Out of the Hitler Time trilogy: When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Bombs on Aunt Dainty, A Small Person Far Away. Judith Kerr
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“An-na! An-na!” Boys right behind her, shoes raining all round …And there, like a miracle, like an avenging angel, was Mama! She shot out of the inn like a torpedo. She grabbed the red-haired boy and slapped him. She hit another one with his own shoe. She flung herself into the group and scattered them. All the time she was shouting, “Why are you doing this? What’s the matter with you?” That was what Anna wanted to know too.
Then she saw that Mama had got hold of the bandy-legged boy and was shaking him. All the rest had fled.
“Why did you chase her?” Mama was asking. “Why did you all throw things at her? What had she done?”
The bandy-legged boy scowled and wouldn’t say.
“I won’t let you go!” said Mama. “I won’t let you go until you tell me why you did it!”
The bandy-legged boy looked hopelessly at Mama. Then he blushed and mumbled something.
“What?” said Mama.
Suddenly the bandy-legged boy grew desperate.
“Because we love her!” he shouted at the top of his voice. “We did it because we love her!”
Mama was so surprised that she let go of him and he shot away from her, across the courtyard and away down the road. “Because they love you?” said Mama to Anna. Neither of them could understand it. But when, later, they consulted Max he did not seem very surprised.
“It’s what they do here,” he said. “When they’re in love with anyone they throw things at them.”
“But, good heavens, there were six of them!” said Mama. “Surely there must be other ways for them to express their love!”
Max shrugged. “It’s what they do,” he said and added, “Really Anna should feel honoured.”
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 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 so 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.
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 Fräulein 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 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 СКАЧАТЬ