When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Afterwards Anna was very ashamed of her outburst. After all she had really known all the time that Mama and Papa had no choice but to send her and Max away. All she had done was to make everyone feel worse about something that had to happen anyway. Why couldn’t she have kept quiet? She worried about it in bed and when she woke up early the next morning she felt she must do something. She still had some of her prize money left—she would go out and buy croissants for everybody’s breakfast.

There was a little breeze blowing for the first time in weeks and when she came back from the baker’s with the hot croissants in a bag she suddenly felt much happier. It would all work out somehow—everything would be all right.

A man was talking to the concierge in a strong German accent and as she passed Anna heard him asking for Papa.

“I’ll take you up,” she said, disregarding the concierge, and the concierge, in offended silence, handed her a letter. Anna looked down at it and saw with a sudden quickening of the pulse that it had an English stamp. All the way up in the lift she could think of nothing but what might be inside the letter, and she only remembered Papa’s visitor when he spoke to her.

“You must be Anna,” he said and she nodded.

He was a shabby-looking man with a sad voice.

“Papa!” cried Anna as they entered the flat. “I’ve bought some croissants for breakfast and there’s a letter and someone to see you!”

“Someone here? Now?” said Papa as he emerged from his room, tying his tie.

He drew the visitor into the dining-room and Anna followed with the letter in her hand.

“How do you do, Herr...?”

“Rosenfeld,” said the man with a little bow. “I used to be an actor in Berlin but you don’t know me. Only small parts, you understand.” He smiled, showing irregular yellow teeth and added with apparent irrelevance, “I have a nephew in the confectionery business.”

“Papa...” said Anna, holding out the letter, but Papa said, “Later!”

Herr Rosenfeld seemed to find it difficult to say what he had come for. His sad eyes kept roaming round the dining-room while he considered one opening after another and dismissed each one. At last he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small parcel wrapped in brown paper.

“I have brought you this,” he said and handed it to Papa. Papa unwrapped it. It was a watch—an old silver watch—and there was something familiar about it.

“Julius!” cried Papa.

Herr Rosenfeld nodded sadly. “I am the bearer of bad news.”

Onkel Julius was dead.

While Mama gave Herr Rosenfeld some coffee and he absent-mindedly nibbled one of Anna’s croissants he told them how Onkel Julius had died. He had been dismissed from his post as curator of the Berlin Natural History Museum nearly a year ago.

“But why?” asked Mama.

“Surely you knew,” said Herr Rosenfeld. “He had a Jewish grandmother.”

Onkel Julius had not been able to work as a naturalist after this but had found a job sweeping up in a factory. He had moved from his flat into a cheap room, and this was where he had made friends with Herr Rosenfeld who had the room next-door. In spite of his difficulties Onkel Julius had been quite cheerful at this stage.

“He just... accepted things, didn’t he?” said Herr Rosenfeld. “I was planning even then to come to Paris and join my nephew, and I said to him, ‘You come too—there’s room for us both in the confectionery trade!’ But he wouldn’t. He seemed to think that the situation in Germany was bound to change.”

Papa nodded, remembering Onkel Julius in Switzerland.

Herr Rosenfeld and Onkel Julius had had many conversations together and Onkel Julius had talked a great deal about Papa and his family. Once or twice Herr Rosenfeld had accompanied him to the Zoo where he now spent all his Sundays. Though Onkel Julius had so little money he always managed to bring some peanuts for the monkeys and scraps for the other animals, and Herr Rosenfeld had been amazed to see how they rushed to the bars of their cages as soon as he appeared.

“It wasn’t just the food,” he said. “It was more like a sort of gentleness in him that they recognised.”

Again Papa nodded...

During the autumn Onkel Julius had even dropped into the Zoo after work in the evenings. His whole life now centred round the animals. There was a monkey that let him stroke it through the bars of its cage...

And then, just before Christmas, the blow had fallen. Onkel Julius had received an official letter revoking his pass to the Zoo. No reason was given. The fact that he had a Jewish grandmother was enough.

After this Onkel Julius had changed. He could not sleep and did not eat properly. He no longer talked to Herr Rosenfeld but spent the Sundays in his room, staring at the sparrows on the roof-top opposite. At last, late one night in spring, he had knocked on Herr Rosenfeld’s door and begged him, when he went to Paris, to take something to Papa. Herr Rosenfeld had explained that he would not be going for some time yet, but Onkel Julius had said, “Never mind, I’ll give it to you now,” and Herr Rosenfeld had accepted a small parcel to calm him. Next morning Onkel Julius had been found dead, an empty bottle of sleeping tablets beside him.

Herr Rosenfeld had not been able to leave Germany till several months later, but had at once come to see Papa and to deliver the parcel.

“There’s a note as well,” he said.

The handwriting was as meticulous as ever.

It said simply, “Good-bye. I wish you well,” and was signed “Julius”.

For quite a long time after Herr Rosenfeld had left Anna forgot about the other letter from England which she was still holding in her hand, but at last she remembered and gave it to Papa. He opened it, read it silently and passed it to Mama.

“They want to buy your film script!” cried Mama and then, as though she could hardly believe it, “A thousand pounds...!”

“Does that mean we don’t have to go and stay with Omama?” Max asked quickly.

“Of course!” said Mama. “There’s no need now for you to go away. We can all go to England together!”

“Oh Papa!” cried Anna. “Papa, isn’t it wonderful!”

“Yes,” said Papa. “I’m glad we shall all be together.”

“To think that they’re going to film your script!” Mama’s hand was on his shoulder. Then she noticed the frayed collar under her fingers. “You’ll need a new jacket,” she said.

“Let’s tell the concierge and give her notice!” said Max.

“No—wait!” cried Mama. “But if we’re going to London, we ought to let your schools know. And we must find out 183 about hotels. And it’ll be colder there—you’ll need some woollies...”

Suddenly there seemed to be a thousand things to talk about.

But Papa, who had made it all happen, did not want to talk about any of them. While Mama and the children chattered and made plans he sat quite still and let the words flow round him. Onkel Julius’s watch was in his hand and he was stroking it, very gently, with one finger.

Chapter Twenty-Four

It seemed strange to be leaving again for yet another country.

“Just when we’d learned to speak French properly,” said Max.

There was not time to say good-bye to Madame Socrate because she was still on holiday. Anna had to leave a note for her at the school. But she went with Mama to pay a farewell visit to Great-Aunt Sarah who wished them luck in their new life in England and was delighted to hear about Papa’s film.

“At last someone is paying that good man some money,” she said. “They should have done it long ago already.”

The Fernands returned from the seaside just in time for the two families to spend a final evening together. Papa took everyone out to dinner to celebrate and they promised each other to meet again soon.

“We’ll come back to France often,” said Papa. He had a new jacket and the tired look had quite disappeared from his face.

“And you must visit us in London,” said Mama.

“We’ll come to see the film,” said Madame Fernand.

The packing did not take long. There seemed to be less to pack each time they moved—so many things had been used up and thrown away—and one grey morning less than two weeks after the letter had come from England, they were ready to leave.

Mama and Anna stood in the little dining-room for the last time, waiting for the taxi to take them to the station. Cleared of the litter of small objects in everyday use which had made it familiar, the room looked bare and cheap.

“I don’t know how we lived here for two years,” said Mama.

Anna rubbed her hand over the red oil-cloth on the table.

“I liked it,” she said.

Then the taxi came. Papa and Max piled the luggage into the lift and then Papa shut the door of the flat behind them.

When the train drew out of the station Anna leaned out of the window with Papa and watched Paris slowly slip away.

“We’ll come back,” said Papa.

“I know,” said Anna. She remembered how she had felt when they had gone back to the Gasthof Zwirn for the holidays and added, “But it won’t be the same—we won’t belong. Do you think we’ll ever really belong anywhere?”

“I suppose not,” said Papa. “Not the way people belong who have lived in one place all their lives. But we’ll belong a little in lots of places, and I think that may be just as good.”

The equinoctial gales were early that year and when the train reached Dieppe about lunch-time the sea looked wild and dark under the grey sky. They had chosen the slow crossing from Dieppe to Newhaven because it was cheaper, in spite of Papa’s new-found wealth.

“We don’t know how long the money will have to last us,” said Mama.

As soon as the boat emerged from Dieppe harbour it began to pitch and roll and Anna’s excitement at her first sea voyage quickly evaporated. She, Max and Mama watched each others’ faces turn paler and greener until they had to go below and lie down. Only Papa was unaffected. It took six hours to cross the Channel instead of the customary four because of the bad weather, and long before they landed Anna felt that she did not care what England was like, just as long as they got there. When they finally arrived it was too dark to see anything. The boat train had left long ago and a kind but incomprehensible porter put them on a slow train to London instead.

As it started hesitantly on its way a spatter of raindrops appeared on the window.

“English weather,” said Papa who was very cheerful because he had not been sea-sick.

Anna sat huddled in her corner of the compartment, watching the anonymous dark landscape rush past. You could not really see what any of it was like. After a while she got tired of looking at it and stole a glance, instead, at two men opposite her. They were English. In the rack above their heads were two black melon-shaped hats such as she had rarely seen before and they were sitting up very straight, reading newspapers. Although they had got on to the train together they did not speak to each other. The English seemed to be very quiet people.

The train slowed down and stopped, for the umpteenth time, at a small ill-lit station.

“Where are we?” asked Mama.

Anna spelled out the name on an illuminated sign.

“Bovril,” she said.

“It can’t be,” said Max. “The last place we stopped at was called Bovril.”

Mama, still pale from the crossing, looked for herself.

“It’s an advertisement,” she said. “Bovril is some kind of English food. I think they eat it with stewed fruit.”

The train continued to crawl through the darkness and Anna became drowsy. There was something familiar about the situation—her tiredness, the sound of the train wheels, and the rain spattering on the windows. It had all happened before, some time long ago. Before she could remember when, she fell asleep.

When she awoke the train was going faster and there were lights flashing past the windows. She looked out and saw wet roads and street lamps and little houses which all looked alike.

“We’re coming into London,” said Mama.

The roads grew wider and the buildings bigger and more varied, and suddenly the sound of the wheels changed and they were on a bridge over a wide river.

“The Thames!” cried Papa.

It was lined with lights on both sides and Anna could see some cars and a red bus crawling along beneath them. Then they were across, the river was left behind, and as though a box had been clapped over the train, the brightness of a station with platforms and porters and crowds of people suddenly appeared all round them. They had arrived.

Anna climbed off the train and stood on the chilly platform while they waited for Mama’s cousin Otto who was to meet them. All round them the English were greeting each other, smiling and talking.

“Can you understand what they’re saying?” asked Anna.

“Not a word,” said Max.

“A few months and we’ll be able to,” said Anna.

Papa had got hold of a porter, but Cousin Otto was nowhere to be seen, so Mama and Papa went to look for him while the children stayed with the luggage. It was cold. Anna sat down on a suitcase and the porter smiled at her.

“Français?”
he asked.