Finding Rebecca: A Novel of Love and the Holocaust Read Online Free PDF Page B

eating. It
was almost seven o’clock and the sun was still high in the summer sky, but it
was time for Alexandra to get to bed. Uli picked her up and brought her over to
kiss her father. Stefan ran his hands through the thin blond hair above her
ears and kissed her on the cheek. Alexandra waved down towards Rebecca who
managed a smile back. Uli took her upstairs, still laughing. Uli was up the
stairs before Stefan spoke again. “Rebecca,” he said in a low voice, “you need
to tell us where you live. I know that if Christopher or Alexandra were out at
this time of the evening, I would be very worried. Now you don’t want anyone to
be worried about you, do you?”

    Rebecca looked down at the table in
front of her and shook her head. Stefan had opened his mouth to speak again
when she answered. “I live two houses away. I spilled my tea and mother hit me.
She fell down and I ran out.”

    Stefan immediately stood up from the
table. “I think I need to see your parents now, Rebecca. It’s time to take you
home.” Christopher looked across at Rebecca and then up at his father, he tried
to speak but didn’t know what to say. Rebecca tried to squirm away from Stefan
so he picked her up and carried her out through the front door. He called up to
Uli to say that he was taking Rebecca home. Christopher ran out behind his
father, pleading with him to come along. “It would be good for you to see
Rebecca’s parents, probably half-sick with worry.” Stefan put Rebecca down as
they reached the road, making her promise to be good and to hold onto his hand.
“This is some way to meet the neighbors,” Christopher heard his father mutter
as he walked along with Rebecca clutching onto his hand, with Christopher
lagging a few feet behind them. Christopher saw Rebecca’s face as she turned to
him but there was nothing he could do.

    They shuffled along the rough-hewn
road for a few moments in silence before Rebecca spoke. She pointed to a small
house just off the road, unkempt and weather beaten, much like their own before
they had arrived and started painting it. Rebecca slowed and Stefan almost had
to drag her into the driveway. Christopher caught up to them and ran up to
Rebecca, wrapping his fingers up in the palm of her hand. Silent tears dripped
down her reddened cheeks. Stefan walked up to the door, peeled and flaking
brown flecks of varnish. The window by the door was grey, unwashed and only the
layer of spider-webs that ringed it were visible through it. Christopher was
frightened and thought of asking his father to go back but he just watched as
Stefan rapped on the door. There was no sound from inside, nothing but the
sound of the sea sliding onto and stretching back from the shore below them.
Stefan looked down at Rebecca as he knocked once more.

    ‚ÄúYour parents must be asleep,‚Äù he
said, more to himself than to Rebecca. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
He looked down at her.

    ‚ÄúYes, I have a brother, Peter. He is
ten.”

    Stefan knocked harder this time and
the door came ajar with the force of his closed fist. He called out a few times
but no answer came and he pushed back the door to walk inside.

    The house was musty and old, with a
long passed grandeur. They entered into a hallway with the kitchen on their
left. The carpet was worn and threadbare and Christopher felt a nail jabbing
into the bottom of his shoe, but he didn’t speak. No one did. A shaft of golden
light from an open window led them through the end of the hallway and into a
living room with paintings of local scenery on the walls. There was a broken
bottle on the floor, but there was no one, no sound. Then they heard the voice
from behind them, cracked and rough, uneven.

    ‚ÄúWhere the hell have you been?‚Äù They
all turned around and Rebecca hid behind Stefan’s leg. The man, seemingly Rebecca’s
father, was standing