The Vengeance Seekers

The Family:

JACOB ISRAEL BEN SIDON: father of David ben Sidon, later adopted as Michael Irwin by Harry and Esther Irwin.

ROSA BEN SIDON: wife of Jacob ben Sidon.

RUTH BEN SIDON: daughter of Jacob ben Sidon.

RASHIDA AZIZ: Ruth's adopted Egyptian name.

DAVID BEN SIDON: son of Jacob ben Sidon.

MICHAEL IRWIN: adopted son of Harry and Esther Irwin.

HARRY IRWIN: married to Esther, sister of Rosa ben Sidon.

ESTHER IRWIN: Ester Golda Irwin, wife of Harry Irwin and sister to Rosa ben Sidon.

The Vengeance Squad:

MICHAEL: Michael, but one of the two persona suffered by Michael Irwin after the catharsis in his life following the viewing of the Holocaust documents and movies looking for his family. As Michael he moved on from the horror of losing his parents to the holocaust, shunting all his negative feelings onto his alter persona, David.

DAVID: As explained above, there was a catharsis in Michael's life in which David became the persona, which dealt with rage, remorse and revenge. David is the vengeful persona determined to exact an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth against the perpetrators of the Holocaust, who he sees quite simply as the SS. The David persona and the Michael persona are quite separate from each other, though they share the same physical body.

SOFIE SÄNGER: a.k.a. Sofie ben Sidon, wife of David ben Sidon.

ANN: Surname unknown. She is a former inmate at Ravensbrück and a resident member of the Squad. One of the originals, she started on the farm.

AZOR AZRAM: a.k.a. Rudi Hauptmann; he ran the farm.

RUDI HAUPTMANN: a.k.a. Azor Azram.

OTTO ALTMANN: Military Surgeon in the German Army, formerly on Russian Front, Swiss nationality, David Irwin's right hand man and and the Squad's Head of Research.

ART MCDANIEL: retired detective sergeant in the Williams City Police, Michigan, US and inside man for the Squad's operations in North America.

Known Casualties of the Squad:

HANS REICHMANN: An SS corporal at Dachau, Cook, 35 years of age.

ALFRED KRUPP: Private in the SS at Ravensbrück, Guard, 60 years of age.

WILLEM ERNST: Private in the SS at Dachau, Medical Orderly, 19 years of age.

Note: At least 116 other murders in total in 7 different countries over a 50-year period, mostly all all executed using the same modus operandi.

FRITZ LIEBERMANN: a.k.a. Frederik Richard Lindstrom, Lived in Williams City near Detroit, Michigan - 1968.

CHIEF SANTANA: Williams City Police Chief, Michigan, USA - June 1999.

LIEUTENANT BROWN: Williams City Police Lieutenant, Michigan, USA - June 1999.

DR. KURT PFIZER: lawyer. Assassinated on Monday, June 21, 1999 mid-afternoon; took on Stuart Christie as a client.

AGENT ROBYN GAGE: with the FBI, severely wounded, Monday, June 21, 1999 mid-afternoon.

CHIEF INSPECTOR EUGEN FRICKE: With the FCA, Berlin - murdered.

MALVENU: Assistant to The Turk, an assassin whose real name is Angeline Rôchelle

EL SADR: Assistant to The Turk, an assassin whose real name is Angeline Rôchelle

UNNAMED POLICEWOMAN: Died in car-park gunfight with The Turk and her coterie.

GUNTER SCHUBERT: a.k.a. Abbott Paulus, Mount Loyal Monastery, Scotland - murdered.

ABBOTT PAULUS, a.k.a. Fr. Paulus, a.k.a. Gunter Schubert, fugitive from Russian War Crimes Commission, erstwhile guard with empty rifle for approximately 15 minutes at Ravensbrük, Concentration Camp for Women.

SERGEI PASTERNAK: prominent Russian diplomat, a.k.s. Schafer Puttkamer, together with WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN, fled on 24 March, 1957 from the Caucasus, behind the Iron Curtain, to Iran then reappeared in Salalah, an Omani seaport in the East Indian Ocean. Whole family murdered.

SCHAFER PUTTKAMER: Deputy Assistant Administrator at Buchenwald Concentration Camp, 1944, a.k.a. Sergei Pasternak.

The Hunters:

AGENT ROBYN GAGE: FBI, Washington, DC and Behavioral Analysis Unit, FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia, US.

AGENT JACK CUMMINGS: FBI, Washington, DC, and Quantico, Virginia, US.

FREEMAN VERITY: Assistant Director, FBI, Washington, DC and Quantico, Virginia, US.

AGENT ANGELO ROSSINI: Took over from Agent Verity after Verity killed.

NOAMI ROSS: Deputy Director, FBI, Washington, DC and Quantico, Virginia, US.

CHIEF INSPECTOR EUGEN FRICKE: Senior Officer with the FCA, Berlin.

DEPUTY MINISTER KARL BECKER: the senior field-investigating officer with the BfV, Berlin,

HASAD BIN SALMAN: agent for MI6 in Middle East, assists Michel Irwin in Salalah.

COMMANDER GEORGE SHEPPEY: British Intelligence, Special Branch, New Scotland Yard and Senior Liaison Officer MI6, UK.

SUPERINTENDENT LOVELL: New Scotland Yard, Special Branch, UK.

INSPECTOR JANE THURLOW: New Scotland Yard, Special Branch, UK.

INSPECTOR RAYMOND HALE: New Scotland Yard, Special Branch, UK.

KAMIL MOHAMMED: agent in the Sinai for the FBI and CIA.

Miscellaneous:

BEKIM MINAROLLI: partisan leader and former priest in Yugoslavia during WWII and immediately thereafter.

FATHER BENNINI: Jesuit and psychiatrist, Vatican City; he believed he had re-unified Irwin and ben Sidon whole.

FATHER BONELLI: Jesuit priest on the staff in the Vatican as a psychiatrist and researcher.

EVA KLEIN: Lived in Hamburg, sister to Fritz Liebermann [innocent victim].

JACK GROSSNELL: An ex RAF fighter pilot from WWII. Running Charter flights all over the Middle East.

WILLIE SCHMIDT: Agent of the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic.

TATYANA SATOKHINA: Agent of the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic.

MARTIN RUBY: Queens Counsel and lawyer for Michael Irwin.

HELEN JAMES: Junior, assisting Martin Ruby, lawyer for Irwin.

FATHER DUGAN MCDONALD: Itinerant priest working out of Inverness, whose parish were many small ones in the North Highlands of Scotland; took Michael Irwin's confession.

STUART CHRISTIE: Edinburgh Solicitor, who accepted Father Dugan as his client.

DIETER SWARTZ: Undercover name for Michael Irwin when with Military Intelligence in post-WWII, Germany.

PAT HERTZOG: Freelance photographer, mainly with the newspaper, The Voice of Williams City.

SHERIFF JOSEPH JEREMIAH HAMM: Sheriff of Hoona City. Known as JJ to his friends.

JUDGE ALVIN HOCKSTAEDER: Local Magistrate of Hoona City.

DR. HAKIM NASR: Egyptian doctor and adoptive father to Ruth ben Sidon.

BAHIRA NASR: Wife of Dr. Hakim Nasr and adoptive mother to Ruth ben Sidon.

RUTH SAID: Cover name for Ruth whilst on the run from Switzerland to Egypt.

Useful Information:

BUNDESKRIMINALAMT: the German Federal Crime Agency (FCA). Assists the federal and state police officers.

BUNDESAMT FÜR VERFASSUNGSSCHUTZ: known as BfV for short, it is the domestic intelligence service of the Federal Republic of Germany and German Counter Intelligence, akin to MI5 in the UK and the FBI in the US.

Chapter 1: Beginnings ref_TOC

It had finally stopped raining by the time Michael Irwin returned to the house. Ever since his first arrival at Irwin Manor in 1939 as a frightened and confused nine year old, he had walked the Manor grounds and though he never consciously dwelt on that day when he had lost his family, the dark imprint it left on his mind remained these many years later. He was sometimes aware of the strange consequences of that imprint, but by and large throughout his life as barrister, High Court Judge and operative for MI6, he had successfully blanked it out, for the most part. If for the most part he recalled nothing, the little part left over was all that was required to let loose the devil and his demons, inside his head that is.

After some fifty years of leading a double life, a life with a dark side and a life with a bright side, it was Father Bennini, a psychiatrist and Jesuit, who supposedly brought about the reunification of Michael's psyche, bringing together the dark and the light, the yin and the yang, the evil and the virtuous. He treated it as a simple case of possession and chose several years of psychiatric treatment over exorcism. But he could only go so far and when he discovered the history of violence that emerged from his sessions with Michael he dropped out and advised him to get the best lawyer available.

I shall always be available for you, he said simply. You are cured now I believe, but at the slightest sign of regression come back. In the meantime you would be better served by a man of law who can help you in any future dealings you may have with the police. My job is over.

But who can I trust with knowledge of such a past as I seem to have had with this... this alter persona as you call it? What shall I do without you?

Brief your new confidant well. Let him know enough to be able to properly represent you, was his reply.

And so Father Bennini walked away leaving the old man quite alone and quite unsure of himself. Nevertheless, Michael started his search for a suitable lawyer whom he could trust with all his newfound knowledge of himself. But the strange flashbacks and the growing awareness that he was sometimes someone else, someone who was involved in killing people, brought him to the realization that he needed help again, professional help, but he found it difficult to admit defeat so soon to Father Bennini and so he went into denial, but followed Bennini's advice and sought out a lawyer he could trust.

His eventual choice of lawyer was Martin Ruby, Q.C., a barrister specializing in criminal procedure, who was known for his ability to keep the prosecution and the police on their toes. As predicted by Father Bennini, Michael found all too soon that he had an overpowering urge to tell someone what was going on and needed a confidant badly. Ruby was perfect, not just as someone who knew the law, but also as someone who knew how to keep a secret. To Michael Irwin, himself a man of the law, there was nothing more binding than the bond of confidentiality and privilege that holds a lawyer and his client together, and a good lawyer should, in theory anyway, make the best kind of confidant. There was one other qualification he required; that the confidant be a Jew, and Ruby was, of course, a Jew.

****

Michael Irwin took off his coat and shook it as he entered the fifteenth century building he knew as Manor House, his home. It was surrounded by tall elms and manicured gardens and two large lakes connected by a stream, each containing at its center an island. The several farms included in the five hundred acre property had been in the Irwin family since at least the sixteenth century. Deer and peacocks roamed the estate at will and sheep and cattle grazed in the fields. Manor House rose up above the treetops providing a glimpse of its old and ancient splendor, though there was now an appearance of soft decay that blurred the edges instilling into the viewer a sense of jaded antiquity. The feeling of history was everywhere, springing from a line of Irwins that had in the distant past called themselves D'Urban. But with the tumultuous events of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Catholics burned at the stake and lost their properties, the D'Urban family, prominent in Catholic affairs, quietly changed its name from D'Urban to Irwin and rode out the storm. As the industrial age swept across Europe and England, the Irwin family flourished, and spectacularly so, but they never abandoned their faith and loyal Catholics they remained. Ever discreet, they had their own chapel attached to the east wing of Manor House where they regularly practiced their faith through a succession of resident priests.

By the time the twentieth century rolled around the Irwins had consolidated their business interests into an empire centered around shipping, Middle East oil and merchant banking and were, by any standard, incredibly rich.

Michael Irwin knew all of this, of course, and even though he had no genetic claim to anything, he was still the sole heir and beneficiary to everything, being the only child, adopted that is, of Harry and Esther Irwin. Esther, Michael's aunt on his mother's side, had converted to Catholicism in order to marry Harry and they adopted Michael after Harry smuggled him out of Germany from beneath the noses of the Nazis in 1939. Michael had been David then, a nine-year-old son of Jewish parents, who had the great misfortune to live in Germany while Adolf Hitler and his Nazis were in power. But that was then and this was now and his whole life stood in between, an incredible life, a life that even David, now Michael, had a hard time accepting. For Michael, the year 1999 was quite different from the year 1939, to say the least.

He entered his study and removed his jacket and scarf and threw them onto the armchair. He was a tall somewhat ascetic looking man with silver hair and a face that conveyed no sense of joy and at that particular moment he had much on his mind. He poured himself a glass of vintage Porto from the decanter and as he drank, the fruity warmth of wine spread throughout his throat and upper chest. He closed his eyes and savored the taste, letting the feelings of warmth take over. He put down his glass and made for the chapel in the east wing. There, as a devout Catholic, he would pray to his Catholic God as generations of Irwins had prayed to their Catholic God. As for his Jewish roots, they just made his faith that much more meaningful to him, for he felt a bond with the Biblical characters of Old Testament that perhaps only a Jew could feel. He considered his Jewish roots, therefore, as a blessing in the faith in which his Uncle Harry and Aunt Esther had raised him. It was a faith that sustained him whenever he felt cut off from his biological family and their Jewish roots and never a day went by that he would not weep for them, for his grieving knew no closure, and while this was true he nevertheless had long ago learned how to suppress his grief to the point where it hurt no more.

Throughout his adult life the grieving and the hurt remained bottled up, always ready to explode, but of such matters his conscious mind knew nothing, save for the small tearful memory he evoked each day when he prayed. Now Michael could not even remember what his mother and father looked like, nor could he remember his sister, unless he went to the photo album and turned its pages. He even forgot that he had once been David. It was all like a dream, to his conscious mind that is, a consciousness that recognized a loss without pain and shed tears from the dark vacuum in his soul. It was his subconscious mind that took the full brunt of his rage and pain and it was his Catholic faith that stretched tight across the rift in his mind and kept everything in, almost, that is. He immersed himself in his faith, for it was his only chance to remain sane, and so his daily ritual of prayer was not only a comfort to him, but also a necessity. This day, he decided, when his prayer was done he would sit at his desk in the chapel alcove and write to Ruby.

Entering the chapel, he genuflected towards the altar and made the sign of the cross, then, kneeling at a pew, he bent his head and said his prayers to his God. Somewhere in that prayer, as always, was a cry for help, a cry that rose up from that dark vacuum in his soul reaching out for God, for comfort, for release, and, while his conscious mind found relief in this, his subconscious was driven to push back into the vacuum the awful knowledge that ever threatened to burst forth. Always it was Psalm 101: verses 18-23 in the Catholic Book of Psalms, to which he turned. By rote he recited the words of that psalm as he prayed:

From heaven the Lord hath looked upon the earth. That he might hear the groans of them that are in fetters: that he might release the children of the slain: That they may declare the name of the Lord in Sion: and his praise in Jerusalem;

For Michael, the prayer was intensely personal and, as always, at the end of the prayer he wept. Although he could no longer recall their features, he remembered his father, his mother and his sister Ruth; they were all gone, slain by the Nazis, though he knew little else. Of course, he knew of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis on the Jews, all six million of them, though he dare not imagine the actual fate of his family. Every day in this manner for more than sixty years he had prayed for release from his torment, for he of all the Jews had good reason to make such a prayer and in his faith he was resolute.

When he was finished Michael rose from his attitude of prayer and again made the sign of the cross and then bowed before the altar. That done he walked across to the south facing alcove where he had his desk and where pen and paper lay waiting for him. He stared out the alcove window across the Yorkshire moors that lay beyond the estate then sat and started writing to his lawyer, Martin Ruby.

What follows, he wrote, is the story of my life that you may understand me better, and, therefore, better represent me if ever I should need your services in court...

****

According to some faiths God created everything out of chaos, the birds, the air, sunshine, happiness, and many other good things, even the family, perhaps especially the family, but, in my case, someone got things backwards.

My beginning started with happiness and all those other lovely things that God made, but it turned to chaos all too quickly, engulfing my family and I, as it engulfed millions of other families. The Nazis murdered millions in Concentration Camps in what came to be known as the Holocaust, but this is all well documented elsewhere, beside, you are a Jew and would also know these things well. I am one of those considered lucky to have escaped, for somehow, fate, or God, spared me the terrible destiny suffered by those in the Camps, or maybe it was Satan himself, the great and terrible angel fallen from the right hand of God, who plucked me up! Whoever was responsible gave me instead a life unparalleled in privilege and wealth and not the life my family endured, but, as often is the case, there was a price to pay.

The Holocaust occurred between the years 1935 and 1945 and swallowed up six million Poles, half of whom were Jews, and three million Germans, all of whom were Jews. That included my family. It is also documented that two or three times that number of people were murdered by the Nazis elsewhere, but for me the most horrifying thought does not lie in such grim statistics, as shocking as they are. For me the thought that haunts me day and night has its genesis in the certain knowledge that I, Michael Irwin, born David ben Sidon, a Jew, should have been one of the one million children who were routinely murdered in the Nazi Concentration Camps during World War II! It was my Papa, and, of course, Mama as well, who saved me from such a fate, and they alone are responsible for my survival. That I should have survived while my family perished remains forever a painful mystery to me.

I have thought about these facts deeply throughout the whole of my life, and whenever I read about the murder of a child, like everyone else, I am angered and saddened, but however sad the death of one child, it is something we are all capable of addressing one way or another. When children are gunned down in schools we are shocked, but no one was shocked, least not shocked in the same way, when it was discovered that the Nazis murdered one million children during World War II. Perhaps it was simply too much for anyone to comprehend and so the awfulness of it all escaped into the darks shadows of those years where they remain still. We cannot comprehend the enormity of the night sky, so why should we comprehend the enormity of the deliberate death of a million little souls?

The grim reality of the murder of those one million children and the circumstances leading to their deaths make me realize that by any measure I should have been one of them. Why was I spared? I don't know. I should have been strangled or shot or hanged just as the others were! It is all so incomprehensible. I didn't understand it then and never would, just like everyone else. The sheer magnitude of such a monstrous perversion is altogether too profound for me and I am reduced to suffer a pain too great to bear. I weep now as I always do when I think of the acts of the human psyche that are simply too evil to fathom. What punishment is appropriate for such a crime? It is unthinkable that there be no punishment, yet there is no punishment that can ever fit such a crime.

The great mass subconscious concluded then that it would be better not to deal with it, better all round that we just leave it alone and don't talk about it.

As for David, who you will come to understand is the other me, he found out only too well, when law and justice fails to try the perpetrators in a court of law, when the media fails to trumpet abroad names, places and particulars of such crimes and criminals, when the people of the world forget about the terror stricken last moments of life for a million children, the stain and the stench of so frightening a thing remains for the next generation and the generation after that, and who knows how many more generations, to wonder at, without comprehension and without action. It is the murder of one child repeated over and over and over, one million times. It is for me, the murder of Ruthie, my blessed sister, repeated over and over one million times! It is what drives David to... well I'll get to that in due course.

The great mass subconscious, ever ready to rationalize, concluded a little too quickly that it is better not to deal with such a horror. It is too hard for us all and we have our own families to be concerned about now, the ones who were saved. Just leave everything alone and don't talk about it. But I could not do that, how could I? I escaped by the skin of my teeth while my beloved sister didn't! How can I forget? How could David forget?

As everyone moved along and the new age of enlightenment and affluence took over and the world recovered from the ravages of war, everyone said with silent voices that it was all history now and history was not what they were about. We must look forward and put the past behind us, they all said. Let go and move on!

But for me I hear only the cry of the one million voices from beyond the grave, each one crying, Who will remember me when I am gone?

Such things of which I write became for David, my alter ego, proof that man is indeed imperfect, as is his law and his justice, neither of which provides any answer to evil. For perfection and the answer to evil, one must look to one's God. This David did and, in doing so, he received a very clear message.

****

I belonged to the family known as ben Sidon and we all grew up in a small town just outside Hamburg in Germany. There was Mama, Papa, Ruth and I. We were Jews. I, David, was born April 23, 1930 and was nine when I lost them all. I thought Ruth was quite grown up then, back in 1939 when she was thirteen. She went to school in Switzerland, which, as far as I was concerned, clinched it. She had to be grown up! Always, on those occasions when she left to return to school in Switzerland, I would wonder why she had to go away and leave me behind, but when she returned for the holidays there was always much celebration.

I can still remember visiting the zoo in Hamburg and buying ice cream and holding a balloon in one hand and my mother's hand with the other. Seemingly trivial things color my memory and paint the good times that I had with my family, picnics in the country, visiting relatives, and so on. So it was a great shock for me, when I was nine, to discover the real state of the world and in particular the state of things in Germany. I was utterly unable to comprehend what was happening around me.

Now, in the year 1999, soon to be the new millennium, it is time for me, that is Michael, to tell my story of when I really was David, how my life was shaped all those years ago in 1939, and what I have done with it since. There are many places for me to start, but none I think more appropriate than the day Ruth and I came home through the park. Let me start there.

****

It was the day before Passover in 1939 and we were on our way home having both just taken private lessons in English. Our home lay on one side of the park and Professor Sachs, who was retired and our tutor, lived on the other side of the park. Passover was approaching and would begin at sunset. It was Monday, April 3 and only twenty days to my ninth birthday. The daffodils and other flowers were already up, but it had started to snow earlier in the day, much to everyone's surprise, and the large snow flakes came down thick in the air from a grey sky and formed a layer of snow on the grass where there had been no snow before. It had also grown cold and Ruth and I were bundled up in scarves and woolen hats, thick lined coats and fur lined boots as we hurried along trying to reach home before it grew dark. Then an exciting thing happened, a military band came through on horseback and for a while we stood and watched them. I know I stood with my mouth open, for such a thing was to me, then at least, a wondrous sight. The soldiers who followed on foot wore caps with chinstraps and swastika armbands and they marched the goose step. They were the soldiers of the Third Reich!

Like I said, I found it very exciting and the other people watching cheered and shouted Heil Hitler as the soldiers passed by, but Ruth was quiet. I can even remember the tune the band played that day as they rode by, though I don't know the name. Perhaps I never knew the name, but I shall never forget the tune. My glasses steamed up and when I tried to clean them with my coat sleeve they smeared, so I took them off and gave them to Ruth to look after. She took them and slipped them into her coat pocket and smiled. She didn't watch the parade for long.

Come on little brother, she said and took my hand and we left the band and soldiers behind.

As we moved nearer home we could still hear the music in the distance, but muffled now by the falling snow, as sounds always are. It was beginning to get dark and we had to be home before the start of Passover. Everything was grey, the trees, the houses near the park, and the people passing by. Finally the sound of the band went away and it was quiet, the kind of quiet that comes with falling snow, a hushed muffled silence. Ruth came to a sudden halt when she saw the car outside the house. When I looked at her I saw fear in her face. Only now do I recognize her courage and how very young she was to have accepted such responsibility for me. I asked her why she'd stopped and she shushed me to be quiet. Now, all we could see were dark shapes standing by the car and as we drew closer we could see that they were soldiers.

Look! Ruth exclaimed in a hoarse whisper and pointed.

There, on each of the entrance pillars to the driveway to our house someone had painted a large yellow star, the Star of David. I remember I started to cry, not because of the painted stars, because I didn't really understand that, but because it all suddenly became too much for me, especially with the soldiers and the way Ruth was behaving, so furtive. I was overwhelmed and caught some of her fear. Ruth shook me, telling me to be quiet, but not unkindly. Nothing she ever did was unkind.

She looked at the stars painted on the pillars and said, Now everyone will know we're Jews.

We were across the road from the car and peering through a small space between some bushes. Ruth pulled her woolen hat down around her ears.

Now everyone who didn't know will know, so they can hurt us. Everyone! Ruth said angrily.

She was angry and for a while we waited as the darkness fell around us. Passover had begun, but we weren't thinking of Passover anymore. Eventually, the soldiers got into the car, but the car didn't drive off.

They must have got in to keep warm, Ruth said, Come on, and we ran through the gate between the pillars with the freshly painted yellow stars and up the drive into the house.

Inside there were more soldiers standing around with rifles. They weren't ordinary soldiers, they were SS and two of the men were in civilian clothes wearing red armbands with swastikas on them. Ruth knew they were Gestapo, the German Secret Police, because I saw her eyes widen in horror when she saw them, but to me it was all very confusing. Our parents were standing at the table holding hands. Mama was tall and refined and very reliant upon Papa. He was tall, well built with black curly hair and a black mustache and there wasn't anything he didn't know or couldn't do and everything he told us was, of course, absolutely true.

The soldiers and the Gestapo were intruders and made sure that we all knew they were intruders and in charge. Mama was crying softly and Papa didn't look too good either, saying nothing and looking grim. Ruth started to cry and, as I remember it, I started to shake. Then the soldiers and the Gestapo left, gone into the falling snow and the grey dark that was now everywhere as Passover started all over Germany, but there was no celebration that night. The servants entered the room to say that they were leaving and had their things with them. They were clearing out. Suddenly our family was alone in the large house, abandoned and alone in Hitler's Germany.

Fear is contagious; don't let anyone tell you otherwise, for when I saw the fear in Mama and Papa's eyes I became so frightened that I wet myself. It was only after the soldiers had gone that I noticed this and started to cry. Papa picked me up in his strong arms and Ruth, who had by this time managed to stop crying, hung on to Mama.

That's alright son, that's alright, my father kept saying, Don't worry, it's alright. Mama took me and gave me a bath, all the while kissing my head and saying what a beautiful boy I was.

Later we sat around the table and celebrated the Seder, the Passover meal, and, with the servants gone, Mama and Ruth brought in the food, fish and matzo, that's unleavened bread. Afterwards, Papa sang some prayers and we joined in, then he spoke to us. He spoke of many things and we all listened in silence. His voice was soft, almost a whisper. I remember him speaking of the troubles the Jews had endured since God made them His chosen people. He spoke of the kings and the judges and the prophets and how God had led His people through each tribulation. Now, he said, God will lead us through this one. Of course, I didn't know what he was talking about, just that it was very quiet in that empty house. Already it was empty and we sat at the table celebrating the Passover like ghosts. Shadows filled the room as they were to fill my heart and when I look back now I see just faint images and hear the soft music of my father's voice whispering across the great chasm that now separates us.

That night I crept into Ruth's room and started to cry. Shush! she murmured, or you will wake Mama and Papa.

She quickly pulled me into her bed and together we huddled close clinging to each other, trying to forget our fear. I fell into a dark and dreamless sleep, for no sooner had I closed my eyes than I was awake again. The night had passed us all by like the flicker of candlelight. I rose and it was strange, very strange. Inside was very quiet, no servants and no chatter of voices, no hustle and bustle. It was still dark, but I could see through the window that the snow was still falling and was now thick on the ground. Ruth and Mama came into the room as I was having breakfast. They were dressed, hats, scarves and boots and ready to go out. There was no time for proper goodbyes. Ruth gave Papa a kiss, then she ran to me and gave me a hug and a kiss, Bye, baby brother, she said, that's what she always called me, baby brother. Be brave, she said giving my hand a squeeze and then they were both gone. Ruth went out the front door with Mama and I never saw either of them again. It was all so sudden, so frightening. I asked my father where they were going.

Don't worry little one, was all he said.

I ran to the window and just caught sight of them as they stepped into the deep snow on the street and got into the waiting taxi. Even now I see their wraith like figures in the falling snow and their breath frosting in the cold morning air. I think my mother was supposed to have come back, because she never said goodbye, she never kissed me.

It continued to snow and it was getting quite deep outside. Papa was worried and kept looking out of the window with the light off. I was all dressed to go somewhere though I didn't know where, and I just sat on the chair watching him look out the window with my heart beating fast.

You are going to England, David, Papa said suddenly in English. Your Uncle Harry will be here soon and he will look after you. If anyone wants to know, he is your Papa, not me. It's important that you remember that, do you understand? If they ask your name, it is Michael Irwin, not David ben Sidon.

I stood by my father in the growing light of that morning looking out of the window. Neither of us spoke and I shall never forget the fear I experienced at that moment.

It was getting light when Uncle Harry came. Papa knelt by the chair and buttoned my coat and when I looked into his face there were tears in his eyes. I want you to speak English no matter who speaks to you, no matter whom, he said. Even if it is me, you must still speak English, your very best English, and remember, your name is Michael, Michael Irwin. He was deeply troubled. No more German and no more Hebrew, he said, and hugged me. He started to cry and that frightened me. I had never seen my father cry until then and hadn't thought it possible.

Listen son, you must always believe you are loved, by me, by your mother and by your sister. We will all meet again when this terrible business is done, I promise you.

What terrible business he was referring to I had no idea, but he promised we would all meet again one day, all of us, him, Mother and Ruthie and me. Like all children everywhere I had no real conception of what a month or a year or five years signified to the human heart. ‘Again’ simply meant soon, which to me meant maybe tomorrow or next week! It would happen, because when my father made a promise he always kept it. A new bike was a promise, a trip to the zoo was a promise, and a picnic was a promise, even when it rained once. I remember we ate our sandwiches under a big tree out of the rain and we all laughed. Why would his promise be anything other than a statement of the truth, of what would come to pass? It was with that promise ringing in my ears that I was torn away from the bosom of my family, from everything my small being loved and from everything that to me represented safety and from everyone who loved me.

I was terrified as my uncle took my hand and led me away from all I'd ever known, from all the people in this world who ever meant anything to me. My father, my mother, Ruth, each of them a ben Sidon, I was a ben Sidon, and a thousand generations of ben Sidons stretched out behind me. The last thing I saw as the car carried me away silently on the soft, white carpet of snow was my father waving from the doorway, and the yellow stars of David painted on the pillars.

****

Several times on the journey to Hamburg the car stalled in the snow, but never for long. It had stopped snowing and Uncle Harry didn't say much. I just sat there wondering what it was all about, trying to be brave, but not doing a very good job of it. Eventually, we pulled up alongside a ship, the ‘Polaris’, berthed in the River Elbe. It seemed no sooner we were on board than there was a lot of activity. Men in blue uniforms and gold braid came onto the ship and examined the cargo holds and later some soldiers with guns and wearing helmets came on board, but I stayed in my cabin watching everything from the round window they called a port-hole. Later that day the men in uniform and the soldiers left and the ship cast off its ropes and pulled out into the big river. It was getting dark and quite foggy. As the noise of the engines reverberated throughout the ship and as the ship slipped ever further out into the river, I wondered where Ruth and Mama were and whether Papa was still in the house alone. That's all I could think about as the first day of Passover drew to a close.

****

The ship made its way down the River Elbe, a fog rising from the water making my memory of it all the more surreal. We slipped past all the lights of Hamburg, which showed up blurred through the misty grey, snow-filled shadow that lay across the land. When we reached what must have been the North Sea, many hours later, the waves became rough and the clouds rolled away and the sky filled with stars shining so brightly that they seemed to light up the sea around us. How I remember standing at the stern looking back at where we'd come from. The ship was going up and down as it ploughed its way through the rough white-crested seas and the luminous wake stretched back into the darkness towards Hitler's Germany, back towards Hamburg, foamy white and hissing.

There were lights flashing on and off in the dark, always moving away being left behind, that's what I recall now, moving away and leaving everything behind. I shouted for my family, Mama, Papa, Ruthie, particularly for Ruthie, my big sister. How I strained my ears to hear them call back and just for a moment, just for one magical moment, I thought I could hear them, but it was only the noise of the sea and the spray stinging my tear stained face and the howling wind moaning through the ship's rigging. Uncle Harry took me by the shoulder and we went back to my cabin.

The next day it was calm and the sun was shining as the 'Polaris' steamed up the River Tyne to Newcastle. I could see that there was no snow there and all the fields looked green, so green. I had arrived in England! For a long time I wondered about my parents and Ruth. There were no letters, no phone calls, then, as months turned into years, my memories grew dim until finally I stopped asking about them, but I never forgot them and the ache in my heart never went completely away.

I knew we would one day meet up again, all of us, after all, a promise is a promise and my father had promised!

Chapter 2: Metamorphosis ref_TOC

Michael sighed as he resumed his task of writing his account of things for his lawyer. It had to be done, he knew. He looked around the cool interior of the family chapel where he'd created a place to write, an alcove with a window looking south over the Yorkshire Moors. It was peaceful here, he thought, a place where he was rid of David, a place where he could lose himself in his solitude, just he and his God. David didn't like churches and never entered one. He sighed again and felt the burden of time weighing heavily on his shoulders, then cast his mind back to those days immediately following his arrival in England, so very long ago now it seemed. When he set his foot on English soil it was spring and the daffodils were also up as they had been in Germany.

****

Following my arrival in England on the ‘Polaris’ on April the 5th, 1939, I lived with Uncle Harry and Aunt Esther in their north-country estate somewhere in the depths of Yorkshire. The war years were uneventful for me, though only God knows what they were like for my parents and my sister and, of course, all those other countless millions who disappeared in the Holocaust. Even now I can hardly bear to think about it without feeling rage well up within me. Back then I knew that the war had a lot to do with keeping me from my family, but when the war was over... that's when we were all supposed to get back together again! Hadn't my father promised it so? Now, I look back and wonder how Germany allowed the Nazis to do all those unspeakable things against defenseless peoples and I have to make a conscious effort to steel myself every time I think about it.

****

It was 1945 and the only thing that had changed since my arrival in England was my name. It had gone from David ben Sidon to Michael Irwin, a necessary requirement in wartime England I was told, but I later came to realize that my Aunt and Uncle had formally adopted me. Only now do I also realize that there was another reason for the change and that was that they weren't Jews, and if I was to live with them and move in the circles they moved in, and indeed to inherit all their wealth, I had to be one of them! Aunt Esther, my mother's sister, had converted from the Jewish faith to become a member of the Roman Catholic Church, something I did also under her guidance and by 1945 I also was a Catholic.

Despite the love and care lavished on me by my well-intentioned guardians, I still had the ache in my heart for my family, my real family, though I was finding it increasingly difficult to remember what they looked like. Harry and Esther had some family photo albums in which there were photos of all of us, but they were old photographs taken when Ruth was only six or seven and I was maybe three. But my mother and father were the same and I would sometimes spend hours just looking at them and trying to keep alive my memories of us all, nourishing and nurturing the undying hope that we'd all meet up again soon!

The years after the war were turbulent for some and horrific for others, but for me they were peaceful and uneventful enough. It was strange, therefore, that it was then that I started having a recurring dream, at least it was strange to me. Needless to say it involved my family. In it, I found myself standing at the top of a large, wide flight of stairs. It seemed familiar, like it was my home, though I don't recall there being a flight of stairs like that in the home in Germany where I grew up. From the top of these stairs I could see the ground floor, which led to the hallway and the front door. Always there was Mama, Papa and Ruthie and they would be looking up at me, but when they looked up they had no faces! Then I would jump off the landing to the floor below in my anxiety to join them, but before suffering the dire consequences of such an action, I would wake up shaking and sweating and filled with nausea. Now, after all these years, that dream has come back in every same detail. I am told it is indeed caused by anxiety, but that is to oversimplify. My whole life had been ruined, my family lost, all irretrievably!

Now I must make the most of what is left and simply get on with it. By now, my parents would be dead anyway, and Ruth, well, she'd be in her early to mid seventies had she survived. But it's all over now. It's finished! I must be grateful to my Lord that he has made me whole again and able to prepare for my own eventual demise, through prayer and devotion. Michael and David are one again, David being the me who felt the horror of early childhood and the devastation that follows separation and feelings of abandonment, and Michael being who I am now and who I was battling Satan himself to put David back where he belongs, with Ruthie and Mama and Papa, in my past. Now, with the help of God the father, God the son and God the Holy Ghost I shall pray for peace and deliverance into the hands of my Savior, Jesus Christ.

And now to continue with my writing down of those first years I was in England.

Harry and Esther had no other children, just me, and, as you might imagine, I was indulged. Esther loved me dearly and was always the one arranging my schedule. She was a large presence in my life at that time. On the other hand, Harry was away a lot, something to do with the war. He was an important businessman and sat on many committees and that sort of thing. It was only later that I discovered that he'd held important positions in MI6. The war never touched any of us on the estate and life went on there, as it must have for centuries.

Because of my German accent when speaking English, even though it was barely detectable, I received all my schooling at home. This was to protect me from the antipathy I would otherwise have encountered had I been schooled outside. So I grew up alone on this large country estate in the North of England, horse riding, playing tennis, learning about gardens and antiques, and how to live the life of a gentleman. Always I was in the company of priests, scholars and servants, all of them adults, while all the time Mama and Papa and Ruthie were, well, they were somewhere else.

Some days I would walk for hours with my dogs in the country and see no one, often arriving home late, and I became accustomed to my solitude. This went on until one day the war with Germany was over. VE day, May the 8th, 1945! It was a Tuesday, as I recall, and Harry and Ester invited the whole staff into our living room for drinks. I remember how very happy everyone was, but none more so than me, for I reminded Harry that soon I would be able to go back to my family, they would be waiting for me! He gave me a strange look and later I saw him speaking to Esther and then Esther went away crying. I asked him what the matter was with Esther and he told me that I shouldn't