lull and roil of his voice. That special feeling of being told something privileged, intimate, that comes across in the
whispered end of sentences and the outbreath of thoughtful
pauses. He wondered how something that could fit into an
envelope could also ruin a man’s life.
‘Ten badly typed pages. That’s all there was. The old man
must have done it himself. It started with an apology. Before
the fact. That was just like him. He then wrote of his business
interests in 1940, importing food from the continent into
England, how he’d set the company up five years earlier with
an old colleague from Oxford, a Dutch Jew by the name of
Kuper. The two of them had developed the business into a
considerable success by the time that Kuper’s wife, Martha,
gave birth to a son in September 1940.
‘The war was on. Disturbing news was leaking from
Germany and Austria about the mistreatment of Jews. In
Austria they had hounded them down, taken away their
businesses, their passports, and paraded them through the
streets of Vienna. You must have heard about what happened
there?’
‘Not really. I was never that interested in history,’ Jon
replied.
The old man gave him a brief look of such disdain that,
for a moment, Jon saw the man Jake must have once been.
It was fleeting, only a glimpse, but it scared him. Jon wanted
to say something, to make up for his ignorance but he could
tell that it would be wasted, that the old man wouldn’t fall
for cheap platitudes, tawdry excuses or feigned apologies.
He felt totally stripped in front of Jake as if each lie he told
would come cascading out, trilled with neon and noise, as
obvious as a waterfall in the desert.
Jake seemed to be assessing something privately. He stared
at a point two inches above Jon’s head, then his eyes dropped
on to Jon’s and he continued. ‘They stripped the old people
naked and made them do callisthenics in the middle of the
streets while the good citizenry threw eggs and shit at them.
They forced them to clean the Vienna pavements with toothbrushes
and tongues and urinated on them while they did it.
These weren’t the exceptions, this was the norm. Unlike
many other Jews of that period, Raphael Kuper heeded these
early warning signs and, when the first deportation of Jews
from Amsterdam took place in February 1941, he arranged
for his English partner, John Colby, to take his newborn
son, Jakob, away from all this horror. He knew that he would
probably never see his son again and that he was giving him
up for ever, but the alternative was even worse.
‘Colby managed to escape on a fishing boat with his wife
and landed in England where they claimed the small baby as
their own.’
Jake took another cigarette, seemed to draw on it for ever
before he resumed as if the story had somehow depleted
him. ‘So his letter ended. At first, and I think for at least a
couple of days after having read it, I believed it was a joke.
One last cruelty delivered by him before his death. That
would have been just like him, dying and passing on this
disinheritance to me.’
‘You didn’t know you were adopted?’ Jon blurted out.
It was so strange. He could not imagine what that would
do to a person. To suddenly have their history torn apart
like that.
‘No, it was never mentioned nor alluded to. I always
sensed that I was different but I never knew that I really was.
The realization was, at first, like the feeling of being sucked
in by this incredibly powerful drug. My whole sense of
identity had been built around my father, my position in
English society; Cambridge, where I laughed at Jew jokes
along with all the other British anti-Semites. My past had
been irrevocably wiped. Worse than that, it had been shown
up as a lie.
‘I never went back to my work. It wasn’t me any more,
that suit, that office. Actually, it never was, but somehow I’d
tricked myself into believing that it was my heritage,
whispered end of sentences and the outbreath of thoughtful
pauses. He wondered how something that could fit into an
envelope could also ruin a man’s life.
‘Ten badly typed pages. That’s all there was. The old man
must have done it himself. It started with an apology. Before
the fact. That was just like him. He then wrote of his business
interests in 1940, importing food from the continent into
England, how he’d set the company up five years earlier with
an old colleague from Oxford, a Dutch Jew by the name of
Kuper. The two of them had developed the business into a
considerable success by the time that Kuper’s wife, Martha,
gave birth to a son in September 1940.
‘The war was on. Disturbing news was leaking from
Germany and Austria about the mistreatment of Jews. In
Austria they had hounded them down, taken away their
businesses, their passports, and paraded them through the
streets of Vienna. You must have heard about what happened
there?’
‘Not really. I was never that interested in history,’ Jon
replied.
The old man gave him a brief look of such disdain that,
for a moment, Jon saw the man Jake must have once been.
It was fleeting, only a glimpse, but it scared him. Jon wanted
to say something, to make up for his ignorance but he could
tell that it would be wasted, that the old man wouldn’t fall
for cheap platitudes, tawdry excuses or feigned apologies.
He felt totally stripped in front of Jake as if each lie he told
would come cascading out, trilled with neon and noise, as
obvious as a waterfall in the desert.
Jake seemed to be assessing something privately. He stared
at a point two inches above Jon’s head, then his eyes dropped
on to Jon’s and he continued. ‘They stripped the old people
naked and made them do callisthenics in the middle of the
streets while the good citizenry threw eggs and shit at them.
They forced them to clean the Vienna pavements with toothbrushes
and tongues and urinated on them while they did it.
These weren’t the exceptions, this was the norm. Unlike
many other Jews of that period, Raphael Kuper heeded these
early warning signs and, when the first deportation of Jews
from Amsterdam took place in February 1941, he arranged
for his English partner, John Colby, to take his newborn
son, Jakob, away from all this horror. He knew that he would
probably never see his son again and that he was giving him
up for ever, but the alternative was even worse.
‘Colby managed to escape on a fishing boat with his wife
and landed in England where they claimed the small baby as
their own.’
Jake took another cigarette, seemed to draw on it for ever
before he resumed as if the story had somehow depleted
him. ‘So his letter ended. At first, and I think for at least a
couple of days after having read it, I believed it was a joke.
One last cruelty delivered by him before his death. That
would have been just like him, dying and passing on this
disinheritance to me.’
‘You didn’t know you were adopted?’ Jon blurted out.
It was so strange. He could not imagine what that would
do to a person. To suddenly have their history torn apart
like that.
‘No, it was never mentioned nor alluded to. I always
sensed that I was different but I never knew that I really was.
The realization was, at first, like the feeling of being sucked
in by this incredibly powerful drug. My whole sense of
identity had been built around my father, my position in
English society; Cambridge, where I laughed at Jew jokes
along with all the other British anti-Semites. My past had
been irrevocably wiped. Worse than that, it had been shown
up as a lie.
‘I never went back to my work. It wasn’t me any more,
that suit, that office. Actually, it never was, but somehow I’d
tricked myself into believing that it was my heritage,
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