Simon Tolkien - The King of Diamonds

‘It’s your faith in human nature that has enabled you to survive,’ said Trave. ‘And I admire you for that.’

‘I survive because I survive,’ said Aliza sadly. ‘There is no secret to it. Some of us do and some of us don’t. But I thank God and your deputy, Mr Clayton, for sparing me my grandson. Do you know how much longer he must remain in prison, Inspector?’

‘Not too long, I hope. He will have to do some gaol time for the burglaries, but the court should give him credit for pleading guilty and will have to take account of his motivation for committing the crimes. It’ll be hard for the court to be too severe on him when he was simply trying to obtain a justice that the legal system played such a role in denying him.’

‘I hope you are right. He has written several times to say that he will return to me when he is released, and I am already weary with waiting,’ said Aliza with a smile that belied her words. Trave couldn’t imagine impatience getting the better of the old lady. He felt he had never in all his life met a person who radiated such inner calm.

‘Follow the road by the river,’ she directed when they arrived in the outskirts of Mechelen a few minutes later. ‘It’ll take you there.’ And she was right — Trave didn’t need any further directions.

He parked in a corner of the square and held Aliza’s arm as they crossed the road and stood across from the entrance to the barracks. He was surprised by the building — it was an eighteenth-century classical design, pleasing to the eye and very different to the soaring gabled Renaissance Gothic architecture that dominated the rest of the town. There were three storeys with rectangular windows at symmetrical intervals all around the four enclosing white-painted walls, and inside, through an arched entrance, Trave could see a quadrangle in which men in uniform were walking to and fro. He remembered what Jacob had told him — that the barracks were now used as a training centre for the Belgian army.

‘We come here in September,’ Aliza said softly. ‘And stand in a circle with candles and say the names of our dead. Because this is where the railhead was, where they put them on the trains. This is where they left Belgium never to return.’

‘Would you like to go inside?’ asked Trave. But Aliza shook her head. Instead she pulled her shawl over her head, slipped her arm out of Trave’s, and clasped her hands together in prayer. She bowed her head and then, looking over at the barracks, she began to sing, or rather to chant, in a language that Trave didn’t understand but knew must be Hebrew. The chant was beautiful, suffused with an infinite sadness that went straight to Trave’s heart.

‘What is it?’ asked Trave when she had finished. ‘It’s like you were grieving for the whole world.’

‘In a way I was,’ said Aliza, looking up. ‘It is from the Book of Lamentations. The prophet, Jeremiah, is weeping for the fate of Jerusalem after it was sacked by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. He says: ‘Alas, she sits in solitude! The city that was great with people has become like a widow. She weeps bitterly in the night and her tear is on my cheek. Those who I cherished and brought up, my enemy has wiped out.’ It is the song we sing on Tisha B’av, our day of mourning, when we remember all that has happened to our people. But we are also commanded to hope and to believe, and so when those we love die we extol the name of God and we say that He is good. We say Kaddish for them, and we refuse to give in. Come, Inspector, say it with me. I will pray in English.’

Aliza held out her hand, and Trave took it and went to stand beside her, thinking for a moment how strange they must seem to anyone passing by — an old lady and a middle-aged man standing hand in hand praying outside an army barracks in the morning sunshine. He smiled at the thought and Aliza smiled back; and then, holding her hand in his, he repeated each line of the Kaddish after her, looking up at the plaque by the entrance arch, the best memorial Belgium could offer to the twenty-five thousand men, women, and children who had been sent away from this place to die:

MAY HIS GREAT NAME GROW EXALTED AND SANCTIFIED IN THE WORLD THAT HE CREATED AS HE WILLED. MAY HE GIVE REIGN TO HIS KINGSHIP IN YOUR LIFETIMES AND IN YOUR DAYS, AND IN THE LIFETIMES OF THE ENTIRE FAMILY OF ISRAEL SWIFTLY AND SOON. BLESSED, PRAISED, GLORIFIED, EXALTED, EXTOLLED, MIGHTY, UPRAISED, AND LAUDED BE THE NAME OF THE HOLY ONE BEYOND ANY BLESSING AND SONG, PRAISE AND CONSOLATION THAT ARE UTTERED IN THE WORLD. MAY THERE BE ABUNDANT PEACE FROM HEAVEN AND LIFE UPON US AND UPON ALL ISRAEL. HE WHO MAKES PEACE IN HIS HEIGHTS, MAY HE MAKE PEACE, UPON US AND UPON ALL ISRAEL.

AMEN