Читать книгу Mr. Emmanuel - Louis Golding - Страница 16

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The acquiescence with which the German boys heard that they were to move on to a holiday camp in a couple of days was a little distressing to Mr. Emmanuel. They all made the polite remarks which more or less well-bred boys might be expected to make in such circumstances. What a pity it was! They were enjoying themselves so much in Shipscar! How much they hoped they might be allowed to come again some time! Yet it was obvious they knew that whatever they felt was quite irrelevant. They had got into the habit of being forwarded from one place to another like parcels, with just a change of labels.

As for Bruno, he seemed quite unperturbed, though it was clear to him, as to the others, that the boys with whom they were going to spend the next fortnight were going to be a tough lot on the whole. Both Rose and Mr. Emmanuel felt a bit silly about the anxiety they had expressed to each other. Bruno might be, in fact he was, a sensitive lad, but the idea of roughing it with a lot of hard-boiled youngsters from the London slums did not make him turn a hair.

On the contrary, as those two days went by, it seemed to Mr. Emmanuel that the boy was attaining a sort of serenity he had not hitherto shown. He did not fail to ask each morning whether the dreamt-of letter from Germany had arrived, but he asked almost mechanically, with almost no pain in his face or voice.

Perhaps it is possible, after all, mused Mr. Emmanuel, you are a bit foolish, Isaac Emmanuel. You are an old man, no? How shall you expect to understand the way the mind from a little boy works? He is glad to get away from those two boys, Siegfried and Heinrich; that is only natural. Perhaps he is also glad to get away from an old man and a lot of women? Well, what a good thing it is, thank God! Are you a little bit disappointed, just a little bit, Isaac, that he should be glad like that? I am ashamed of you, Isaac. You have a son, a painter. Years go by and you don’t get one word from him. Yet it hurts you a strange boy should forget you in half an hour like you were an old newspaper. What? He should not look so much like your little David, peace be upon him? Do not make a fool with yourself, Isaac Emmanuel. It would be the same thing he should look like Little Red Riding Hood. You see? Captain Cooper was right. Already it is taking him out from himself. Thank God, you should say. He will play games, it will be sing-songs round a camp-fire, it is near the sea, he will go bathing in it....

Apparently it was somewhat along the same lines that Bruno’s mind was working too.

“So it is near the sea, Mr. Emmanuel, where it shall be our camp? Oh, that will be so nice! We were not often going to the sea, my mother and my father and I. We were going to Lübbenau. But one year some friends took our bungalow and we were going to Föhr. You are not knowing Föhr, Mr. Emmanuel? No, you are never travelling to Germany, I am forgetting. Oh, it is in Föhr so nice. It is an island in the North Sea, and it is white sands like snow, and it is some pine trees. Is Roman’s Bight being like Föhr? We had Strandkörbe in Föhr. Do you know what a Strandkorb is? It is a big beach basket to sit down, and it is like a roof coming overhead. And I am swimming in the sea, and I am coming out again, and my father is drying me and mother is wrapping me round in a dressing-gown towel and we are sitting together in the Strandkorb and she is sitting with arms around me and it is being so happy....” The boy’s eyes clouded over with a reminiscent haze. His voice was more plaintive than it had been, when he spoke again.

“Do you think there are Strandkörbe in Roman’s Bight?”

Mr. Emmanuel raised his hands.

“In Blackpool and Southport it is not so. I only know Blackpool and Southport. But who knows? Perhaps it is another fashion in seaside places by Eastbourne?”

But Bruno paid no attention to the reply.

“And perhaps they will let me play my Mundharmonika by the camp-fire? Do you think so, Mr. Emmanuel?”

“I am sure they will ask you to play your Mundharmonika. I am sure Father Wedlake is a very nice gentleman, otherwise the Committee would not send you to him, and Klaus also, and Hugo. You must play for them ‘Die geliebte Pimpanulla'! You see, I have got it right this time!”

“Certainly I will. It is a good song for the camp-fire. Hula! Hula! It will be like in the Spreewald, all the boys singing together, and the echo is coming back through the pine trees!”

“I wish,” murmured Mr. Emmanuel, “I should be there to hear you!”

“Oh, yes! Please! Please!” cried Bruno enthusiastically, seizing Mr. Emmanuel’s hand. “You must try to come to camp one day! Will you not please try to come?”

Mr. Emmanuel blushed with pleasure.

“I—I don’t know,” he protested. “I am busy. You think it is like going to Liverpool, going to Palestine?”

“It will be so glad for Klaus,” urged Bruno earnestly. “Also for Hugo.”

“Perhaps—who knows?” Mr. Emmanuel temporized. “I have in any case to go back through London. Perhaps for one day I might go. In Palestine it will be a long way away.”

“Perhaps I am going to see you also in Palestine. Perhaps—who knows?” the boy said, echoing the old man’s phrase.