McMullan's Cellar

Under the sink and in the cellar weren’t my favorite places to hide. There were bottles of vaporous poisons near the sink pipe, moisture that smelled of old Uncle’s rotting feet, and no books to read. I read and re-read all the soap boxes and some of the appliance manuals, but they couldn't compare to my favorites held nicely in the bookcase in my bedroom, such as Louis Harap or Chaim Potok, not to forget the American greats such as Poe or Robert Browning. And what in the world can I do when I have to turn pages? That made a shifting noise that someone else can hear. It was probably best that I didn't have any books to read. That’s why as time passed and visits were being more frequent, it was best that they hid me downstairs in the cellar. I hated that more. Things went on without me and the kids didn’t know how to keep a secret anyway.1

Like Sandy, my stepbrother. He wasn’t the most discreet about not telling. It couldn’t be his fault, though. He was so only eight years old and thought that every sound was from the rats who visited. Nor was Nell, his twelve year old sister with her extra sensory perception-or so they called it that. One time, she actually thought that she was being asked to join a group of angels by the sound of the old roof tiles as they were being flung off the housetop by construction workers. Though young, she was very manipulative and was called a half-wit whose abilities to act abnormal was second nature. So, when the German scouts came to search the building, she would try to amplify her peculiarities and convince them she didn’t know what she was talking about.
“An actress first”, she’d retort after we would ask her how she could be so convincing-a vicissitude of negligence and white-lying she'd claim to be the truth. She would just look into their eyes as if responding to some kind of stage prompt. It wasn’t long before they would tire of her strange personality and move on to the next inspection.
In short, that’s what I remember most about the hiding . For years, I wondered how to explain my life up to that impressive point. 2

Currently, it’s the year after the new century, and I am giving account of my years as a juvenile, a survivor in the Jewish persecution. My real parents were John and Felicia Sater. I don’t remember much about my father except that he was such a hard worker and hardly ever home to help with the family’s domestic interests. I do remember his very serious eyes, always preoccupied under his thick head of dark hair. Always planning. Coming and going all the time making it hard for me to wish that he was there. Mother was not well most of the time, so Aunt Joan would come and take me and sister Sarah to school and other places. Outside of his many absences, I suppose we were content and felt loved.3

My mother died from an early stroke at the beginning of the war and because of my baby sister Sarah’s need for care, he quickly married his employer’s office manager, Abigail Fodor. She was a ruthless self-seeking woman who did everything to cash in on my father’s earnings. I felt resentment toward her and was scared most of the time. I wasn’t sure what would happen after father was taken away. She even hired a nanny so she wouldn’t have to care for us. It took my Mother’s sister to come and pick up Sarah leaving me with Abigail. With other Jewish children being placed to different families, and at the age of nine, I ran away with a school friend. That’s when I was literally picked up off the street by George McMullan, a well-known Irish journalist and social diplomat. It was by his passion to help me and other children that saved me from one of Hitler’s maniacal strategies.
Randomly, my father and stepmother were found after Auschwitz’s last release and in fit of monetary desperation, searched for me. After the war, Jewish survivors were given as much help as possible to help find their children. So when released from Auschwitz’s, my father and stepmother tried desperately to find me. I had wished that going back home would be a place where there was love, where I could be cared for. I ached for sheets of flannel and calico drapes blowing through my room. My mouth watered for good meat and fresh garden celery, hot marmalade, matzo, and canned fish. But Abigail had a criminal mind. Though not sentenced, she was suspected in the death of both my father and Uncle Louis for poisoning. Her plan was to cash in the insurance policies, but due to the scandal, she had to keep her profile low and forget about it.4

Now I was the only one who was unofficially adopted and given my foster father’s Irish name, McMullan. Our home was the legendary meetinghouse where diplomat Huig De Groote gathered with the ones who discussed the issues of Christianity versus the Calvinism movement during a heated transitional period of the seventeenth century. It was in this place, later, that German soldiers met with Hitler’s troop discussing how much of the Netherlands were going to be reduced of its liberal beliefs. And further on, where the Ten boom family would add a brilliant floor plan to hide folks like us.5

We were always alarmed when I had to go to the cellar because that’s when I knew I’d have to be there for hours and sometimes days. The only thing left to me was a plate of hot food at the top of the stairs with the familiar eggs and potatoes. They tasted good if I had to wait long, but sometimes the rats would come and snitch a taste or two, and I wasn’t good about all that; the rodent thieves had faces that I could see, familiar faces. After a time, in fact, I knew one from the other.6

I will remember how many times I went to the bathroom without a vessel, how many times my stomach churned at the thunderous sounds of my sibling’s recreational antics as opposed to more alien romping. I sometimes seethed at what they could be enjoying that I could not. Was it something as simple as a good meal or a family joke that no matter how much Papa George would try to make up for later with me, was still their own? Overall, were it not for his and Mama Rosa's love, I'd have been much lonelier.7

The cellar contained some interesting things and I used them freely. There were charcoal pieces, lead pencils, and tablets of paper which were used for the wine vintage labeling. I remember seeing the “Chief” tablets, intermingled with ledger type books. It was then that I journaled the events before they took me away.8

Sandy screamed when the Netherlands police found my initialed red scarf outside the cellar window. Papa George was not there to warn me and I was taken away. I still remember my sucked-in kind of cry. Shock, more or less. It was then that I recalled how being under the sink wasn’t so bad after all. I was numb and iced up while on the truck. Strangely, the time within the camp is a blank to me, but I held on to what Papa George said to me. “If something happens, I will find you.” And he did! With some rigged discharge papers, the camps couldn’t keep me without being under a serious threat by the French and Irish occupancy to that area. I broke free as a healthy ten year-old Jewish male under the name of “Andrew McMullan”. A miracle. The only thing taken were my glasses that I so desperately needed. In fac, to this very day, I must read with bi-focals on top of prescription glasses.9

After some wonderful years as an adolescent, enjoying the journalism trade with Papa George, and attending a fine school in the Netherlands, the war would soon be over, and I was given a small apartment where I could live on my own. I acquired a job in a small town nearby as an ad-writer for several trade magazines.10

I was the outpost, the vagrant cultural orphan, but the wonder of George and Mama Rose’s care. I’ve lived a life of solitude in a special home in Dover, left to me by my foster parents. Enjoying only infrequent public contact, I have been fiercely hunted by a group of underground leftists, obviously hired by Abigail who still believes she can take some monetary claim regarding my inheritance.11

Loneliness has been my spouse and books- my friends and clientele. Only by mail and a pseudonym have I been able to earn a rather lucrative living with freelance ad-writing for various companies. By resource, my foster father was also a favored politician and news writer whose tutoring awarded me the trade so I could submit geographical studies to his personal travels and social interests that would also help me make a living. Interestingly enough, I later learned his mother was Jewish which explained the passion for seeking justice for us during the war, and which brought the German police to suspicion. Papa George was also a man of significant importance in the political regime who took the risk of losing one of us and was willing to stand up to persecution rather than to deny his love for us , God, and any subsequent genealogical connection to his family.12

What future insight he had! Provisions for me were buried for 63 years under a brick of the cellar. Our cellar-the one with the familiar rats. Sandy and Nell were the primary beneficiaries to the greater percentage of all his possessions and some small pieces of real estate, but I was going to have to acquire an enormous amount of money to which my real family might have had access, save for the change of inheritance laws for Jewish immigrants who had lost natural parents during the war.13

At this point, I am still in hiding until the twenty-fifth of next month, which is when my stepmother’s search for me will be in suspicion as well as futile. I would love to know about Sarah, but for fear of interacting with Abigail, I’ve not contacted her. The American courts picked up the list of beneficiaries to McMullan’s estate, totaling several million dollars and it explicitly excludes anyone else . He strategically was holding money for me, knowing that one or more of my blood family might try to trace me for it. My real father, now dead for more than 30 years, left a very embittered widow to anything that would have been his, including the McMullan’s estate. I was too wealthy to come from under cover, and too helpless to impugn the ones who lost the countenance of my foster father’s strength.
How do I pray about this , or avenge the ones who had him killed? While in the last 10 years, I had the opportunity to find and visit where he was buried, I cried when I learned that Papa George was laid to rest under the impersonal obituary and tombstone that reads:
“George McMullan- Husband of Rosa McMullan Father of 2-
Born January 16, 1896, Died July 14th 1945-
Found guilty in Westerbock to execution for housing a Jewish male for heir of his throne by default.” 14

I couldn’t trace down Sandy for any details so that I could change this inscription. But when my sister Nell recovered money from under the bricks in the cellar, she also handed me a policy with an attached note that was written in milk ink for fear of the inspection by German police. ( I remembered through the years that my father would say, “ If you can’t get it with soap, get it with milk”...many many times. He’d have a slight lingered stare as if it were a prophecy of something that would be fulfilled.“ Remember son, if you can’t get it with soap....get it with milk.” Over and over he’d repeat it. I wasn’t sure it was an old man’s cliché or a gospel truth. He'd hardly grin when he said it.)15

As I accepted the note from Nell, it was the inherent gleam in her eye that mirrored her father’s profound legacy. It were as if my arms moved in slow motion to unveil some long-time mystery. I held it up to the lamp and there was the message of a lifetime. Tears came as I felt his presence in each word:
“Dearest Andrew,
Be the wise one and keep still. If I am caught for you, it will have been worth it to know that you could start your life elsewhere, in a home I’ve prepared and saved for you. This will be revealed after this godforsaken war. Rosa and I have loved you and will be sorry that though this cold war might end, yours would go on in your personal life.
Sadly, it will be about power. Always in this world...money and power. I worked and prayed very hard so that you could have this second chance, and though there was a banner above the concentration camp, 'Arbeit Macht Frei' (Work Brings Freedom), in our case, it will be very true, and hopefully a blessing! Should you find this, please realize that it is all I’ve had to give you, besides our grand time learning together.
Stay in the faith, Love, Papa George McMullan.December 19,1942” 16

Copyright ©2004Zealberry 17