When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (17 page)

“I have not seen my niece for years,” she shouted, “and I have been longing to have a talk with her.”

At this the ladies hurriedly drank up their tea and began to make their farewells. As they shook hands with Great-Aunt Sarah they dropped some money into a box which she held out to them, and she thanked them. Anna wondered just how many needy children Great-Aunt Sarah had got. Then the maid escorted the ladies to the door and at last they had all disappeared.

It was nice and quiet without them, but Anna noticed with regret that the silver tray with the little biscuits had disappeared along with the ladies and that the maid was gathering up the empty cups and carrying them out of the room. Great-Aunt Sarah must have forgotten her promise of tea. She was sitting on the sofa with Mama and telling her about her needy children. It turned out that they were not her own after all but a charity for which she was collecting money, and Anna who had briefly pictured Great-Aunt Sarah with a secret string of ragged urchins felt somehow cheated. She wriggled restlessly in her chair, and Great-Aunt Sarah must have noticed for she suddenly interrupted herself.

“The child is bored and hungry,” she cried and added to the maid, “Have the old ladies all gone?”

The maid replied that they had.

“Well then,” cried Great-Aunt Sarah, “you can bring in the real tea!”

A moment later the maid staggered back under a tray loaded with cakes. There must have been five or six different kinds, apart from an assortment of sandwiches and biscuits. There was also a fresh pot of tea, chocolate and whipped cream.

“I like cakes,” said Great-Aunt Sarah in answer to Mama’s look of astonishment, “but it’s no use offering them to those old ladies—they’re much too careful of their diets. So I thought we’d have our tea after they’d gone.” So saying she slapped a large portion of apple flan on to a plate, topped it with whipped cream and handed it to Anna. “The child needs feeding,” she said.

During tea she asked Mama questions about Papa’s work and about their flat, and sometimes Mama had to repeat her answers into the ear-trumpet. Mama talked about everything quite cheerfully, but Great-Aunt Sarah kept shaking her head and saying, “To have to live like this ... such a distinguished man ...!” She knew all Papa’s books and bought the
Daily Parisian
specially to read his articles. Every so often she would look at Anna, saying, “And the child—so skinny!” and ply her with more cake.

At last, when no one could eat any more, Great-Aunt Saran heaved herself out from behind the tea-table and set off at her usual trot towards the door, beckoning to Mama and Anna to follow. She led them to another room which seemed to be entirely filled with cardboard boxes.

“Look,” she said. “All this I have been given for my needy children.”

The boxes were filled with lengths of cloth in all sorts of different colours and thicknesses.

“One of my old ladies is married to a textile manufacturer,” explained Great-Aunt Sarah. “So he is very rich and he gives me all the ends of material he does not want. Now I have an idea—why shouldn’t the child have some of it? After all it is for needy children, and she is as needy as most.”

“No, no,” said Mama, “I don’t think I could ...”

“Ach—always so proud,” said Great-Aunt Sarah. “The child needs new clothes. Why shouldn’t she have some?”

She rummaged in one of the boxes and pulled out some thick woollen material in a lovely shade of green. “Just nice for a coat,” she said, “and a dress she needs, and perhaps a skirt ...”

In no time at all she had assembled a pile of cloth on the bed, and when Mama tried again to refuse she only cried, “Such nonsense! You want the police should arrest the child for going about with her pants showing?”

At this Mama, who had in any case not been protesting very hard, had to laugh and give in. The maid was asked to wrap it all up, and when it was time to leave Mama and Anna each had a big parcel to carry.

“Thank you very, very much!” Anna shouted into Great-Aunt Sarah’s ear-trumpet. “I’ve always wanted a green coat!”

“I wish you luck to wear it!” Great-Aunt Sarah shouted back.

Then they were outside, and as Anna and Mama walked back in the dark they talked all the way about the different pieces of material and what they could be made into. As soon as they got home Mama telephoned Madame Fernand who was delighted and said they must bring everything round the following Thursday for a great dress-making session.

“Won’t it be lovely!” cried Anna. “I can’t wait to tell Papa!”—and just then Papa came in. She told him excitedly what had happened. “And I’ll be able to have a dress and a coat,” she gabbled, “and Great-Aunt Sarah just gave it to us because it was meant for needy children and she said I was as needy as most, and we had a lovely tea and ...”

She stopped because of the expression on Papa’s face.

“What is all this?” he said to Mama.

“It’s just as Anna told you,” said Mama, and there was something careful about her voice. “Great-Aunt Sarah had a whole lot of cloth which had been given to her and she wanted Anna to have some.”

“But it had been given to her for needy children,” said Papa.

“That’s only what it was called,” said Mama. “She’s interested in various charities—she’s a very kind woman ...”

“Charities?” said Papa. “But we can’t accept charity for our children.”

“Oh, why must you always be so difficult?” shouted Mama. “The woman is my aunt and she wanted Anna to have some clothes—that’s all there is to it!”

“Honestly, Papa, I don’t think she meant it in any way you wouldn’t like,” Anna put in. She was feeling miserable and almost wished she had never seen the cloth.

“It’s a present for Anna from a relative,” said Mama.

“No,” said Papa. “It’s a present from a relative who runs a charity—a charity for needy children.”

“All right then, we’ll give it back!” shouted Mama. “If that’s what you want! But will you tell me what the child is going to wear? Do you know the price of children’s clothes in the shops? Look at her—just look at her!”

Papa looked at Anna and Anna looked back at him. She wanted the new clothes but she did not want Papa to feel so badly about them. She tugged at her skirt to make it look longer.

“Papa ...” she said.

“You do look a bit needy,” said Papa. His face looked very tired.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Anna.

“Yes, it does,” said Papa. “It does matter.” He fingered the stuff in the parcels. “Is this the cloth?”

She nodded.

“Well then, you’d better get it made up into some new clothes,” said Papa. “Something warm,” he said and went out of the room.

In bed that night Anna and Max lay talking in the dark.

“I didn’t know we were needy,” said Anna. “Why are we?”

“Papa doesn’t earn a lot,” said Max. “The
Daily Parisian
can’t afford to pay him very much for his articles and the French have their own writers.”

“They used to pay him a lot in Germany.”

“Oh yes.”

For a while they lay without talking. Then Anna said, “Funny, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“How we used to think we’d be back in Berlin within six months. We’ve been away more than a year already.”

“I know,” said Max.

Suddenly, for no particular reason, Anna remembered their old house so vividly that she could almost see it. She remembered what it felt like to run up the stairs and the little patch on the carpet on the landing where she had once spilt some ink, and how you could see the pear tree in the garden from the windows. The nursery curtains were blue and there was a white-painted table to write or draw on and Bertha the maid had cleaned it all every day and there had been a lot of toys ... But it was no use going on thinking about it, so she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

Chapter Seventeen

Tne dress-making session at the Fernands was a great success Madame Fernand was just as nice as Anna remembered her, and she cut out Great-Aunt Sarah’s cloth so cleverly that there was enough for a pair of grey shorts for Max as well as a coat, a dress and a skirt for Anna. When Mama offered to help with the sewing Madame Fernand looked at her and laughed.

“You go and play the piano,” she said. “I’ll get on with this.”

“But I’ve even brought some sewing things,” said Mama. She dug in her handbag and produced an elderly reel of white cotton and a needle.

“My dear,” said Madame Fernand quite kindly, “I wouldn’t trust you to hem a handkerchief.”

So Mama played the piano at one end of the Fernands’ pleasant sitting-room while Madame Fernand sewed at the other, and Anna and Max went off to play with the Fernands’ daughter Francine.

Max had had grave doubts about Francine before they came.

“I don’t want to play with a girl!” he had said, and even claimed that he could not come because of his home-work.

“You’ve never been so keen on your home-work before!” said Mama crossly, but it was not really fair because lately, in his efforts to learn French as fast as possible, Max had become much more conscientious about school. He was deeply offended and scowled at everyone until they arrived at the Fernands’ flat and Francine opened the door for them. Then his scowl quickly disappeared. She was a remarkably pretty girl with long honey-coloured hair and large grey eyes.

“You must be Francine,” said Max and added untruthfully but in surprisingly good French, “I have so much looked forward to meeting you!”

Francine had quite a lot of toys and a big white cat. The cat immediately took possession of Anna and sat on her lap while Francine searched for something in her toy cupboard. At last she found it.

“This is what I got for my birthday,” she said and produced a games compendium very like the one Anna and Max had owned in Germany.

Max’s eyes met Anna’s over the cat’s white fur.

“Can I see?” he asked and had it open almost before Francine agreed. He took a long time looking at the contents, fingering the dice, the chessmen, the different kinds of playing cards.

“We used to have a box of games like this,” he said at last. “Only ours had dominoes as well.”

Francine looked a little put out at having her birthday present belittled.

“What happened to yours?” she asked.

“We had to leave it behind,” said Max and added gloomily, “I expect Hitler plays with it now.”

Francine laughed. “Well, you’ll have to use this one instead,” she said. “As I have no brothers or sisters I don’t often have anyone to play with.”

After this they played Ludo and Snakes and Ladders all afternoon. It was nice because the white cat sat on Anna’s lap and there was no need for her to speak much French during the games. The white cat seemed quite happy to have dice thrown over its head and did not want to get down even when Madame Fernand called Anna to try on the new clothes. For tea it ate a bit of iced bun which Anna gave it, and afterwards it climbed straight back on to her lap and smiled at her through its long white fur. When it was time to leave it followed her to the front door.

“What a pretty cat,” said Mama when she saw it.

Anna was longing to tell her how it had sat on her lap while she had played Ludo but thought it would be rude to speak German when Madame Fernand could not understand it. So, very haltingly, she explained in French.

“I thought you told me Anna spoke hardly any French,” said Madame Fernand.

Mama looked very pleased. “She is beginning to,” she said.

“Beginning to!” exclaimed Madame Fernand. “I’ve never seen two children learn a language so fast. Max sounds almost like a French boy at times and as for Anna—only a month or two ago she could hardly say a word, and now she understands everything!”

It was not quite true. There were still a lot of things Anna could not understand—but she was delighted just the same. She had been so impressed with Max’s rapid progress that she had not noticed how much she herself had improved.

Madame Fernand wanted them all to come again the following Sunday so that Anna could have a final fitting, but Mama said, no, next time all the Fernands must come to them—and thus began a series of visits which both families found so pleasant that it soon became a regular arrangement.

Papa especially enjoyed Monsieur Fernand’s company. He was a large clever-looking man and often, while the children played in the dining-room at home, Anna could hear his deep voice and Papa’s in the bedroom-turned-sitting-room next door. They seemed to have endless things to talk about and sometimes Anna could hear them laughing loudly together. This always pleased her because she had hated the tired look on Papa’s face when he had heard about Great-Aunt Sarah’s cloth. She had noticed since that this look occasionally returned—usually when Mama was talking about money. Monsieur Fernand was always able to keep the look at bay.

The new clothes were soon finished and turned out to be the nicest Anna had ever had. She went to show them to Great-Aunt Sarah the very first time she wore them and took with her a poem she had composed specially as a thanks offering. It described all the clothes in detail and ended with the lines,

“And so I am the happy wearer