I remember the day when I returned home from school and saw the fancy leather valise in the hallway. Hanging from a peg was a strange khaki-coloured coat. We had a visitor. In the drawing room sat a tall sun-tanned man, delicately holding a cup of coffee between his broad hands. Papa sat opposite him, the two men engaged in an animated conversation. When I walked in, Papa looked up and Uncle Stephan turned to face me.
'Ah, and here she is. Little Eva. Eva, do you remember my brother, Stephan?'
Of course, I didn't. I smiled nervously.
'Uncle Stephan has returned to us from Palestine.'
After dinner that evening, Mama dressed Margot and me in clean white dresses and we were ceremoniously marched into the drawing room. Twice before, Papa had insisted on parading his daughters in this manner, and on both occasions we had cried and begged him not to humiliate us in this way. This time, Mama said, it was different. It was just Uncle, and we could play as little or as much as we wished. As we walked into the cigar-smoke-filled room, Papa cried out with delight.
'Margot! Eva!'
He slapped a knee and jumped to his feet. Then he turned from us to his brother.
'Margot is quite a little pianist. Eva, however, is a newcomer to the violin. You must forgive her mistakes.'
The shock of this betrayal chilled my blood. I looked across at my sister, who, to my dismay, was beaming.
That summer, my parents seized the opportunity of Uncle Stephan's visit to go to the east for a short vacation. Uncle Stephan was left in charge of Margot and me, plus three of our friends. It was understood that we would study in the mornings, and then be free to play for the rest of the day. However, we contrived to turn the mornings into a nightmare for poor Uncle Stephan, who was constantly labouring up the stairs and encouraging us to stop shouting and return to our books. Once he had left, Margot and I would begin again to make up stories about him for our three friends. One day, he might be a pirate who sailed the seas of the world looking for treasure; the next day, an African explorer. We transformed poor Uncle Stephan into anything we thought appropriate, and when we became bored with our games, we simply shouted at each other in order to make him climb the stairs so that we might giggle at him. But he never raised his voice, or left us without a small, if somewhat tired smile.
I know you're good children.'
And then the door would close in, and we would listen to the thumping of his feet as he made his weary way back down the stairs.
During those long hot summer evenings, Margot and I would sit with Uncle Stephan and question him about fashions, and movies, and movie-stars. But he knew nothing. He had seen nothing. He had never seen a Valentino picture, or even a Chaplin picture. Margot knew more than I did, therefore her sense of disappointment was greater than mine. I simply followed where she led, sighing after her, throwing my hands into the air a moment after hers, and letting them come to rest a few seconds after hers had settled. Uncle Stephan would reveal little about where he had travelled, or what he had done, except to confess that he had been in Palestine and that it was hot — hotter than even our hottest days. His reticence only served to add to his mystery, and yet Margot and I grew very fond of our strange uncle. And then, in the morning, our friends would arrive with their books and papers, and the five of us would again conspire to produce a kingdom of chaos at the top of the four-storey house.
After Mama and Papa returned from their vacation, things were never the same again. In the evenings, Papa and Uncle Stephan would sit together, their conversation growing louder and more heated as the evening wore on. It was so hot that Mama allowed us to keep the doors to our bedrooms open, which made it a simple matter to follow the tide of argument that flowed up the stairs. Papa was adamant. Uncle Stephan had given up on his medical studies, discarded a wife and daughter, and gone off to fight for what? Why create another home among these Arab people? His wife was right to refuse to uproot her life and expose her child to these barbarians. Papa and he could set up in medical practice together. The brothers Stern. They might become the richest doctors in the country. Why had Stephan suddenly become a fool who evaded his responsibilities? Let some other idiots risk their lives for this self-styled new country. Uncle did not like being a called a fool, and this epithet generally produced a vocal storm which raged and bellowed as long as the pair of them had the energy. Had Ernst forgotten that they were Jews? That they remained the only people on the face of the earth without their own home. Did he know this? Papa would eventually drag his tired body up the stairs towards his bed, but he always remembered to stop by and give his girls a kiss goodnight. I usually pretended to be asleep, but sometimes the unusual smell of alcohol disturbed me and my eyes met those of my Papa.
After a week of acrimony and raised voices, Uncle Stephan crossed a bridge and passed into the world of himself. He spent long hot afternoons sitting on a wooden bench in the garden, simply staring at the trees as though introducing himself to nature. He would sit perfectly still in the searing heat, nothing on his head, barely blinking, until the daylight had faded and the trees had begun to blacken. Somehow Margot acquired a map of Palestine and, one afternoon, we went together to Uncle Stephan and asked him to show us exactly where he had been. He looked at the map, then drew his finger aimlessly across it, pausing at various places, and then he continued to drag his finger this way and that, as though he were touching some precious object. Then he squinted up at us, the sun obviously causing his eyes some difficulty.
'Thank you.'
Margot and I glanced at each other. Thank you for what? we thought. Then a frustrated Margot asked him.
'But Uncle, what were you doing there?'
Uncle Stephan fed his own enigmatic personality by simply smiling and shaking his head. He had no desire to share with us the secrets of the world to which he was committed. Margot was exasperated.
'But Uncle Stephan, why won't you tell us?'
What neither of us fully appreciated was that poor Uncle Stephan was not talking to anyone. For him, there had already been enough talking. Papa had told him that unless he returned to his wife and child, Papa would help them to leave and settle in America. Uncle Stephan's wife had written her husband many letters, all of which confirmed that she remained adamant that she would not live in the desert with Arabs bearing down on her from all sides. At least, in America, she and her child could begin anew. And so Uncle Stephan decided not to return to his wife and child. He loved them dearly, but he feared that his resolve might break were he to see them again and try to settle this issue face to face. Papa laughed at his brother, and then spat in disgust. Sitting on the wooden bench in the garden, and these days simply staring at the yellowing grass between his feet, Uncle Stephan tried to minister to his broken heart. He had made his decision. He would be returning to Palestine.
Uncle Stephan was carrying the same khaki-coloured coat, and standing beside the same fancy leather valise, that I had noticed when he first arrived. Mama and Papa stood with him in the drawing room. Uncle Stephan seemed rested, serene even, and he smiled at the two girls who stood together in the doorway. Perhaps the sight of his nieces caused him some further regret, as he imagined his own child growing up without ever knowing her father. It turned out that his wife had written to him and informed him that she understood from his silence that he preferred Arabs to his own child. To her mind, the serious responsibilities of family were incompatible with the responsibilities of this self-proclaimed new life of his. This being the case, she had no desire ever to see him again. She was respecting his choice, and she asked him to respect hers.