The Dear Departed

My grandmother is very old. She was born on 1 April, 1908, and today is her ninetieth birthday. She is a cheerful happy lady of the old school who adores her family. She likes nice clothes and an occasional illicit cigarette. She is a great cook and raconteur who loves to tell funny stories and has the gift of making you feel as though you are the most important person in the world. But there are some things she will never speak about.

There is a polished mahogany box that grandmother keeps on her bedside table. It looks like a jewellery box but I know that it contains her most precious belongings: a prayer book, a folding icon of the Christ and the Virgin of Consolation, and an album of photographs. No one is allowed to open this box, but sometimes, when my grandmother is out, I go to her room, carefully take out the album and flick through the photographs. I suspect that she knows I do this but nothing is ever said and she never talks about what happened then.

The first photograph is a picture of my grandmother as a young woman, probably taken some time before she got married. She looks young and serious and stares directly into the camera. She is wearing a straw boater and a tailored linen jacket over a shirt with a stand up collar and tie – clearly a studio portrait. It is the picture of someone facing the future head on with optimism and determination.

The second photograph is also a formal portrait, taken some years later. In this picture she is wearing a silk blouse with a collar of embroidered daisies and a ruched silk skirt which trails to the ground. Her hair is piled up in curls on top of her head and she is sitting in an armchair with a child standing on either side of her. The girl on her left, my mother, is all in white with a ribbon in her hair. The boy, my uncle, who is a few years younger, is standing on a stool wearing a knee length lace dress, and has his hair in ringlets. They all look very serious as if they have been warned by the photographer not to move or speak.

After these very formal portraits there is a mixture of more casual pictures: people playing tennis in a garden; a group of young people having a picnic by the seashore and an old lady sitting by a window sewing, while a small baby plays at her feet. It is an idyllic world of country houses, elegant clothes and people who look as if they don’t have a care in the world. The war has yet to cast its shadow over their lives. Most of them will not survive. Some will be shot, others will just disappear in the maelstrom of war. In a matter of months everything they have ever known will disappear for ever and they will become visual reminders of a world as remote as ancient Egypt.

There is one final formal picture at the back of the album. It is a photograph of a family group sitting in cane chairs on the terrace of a country house in late summer. To the left is a door into a conservatory, while behind them a path leads up a hill to a small chapel just visible in the distance. On the right is what looks like the beginning of a formal French-style garden with box hedging and roses. There are ten people in the photograph: my grandmother, her two sisters, my grandfather’s two brothers and their wives, my mother and uncle and a small boy whose name I never knew. It looks like a picture taken to celebrate a birthday, or Easter, or some other special family occasion. They look happy. The others are chatting and laughing but I can see that my grandmother is looking straight at the camera, at my grandfather.

Despite the country house setting it is clear that something has changed. The women are all wearing heavy aprons and have their hair tied back under kerchiefs. I can see the tips of working boots peeping out from under their skirts. The men are wearing canvas jackets and there are hunting guns propped against the table. A dog lies sprawled on the ground, clearly exhausted. It is a group of people waiting for their world to end, as they know it soon will.

My grandfather took the photograph. He has his back to the sun and I can see his shadow on the ground in front of the group. Shortly after this photograph was taken the house was burned to the ground. The first time the soldiers came to the house they just took any food and alcohol they could find. As they left, one of them said to my grandmother; ”you have a very pretty daughter.”

The next day the local priest came to the house. He told my grandfather to leave while he still had the chance. “They have seen the house and they will be back.” Later that day they heard shooting from the village and knew what was coming, so they had time to hide in the cellar below the old barn.

This time, the soldiers took anything they could carry and smashed what was left. When they were gone my grandfather went out first to check that the coast was clear. Then they packed up what they could wear, eat or sell and waited for dark until they could slip away through the forest and over the mountain pass to the old military road. With luck they would be able to cross the border and get to the coast.

When grandmother came to the top of the hill she looked down through the trees into the valley where she could see the roofs of the house and the flames that were spreading from room to room. My grandmother, my mother and my uncle escaped and survived. My grandfather did not. A chance meeting with a group of soldiers; probably deserters, an argument over a gold watch and one of the soldiers shot my grandfather. They couldn't even stop to bury him. My grandmother gathered her children and her courage and kept moving, always onwards, but the absence of my grandfather left a tear in the fabric of life that nothing has ever been able to repair. The shadow of my grandfather has loomed over all our lives since then, in benign silence. At Christmas and Easter lunch the seat at the head of the table is always left empty.

As for the rest of the family – who knows? I only ever heard my grandmother speak once about the war. She was talking to my mother in the kitchen. They didnt know I was listening and as I came into the hall I heard her say. "War is a terrible thing. People will do anything to survive and in the process it makes monsters of us all." When they heard me coming they changed the subject and I never heard it mentioned again.

The pictures in grandmother's box are the family ghosts my mother can only vaguely remember but grandmother will never speak about. If anyone ever asks her about that time she will just smile and say “that was a lifetime ago, I would much rather hear about you.”

But I know that every night, before she goes to sleep, she opens the box, takes out that photograph and prays for her dear departed in the words of the De Profundis.

"Out of the depths I have cried to Thee O Lord! Lord, hear my voice. Let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.

If Thou, O Lord! wilt mark iniquities: Lord, who shall stand it? For with Thee there is mercy: and by reason of Thy law I have waited on Thee, O Lord!

My soul hath relied on His word: my soul hath hoped in the Lord. From the morning watch even until night:

let Israel hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy; and with Him plentiful Redemption. And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord! And let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace."