Life After Life: A Long Hard War, Jun 1967 Summary & Analysis

Ursula is watching the BBC. The Jordanians opened fire on Tel Aviv that morning, the reporter says, and now they are bombing Jerusalem. Benjamin Cole is a member of the Israeli parliament now; he had fought in the Jewish Brigade at the end of World War II and then had joined the Stern Gang to fight for the formation of Israel.

Ursula and Benjamin had met up briefly for a drink during the war, but it had been awkward. She was relatively indifferent to him, but he was extremely interested in her and suggested they “go somewhere.” She had told him to “catch her around next time.” When she had recounted this tale to Millie later, Millie said she should have “seized the day,” though Ursula said that that seemed to be everyone’s excuse for bad behavior.

Ursula has just returned from her retirement party, which consisted of drinks at a pub. Her secretary had thanked her for paving the way for women in senior positions in the civil service. Ursula had thought that she wasn’t that senior—she still wasn’t in charge, like the Maurices of the world. Maurice had recently been knighted.

Ursula’s colleagues had gifted her with a set of tickets to a performance of Beethoven’s Choral. She thinks that Miss Woolf would have loved attending it, but she was killed in 1944. At Miss Woolf’s funeral, Ursula had wondered who would remember the names of the dead—Miss Woolf, Emil, Renee, Fred Smith. Ursula had already forgotten so many names, so many young lives lost. Ursula had also thought of Teddy.

Ursula feels old, though Pamela insists that she’s not old yet—she’s not even sixty. Once Pamela’s children  had grown, Pamela had become a woman who did good works, eventually becoming a chief magistrate. Harold had taken over Dr. Fellowes’s old practice. Ursula thinks that she would take Sarah to the concert with her—the daughter that Pamela had always wanted, born in 1949. For Ursula, Sarah fills a hole in her heart left by Teddy’s loss.

Ursula realizes now that she wishes she had a child of her own. She had never been a mother or wife, and it is only now that she cannot be, that she realizes what she has missed out on. Pamela’s life would live on in her descendants, but Ursula’s life would simply end.

A few weeks later, Ursula is having lunch with Pamela’s first-born son, Nigel, who is a history tutor. Ursula argues that if Hitler had died before he became Chancellor, the Holocaust would not have happened, and the Jews might not have tried to form Israel, “and the whole cultural face of Europe would be different.” Additionally, the Iron Curtain would not have fallen, Russia would not have taken over Eastern Europe and America might not have recovered so quickly from the Depression. But, she says, “perhaps Goering or Himmler would have stepped in. And everything would have happened in just the same way.”

Ursula walks back from lunch through a park, remarking at how young people these days have so much enthusiasm and hope for the future. She sits down on a bench and falls asleep. She is transported—to a meadow, to a garden, to a field covered in snow. Snow begins to fall around her, until light pierces through a curtain and she is lifted up. Sylvie says, “I shall call her Ursula.” Hugh remarks that he likes the name, and responds, “Welcome, little bear.”