Pennies For Hitler (6 page)

He wanted to throw the suitcase in the oily sea. He wanted to kick it, destroy it and all its memories. But it held all he owned now. It was a thread that linked him back to Mutti.

He showed the man his ticket, then ran to the rail to see if the Fräulein was still there.

She was. She waited till the ferry hooted, and began to sail away. She waved and he waved back. She was still there when the ferry turned as it sailed out of the harbour.

He ran to the other side of the ferry, but by the time he had got there she was gone.

Chapter 9

ENGLAND

Aunt Miriam wore navy blue, and a look of annoyance and something else he didn’t understand, but she managed to smile and kiss him on the cheek before she held him at arm’s length. ‘You’re filthy.’

He thought of the ice-cream stains on his shirt. ‘I’m sorry. I have no other clothes.’

‘Well, that can be remedied. Is that your only suitcase?’

‘Yes.’

‘The porter will take it.’ She hesitated. ‘You are very welcome, George.’

‘My name is Georg,’ he reminded her.

‘It’s George now.’ She bent and said quietly, ‘I will explain when we get home. Come, or we will miss the train.’

England looked wet. It was still grey too. Herr Doktor Schöner back at school said the English were weak; and they had only won the Great War because of the Americans.

School, thought Georg. He had almost lost track of days. It was Monday now. His friends would be at school. Although not his friends now. He should have been at school, reading about the English, not sitting here among them.

The Englishmen in the train carriage did not look weak. There were two men in dark suits and bowler hats reading newspapers, one at each window, like they were twins, but one was old and one was young, and they did not seem to know each other. Then there were Aunt Miriam and Georg. Aunt Miriam did not speak either, until the guard called out that dinner was being served in the First Class dining car.

Aunt Miriam stood up and said, ‘Come on, George.’

He didn’t think that he was hungry, but he was. The soup was tomato, very red. The meat was grey lamb slices in grey gravy, on thick white plates, with crisp-skinned roast potatoes and soggy Brussels sprouts. He ate it all, even the Brussels sprouts, though Mutti would have whispered, ‘You only need eat one.’

After that there were prunes and custard, which he ate as well, even though he didn’t like prunes, or custard either. Then Aunt Miriam took his hand and led him back into their carriage, where the men still read their papers. It was good to feel the warmth of someone’s hand. He was sorry when she let go.

It was night by the time the train rattled into Victoria Station. It smelled of soot and steam. He remembered it a bit, from last year. That was where Mutti bought a magazine, wearing her green scarf. That was where Papa tipped the porter who wheeled their luggage on his trolley, just like this porter was carrying his suitcase now.

He wished he had left the suitcase behind. He hated even to touch it. Aunt Miriam led him through the crowds, into a taxi. The porter put his suitcase in the boot. Aunt Miriam reached out a hand to give him money, then tapped the glass between them and the driver to tell him to drive on.

Another journey, thought Georg. It was as though the world was all journeys now. There would never be any place to stop. But at least he was in fresh air now. He thought of the suitcase in the boot and shuddered. At least he had never been in the suitcase
and
a boot.

Or had he? Did he really know where the case had been when he’d been inside?

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Aunt Miriam.

‘Nothing.’ How could he say that even being in a car again made him remember how the world had shrunk to darkness and a suitcase ride? Or that he wanted the taxi to stop, to let him out, so he could stand in the fresh air and just be still?

He couldn’t say that. Be brave, the Fräulein had said. Brave had nothing to do with it now. He simply was, that was all. He was a package and would travel till he wasn’t sent any further.

But it only took a few minutes to get to the tall building called a ‘block of flats’ where Aunt Miriam lived. She paid the taxi, then took his hand as a man came out of the revolving doors.

‘Good evening, Wilkins,’ she said, as he picked up Georg’s suitcase. ‘This is my nephew, George. His mother’s train has been delayed so he is staying with me for a few hours. Will you show her up when she arrives?’

‘Yes, Miss Marks.’

‘Thank you, Wilkins. Say “Good evening”, George.’

‘Good evening,’ said Georg, bewildered. Was Mutti really coming soon? Hope bit into the darkness that clung to him, but
not much. If Mutti had really been so close the Fräulein would have said. She would have joined him on the ferry, or at least they would have waited for her at Dover.

He followed Aunt Miriam into the lift, and waited till the liftman had taken them up to the third floor and Aunt Miriam had unlocked the door of her flat.

He had been to this flat only once, the year before, with Mutti and Papa. It looked just the same with the queer sofa and chairs, the Persian carpet, the big clock. Aunt Miriam began to take off her hat and coat and gloves.

‘Aunt Miriam, Mutti isn’t really coming tonight, is she?’

Aunt Miriam sighed. ‘No. But the doorman will be off duty in an hour. I had to say something. Children are not allowed to live in this building.’

Georg blinked. ‘Why not?’

‘Children make noise.’

‘I will be quiet.’ He had a sudden terror that Aunt Miriam too would tell him to leave, would put him on another train to the unknown.

Aunt Miriam sank onto the sofa. She took his hand. ‘Georg … George, this has been so sudden. I tried to get your father to leave Germany. I told him what might happen, but he wouldn’t listen. He was lost in the past with his precious Goethe, just as he has always been. He never saw things as they really are, never even wanted to see them —’ She stopped, clamping her lips together as though she wanted to say more. ‘Never mind that now,’ she said at last. ‘We have to make the best of this. We will have to pretend you don’t live here for a while.’

‘But people will be seeing me —’

‘Say “will see me”. That is the correct construction. You have to speak proper English, George. It’s important.’

‘Will see me,’ said Georg tiredly. ‘People will see me.’

‘Not if you’re careful. Children can visit here and there are three different doormen. They won’t notice if you come in and don’t go out, as long as you don’t go in and out too often. I’ll try to get another flat as soon as I can, but I may not have time for a while. Work is so busy now. I often have to work late.’

She patted him, a bit awkwardly. ‘I’ve never had much to do with children. Will you be all right here by yourself?’

‘
Ja
. I mean “yes”,’ he said, suddenly overwhelmed with weariness. He seemed to have been saying yes a lot, when really he meant no. An idea drifted into his mind. The children in his new book had gone to boarding school. He had never thought of boarding school before, but they seemed to like it.

‘Aunt Miriam, could I go to boarding school? That way I will not be living here except for holidays. Maybe by then Mutti and Papa will come.’

For a second he thought Aunt Miriam was going to cry. Her face screwed up and she took a handkerchief from her pocket. ‘I … I don’t know when they’ll be here. And school … School is out of the question for a while.’

‘Why?’ It wasn’t as though he wanted to go to school, or even boarding school. He just wanted to find a place to stop, a space till Mutti and Papa reappeared. Somehow, no matter what thoughts lingered in the darkness of his mind, they had to find him, they had to be together once again. ‘Is it because I am Jewish?’

‘What? No, not at all.’ She seemed to be trying to choose her words. ‘It is because you are German. George,’ she emphasised the new name, ‘England and Germany will be at war again soon. Everyone knows it’s going to happen. We just don’t know when.’

Georg nodded. At school everyone said there’d be a war soon too, even if Papa had refused to listen when Mutti tried to talk
about it. Another war — a bigger one than just invading Austria or Czechoslovakia. A war with England.

And this time Germany would win.

‘My job is … sensitive,’ said Aunt Miriam. ‘If people knew I had a German nephew living with me, that my German sister-in-law might arrive soon, it might not look good.’

‘You could lose your job?’

‘It’s more than that, George. When war is declared any Germans may be put in prison camps till it’s over.’

‘The English put children in prison?’

‘George, I just don’t know what will happen. I don’t really know your status here. I haven’t had a chance to find out. I didn’t expect any of this. You have to be patient while I do my best. I have to be careful what I ask.’ She took another breath. ‘You’ll have a holiday for a while. Listen to the wireless and practise saying English words. Your English is remarkably good but there’s still an accent. Maybe in a few months you can go to school.’

She sighed, then gave him a clumsy hug. She didn’t seem to know how long a hug should last. ‘So much can happen in a few months these days.’

Or in a few days, thought Georg as he hugged her back.

‘Come,’ said Aunt Miriam. ‘I will show you to your room.’

Chapter 10

LONDON, MAY 1939

He found the library the third week he was in London.

Aunt Miriam had bought him new clothes, taking his German garments with her one Saturday morning, to show the shopman the sizes.

She returned with two pairs of trousers, shirts, pyjamas, socks and underwear, even a mackintosh and Wellington boots. Georg thanked her. She was trying to be kind. But they both knew she was right when she said she didn’t know much about children.

Mostly she had left for work when he woke up. His body craved sleep now. In dreams he was back in Germany. Only sometimes the dreams still had yells of ‘
Juden ’raus
’ and blood in them.

Each day when he woke he kept his eyes shut, hoping that when he opened them he’d be in his room in Alfhausen, the wooden shutters closed against the morning light, the lark singing in the garden. Downstairs Lotte would warm the rolls, singing of roses.

Instead he woke to the blank walls of Aunt Miriam’s spare room. It still looked like a spare room, not a boy’s. There were
no photographs, not even any clothes in the cupboard. The flats were ‘serviced’. Each morning he had to pack his clothes away in the hated suitcase and put it up on the wardrobe, and strip his bed sheets too, so that the maid who came in to clean each afternoon didn’t guess a boy stayed here.

It was strange how an empty flat seemed noisier than one with people in it. When Aunt Miriam was at work he heard every creak of the floorboards from the people above; he heard every gurgle of the pipes. It was strange at first hearing a flush and knowing a stranger had gone to the toilet.

The telephone stared at him from its wooden pedestal. Sometimes he almost picked it up, and asked the operator to put through an international call, just like Papa did at Weihnachten when he called Aunt Miriam to wish her a merry Christmas. Surely telephone systems were the same in England. All he had to do was pick the receiver up and book a call and, in half an hour or even less, the phone would ring and the operator would say, ‘Your call is through,’ or whatever English operators said.

He didn’t. Partly it was because phone calls were expensive, and he didn’t want to anger Aunt Miriam. But mostly it was because he was afraid that if he called a number in Germany the Gestapo might know somehow that a Jewish boy was calling.

If only Mutti would ring him! But when the phone rang it was only Aunt Miriam’s friends, or once her boss from work, asking where she had left a file. Georg never answered the phone, even if Aunt Miriam was in another room, not even when he learned that the English also said ‘Hello’ to answer the phone, just like at home. People might ask questions if a boy answered Aunt Miriam’s phone, especially a boy with a German accent.

He made himself toast for breakfast, for it seemed there were no bakers with fresh rolls here, or perhaps the maid didn’t go
and fetch them, as Lotte did at home. It was funny to make bread hard, instead of eating it soft and fresh, but that was what the English did, so Georg did now too. He spread his toast with strawberry jam — Aunt Miriam had marmalade, which he had never eaten before, and didn’t like. She asked him what jam he liked best, just as she had asked what else he liked to eat too, what fruit, and did he like milk to drink and was he old enough to drink tea. He wished he could listen to the wireless while he ate breakfast. The flat wouldn’t seem so empty with a human voice. But the programmes didn’t start till ten o’clock.

Each afternoon the doorman brought up groceries when the maid came to clean and make Aunt Miriam’s bed. Georg checked the kitchen clock to tell when he had to slip down the back stairs, trying to find a moment to cross the foyer before letting himself out into the street when the doorman was talking to a delivery boy, or reading his paper.

It didn’t matter if someone saw him sometimes. Aunt Miriam had told the doormen that her sister had moved nearby and that her nephew would be visiting often. She said that he had been ill with scarlet fever and so was away from school. As long as a boy wasn’t living in the building, and was quiet, it seemed no one would mind.

At first he wandered the streets and looked in shop windows. Aunt Miriam had given him money, though she hadn’t said what he should spend it on, or how long it had to last. On the fourth day he found a park two streets away. He watched the nannies pushing the prams there and, later, the children walk home from school. Sometimes the children laughed together or played games. It was hard to watch them then.

He tried not to think of Johann these days. There had been a Jewish boy at school three years before. Georg and Johann and
the other boys had thrown rotten apples at him one lunchtime. The Fräulein had stopped the row, then told the Jewish boy he had better go home.