Читать книгу Bombs on Aunt Dainty - Judith Kerr - Страница 8

Anna and Mama were sitting in the waiting room of the Relief Organisation for German Jewish Refugees.

“If only they’ll help us with the fees for this secretarial course,” said Mama for at least the sixth time, “you’ll always be able to earn your living.”

Anna nodded.

All round the room other German refugees were sitting on hard chairs like Mama and herself, waiting to be interviewed. Some were talking in nervous, high-pitched voices. Some were reading newspapers – Anna counted one English, one French, two Swiss and one Yiddish. An elderly couple were eating buns out of a paper bag and a thin man was hunched up in a corner by himself, staring into space. Every so often the receptionist came in and called out a name and the owner of the name followed her out.

“You’ll have something to build on,” said Mama, “which I’ve never had, and you’ll always be independent.”

She had at first been taken aback by Anna’s suggestion of getting a job but then had thrown herself into the search for some suitable training with her usual energy. She had been adamant that Anna must have training of some sort, but it was hard to decide what. A secretarial course was the obvious choice, but Anna’s complete inability to learn shorthand had been one of her many failures at Miss Metcalfe’s. “It’s not so much that it’s difficult but it’s so boring!” she had cried, and Miss Metcalfe had smiled pityingly as usual and had pointed out that arrogance never helped anyone.

Mama had quite understood about the shorthand and by dint of asking everyone she knew for advice had discovered a secretarial school where they taught a different system. It was not written down but tapped out on a little machine like a typewriter and had the further advantages of being quickly learned and easily adapted to other languages. The only trouble was that the full course cost twenty-five pounds.

“Mr and Mrs Zuckerman!” The receptionist had come in again, catching the elderly couple in the middle of their buns. They hastily stuffed the half-eaten remains back into the paper bag and followed her out.

“I think we’re bound to get some help,” said Mama. “We’ve never asked for anything before.” She had not wanted to ask the Refugee Organisation even this time, and it was only the fear that Anna, like herself, might have to get a job without any qualifications that had persuaded her. Mama spent five and a half days a week in a basement office typing and filing letters, and she hated it.

“Mr Rubenstein! Mr and Mrs Berg!”

A woman opposite Mama shifted uneasily. “What a long time they keep you waiting!” she cried. “I don’t think I can bear to sit here much longer, I really don’t!”

Her husband frowned. “Now then, Bertha,” he said. “It’s better than queueing at the frontier.” He turned to Anna and Mama. “My wife’s a bit nervous. We had a bad time in Germany. We only just managed to get out before the war started.”

“Oh, it was terrible!” wailed the woman. “The Nazis were shouting and threatening us all the time. There was one poor old man and he thought he’d got all his papers right, but they punched him and kicked him and wouldn’t let him go. And then they shouted at us, ‘You can go now, but we’ll still get you in the end!’”

“Bertha …” said her husband.

“That’s what they said,” cried the woman. “They said, ‘We’re going to get you wherever you go because we’re going to conquer the world!’ ”

The man patted her arm and smiled at Mama in embarrassment.

“When did you leave Germany?” he asked.

“In March 1933,” said Mama. Among refugees, the earlier you had left the more important you were. To have left in 1933 was like having arrived in America on the Mayflower, and Mama could never resist telling people the exact month.

“Really,” said the man, but his wife was unimpressed. She looked at Anna with her frightened eyes.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she said.

Anna closed her mind automatically. She never thought about what it was like in Germany.

“Miss Goldstein!”

The next person to be called was a woman in a worn fur coat, clutching a briefcase. Then came a bespectacled man whom Mama recognised as a minor violinist and then suddenly it was Anna’s and Mama’s turn. The receptionist said, “You want the students’ section,” and led them to a room where a grey-haired lady was waiting behind a desk. She was reading through the application form which Anna had filled in before making the appointment and looked like a headmistress, but nicer than Miss Metcalfe.

“How do you do,” she said, waving them into two chairs. Then she turned to Anna and said, “So you want to be a secretary.”

“Yes,” said Anna.

The grey-haired lady glanced at her form. “You did extremely well in your School Certificate examinations,” she said. “Didn’t you want to stay on at school?”

“No,” said Anna.

“And why was that?”

“I didn’t like it,” said Anna. “And almost no one stayed on after School Certificate.” She hesitated. “They didn’t teach us very much.”

The lady consulted the form again. “The Lilian Metcalfe School For Girls,” she said. “I know it. Snob rather than academic. What a pity.” And having thus disposed of it, she applied herself to solving the problems of Anna’s secretarial course. Had Anna tried it? How long would it take? And what sort of job did Anna have in mind? Buoyed up by the demolition of Miss Metcalfe, Anna answered fully and less shyly than usual, and after a surprisingly short time the lady said, “Well, that all seems very satisfactory.”

For a moment Anna thought it was all over, but the lady said a little reluctantly to Mama, “Forgive me, but there are so many people needing help that I have to ask you a few questions as well. How long have you been in this country?”

“Since 1935,” said Mama, “but we left Germany in March 1933 …”

Anna had heard it all explained so many times that she almost knew it by heart. Six months in Switzerland…two years in France…the Depression…the film script on the strength of which they had come to England…No, the film had never been made…No, it didn’t seem to matter then that Papa didn’t speak English because the script had been translated, but now of course…A writer without a language …

“Forgive me,” said the lady again, “I do realise that your husband is a very distinguished man, but while you’re in this difficulty, is there not anything more practical he could do, even for a little while?”

Papa, thought Anna, who couldn’t bang a nail in straight, who couldn’t boil an egg, who could do nothing but put words together, beautifully.

“My husband,” said Mama, “is not a practical man. He is also a good deal older than I am.” She had flushed a little and the lady said very quickly, “Of course, of course, do excuse me.”

It was funny, thought Anna, that she should be so much more impressed by Papa’s age which no one meeting him would particularly notice, than by his impracticality, which stuck out a mile. Once, in Paris, Papa had spent nearly all the money they had on a sewing machine which didn’t work. Anna remembered going with him to try and return it to the second-hand dealer who had landed him with it. They had had no money in Paris either, but somehow it hadn’t mattered. She had felt as though she belonged there, not like a refugee.

Mama was telling the lady about her job.

“For a while I worked as social secretary,” she said. “To Lady Parker – you may have heard of her. But then her husband died and she moved to the country. So now I’m helping sort out the papers belonging to his estate.”

The lady looked embarrassed. “And – er – how much …?”

Mama told her how much she earned.

“I have no qualifications, you see,” she said. “I studied music as a girl. But it helps to pay the bills at the Hotel Continental.”

Perhaps, thought Anna, she had felt different in Paris because Mama hadn’t had to work, or because they had lived in a flat instead of a hotel – or perhaps it was simply that England didn’t suit her. She didn’t really know a lot of English people, of course, only the ones at Miss Metcalfe’s. But certainly a lot of things had gone wrong for her soon after her arrival. For one thing she had grown much fatter, bulging in unexpected places, so that all her clothes suddenly looked hideous on her. Mama had said it was puppy fat and that she would lose it again, and in fact much of it had already melted away, but Anna still suspected England of being somehow to blame. After all, she had never been fat before.

The other girls at boarding-school had been fat too – Anna remembered great red thighs in the changing room and heavy figures lumbering over the frozen grass of the lacrosse field. But at least they hadn’t been shy. Her shyness was the worst thing that had happened to Anna in England. It had come upon her soon after the puppy fat, quite unexpectedly, for she had always been easy with people. It had paralysed her, so that when the English girls had made fun of her for being bad at lacrosse and for speaking with a funny accent, she hadn’t been able to answer. She had never had this trouble with Judy and Jinny, who were American.

“Well, Anna,” said the grey-haired lady as though she had been listening to Anna’s thoughts, “I hope you’ll enjoy the secretarial course more than your time at Miss Metcalfe’s.”

Anna came back to earth. Was it all settled then?

“I’ll speak to my committee tomorrow,” said the lady, “but I’m quite sure that there will be no difficulty.” And as Anna stammered her thanks she said, “Nonsense! I think you’ll be a very good investment.”

The sun had come out and it was quite warm while Anna and Mama walked back to the hotel.

“How much do you think I’ll be able to earn?” asked Anna.

“I don’t know,” said Mama, “but with your languages you should get at least three pounds.”

“Every week!” said Anna. It seemed an enormous sum.

Papa congratulated her, a little sadly.

“I must say, I’d never seen you as a secretary,” he said and Anna quickly pushed aside the thought that she hadn’t either.

“Papa,” she cried, “they said I was a good investment!”

“There I agree with them,” said Papa. He was wearing his best suit, or the one he considered least worn at present, ready to go out. “A meeting of the International Writers’ Club,” he explained. “Would you like to come? It’s not much of a celebration, but there is to be a tea.”

“I’d love to,” said Anna. The Writers’ Club was not very exciting, but now that her future was settled she felt restless. She walked quickly to the bus stop with Papa, trying not to think of the fact that soon her days would be filled with shorthand instead of drawing.

“The meeting is for the German section,” said Papa who was its president. “But the tea” – he smiled at himself for explaining the treat – “will be genuine English.”

When they arrived at the club’s premises near Hyde Park Corner most of the other writers were already assembled – a collection of the usual intelligent refugee faces and the usual frayed refugee collars and cuffs. Several of them came to greet Papa at the door, were introduced to Anna and said how like him she was. This often happened and always cheered her up. Nobody, she thought, who looked so like Papa could be completely hopeless.

“Is she going to follow in your footsteps?” asked a small man with pebble lenses.

“I used to think so,” said Papa, “But now I think she is more interested in drawing. At the moment” – he raised a hand regretfully – “she is planning to become a secretary.”

The man with the pebble lenses raised both hands in regretful echo. “What can one do?” he said. “One has to live.”

He and Papa went to sit on a small platform while Anna found a seat among the other writers. The theme of the meeting was “Germany” and a number of writers got up to speak. What a lot of them there were, thought Anna. No wonder there was no work for them.

The first one spoke about the rise of the Nazis and how it could have been avoided. Everyone except Anna was very interested in this and it provoked a whole succession of smaller speeches and arguments. “If only …” cried the writers. If only the Weimar Republic…the Social Democrats…the French in the Rhineland …

At last it came to an end and a sad man in a pullover rose to read out extracts from a diary smuggled out through Switzerland which had been kept by a Jewish writer still at liberty in Germany. Anna knew how such people lived, of course, but it was still horrifying to hear the details – the penury, the petty persecutions, the constant threat of the concentration camp. When he had finished, the other writers sat in silence and gazed gratefully at the moulded ceiling, and the large windows overlooking Hyde Park. At least they had got out in time.

There followed a completely uninteresting dissertation on the regional differences between Frankfurt and Munich, and then Papa stood up.

“Berlin,” he said, and began to read.

When, at the age of eight or nine, Anna had first realised that Papa was a famous writer, she had begged him to let her see something he had written and he had finally given her a short piece that he thought she might understand. She could still remember her embarrassment after reading it. Why, she had thought in shame, why couldn’t Papa write like everyone else? She herself was going through a phase at school of writing long, convoluted sentences full of grandiose phrases. She had imagined that Papa’s writing would be the same, only even grander. But instead Papa’s sentences had been quite short. He used ordinary words that everyone knew, but put them together in unexpected ways, so that you were startled by them. It was true that once you got over your surprise you saw exactly what he meant, but even so…Why, Anna thought, oh why couldn’t he write like other people?

“A little too soon, I think,” Papa had said afterwards and for years she had been shy of trying again.

Now Papa was reading something he must have typed quite recently on the rickety typewriter in his room. It was about Berlin. She recognised the streets, the woods nearby, there was even a bit about their house. That’s just what it was like, thought Anna.

Then Papa had written about the people – neighbours, shopkeepers, the man who looked after the garden (Anna had almost forgotten him), the owl-eyed secretary who typed Papa’s work. This bit was rather funny and the writers in the audience all laughed. But where were all these people now? asked Papa. Did the owl-eyed secretary raise her hand in the Hitler salute? Had the grocer joined the Storm Troopers – or had he been dragged off to a concentration camp? What had become of them after the Nazis had stolen their country? (Here Papa used a very rude word which made the writers gasp and then titter in relief.) We do not know, said Papa. Hitler has swallowed them up. And yet, if one went back perhaps it would all look just as it had looked before. The streets, the woods nearby, the house…He ended with the words with which he had begun. “Once I lived in Berlin.”

There was a moment’s silence and then the writers rose up as one writer and clapped and clapped. As Papa came down from the platform a small crowd formed round him, congratulating him and shaking his hand. Anna kept back but he found her near the door and asked “Did you like it?” She nodded, but before she could say any more they were swept into the room beyond where tea had been prepared. It was a lavish spread and while some writers made an effort not to appear too keen, others could not resist flinging themselves upon it. The tea had been provided by the main English section of the club and a sprinkling of English writers appeared along with it. While Anna ate an éclair and tried to tell Papa how much she had liked the piece about Berlin, one of them came up to talk to them.

“I heard the applause,” he said to Papa. “What were you speaking about?”

Papa, as usual, did not understand, so Anna translated for him.

“Ach so!” said Papa and adjusted his face to speak English. “I talk-ed,” he said, mispronouncing the mute ed at the end of the word as usual, “about Germany.”

The Englishman was taken aback by the Shakespearean accent but recovered quickly.

“It must have been most exciting,” he said. “I wish so much that I could have understood it.”

When Anna got back to the Bartholomews’, much later, she found a letter from Max inviting her to Cambridge for the weekend. Everything is happening at once, she thought. She forgot her shyness in telling Mrs Bartholomew all about the invitation, about Papa’s reading at the club and about her new career.

“And when I’ve finished the course,” she ended triumphantly, “I’ll be able to earn three pounds a week!”

Like Papa, Mrs Bartholomew looked a little regretful.

“That’s very good news,” she said after a moment. “But you know, don’t you, that you can live in this house as long as you like, so that if ever you should change your mind …”

Then she went off to find a coat of Jinny’s for Anna to wear during her weekend with Max.