When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (5 page)

For some reason this was terribly funny. Anna, biting back her laughter, glanced at Max and found that he too was almost in convulsions.

“What’s a ... what’s a mogger?” she asked as the lady folded back the lid of the basket, and before anyone could answer there was a screech of “Meeee”, and the head of a scruffy black tomcat appeared out of the opening.

At this Anna and Max could contain themselves no longer. They fell about with laughter.

“He answered you!” gasped Max. “You said, ‘What’s a mogger’ and he said...”

“Meeee!” screamed Anna.

“Children, children!” said Mama, but it was no good—they could not stop laughing. They laughed at everything they saw, all the way to Zurich. Mama apologised to the lady but she said she did not mind—she knew high spirits when she saw them. Any time they looked like flagging Max only had to say, “What’s a mogger?” and Anna cried, “Meeee!” and they were off all over again. They were still laughing on the platform in Zurich when they were looking for Papa.

Anna saw him first. He was standing by a bookstall. His face was white and his eyes were searching the crowds milling round the train.

“Papa!” she shouted. “Papa!”

He turned and saw them. And then Papa, who was always so dignified, who never did anything in a hurry, suddenly ran towards them. He put his arms round Mama and hugged her. Then he hugged Anna and Max. He hugged and hugged them all and would not let them go.

“I couldn’t see you,” said Papa. “I was afraid ...”

“I know,” said Mama.

Chapter Five

Papa had reserved rooms for them in the best hotel in Zurich. It had a revolving door and thick carpets and lots of gold everywhere. As it was still only ten o’clock in the morning they ate another breakfast while they talked about everything that had happened since Papa had left Berlin.

At first there seemed endless things to tell him, but after a while they found it was nice just being together without saying anything at all. While Anna and Max ate their way through two different kinds of croissants and four different kinds of jam, Mama and Papa sat smiling at each other. Every so often they would remember something and Papa would say, “Did you manage to bring the books?” or Mama would say, “The paper rang and they’d like an article from you this week if possible.” But then they would relapse back into their contented, smiling silence.

At last Max drank the last of his hot chocolate, wiped the last crumbs of croissant off his lips and said, “What shall we do now?”

Somehow nobody had thought.

After a moment Papa said, “Let’s go and look at Zurich.”

They decided first of all to go to the top of a hill overlooking the city. The hill was so steep that you had to go by funicular—a kind of lift on wheels that went straight up at an alarming angle. Anna had never been in one before and spent her time between excitement at the experience and anxious scrutiny of the cable for signs of fraying. From the top of the hill you could see Zurich clustered below at one end of an enormous blue lake. It was so big that the town seemed quite small by comparison, and its far end was hidden by mountains. Steamers, which looked like toys from this height, were making their way round the edge of the lake, stopping at each of the villages scattered along the shores and then moving on to the next. The sun was shining and made it all look very inviting.

“Can anyone go on those steamers?” asked Max. It was just what Anna had been going to ask.

“Would you like to go?” said Papa. “So you shall—this afternoon.”

Lunch was splendid at a restaurant with a glassed-in terrace overlooking the lake below, but Anna could not eat much. Her head was feeling swimmy, probably from getting up so early, she thought, and though her nose had stopped running her throat was sore.

“Are you all right?” asked Mama anxiously.

“Oh yes!” said Anna, thinking of the steamer trip in the afternoon. Anyway, she was sure it was just tiredness.

There was a shop selling picture postcards next door to the restaurant and she bought one and sent it to Heimpi while Max sent one to Gunther.

“I wonder how they’re getting on with the elections,” said Mama. “Do you think the Germans will really vote for Hitler?”

“I’m afraid so,” said Papa.

“They might not,” said Max. “A lot of the boys at my school were against him. We might find tomorrow that almost no one had voted for Hitler and then we could all go home again, just as Onkel Julius said.”

“It’s possible,” said Papa, but Anna could see that he didn’t really think so.

The steamer trip in the afternoon was a great success. Anna and Max stayed on the open deck in spite of the cold wind and watched the other traffic on the lake. Apart from the steamers there were private motor launches and even a few rowing boats. Their steamer went chug-chugging along from village to village on one side of the lake. These all looked very pretty, with their neat houses nestling among the woods and the hills. Whenever the steamer was getting near a landing stage it hooted loudly to let everyone in the village know that it was coming, and quite a lot of people got on and off each time. After about an hour it suddenly steamed straight across the lake to a village on the other side and then made its way back to Zurich where it had started.

As she walked back to the hotel through the noise of cars and buses and clanging trams Anna found she was very tired, and her head felt swimmy again. She was glad to get back to the hotel room which she shared with Max. She still was not hungry and Mama thought she looked so weary that she tucked her into bed straightaway. As soon as Anna put her head down on the pillow her whole bed seemed to take off and float away in the darkness with a chug-chugging noise which might have been a boat, or a train, or a sound coming from her own head.

Anna’s first impression when she opened her eyes in the morning was that the room was far too bright. She closed them again quickly and lay quite still, trying to collect herself. There was a murmur of voices at the other end of the room and also a rustling sound which she could not identify. It must be quite late and everyone else must be up.

She opened her eyes again cautiously and this time the brightness heaved and swayed and finally rearranged itself into the room she knew, with Max, still in his pyjamas, sitting up in the other bed and Mama and Papa standing close by. Papa had a newspaper and this was what was making the rustling sound. They were talking quietly because they thought she was still asleep. Then the room gave another heave and she closed her eyes again and seemed to drift away somewhere while the voices went on.

Someone was saying “... so they’ve got a majority ...” Then the voice faded away and another—(or was it the same one?)-said “... enough votes to do what he wants ...” and then unmistakably Max, very unhappily, “... so we shan’t be going back to Germany ... so we shan’t be going back to Germany ... so we shan’t be going back to Germany ...” Had he really said it three times? Anna opened her eyes with a great effort and said “Mama!” At once one of the figures detached itself from the group and came towards her and suddenly Mama’s face appeared quite close to hers. Anna said “Mama!” again and then all at once she was crying because her throat was so sore.

After this everything became vague. Mama and Papa were standing by her bed looking at a thermometer. Papa had his coat on. He must have gone out to buy the thermometer specially. Someone said, “A hundred and four,” but it couldn’t be her temperature they were talking about because she couldn’t remember having it taken.

Next time she opened her eyes there was a man with a little beard looking at her. He said, “Well, young lady,” and smiled and as he smiled his feet left the ground and he flew to the top of the wardrobe where he changed into a bird and sat croaking, “Influenza” until Mama shooed him out of the window.

Then suddenly it was night and she asked Max to get her some water, but Max was not there, it was Mama in the other bed. Anna said, “Why are you sleeping in Max’s bed?” Mama said, “Because you’re ill,” and Anna felt very glad because if she was ill it meant that Heimpi would be coming to look after her. She said, “Tell Heimpi ...” but then she was too tired to remember the rest, and the next time she looked the man with the little beard was there again and she didn’t like him because he was upsetting Mama by saying, “Complications” over and over again. He had done something to the back of Anna’s neck and had made it all swollen and sore, and now he was feeling it with his hand. She said, “Don’t do that!” quite sharply, but he took no notice and tried to make her drink something horrible. Anna was going to push it away, but then she saw that it was not the man with the beard after all but Mama, and her blue eyes looked so fierce and determined that it didn’t seem worth resisting.

After this the world grew a little steadier. She began to understand that she had been ill for some time, that she still had a high temperature and that the reason she felt so awful was that all the glands in her neck were enormously swollen and tender.

“We must get the temperature down,” said the doctor with the beard.

Then Mama said, “I’m going to put something on your neck to make it better.”

Anna saw some steam rising from a basin.

“It’s too hot!” she cried. “I don’t want it!”

“I won’t put it on too hot,” said Mama.

“I don’t want it!” screamed Anna. “You don’t know how to look after me ! Where’s Heimpi? Heimpi wouldn’t put hot steam on my neck!”

“Nonsense!” said Mama, and suddenly she was holding a steaming pad of cotton wool against her own neck. “There,” she said, “if it’s not to hot for me it won’t be too hot for you”—and she clapped it firmly on Anna’s neck and quickly wrapped a bandage round it.

It was terribly hot but just bearable.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” said Mama.

Anna was much too angry to answer and the room was beginning to spin again, but as she drifted off into vagueness she could just hear Mama’s voice: “I’m going to get that temperature down if it kills me!”

After this she must have dozed or dreamed because suddenly her neck was quite cool again and Mama was unwrapping it.

“And how are you, fat pig?” said Mama.

“Fat pig?” said Anna weakly.

Mama very gently touched one of Anna’s swollen glands. “This is fat pig,” she said. “It’s the worst of the lot. The one next to it isn’t quite so bad—it’s called slim pig. And this one is called pink pig and this is baby pig and this one ... what shall we call this one?”

“Fraulein Lambeck,” said Anna and began to laugh. She was so weak that the laugh sounded more like a cackle but Mama seemed very pleased just the same.

Mama kept putting on the hot fomentations and it was not too bad because she always made jokes about fat pig and slim pig and Fraulein Lambeck, but though her neck felt better Anna’s temperature still stayed up. She would wake up feeling fairly normal but by lunch time she would be giddy and by the evening everything would have become vague and confused. She got the strangest ideas. She was frightened of the wallpaper and could not bear to be alone. Once when Mama left her to go downstairs for supper she thought the room was getting smaller and smaller and cried because she thought she would be squashed. After this Mama had her supper on a tray in Anna’s room. The doctor said, “She can’t go on like this much longer.”

Then one afternoon Anna was lying staring at the curtains. Mama had just drawn them because it was getting dark and Anna was trying to see what shapes the folds had made. The previous evening they had made a shape like an ostrich, and as Anna’s temperature went up she had been able to see the ostrich more and more clearly until at last she had been able to make him walk all round the room. This time she thought perhaps there might be an elephant.

Suddenly she became aware of whispering at the other end of the room. She turned her head with difficulty. Papa was there, sitting with Mama, and they were looking at a letter together. She could not hear what Mama was saying, but she could tell from the sound of her voice that she was excited and upset. Then Papa folded the letter and put his hand on Mama‘s, and Anna thought he would probably go soon but he didn’t—he just stayed sitting there and holding Mama’s hand. Anna watched them for a while until her eyes became tired and she closed them. The whispering voices had become more quiet and even. Somehow it was a very soothing sound and after a while Anna fell asleep listening to it.

When she woke up she knew at once that she had slept for a long time. There was something else, too, that was strange, but she could not quite make out what it was. The room was dim except for a light on the table by which Mama usually sat, and Anna thought she must have forgotten to switch it off when she went to bed. But Mama had not gone to bed. She was still sitting there with Papa just as they had done before Anna went to sleep. Papa was still holding Mama’s hand in one of his and the folded letter in the other.

“Hullo Mama. Hullo Papa,” said Anna. “I feel so peculiar.”

Mama and Papa came over to her bed at once and Mama put a hand on her forehead. Then she popped the thermometer in Anna’s mouth. When she took it out again she did not seem to be able to believe what she saw. “It’s normal!” she said. “For the first time in four weeks it’s normal!”