The Year is Almost Over

The Eclipse Island Lighthouse

"But you say the light wasn't shining the last two nights. Why didn't you try to contact them?"

Not long before the Second World War, my friend Pieter Lindenbaum had the foresight to move from Amsterdam to England, and, unlike over 100,000 of his fellow Jews living in the Netherlands who were deported to Nazi concentration camps, he survived the holocaust. His wife had died of a brief illness the year before, and his son had joined the army, so he had no strong emotional ties when he left. I first learned about Lindenbaum's move in May of 1937 when I received a post office telegram asking if he could stay with me for a day or two until he found lodging. Of course I was happy to put him up. Lindenbaum arrived the next morning, with one suitcase containing only his passport, spare clothes, toiletries, and a framed photograph of his wife. He told me briefly of her illness and passing. Sadly, his son was killed in action when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in 1940, but he did not learn this until the post-war years, when we were all counting the cost. Lindenbaum had intended to stay with me only for a short time, but I insisted he stay as long as he wished, and as it soon became apparent that we were quite compatible fellow lodgers, he stayed for a few months, and we enjoyed many long chats in the evenings by the fire.

Once again the reputation of his intellect preceded him, and he was recruited by the British Government eleven months after he arrived. Due to his age, and the fact that he was not a British national, he was only employed to a limited extent, but he avoided telling me the nature of what he was doing. Once he began to work for the government he would occasionally visit, as my house in Madingley was a short bus ride away from where he worked in Bletchley.

So we lived through the dark years of another world war. I was a very old man by the time it ended, but I had remained in good health, and had been affected much less than those many millions who died or whose lives were shattered. To some extent I had lost touch with Lindenbaum, who had worked harder and harder until it was over.

Not long after the war, Lindenbaum wrote to tell me he had moved to Dromness, a small fishing village in Scotland. It seemed a rather unusual place to move to, but I knew him to be incapable of irrationality, so I had no doubt there was a sound reason for it. He invited me to visit him - I happily agreed, packed my warmest things and organised my travel.

"So why Scotland, of all places?" I asked him.

"Well, it's... nowhere. For want of a better way to say it. There is something cathartic about living so far from the fighting. We have peace now, but the places are still scarred with the nightmare. I can't go back to Amsterdam, and England is too overwhelmed with grief. I had to run from it."

"Can you find work here?"

"I have a small pension. I live simply. Who knows, perhaps the police will ask my help on a baffling murder mystery!"

"Well, stranger things happen."

"I suppose so. But if you come to visit me every so often, and I may return the compliment, I won't be lonely."

"Of course, Pieter."

During my stay, our existence was a simple one. We would walk along the cliffs near his cottage every morning, take dinner in the village in the evening, and often we would talk to the locals. Little was spoken between us, in what Genevieve used to describe as a 'comfortable quiet'. But every so often, at night, I could hear him through the wall, crying softly.

Far out to sea was a little rocky island called Eclipse Island, and perched grimly on it was a lighthouse. Lindenbaum pointed it out to me a day after I arrived - from the little village we could just see it with binoculars, though it was a humble construction - not much more than a tiny shack on a number of oak piles, driven into rock which was under water more often than not. At any time there were two keepers living there, with barely enough room for one man. The frequent stormy weather, particularly in winter, meant that the keepers could go unrelieved for months at a time.