When, some five years later, I asked him whether any letters sentto her had survived, any photographs from her youth, any mementoes of her past,anything at all that would help me understand her times through her eyes, hesaid that there was nothing. Remembering Aunty Henny's own brusque attitudetowards superfluous objects and papers, I did not doubt that he was right.
I interviewed Shanti Uncle at length in order to preserve his memories andfollow his life. During the next summer, my parents came to England on avisit and stayed at 18 Queens Road.They came at least once every year or so, mainly to help Uncle cope with hisbesetting loneliness.
Papa, with his practical bent, enjoyed helping with odd jobs around the house. Mamajust enjoyed spending time talking to Uncle or cooking him an Indian meal fromtime to time, happy in the knowledge that their visit was doing him good.
One afternoon, hoping to help Uncle clear out the attic, which was still acrammed and confused mess, Papa noticed a small cobweb-covered tan-colouredcabin trunk with wooden ribs and dull brass studs. There were labels on theside and on the top; it had belonged to Aunty Henny.
The attic sloped down from the centre, and the trunk was lying in a far recess.It had clearly lain untouched for decades. Owing to its position, it hadescaped the destruction of Henny's things that had followed her death. Itcontained a trove.
For some unaccountable reason, I never asked to see the trunk itself, but,judging from Papa's description and the fact that Henny travelled by sea onlyonce, it could well have been the one with which she left Berlin for Hamburg,Southampton and London in the late summer of 1939.
She must have brought it when she left her boarding-house in Kendal Street, Bayswater, in the summerof 1951 and came to live with her husband in Queens Road. Its contents were added toover the next decade.
A few files dated from slightly later, but not many.
There were some books in German, a few photograph albums, somefinancial files relating to Germanyin the fifties. There was a small morocco-and-gilt leather purse containinghandwritten poems.
Most important of all, there was a file of letters sent to her - and even theoccasional carbon copy of a letter sent by her - covering almost exactly thedecade of the forties.
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