‘We don’t want you,’ said the ginger boy, the one who had spat. ‘Filthy Germans. Go back where you came from.’
The freckle-faced boy pinched his nose between thumb and finger and made a disgusted expression. ‘Phaw, what’s that awful smell? Can anyone else smell it? Are we near a pig farm? Oh, no.’ He pretended to notice the girls. ‘Smelly Huns, that’s what it is!’
Helga stood up and faced them. ‘You’re stupid! Stupid ignorant beasts, that’s all you are!’ Fury made her German accent more noticeable than usual.
‘Ooh, she speaks English. Marvellous how you can train them, isn’t it?’
‘Heil Hitler!’ The boys made Nazi salutes and one of them put a straight finger under his nose to represent a moustache.
‘Come on, Sarah.’ Helga stooped to pick up the wooden cubes and the ball. ‘We don’t have to take any notice of ignorant bullies.’
She walked across the grass, straight and dignified. Sarah, more frightened than angry, scurried after. She did not have to ask Helga, not any more, why the boys didn’t like them. People were saying there was going to be a war. Another war, like The War she had seen in photos. Germany was going to be the enemy again. Always, it seemed, Germany and England were enemies.
Later, changing her shoes after PT, she found a screwed-up piece of paper tucked into one of her brown lace-ups. Unfolding it, she read: We dont want you hear filthy German swine. Go back to Kraut Land.
‘They don’t understand,’ was what Helga always said when other children said spiteful things. But now it was Sarah who didn’t understand. Germany didn’t want her and England didn’t either. Who did? She was wrong and bad wherever she went. If she made people hate her simply by being, how could things ever be different?
It was the end of the day and she was supposed to go back into the classroom with the others to put chairs up on tables, say the going-home prayer and be dismissed, but she waited for the others to go back to Mrs Milner, then slipped through the side door that led to the girls’ toilets outside. Hearing the voices of older boys by the bike sheds, she hurried away fast towards the playing field and the alleyway that led home. Footsteps were pounding after her. She did not look round but was relieved it was only one pair of feet; she was afraid it might be the gang of boys from lunch time.
‘Oi, wait!’
She stopped, turned. It was one of them, a fair-haired boy whose name she didn’t know. He seemed to tag along with the others, she thought; he hadn’t spat or shouted insults. His tie was loose round his neck and his sleeves were rolled up; he had slowed to a jog. She thought of running away, but knew he would be faster.
He was smiling as he caught up. ‘Look, I’m sorry about what happened at dinner time,’ he told her. ‘It was mean.’
‘You were there though,’ Sarah said, remembering the Nazi salute, the finger-moustache.
‘I know, but it’s the others,’ he said. ‘It’s just a game to them, a bit of fun. Don’t take any notice. They don’t mean it.’
Sarah was silent. The taunting had seemed real enough to her.
‘Anyway,’ the boy went on, falling into step beside her as if he knew which way she was going. ‘Sorry. Will you make up?’
‘Maybe,’ Sarah said, not sure what it meant.
‘Friends?’ He stuck out a hand, which he evidently expected her to shake, in the English way of introductions. She did, managing to smile back. She noticed what a handsome boy he was, with a smiley mouth and light blue-grey eyes that looked straight at her. The other girls in her class would be impressed, she knew, if they saw an older boy, and such a nice-looking one, taking notice of her.
‘My name’s Kenneth,’ he said. ‘And you’re Sarah, aren’t you?’
She nodded. ‘How do you know?’
‘I know, that’s all. Will you marry me?’
‘Will I – marry?’
‘Will you marry me? Go on, say yes. To prove we’re really friends.’
They had reached the alleyway, bordered by a garden fence on each side. She gazed at him, wondering if she had misunderstood. But Kenneth took hold of her hand, her left hand, and drew an imaginary ring on her finger. Was this the way things were done in England? Did boys and girls really promise to marry each other while they were still at junior school?
She noticed that Kenneth had gone pink in the face. Suddenly, he moved even closer to her and bent to kiss her on the cheek. She made a sound of protest and squirmed away, but he held her tightly by the shoulders and brought his face to hers and kissed her again, on the lips. Curiosity made her stand still and accept it. She felt the soft press of his mouth on hers, then he made a spluttering noise and pushed her away so hard that she fell against the fence.
Jeers and yells broke out from the edge of the playing field and suddenly the alleyway was full of boys – jostling and pushing each other, collapsing with laughter, the freckle-faced one and the ginger one and the others. Kenneth’s friends. Kenneth, not friendly and smiling any more but one of his gang, pretended to stagger backwards, wiping his mouth. ‘Yeurrgh! Bring me some disinfectant! I’ve been contaminated by a horrible slimy German Jew!’
‘What was it like, Ken? Mind you haven’t caught fleas—’
‘Don’t come near me – I don’t want your German germs!’
‘Heil Hitler!’
‘Did you get my note?’ Kenneth yelled at Sarah. ‘My love-letter, in your shoe?’
Sarah ran: gasping, choking, tears streaming back from her eyes into her ears and her hair. She ran all the way to the end of Shoe Lane, then slowed to a walk, wiped her eyes and nose on her dress, and pushed her hair back behind her ears. When her breathing was properly under control she knocked on the front door of number 12.
Auntie Enid let her in, with hands floury from pastry-making. ‘Hello, lovey! Had a good day?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ said Sarah. She went straight up to her room, Eric’s room.
‘I’m making jam tarts!’ Auntie Enid called up the stairs. ‘Come and help?’
‘In a minute.’ Sarah prised off her shoes, climbed onto the bed and took Heidi from the shelf. She had read it so many times now that she hardly needed the words in front of her to conjure the mountains and the wooden hut, the goats and the wild flowers. She opened the book at random and curled against her pillow with her thumb in her mouth.
The evening sun shone rosily on the mountains she read, and she kept turning round to look at them, for they lay behind her as she climbed. Everything seemed even more beautiful than she had expected. The twin peaks of Falkniss, snow-covered Scesaplana, the pasture land, and the valley below were all red and gold, and there were little pink clouds floating in the sky. It was so lovely, Heidi stood with tears pouring down her cheeks, and thanked God for letting her come home to it again. She could find no words to express her feelings, but lingered until the light began to fade and then ran on.
Everyone in the story loved Heidi: her grandfather, Peter’s family, the people in Frankfurt. Everyone wanted to be with her. Everyone missed her when she was gone. Heidi did not have to do anything except be herself.
But Heidi was not German. Heidi was not Jewish.
Sarah put down the book and gazed at Eric’s photograph on the mantelpiece. Eric’s clothes shared the wardrobe with Sarah’s, his books were on the shelf, his photograph looked at her. She hadn’t met Eric, though she thought he looked nice, and Auntie Enid had told her about the naughty things he did when he was a boy. He was in the army at a place called Salisbury Plain, never at home. Now people were saying there would be a war, and Eric would be in it. He would be fighting the Germans. Germany was the enemy; Germans were nasty and dangerous. They were spies or traitors or they were filthy vermin.
Climbing down from the bed, Sarah put her shoes back on and tied the laces. She needed to see Helga. It was time to do something about Rachel, and Helga would know how.
Chapter Eleven
Letters to Rachel
At Lansdowne Terrace, Helga share
d a bedroom with the Lewins’ daughter, Amy, who was sixteen and had a job in an office. Helga’s parents had been very concerned that she should go to a Jewish family. Entering, Sarah saw familiar objects: the nine-branched candlestick on the mantelpiece, and a plate decorated with a gold Star of David. The Lewins kept the Sabbath and all the Jewish festivals; they went to the synagogue on Saturday mornings and Helga attended classes in Hebrew. Helga thought Sarah ought to do these things, and had been deeply shocked when she discovered that Sarah now went to Sunday school and ate pig-meat: ham and sausages and bacon. Sarah hadn’t really meant to, and – though she knew she should have asked what it was, and explained what she could and couldn’t eat – she had tasted pig-meat several times before she realized. The sausages were delicious, herby and peppery. And what was the point of learning Hebrew, Sarah thought, when the language they spoke every day was English?
‘Jews are bad. Everyone hates us, even here in England. Why must we still do Jewish things?’ Sarah had argued.
‘No, we are not bad. You must never believe that!’ Helga said. ‘And it’s not true either that everyone hates us. We must keep the faith. We must keep faith with our parents.’
Sarah went silent whenever Helga talked about parents. She received a letter once a week, from Mutti. Vati did not even bother to sign his name. The letters always finished ‘my darling Sarah, from your loving Mutti’, but Sarah knew she was not really Mutti’s darling. The letters were short and did not say much. Mutti wrote about the weather and about the trees in the park. At first Sarah had kept the letters, but now she tore them into pieces as soon as she had read them. They weren’t proper letters anyway, not like Helga’s parents wrote, pages and pages, full of news and gossip. Sarah would rather have read Helga’s letters than her own. Helga sometimes read out little bits to her, and kept all the letters carefully in a drawer with her handkerchiefs. Already they made a thick wad.
Now Helga’s parents were coming to England. Helga announced this to Sarah with great pride. Every evening, when Sarah had gone home to the Thorntons’, Helga had walked the streets of Northampton – the smarter streets by the park, where the big houses were. After knocking on many doors she found an elderly couple who could offer work to her parents as housekeeper and gardener; work, and a place to live. Permits, passports and tickets were being organized, and Helga’s parents should be here within weeks.
‘Now I know where the rich people live,’ Helga said, ‘we find work for your mother and father and bring them also.’
Sarah shook her head. Her mother had never gone out to work, and would never think of being someone else’s housekeeper. Mutti had promised that one day soon they would all be together, but she had not said anything about coming to England to work, especially not as a servant. And her last letter had said that Vati was away from home on a business trip. He was a prosperous tailor in Cologne, even though there had been that bad time just before Sarah came away, when the shop windows had all been smashed, and the suits and trousers and rolls of cloth thrown out on the street. He wouldn’t swap his tailoring for being someone’s gardener. What could Helga be thinking of?
‘My sister, though,’ Sarah said. ‘Could we find a place for my sister?’
They were sitting facing each other: Sarah on Helga’s bed, Helga on Amy’s. Helga stared.
‘Your sister? What sister?’
‘Rachel,’ Sarah said. ‘She’s much older than me. Eighteen.’
‘Why ever haven’t you ever told me about her?’
Because, Sarah thought. Because.
Helga was full of ideas. The summer holidays began a few days later and there was lots of time for going round the streets of Northampton, knocking on doors, ringing bells. Sarah had never known there were so many kinds of knockers or that doorbells could chime in so many different ways. Sometimes a dog would yap, or a child indoors start crying. It was usually a lady who opened the door. Helga did most of the talking, as her English was better and she knew what to say. But some of the ladies would hardly listen; they just shook their heads and closed the door. Others were sympathetic, but still said no.
‘Perhaps it’s because Rachel’s an in-between sort of age,’ Helga said. They were sitting by the lake in the park, having tired of calling from house to house. ‘She’s practically grown up, not a child. But not old enough to be a proper housekeeper, like Mutti. What work could she do? Can she sew or cook, or type letters?’
Sarah thought. ‘She can play the piano. She’s good at that.’
‘Music teacher?’ Helga suggested. ‘We might find someone who wants a music teacher for their children? I could ask at the synagogue.’
‘But music teachers don’t usually move in,’ Sarah said, remembering Frau Mayer, Rachel’s piano teacher, who lived in a smart street close to theirs; Rachel went there for an hour every Sunday. It would have been ridiculous to have Frau Mayer living with them, however keen Rachel was and however many hours she spent practising.
‘I know!’ Helga got to her feet. ‘The telephone directory. We’ll look up Reubens. If we find someone with the same name, they’re probably Jewish. More likely to say yes.’
‘She lied to me,’ Heidi said to Zoë in the garden, settled again with her knitting. ‘Mutti told me a lie. Lots of lies. It wasn’t a business trip.’
‘Gran, I haven’t a clue what you’re on about,’ said Zoë, flicking a page of her magazine.
Everyone must listen to the wireless, Auntie Enid said. Sarah thought it was a bit like going to the synagogue, waiting for the rabbi’s address. Auntie Enid and Uncle Donald were at the table, very solemn and straight, facing each other; Sarah was on the floor, kneeling on the carpet, close to the big mesh-covered speaker that stood on the sideboard. The voice that came out of it, filling the room, belonged to the Prime Minister of England, who had flown out to Munich to meet Herr Hitler a year ago. ‘This morning the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us,’ he said. Sarah did not understand all the words, but she knew from the tone of his very English voice that the news must be bad. ‘I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received,’ he went on, ‘and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.’
His words fell into a silence. Sarah traced the worn pattern on the carpet with her finger. Uncle Donald gave a big sigh. ‘That’s it, then. Just like the last lot.’ He nodded towards the mantelpiece and a faded photograph of himself in uniform, a much younger man. Sarah knew that he was talking about what people had always called The War. Now there was war again. In the last one, her own father had fought for the Germans and had been given a medal, the Iron Cross. She wondered whether Uncle Donald and Vati had ever come across each other on a battlefield. She had only the haziest idea what a battlefield would be like. Like a giant game of chess, she supposed, with the two sides lined up facing each other, and the taken pieces toppled on the ground.
Auntie Enid bent down and pulled her over and gave her a big hug. ‘Oh, lovey! Your poor mum and dad—’ She smelled of eau de Cologne, which she kept in a glass bottle on her dressing table and dabbed on her neck and wrists every morning. Sometimes she just called it cologne. How funny, Sarah thought; I live – no, I used to live – in a town whose name, to an English person, means perfume. Perhaps Auntie Enid wouldn’t be allowed to use it, now there was a war. She would have to use English perfume.
Sarah didn’t want to think about Mutti and Vati. It was months and months now since she’d seen them. She wrote to them once a week, on Sundays: ‘Auntie Enid says I am getting much better at English now. I speak it nearly all the time. I am reading English books at school.’ But Mutti had not kept her promise and Sarah knew that now she would not. They were not to be trusted. ‘We’ll be together again soon, just as soon as we can’ – that was what Mutti had told her, back in Köln, the day
before Sarah left what she used to call Home. They couldn’t have tried properly. They had sent her away and had only pretended they were going to follow. Helga’s parents were due to arrive here this week; it had taken a long time, the whole of the summer holiday, for them to organize all the permission documents they needed to leave Germany, but they would be here at the station on Monday night. Her own parents couldn’t have wanted to come or they would have got the documents too. Mutti had only been pretending.
And now war.
‘Will Vati and Uncle Donald have to be soldiers again?’ she asked.
‘No, lovey,’ said Auntie Enid. ‘They’re too old now. Eric’s turn, this time.’
Sarah was glad that girls didn’t have to fight. If the war went on a very long time, she might be old enough. But which side would she be on, if she was a boy and had to be a soldier?
England’s side. Yes. England had taken her in when Germany had not wanted her. Germany was bad and all Germans were bad – the children at school made sure she knew that. She was a Hun, a Jerry.
There was no Sunday school today. Sarah liked Sunday school: the stories about people in the Bible, the pictures, the pretty young woman who gathered the children round her and spoke in a gentle voice. Most of the stories were about Jesus. Jesus sounded nice, Sarah thought. But when she told Helga some of the stories, about Jesus being the Son of God and a dove coming down from heaven when he was baptized in the river Jordan, and about Jesus healing the sick and raising Jairus’ daughter from the dead, Helga said that Jesus was really Yeshu and not the son of God as Christians believed, only a prophet like Elijah and Isaiah. Perhaps Helga was right. People said prayers to Jesus and asked him to do things for them, and last week at Sunday school they had all prayed that there wouldn’t be a war, but Jesus hadn’t been able to stop it.
‘Can I go and see Helga?’ she asked.
‘All right, lovey. Straight there and straight back, and don’t be long. Dinner’s at one o’clock sharp. Take care.’
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