Bombs on Aunt Dainty. Judith Kerr

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       Chapter Two

      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.