When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (8 page)

A few days later Anna saw him in the village, throwing unripe apples at Roesli.

Max was very adaptable.

Anna was not too sure about going back to school the next day. “Suppose they’re still in love with me today?” she said. “I don’t want to have more things thrown at me.”

But she need not have worried. The boys had been so terrified by Mama that none of them dared as much as look at her. Even the red-haired boy kept his eyes carefully averted. So Vreneli forgave her and they were friends as before. Anna even managed to persuade her to try one cartwheel, secretly in a corner at the back of the inn. But in public, at school, they both stuck strictly to hopscotch.

Chapter Eight

On Anna’s tenth birthday Papa was invited on an outing by the Zurich Literary Society, and when he mentioned Anna’s birthday they invited her and Max and Mama as well. Mama was delighted.

“How lucky that it should just be on your birthday,” she said. “What a lovely way to celebrate.”

But Anna did not think so at all. She said, “Why can’t I have a party as usual?” Mama looked taken aback.

“But it’s not the same as usual,” she said. “We’re not at home.”

Anna knew this really, but she still felt that her birthday ought to be something special for her—not just an outing in which everyone else was included. She said nothing.

“Look,” said Mama, “it’ll be lovely. They’re going to hire a steamer, just for the people on the outing. We’re going nearly to the other end of the lake and having a picnic on an island, and we won’t be home till late!” But Anna was not convinced.

She did not feel any better when the day arrived and she saw her presents. There was a card from Onkel Julius, some crayons from Max, a small pencil box and a wooden chamois from Mama and Papa. That was all. The chamois was very pretty, but when Max was ten his birthday present had been a new bicycle. The card from Onkel Julius had a picture of a monkey on it and he had written on the back in his meticulous handwriting, “A happy birthday, and many more even happier ones to come.” Anna hoped he was right about the birthdays to come, because this one certainly did not look very promising.

“It’s a funny sort of birthday for you this year,” said Mama, seeing her face. “Anyway you’re really getting too big to bother much with presents.” But she hadn’t said that to Max when he was ten. And it wasn’t as though it were just any birthday, thought Anna. It was her first birthday with double figures.

As the day wore on she felt worse and worse. The outing was not really a success. The weather was lovely but it became very hot on the steamer and the members of the literary society all talked like Fraulein Lambeck. One of them actually addressed Papa as “dear Master”. He was a fat young man with lots of small sharp teeth, and he interrupted just as Anna and Papa were starting a conversation.

“I was so sorry about your article, dear Master,” said the fat young man.

“I was sorry too,” said Papa. “This is my daughter Anna who is ten today.”

“Happy birthday,” said the young man briefly and at once went back to talking to Papa. It was such a pity that he hadn’t been able to print Papa’s article, especially as it was so splendid. The young man had admired it enormously. But the dear Master had such strong opinions ... the policy of the paper ... the feelings of the government ... the dear Master must understand ...

“I understand entirely,” said Papa, turning away, but the fat young man held on.

Such difficult times, said the young man. Fancy the Nazis burning Papa’s books—Papa must have felt terrible. The young man knew just how terrible Papa must have felt because as it happened he had just had his own first book published and could imagine ... Had the dear Master by any chance seen the young man’s first book? No? Then the young man would tell him about it ...

He talked and talked with his little teeth clicking away and Papa was too polite to stop him. At last Anna could stand it no longer and wandered off.

The picnic, too proved a disappointment. It consisted largely of bread rolls with rather grown-up fillings. The rolls were hard and a bit stale so that only the fat young man with the teeth, thought Anna, could have chewed his way through them. For drink there was ginger beer which she hated but Max liked. It was all right for him. He had brought his fishing rod and was quite content to sit on the edge of the island and fish. (Not that he caught anything—but then he was using bits of the stale rolls for bait and it was not surprising that the fish did not like them either.)

There was nothing for Anna to do. There were no other children to play with and after lunch it was even worse because there were speeches. Mama had not told her about the speeches. She should have warned her. They went on for what seemed like hours and Anna sat through them miserably in the heat, thinking of what she would have been doing if they had not had to leave Berlin.

Heimpi would have made a birthday cake with strawberries. She would have had a party with at least twenty children and each of them would have brought her a present. About now they would all be playing games in the garden. Then there would be tea, and candles round the cake ... She could imagine it all so clearly that she hardly noticed when the speeches finally came to an end.

Mama appeared beside her. “We’re going back to the boat now,” she said. Then she whispered, “The speeches were dreadfully dull, weren’t they?” with a conspiratorial smile. But Anna did not smile back. It was all very well for Mama—after all it wasn’t her birthday!

Once back on the boat she found a place by the side and stood there alone, staring into the water. That was it, she thought as the boat steamed back towards Zurich. She’d had her birthday—her tenth birthday—and not a single bit of it had been nice. She folded her arms on the railings and rested her head on them, pretending to look at the view so that no one should see how miserable she was. The water rushed past below her and the warm wind blew through her hair, and all she could think of was that her birthday had been spoilt and nothing would ever be any good again.

After a while she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Papa. Had he noticed how disappointed she was? But Papa never noticed things like that—he was too absorbed in his own thoughts.

“So now I have a ten-year-old daughter,” he said and smiled.

“Yes,” said Anna.

“As a matter of fact,” said Papa, “I don’t think you are quite ten years old yet. You were born at six o’clock in the evening. That’s not for another twenty minutes.”

“Really?” said Anna. For some reason the fact that she was not quite ten yet made her feel better.

“Yes,” said Papa, “and to me it doesn’t seem so very long ago. Of course we didn’t know then that we’d be spending your tenth birthday steaming about Lake Zurich as refugees from Hitler.”

“Is a refugee someone who’s had to leave their home?” asked Anna.

“Someone who seeks refuge in another country,” said Papa.

“I don’t think I’m quite used to being one yet,” said Anna.

“It’s an odd feeling,” said Papa. “You live in a country all your life. Then suddenly it is taken over by thugs and there you are, on your own in a strange place, with nothing.”

He looked so cheerful as he said this that Anna asked, “Don’t you mind?”

“In a way,” said Papa. “But I find it very interesting.”

The sun was sinking in the sky. Every so often it disappeared behind the top of a mountain, and then the lake darkened and everything on the boat became dull and flat. Then it reappeared in a gap between two peaks and the world turned rosy-gold again.

“I wonder where we’ll be on your eleventh birthday,” said Papa, “and on your twelfth.”

“Won’t we be here?”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Papa. “If the Swiss won’t print anything I write for fear of upsetting the Nazis across the border we may as well live in another country altogether. Where would you like to go?”

“I don’t know,” said Anna.

“I think France would be very nice,” said Papa. He considered it for a while. “Do you know Paris at all?” he asked.

Until Anna became a refugee the only place she had ever gone to was the seaside, but she was used to Papa’s habit of becoming so interested in his own thoughts that he forgot whom he was talking to. She shook her head.

“It’s a beautiful city,” said Papa. “I’m sure you’d like it.”

“Would we go to a French school?”

“I expect so. And you’d learn to speak French. On the other hand,” said Papa, “we might live in England—that’s very beautiful too. But a bit damp.” He looked at Anna thoughtfully. “No,” he said, “I think we’ll try Paris first.”

The sun had now disappeared completely and it was dusk. It was hard to see the water as the boat sped through it, except for the foam which flashed white in what little light was left.

“Am I ten yet?” asked Anna. Papa looked at his watch.

“Ten years old exactly.” He hugged her. “Happy, happy birthday, and very many happy returns!”

And just as he said it the boat’s lights came on. There was only a sprinkling of white bulbs round the rails which left the deck almost as dark as before, but the cabin suddenly glowed yellow and at the back of the boat the ship’s lantern shone a brilliant purply-blue.

“Isn’t it lovely!” cried Anna and somehow, suddenly, she no longer minded about her birthday and her presents. It seemed rather fine and adventurous to be a refugee, to have no home and not to know where one was going to live. Perhaps at a pinch it might even count as a difficult childhood like the ones in Gunther’s book and she would end up by being famous.

As the boat steamed back to Zurich she snuggled up to Papa and they watched the blue light from the ship’s lantern trailing through the dark water behind them.

“I think I might quite like being a refugee,” said Anna.

Chapter Nine

The summer wore on and suddenly it was the end of term. On the last day there was a celebration at school with a speech by Herr Graupe, an exhibition of needlework by the girls, a gym display by the boys and much singing and yodelling by everyone. At the end of the afternoon each child was presented with a sausage and a hunk of bread, and they wandered home through the village chewing and laughing and making plans for the next day. The summer holidays had begun.

Max did not finish until a day or two later. At the High School in Zurich the term did not end with yodelling and sausages but with reports. Max brought home his usual quota of comments like “Does not try” and “Shows no interest”, and he and Anna sat through the usual gloomy lunch while Mama and Papa read them. Mama was particularly disappointed because, while she had got used to Max not trying and showing no interest in Germany, she had somehow hoped it might be different in Switzerland—because Max was clever, only he did not work. But the only difference was that whereas in Germany Max had neglected his work to play football, in Switzerland he neglected it in order to fish, and the results were much the same.

It was amazing, thought Anna, how he went on with his fishing even though he never caught anything. Even the Zwirn children had begun to tease him about it. “Bathing worms again?” they would say as they passed him and he would scowl at them furiously, unable to shout an insult back for fear of disturbing some fish that might just be going to bite.

When Max was not fishing he and Anna and the three Zwirn children swam in the lake and played together or went for walks in the woods. Max got on well with Franz, and Anna had become quite fond of Vreneli. Trudi was only six, but she trailed along behind no matter what the others were doing. Sometimes they were joined by Roesli and once even by the red-haired boy who studiously ignored both Anna and Vreneli and only talked about football to Max.

Then one morning Anna and Max came down to find the Zwirn children playing with a boy and a girl they had never seen before. They were German, about their own ages, and were spending a holiday with their parents at the inn.

“Which part of Germany do you come from?” asked Max.