A Small Person Far Away. Judith Kerr

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      His father smiled. “Would you?”

      “I’d remember Patricia.” He pressed the guinea pig hard to his small chest. “And what’s more,” he said triumphantly, “I’d remember her in English!”

      Everyone laughed. Richard got up and said they must leave, but before they could do so there was a noise on the landing and a girl of about nine appeared, lugging a large impassive baby in her arms.

      “He wants his supper,” she announced, and a slightly younger girl following behind her shouted, “And so do I!” They both dissolved into giggles and Anna found herself being introduced to them while at the same time saying her farewells to their parents. In the confusion the baby was dumped on the floor with the guinea pig until Elizabeth picked it up again and it began with great concentration to suck the end of her sleeve.

      James saw Anna and Richard to the door. “Best of luck,” he said through the children’s shouted goodbyes. “And think about what I said.”

      Anna was left with the picture of Elizabeth standing at the top of the stairs and smiling with the baby in her arms.

      “I told you she was nice,” said Richard as they started on their walk back.

      She nodded. The rain had stopped but it must have lasted some time, for the pavements were sodden.

      “I wonder if I could really write something of my own,” she said. “It’d be interesting to try. If I do have to go to Mama, I don’t suppose I’d have to be away very long.”

      “Probably just a few days.”

      Notting Hill Gate was deserted. The demonstrators, no doubt discouraged by the downpour, had all gone home. A torn placard lying in a puddle was the only sign that they had ever been there.

      “You know what I really hate about going to Berlin?” said Anna, picking her way round it. “I know it’s stupid, but I’m frightened the Russians might suddenly close in and take it over and then I’d be trapped. They couldn’t, could they?”

      He shook his head. “It would mean war with America.”

      “I know. But it still frightens me.”

      “Were you very frightened when you escaped from Germany?”

      “That’s what’s so silly. I never realized till much later what it had been about. In fact, I remember making some idiotic remark at the frontier and Mama having to shut me up. Mama made it all seem quite normal.” They trudged along among the puddles. “I wish at least I’d answered her letter,” she said.

      Once back in the flat, she became very practical. “We’d better make a list,” she said, “of all the things that have to be seen to, like the rug being delivered. And what are you going to eat while I’m away? I could cook something tonight for you to warm up.”

      She made the list and decided about the food, and by the time Konrad’s call was due she felt ready to cope with anything he might say. Sitting by the telephone, she rehearsed the various things she wanted to ask him and waited. He came through punctually at nine o’clock. There was a jumble of German voices and then his, reassuringly calm.

      “How is Mama?” she asked.

      “Her condition is unchanged,” he said and then in what was obviously a prepared speech, “I think it is right that you should come tomorrow. I think that one of her relatives should be here.”

      “Of course,” she said. She told him the number of her flight and he said that he would meet it.

      Richard, listening beside her, said, “What about Max? Has he told him?”

      “Oh yes,” she said. “What about Max?”

      Konrad said that he had not yet cabled Max – that must mean that there was no immediate danger, thought Anna – but that he would do so if necessary in the morning. Then he said in his concerned refugee voice, “My dear, I hope you’re not too upset by this. I’m sorry to have to break up the family. With luck it won’t be for long.”

      She had forgotten that he always referred to Richard and herself as the family. It was friendly and comforting and she suddenly felt much better.

      “That’s all right,” she said. “Richard sends his love.” There was something more she wanted to ask him, but she had trouble remembering what it was. “Oh yes,” she said. “How did Mama ever develop pneumonia in the first place?”

      There was a silence, so that at first she thought he had not heard. Then his voice answered, and even through the distortion of long distance she could tell that it sounded quite different.

      “I’m sorry,” he said flatly. “But your mother took an overdose of sleeping pills.”

       Sunday

      Anna’s feet were so heavy that she could only walk very slowly. It was hot in the street and there was no one about. Suddenly Mama hurried past. She was wearing her blue hat with the veil, and she called to Anna, “I can’t stop – I’m playing bridge with the Americans.” Then she disappeared into a house which Anna had not even noticed. She felt sad to be left alone in the street like that, and the air was getting hotter and heavier all the time.

      It shouldn’t be so hot so early in the morning, she thought. She knew it was early because Max was still asleep. He had taken the front wall off his house to let out the heat, and she could see him sitting in his living room with his eyes closed. Beside him, his wife Wendy was blinking drowsily in a chair with the baby in her arms. She looked at Anna and moved her lips, but the air had become too thick to carry the sound and Anna could not hear her, so she walked away, along the hot, empty street, with the hot, empty day stretching before her.

      How did I come to be so alone? she thought. Surely there must be someone to whom I belong? But she could think of no one. The heavy air pressed in on her, so that she could hardly breathe. She had to push it away with her hands. And yet there was someone, she thought, I’m sure there was. She tried to remember his name, but her mind was empty. She could think of nothing, neither his name nor his face nor even his voice.

      I must remember, she thought. She knew that he existed, hidden in some tiny wrinkle of her brain, and that without him nothing was any good, nothing would ever be any good again. But the air was too heavy. It was piled up all round her, pushing in on her chest, even against her eyes and her nose and her mouth. Soon it would be too late even to remember.

      “There was someone!” she shouted, somehow forcing her voice through the thickness. “I know there was someone!”

      And then she was in bed with the sheets and blankets twisted all round her and a pillow half over her face, and Richard saying, “It’s all right, love. It’s all right.”

      For a moment she could only lie there, feeling him close and letting the horror flow out of her. She half-saw, half-felt the familiar room, the shapes of a chair, a chest of drawers, the faint glint of a mirror in the darkness.

      “I had a СКАЧАТЬ