send her photographs that she had taken. She was proud of you and the way your life turned out. She died three weeks ago, she had been ill for a long time. When I last visited her, she begged me to meet with you and tell you the truth. I was the only one to attend her funeral. I even closed the casket myself, as I felt it fitting. It seemed poignant that her last concern was for you learning the truth, and knowing how she really felt about you. So I promised her, after all I owed her that much, and that’s why I am here. Not only for her though. But also for me. “I am ill and my days are numbered. Now I too can go to my grave in peace. That is, if there is to be any peace for me, because often I doubt it. Like her, I have instructed that I am to be buried with my copy of ‘The Great Escape’, because we all need to escape from something.” Without warning, Rudy rose from his seat, took Helens hand in his and gently kissed it. “Like her, I also want you to know,” he said with obvious sincerity “that I love you. Like a big brother loves his little sister.” And then he left, letting himself out through the gallery door without a backward glance. Helen Bernstein wept. *** Helen spent the remaining winter, and most of the spring trying to come to terms with all she had heard from Rudy. She felt cheated that she had been deprived of the opportunity of hearing Marie-Christine’s version of events, as she did not wake from the coma caused by her overdose. Rudy had died a few weeks after their meeting, and she knew this because he had left instructions that his ashes were to be sent to her in the hope that she would arrange for them to be buried with Marie-Christine. Helen found it tragic that it was only in death that they were to be together. As she painted yet another scene of the old house, promising herself it would be the last, she pondered on her feelings. She had had so many mixed emotions over the last few months, and as she painted she struggled to put them all finally into some sort of positive perspective. How should she really feel for a man who had saved her life at the expense of her twin sister, and in the process murdered her birth mother? Was she really the lucky one who just happened to cry that night? If she hadn’t woken, then it would have been her sister whom he would have taken. That was the part that she had the greatest problem accepting, that it should have been her sister that he saved, and she should have perished. As for her feelings toward Rudy, she decided that wherever there was evil, good men would be in its midst, and Rudy was one of those good men who found the strength and courage inside themselves to fight back. He had become her hero, and she hoped and prayed that there had been many more others like him. The sound of children’s laughter brought her out of her deep thoughts. As she glanced over the top of her easel at the old house where she had been raised, a smile came to her face to see that at long last, it was to be a house full of happy faces in a more carefree time, free from fear. Ownership of the house had passed to Rudy, and he in turn had left it to Helen. Her demons now put to rest, she had given the house to a needy young family with children. In return, they were to tend the old lady’s grave and adorn it with freshly picked flowers. The painting finished, she signed it ‘Helen Strycek-Bernstein 2001’ and titled it, ‘New Beginnings’. It was their housewarming gift, and Helen presented it to them just before she returned to British Columbia, never to leave again. ***** ©2004Erasmus Flynt
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