When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (21 page)

“But surely your husband ...?” Omama seemed quite surprised.

“It’s the Depression, Mother,” said Mama. “Surely you’ve read about it! With so many French writers out of work no French paper is going to engage a German to write for them, and the
Daily Parisian
can’t afford to pay very much.”

“Yes, but even so...” Omama looked round the little room, rather rudely, thought Anna, for after all it wasn’t as bad as all that—and at that very moment Max, tilting his chair as usual, collapsed on the floor with a plateful of apple flan in his lap. “... This is no way for children to grow up,” Omama finished her sentence, exactly as though Max had crystallised the thought for her.

Anna and Max burst into uncontrollable laughter, but Mama said, “Nonsense, Mother!” quite sharply and told Max to go and get himself cleaned up. “As a matter of fact the children are doing extremely well,” she told Omama and added when Max was safely out of the room, “Max is working for the first time in his life.”

“And I’m going to take the
certificat d’études!”
said Anna. This was her big news. Madame Socrate had decided, since her work had improved so much, that there was now no reason why she shouldn’t take the examination in the summer with the rest of the class.

“The
certificat d’études?”
said Omama. “Isn’t that some kind of elementary school examination?”

“It’s for French twelve-year-old children,” said Mama, “and Anna’s teacher thinks it remarkable that she should have caught up so quickly.”

But Omama shook her head.

“It all seems very strange to me,” she said and looked sadly at Mama. “So very different from the way you were brought up.”

She had bought presents for everyone and during the rest of her stay in Paris, as in Switzerland, she arranged several outings for Mama and the children which they enjoyed and would never normally have been able to afford. But she did not really understand their new life.

“This is no way for children to grow up” became a sort of catch-phrase in the family.

“This is no way for children to grow up!” Max would say reproachfully to Mama when she had forgotten to make his sandwiches for school, and Anna would shake her head and say, “This is no way for children to grow up!” when the concierge caught Max sliding down the banisters.

After one of Omama’s visits Papa, who usually managed to avoid meeting her, asked Mama, “How was your Mother?” and Anna heard Mama reply, “Kind and utterly unimaginative as usual.”

When it was time for Omama to go back to the South of France she embraced Mama and the children fondly.

“Remember now,” she told Mama, “if ever you’re in difficulties you can send the children to me.”

Anna caught Max’s eye and mouthed, “This is no way for children to grow up!” and though it seemed mean in the face of all Omama’s kindness they both had to make terrible grimaces to stop themselves from bursting into giggles.

After the Easter holidays Anna could hardly wait to go back to school. She loved it all since she had learned to speak French. Suddenly the work seemed quite easy and she was beginning to enjoy writing stories and compositions in French. It was not a bit like writing in German—you could make the words do quite different things—and she found it curiously exciting.

Even home-work was no longer such a burden. The large lumps of French, history and geography which had to be learned by heart were the hardest part, but Anna and Max had discovered a way of mastering even this. If they studied the relevant passage last thing before going to sleep they found they always knew it in the morning. By the afternoon it began to fade and by the following day it was completely forgotten—but it stuck in their memories just as long as they needed it.

One evening Papa came into their bedroom when they were hearing each others’ lessons. Anna’s was about Napoleon and Papa looked amazed as she reeled it off. It began “Napoleon was born in Corsica” and then followed a long list of dates and battles until the final “he died in 1821.”

“What an extraordinary way to learn about Napoleon,” said Papa. “Is that all you know about him?”

“But it’s everything!” said Anna, rather hurt, especially as she had not made a single mistake.

Papa laughed. “No, it’s not everything,” he said, and settling down on her bed he began to talk about Napoleon. He told the children about Napoleon’s childhood in Corsica with his many brothers and sisters, about his brilliance at school and how he became an officer at fifteen and commander of the entire French army at the age of twenty-six; how he made his brothers and sisters kings and queens of the countries he conquered but could never impress his mother, an Italian peasant woman.

“C’est bien pourvu que ça dure,”
she would say disapprovingly at the news of every new triumph, which meant, “It’s good as long as it lasts”.

Then he told them how her forebodings came true, how half the French army was destroyed in the disastrous campaign against Russia, and finally of Napoleon’s lonely death on the tiny island of St. Helena.

Anna and Max listened entranced.

“It’s just like a film,” said Max.

“Yes,” said Papa thoughtfully. “Yes, it is.”

It was nice, thought Anna, that Papa had more time to talk to them these days. This was because owing to the Depression the
Daily Parisian
had been reduced in size and could no longer print so many of his articles. But Mama and Papa did not think it was a good thing at all and Mama, in particular, was always worrying about money.

“We can’t go on like this!” Anna once heard her say to Papa. “I always knew we should have gone to England in the first place.”

But Papa only shrugged his shoulders and said, “It’ll sort itself out.”

Soon after this Papa became very busy again and Anna could hear him typing till late at night in his room, so she assumed that it had indeed “sorted itself out” and stopped thinking about it. She was, in any case, much too interested in school to pay much attention to what was happening at home. The
certificat d’études
loomed ever larger and closer and she was determined to pass it. After only a year and nine months in France she thought this would be a very splendid thing.

At last the day arrived and early one hot morning in July Madame Socrate led her class through the streets to a neighbouring school. They were to take the exam supervised by strange teachers so as to make it quite fair. It had all to be got through in one day, so there was not much time for each of the many subjects they were to be examined in. There was French, arithmetic, history, geography, singing, sewing, art and gym.

Arithmetic came first—an hour’s paper in which Anna thought she acquitted herself quite well, then French dictation, then a ten-minute break.

“How did you get on?” Anna asked Colette.

“All right,” said Colette.

So far it had not been too bad.

After break they were given two papers of questions on history and geography, each lasting half an hour, and then—disaster!

“As we are a little short of time,” announced the teacher in charge, “it has been decided that this year, instead of examining candidates in both sewing and art, and adding the marks together as in previous years, you will be examined in sewing only and that this will count as a whole subject.”

Sewing was what Anna was worst at. She could never remember the names of the different stitches and, perhaps because Mama was so bad at it, she thought the whole business was an awful waste of time. Even Madame Socrate had never been able to persuade her to become interested in it. She had cut out an apron for her to hem, but Anna had been so slow at getting on with it that by the time it was finished she had grown too tall to wear it.

The teacher’s pronouncement therefore plunged her into deep gloom which was confirmed when she was given a square of material, a needle and thread and some incomprehensible instructions. For half an hour she guessed wildly, tore her thread and picked frantically at knots which seemed to appear from nowhere, and finally handed in a piece of sewing so ragged and crumpled that even the teacher collecting it looked startled at the sight of it.

Lunch in the school playground with Colette was a glum affair.

“If you fail one subject, do you automatically fail the whole exam?” Anna asked as they sat eating their sandwiches on a bench in the shade.

“I’m afraid so,” said Colette, “unless you get distinctions in another subject—then that makes up for it.”

Anna ran through the exams she had already taken in her mind. Except for sewing she had done well in them all—but not well enough to have got distinctions. Her chances of passing seemed very slender.

However, she cheered up a little when she saw the subjects set for French composition in the afternoon. There were three to chose from and one of them was “A journey”. Anna decided to describe what she imagined Papa’s journey must have been like when he had travelled from Berlin to Prague with a high temperature, not knowing whether or not he would be stopped at the frontier. There was a whole hour allowed for it and as she wrote Papa’s journey became more and more vivid to her. She felt she knew exactly what it must have been like, what Papa’s thoughts must have been and how, owing to the temperature, he would keep getting confused between what he was thinking and what was actually happening. By the time Papa had arrived in Prague she had written nearly five pages, and she just had time to check them through for punctuation and spelling before they were collected. She thought it was one of the best compositions she had ever written, and if only it had not been for the beastly sewing she would be sure now of having passed.

The only exams still to come were singing and gym. The singing tests were held separately for each child but as time was getting short they were very brief.

“Sing the
Marseillaise,”
commanded the teacher but stopped Anna after the first few bars. “Good—that will do,” she said and then cried, “Next!”

There were only ten minutes left for gym.

“Quickly! Quickly!” cried the teacher as she herded the children into the playground and told them to spread out. There was another teacher to help her, and together they arranged the children in four long lines a metre or two apart.

“Attention!” cried one of the teachers. “Everyone stand on your right leg with your left leg raised off the ground in front of you!”

Everyone did, except Colette who stood on her left leg by mistake and had surreptitiously to change over. Anna stood dead straight, her arms held out to balance herself and her left leg raised as high as she could. Out of the corner of her eye she could see some of the others, and nobody’s leg was as high off the ground as her own. The two teachers walked between the lines of children, some of whom were now beginning to wobble and collapse, and made notes on a piece of paper. When they came to Anna they stopped.

“Very good!” said one of them.

“Really excellent,” said the other. “Don’t you think...?”

“Oh, definitely!” said the first teacher, and made a mark on the piece of paper.

“That’s it! You can go home now!” they called when they got to the end of the line, and Colette rushed up to Anna and embraced her.

“You’ve done it! You’ve done it!” she cried. “You’ve got distinctions in gym, so now it won’t matter if you’ve failed in sewing!”

“Do you really think so?” said Anna, but she felt pretty sure of it herself.

She walked home through the hot streets glowing with happiness and could hardly wait to tell Mama all about it.

“You mean to say that because you were so good at standing on one leg it won’t matter that you can’t sew?” said Mama. “What an extraordinary exam!”

“I know,” said Anna, “but I suppose it’s things like French and arithmetic that are really important and I think I did quite well in those.”

Mama had made some cold lemon squash and they sat drinking it together in the dining-room while Anna rattled on. “We should have the results in a few days’ time—it can’t be much more because it’s nearly the end of term. Wouldn’t it be grand if I’d really passed—after less than two years in France!”

Mama agreed that it would indeed be grand, when the door bell rang and Max appeared looking pale and excited.

“Mama,” he said almost before he had got through the door. “You’ve got to come to the prize-giving on Saturday. If you’ve got anything else on you’ve got to cancel it. It’s very important!”

Mama looked very pleased.

“Have you won the Latin prize then?” she asked.

But Max shook his head.

“No,” he said, and the rest of the sentence seemed somehow to stick in his throat. “I’ve won...” he said, and finally brought out, “I’ve won the
prix d’excellence!
That means they think I’m the best student in the class.”

Of course there was delight and praise from everyone. Even Papa was interrupted in his typing to hear the great news, and Anna thought it was just as wonderful as everyone else. But she could not help wishing that it had not come just at this very moment. She had worked so hard and thought so long about passing the
certificat d’études.
After this, even if she did pass, how could anyone possibly be impressed? Especially since her success would be partly due to her talent for standing on one leg?

When the results were announced it was not nearly as exciting as she had expected. She had passed, so had Colette and so had most of the class. Madame Socrate handed each successful candidate an envelope containing a certificate with her name on it. But when Anna opened hers she found something more. Attached to the certificate were two ten franc notes and a letter from the Mayor of Paris.

“What does it mean?” she asked Madame Socrate.

Madame Socrate’s wrinkled face broke into a delighted smile.

“The Mayor of Paris has decided to award prizes for the twenty best French compositions written by children taking the
certificat d’études,”
she explained. “It seems that you have been awarded one of them.”