When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (24 page)

Anna shook her head.

“Deutsch?”

She nodded.

“Ah,
Deutsch,”
said the porter. He was a tubby little man with a red face. “Ittla?” he added.

Anna and Max looked at each other. They did not know what he meant.

“Ittla! Ittla!” said the porter. He placed one finger under his nose like a moustache and raised the other hand in the Nazi salute. “Ittla?” he said.

“Oh, Hitler!” cried Max.

Anna said, “Do they have Nazis here?”

“I hope not,” said Max.

They both shook their heads vehemently and made disapproving faces.

“No!” they said. “No Hitler!”

The porter seemed pleased.

“Ittla ...” he began. He looked round to see if anyone was watching him and then spat forcefully on the platform. “Ittla,” he said. That was what he thought of him.

They all smiled and the porter was just about to do another imitation of Hitler with his hair pulled down over his forehead, when Mama appeared from one side and Papa and Cousin Otto from the other.

“Welcome to England!” cried Cousin Otto, embracing Mama. Then, as Mama gave a little shiver, he added reprovingly, “In this country you should always wear woollen underclothes.”

Anna remembered him from Berlin as a rather dapper man, but now he looked shabby in a crumpled coat. They followed him to the exit in a slow procession. There were people all round them. It was so damp that steam seemed to be rising from the ground and Anna’s nostrils were filled with the smell of rubber from the mackintoshes which nearly all the English were wearing. At the end of the platform there was a slight holdup, but nobody pushed or jostled as was usual in France and Germany—everyone just waited their turn. Through the misty air a fruit stall shone bright with oranges, apples and yellow bananas and there was a shop window entirely filled with sweets and chocolates. The English must be very rich to be able to buy such things. They passed an English policeman with a tall helmet and another one in a wet cape.

Outside the station the rain was coming down like a shining curtain and beyond it Anna could dimly see some kind of open square. Again the feeling came over her that this had all happened before. She had stood in the rain outside a station and it had been cold ...

“Wait here and I’ll get a taxi,” said Cousin Otto, and this, too, was familiar.

Suddenly her tiredness and the bad crossing and the cold all combined. There was a great emptiness in her head and the rain seemed to be all about her and the past and the present became confused, so that for a moment she could not think where she was.

“All right?” said Papa, grasping her arm as she swayed a little, and Cousin Otto said in a concerned voice, “It must be quite difficult to spend one’s childhood moving from country to country.”

At the words something cleared in Anna’s mind.

“Difficult childhood ...” she thought. The past and the present slid apart. She remembered the long, weary journey from Berlin with Mama, how it had rained, and how she had read Gunther’s book and wished for a difficult childhood so that she might one day become famous. Had her wish then come true? Could her life since she had left Germany really be described as a difficult childhood?

She thought of the flat in Paris and the Gasthof Zwirn. No, it was absurd. Some things had been difficult, but it had always been interesting and often funny—and she and Max and Mama and Papa had nearly always been together. As long as they were together she could never have a difficult childhood. She sighed a little as she abandoned her hopes.

“What a pity,” she thought. “I’ll never be famous at this rate!”

She moved closer to Papa and put her hand in his pocket for warmth.

Then Cousin Otto came back with the taxi.

“Quickly!” he cried. “He won’t wait!”

They all ran. Papa and Cousin Otto shifted the luggage. The taxi driver threw it into the taxi. Mama slipped in the wet and almost fell, but Cousin Otto saved her.

“The English all wear rubber soles,” he cried, pushing in the last suitcase.

Then they all piled into the taxi. Cousin Otto gave the address of the hotel. Anna pressed her face against the window, and the taxi started.