REMEMBERING

Based on a true story

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It should have been a simple meal, on a balmy summers evening enjoyed by two old friends.  The friendship had begun years before, when Collette had delivered the youngest of Jane’s daughters, as a midwife. And what began with a life being brought into the world, developed roots and became a comfortable mutual admiration. It wasn’t unusual to break bread together, or chat about life and the state of the world.   But on this warm evening, as they relaxed outside, content from a delicious meal, a heaviness arrived, and cast shadows over the evening sun.

It was the date, an anniversary, which prompted the dark mood which crept across like an eclipse.  “I should never have come tonight, I thought I could hold it all back, if I pretended…”

“Are you ok? What is it?” Jane’s eyes widened.

Heavy sighs pulled down the corners of Collette’s mouth, her eyes seemed to sink, and her shoulders slouched.

Jane had never seen her friend this way. “Please, what on earth is it?”

Still, Collette struggled to find the words as she stared at the floor.  After a few minutes she fumbled in her pocket, taking from it a packet of cigarettes and her wallet.  She took a cigarette from the pack which she placed on top of the wallet, and lent back in her chair, inhaling the smoke deep into her core.  When she had smoked it down to the filter, she stubbed it out in the ashtray.

Concern that her dear friend was ill or in trouble of some kind, Jane could barely breathe. “Whatever this is, I’m here for you.”

Collette squeezed her hand and nodded.  She appeared to be psyching herself up for whatever she was about to say, as though she needed to remember before she could speak.  She lifted her cigarettes from on top of her wallet and placed them on the table, slowly, deliberately, as if debating whether to continue.  And then from within her wallet she pulled out, what appeared to be, old photographs.  A moment passed as she stared at them through sadness and then gently, and as though they were priceless, she placed two wrinkled and worn pictures next to each other.

Jane knew her friend was considerably older than her, that she was originally from France, but not much more of her distant history.

Collette pointed. “That’s my son, and that,” she paused, “is my husband.”

“I never knew you’d been married.” The sombre mood prevented her from saying anything more.

“We were in the resistance, in the war, me and my husband.  He was my one love. But we were betrayed.” She swallowed hard.

Jane gasped, astounded at the revelation.

“My little boy, and my love, were murdered by the Nazis, in front of me.” Her body shook at the painful recollection, and she began to speak in French.

Jane carefully took hold of Collette’s hand. “Do you know you’re speaking in French?”

Collette’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s so hard, to think about it now, and I suppose I remember it in French…”  She pulled her hand from Jane, and began to roll up her sleeve, folding it up to her elbow, she turned and faced her palm upwards.  “This was me, reduced to a number.  They took my name, my fertility, my family.” Her forefinger traced the faded numbers, tattooed 40 years earlier in a concentration camp.

Jane stopped being brave for her friend, and her tears flowed.

“They made me deliver the camp babies. Can you imagine?  And so, I began my journey, in hell because that’s where I became a midwife.  In my career, I have brought lives into this world.  I have tried so hard, to block out the death I witnessed.  Sometimes, whilst I am awake, it fades and my mind concentrates on the job in hand, to bring safe passage for a new baby, and the best care for the mother.  But when I’m alone, and my eyes close, it can feel as though I never left, and I hear the screams of my son as he cries for me.”

Jane’s tears continued to stream, and her words failed.  What could she say to her dear friend?  How could she offer any words which would do justice to her revelations.  Instead, she carefully brought out two candles, which she lit. “Let’s remember them now, together.”

They joined hands, from both sides of the table, encircling the two precious photographs and lit candles.  And on that date, every year following, they would come together, and remember.