Since 1940 I had been working in the Medici Gallery in Grafton Street, just off Bond Street. I had been in charge of their mail-order business which included supplying the royal family at Buckingham Palace, in particular the old Queen Mary. As well as meeting members of the European royal families I also got to meet other famous names like Winston Churchill’s wife, Clemmie, and the Hollywood star, Danny Kaye. I loved the work and the hardest part of the day was having to make my way home on my own each evening in the blackout.
My relationship with my mother had matured steadily as I had grown up and we had become ever closer, with her treating me as an equal rather than a child. It seemed to me that her character had changed completely once she had become used to English life, and when she no longer had the responsibility and worry of bringing up children. We were becoming more like sisters as the years passed.
My brother Claude was away in the army when my father had told me about the pocket-book, having already been stationed somewhere out in the country. Soon he would become a captain in the Royal Engineers, and would be sent on active service in India, where he remained for the rest of the war. He had studied architecture, following in the footsteps of our distinguished father, and had narrowly missed being interned for the duration of the war as an enemy alien. After the war he followed the family tradition by becoming an architect and in 1950 he emigrated to Toronto, Canada with his new wife Inge, contributing extensively to the building of the city.
By then I had already married. I met Ken Haas for the first time at my cousin Freddie’s 21st birthday party in North London in 1946. Ken had also fled from Germany before the war, just as we had, so we shared many of the same experiences. He had impressed me immediately. He was a powerfully built and athletic man, not tall, but tough both physically and in spirit. He was 38 and I was 21 and I was instantly captivated by his forthright, spontaneous manner. He worked for a family firm of goldbeaters, George M. Whiley, in the West End of London, who made stamping foils. He was a good businessman and as their export director he built the company up over the years, eventually moving it into substantial factory premises in Ruislip.
It was love at first sight and I married Ken in 1948, embarking on a long and happy partnership of more than forty years and producing three healthy sons, Anthony, Timothy and David. Ken was loving and devoted and you certainly could never grow bored in his company. Because of his job he was away travelling, sometimes up to five to six months of every year, which I found hard but in a way perhaps it strengthened our relationship even more. Bringing up three young boys, often on my own, there was little or no time to worry my head with romantic notions about who my ancestors might or might not have been: my attention was fully occupied in dealing with the complications of each day as it came, and planning for our family’s future.
In 1955 tragedy struck my family again. My father, a heavy smoker, was diagnosed with cancer. He was just 65 and it seemed too early to lose him. But lose him we did when he died nine months later in March 1956. I was devastated by the loss and I was far from being the only one. He was a greatly loved public figure and many wanted to mourn his passing. Our local paper, the Hampstead & Highgate Express, wrote a headline article announcing his death and the time and place of his funeral. It never occurred to any of us that by doing that they were also advertising the fact that my parents’ flat would be empty for at least a couple of hours while we were all at the crematorium in Golders Green. This allowed plenty of time for thieves to break in and turn out every drawer and cupboard in their search for hidden booty.
It is the cruellest thing to do, to invade the privacy of a family just as they are at their most vulnerable with grief. We walked in from the ceremony, my Uncle Freddy carrying the urn containing my father’s ashes, just wanting to find some peace in which to compose ourselves after the ordeal, only to be confronted with a scene of total devastation. My mother’s look of horror at this invasion of her life, just when she had to get used to the idea of living alone, was heartbreaking.
Believing that she might need someone there to support her, I followed my mother as she ran through to the bedroom, assuming that she wanted to check on some piece of family jewellery that might hold special sentimental value to her. But she seemed to have only one thing in mind as she ignored the clothes and other belongings strewn over the floor and headed for the dressing table. Rummaging through the debris she picked up a white envelope tied up with the green ribbon that I instantly recognised as being the one that held the ancient pocket-book. It was still in the same envelope from which my father had removed it the morning he had shown it to me sixteen years earlier.
‘Thank God,’ she said, holding it to her heart as if that were the only possession that mattered to her in the whole apartment, a last precious piece of my father that she could still cling to now that she no longer had the man himself. Seeing the passion with which she hugged that elegant little book to her heart rekindled the curiosity I had felt as a young girl when my father first dangled that tempting snippet of a story in front of me. I wondered if she might be willing to pass the book on to me now that my father had gone. He had, after all, said that it would be mine.
‘Mother,’ I ventured cautiously, ‘Father said I—’
‘He also said not to go looking, Eve,’ she interrupted me, obviously guessing exactly what I was about to say, quickly composing herself, realising that she had allowed me to see too clearly how important the book was to her.
‘But I—’
‘It’s just a notebook,’ she said, swiftly pushing the envelope back into its hiding place.
‘Mother, please. I’m not a child any more. Why do you keep the book hidden away? What are you afraid of?’
‘I’m afraid of you making a fool of yourself, poking around for answers that can’t be found. The story ended with your grandmother. This talk of your father is upsetting me. Come on, let’s go back to the others.’
Realising this was not the moment to press her, I immediately fell silent, but our voices must have carried further than I realised because a little while later, once we had cleared up the worst of the mess from the robbery, my Uncle Freddy took me to one side and whispered out of my mother’s earshot.
‘Come round to my house tomorrow and I’ll show you something.’
That night I stayed with my mother in the flat, not wanting to leave her on her own after a day of so much emotional turmoil. It would be terrible for her to be lying awake on her own, listening to every sound, wondering if the thieves were returning, thinking about my father and the years that now stretched ahead without him. I wanted her to know that I would always be there for her when she needed me. The following day, unable to suppress my curiosity a moment longer, I took a train to Norbury in South London to visit Uncle Freddy.
‘This is what I wanted to show you,’ he said, once he was certain I was comfortable, almost nonchalantly handing me a miniature painting of a pretty, auburn-haired young girl. She was wearing a formal red dress that showed off her shoulders despite an attempt by the artist to hide them with an artfully placed gossamer-like white shawl. This was such a profound moment for me after so many years of allowing myself to indulge in occasional romantic daydreams, before forcing myself to pushing those thoughts out of my mind in case they encouraged me to make a stand and try to get to the bottom of my family mystery once and for all. As I stared at the picture, mesmerised by her beauty, it felt as if Emilie were beckoning me into her life. Her soulful eyes stared directly at me from the tiny picture frame, a slight smile playing on her delicate lips, giving her an innocent, questioning look.
‘That’s her,’ he said, seeing my gaze locking on to Emilie’s face.
I could never have imagined what a powerful effect that tiny portrait would have on me. In that instant I knew