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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“I don’t know,” said Papa. “It could just have been a mistake.”
“I don’t think it was a mistake,” said Max. “I think he was trying to earn the thousand marks on your head.”
For a moment they sat thinking about it, and about what would have happened if they had travelled to Germany. Then the whistle went and the train started with a jolt.
“Well,” said Papa, “if that porter really was trying to earn a thousand marks he certainly made a bad bargain. I never had time even to give him a tip.” He smiled and settled back in his seat. “And in a few minutes, thanks to Anna, we’ll be not in Germany but in France. And thanks to Max we’ve even got all our luggage.” He lifted his hands in mock admiration. “Psssh!” said Papa. “What clever children I have!”
They arrived in Paris after dark and very tired. Anna had already sensed something different in the train after leaving Basle. There had been more French voices talking quickly, sharply and incomprehensibly. The smells from the dining-car had been different too. But now that she was standing on the platform in Paris she was overwhelmed.
All round her there were people shouting, greeting each other, talking, laughing. Their lips moved quickly, their mobile faces keeping pace with them. They shrugged, embraced each other and waved their hands to emphasize what they were saying – and she could not understand a word. For a moment, in the dim light and the noise and the steam drifting back from the engine, she felt quite lost. But then Papa was bundling her and Max into a taxi and they were charging through the crowded streets.
There were lights everywhere, people walking along wide pavements, eating and drinking in the glass-fronted cafés, reading newspapers, looking into shop windows. She had forgotten a big city was like this. The height of the buildings amazed her, and the noise. As the taxi swayed and turned in the traffic, unfamiliar cars and buses and coloured electric signs which she could not read loomed out of the darkness and disappeared again.
“There’s the Eiffel Tower!” cried Max – but she turned too late and missed it.
Then they were driving round a huge open space with a floodlit arch in the middle. There were cars everywhere, most of them blowing their horns.
“That’s the Arc de Triomphe,” said Papa. “We’re nearly there.”
They turned into a quieter avenue and then off it into a little narrow street, and then the taxi stopped quite suddenly with a squeal of brakes. They had arrived.
Anna and Max stood in the cold outside a tall house while Papa paid the taxi driver. Then he opened the front door and pushed them into the hall where a lady was sitting half-asleep in what appeared to be a glass-fronted cage. As soon as she saw Papa the lady leapt into life. She rushed out of what turned out to be a door in her cage and shook him by the hand, talking very quickly in French all the time. Then, still talking, she shook hands with Max and Anna who, unable to understand, could only smile weakly in reply.
“This is Madame la concierge,” said Papa. “She looks after the house.”
The taxi driver came in with the luggage and Madame la concierge helped him to push some of it through a narrow door which she then held open for Anna and Max. They could hardly believe their eyes.
“Papa!” said Max. “You never told us there was a lift!”
“It’s very, very grand,” said Anna.
This made Papa laugh.
“I’d hardly call it that,” he said. But Anna and Max were not convinced, even when the lift creaked and groaned horribly as it rose slowly up to the top floor. At last it stopped with a bang and a shudder, and even before they had all got out a door opposite them flew open and there was Mama.
Anna and Max rushed to her, and all became confusion while she hugged them and they both tried to tell her everything that had happened since they had last seen her, and Papa came in with the suitcase and kissed Mama, and then the concierge brought in the rest of the cases and all at once the tiny hall was crammed with luggage and no one could move.
“Come into the dining room,” said Mama. It was not much bigger but the table was laid for supper and it looked bright and inviting.
“Where can I hang my coat?” called Papa from the hall.
“There’s a hook behind the door,” Mama called back in the middle of a noisy description by Max of how they had nearly caught the wrong train. Then there was a crash as of someone falling over something. Anna heard Papa’s polite voice saying, “Good evening”, and the mild smell of burning which Anna had noticed ever since their arrival suddenly became intensified.
A small glum figure appeared in the doorway.
“Your fried potatoes have gone all black,” it announced with obvious satisfaction.
“Oh, Grete …!” cried Mama. Then she said, “This is Grete from Austria. She is in Paris to learn French and is going to help me with the housework when she isn’t studying.”
Grete shook hands gloomily with Anna and Max.
“Can you speak quite a lot of French?” asked Max.
“No,” said Grete. “It’s a very difficult language. Some people never manage to learn it at all.” Then she turned to Mama. “Well, I think I’ll be off to bed.”
“But Grete …” said Mama.
“I promised my mother that no matter what happened, I’d always get my proper sleep,” said Grete. “I’ve turned off the gas under the potatoes. Goodnight all.” And she went.
“Really!” said Mama. “That girl is no use at all! Never mind, it’ll be nice to have our first meal in Paris together on our own. I’ll show you your room and then you can get settled in while I fry some more potatoes.”
Their room was painted a rather ugly yellow and there were yellow bedspreads on the two beds. A wooden wardrobe stood in the corner. There were yellow curtains, a yellow lampshade and two chairs – nothing else. There would have been no space for any more furniture anyway because, like the dining room, the room was quite small.
“What’s outside the window?” asked Max.
Anna looked. It was not a street, as she had expected, but an inner courtyard with walls and windows all round it. It was like a well. A clanging sound far below told her there must be dustbins at the bottom, but it was too far down for her to see. Above there were only the irregular outlines of rooftops and the sky. It was very different from the Gasthof Zwirn and from their house in Berlin.
They unpacked their pyjamas and toothbrushes and decided which yellow bed would belong to whom, and then they explored the rest of the flat. Next to their room was Papa’s room. It had a bed, a wardrobe, a chair and a table with Papa’s typewriter on it, and it overlooked the street. From Papa’s room a communicating door led to what looked like a little sitting room, but there were some of Mama’s clothes strewn about.
“Do you think this is Mama’s room?” asked Anna.
“It can’t be – there’s no bed,” said Max. There was only a sofa, a little table and two armchairs. Then Max took a closer look at the sofa.
“It’s one of those special ones,” he said. “Look” – and he lifted up the seat. In a cavity underneath were sheets, blankets and pillows. “Mama can sleep on it at night and then she can turn the room into a sitting room during the day.”
“It’s very clever,” said Anna. “It means you can use the room twice over.”
Certainly it was important to make the best possible use of the space in the flat, for there was so little of it. Even the balcony, which had sounded so grand when Papa had talked about it, was not much more than a ledge surrounded by wrought iron railings. Apart from the dining room which they had already seen there remained only the tiny room where Grete slept, an even tinier