Saving Hanno

by Miriam Halahmy

  It was all very confusing, but I didn’t say anything. Everyone was very quiet and sad at the dinner table and my arms were aching for Hanno.

  The train goes on and on and then, ages after our normal lunchtime, it stops at a tiny station. We look out the window and see the Nazi soldiers getting off. There’s a short wait before the train pulls away again, but all the soldiers are still standing around on the platform, smoking and laughing.

  “Why didn’t they get back on the train?” I ask Lotte.

  “I think we’re at the border,” she says.

  We all press our faces against the glass and sure enough, a few minutes later, the train slides out of Nazi Germany and into Holland.

  Lotte pushes me off her lap, throws herself to her feet, and cries out, “Now we’re free. No more Hitler! No more yellow stars!”

  She reaches over to the star on my coat and rips it off, and then her own. All the other kids copy her and soon there’s a pile of stars on the car floor, trampled under our shoes.

  I’m so excited I pull out my bugle. Before Lotte can say anything, I blow the first notes of the signal to charge. Everyone cheers and bangs me on the back.

  But Lotte is frowning, and she jerks my sleeve really hard when I lower the bugle. “Are you crazy, Rudi? What if the soldiers had found that!”

  “But they didn’t,” I say, grinning.

  She stares at me for a minute, and then she can’t help grinning back. She still gives me a hard punch on the arm.

  Sisters!

  The train stops in a station. Smiling Dutch people give out hot chocolate and sandwiches and fruit. We stuff ourselves before the train sets off again.

  I show Lotte my notebook. “I’m making notes for Mutti and Papa,” I say.

  I think she’ll laugh at me, but she just says, “Good thing the soldiers didn’t find that either. You could have gotten into so much trouble.”

  She’s right, of course, but I don’t say so.

  Then I write:

  Only pack clothes or the soldiers will be angry.

  Pull off your yellow star when you cross the border.

  The Dutch make delicious hot chocolate.

  The train comes to the sea, and we have to take a boat to England. Then we take another train to London and come out at a station called Liverpool Street. All the kids are told to sit and wait. We have huge labels around our necks, which makes me feel like a piece of lost luggage.

  Some kids are collected quite quickly but it’s ages before anyone comes for us. Then a kind-looking man comes over and says he is Herr Evans—the English word for Herr is Mister, Lotte says—and we should go with him.

  We have to take a bus, and Lotte whispers to me that there’s no room for her at the Evanses.

  “I’m going to live with a couple called the Greens nearby,” she says.

  “I’ll be all alone with them, and I don’t speak English,” I whisper back, my bottom lip beginning to wobble.

  “I’ll come and see you as much as I can,” says Lotte, but her face is very pale.

  It’s late by the time we reach the Evanses’ house. Lotte gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, and then she disappears. I stand in the hallway with my tiny suitcase, and I can feel tears again. It’s all so different from our apartment in Frankfurt. There’s a staircase leading upstairs but it’s dark up there and looks quite scary. There’s a funny smell too, a bit like our apartment before Mutti opens the windows in the morning.

  But Frau Evans gives me a nice smile and, pointing to herself, she says, “Auntie Irene.” Then she points to Herr Evans and says, “Uncle Don.”

  Auntie Irene’s short and very round. She has reddish cheeks and light brown hair, which she keeps pinned up on her head. She wears a flowered apron, and she smells of disinfectant and soap. Mutti always smells of cinnamon from the cookies she makes for me and Hanno.

  Herr Evans—Uncle Don—is taller than Papa but he sort of stoops, and his head is half bald and half gray hair all around the back and sides. He and Auntie Irene must be years and years older than Mutti and Papa. A bit like grandparents, I suppose. They don’t have any children, Mutti said, and I can’t see any pets either.

  Uncle Don points to my coat, so I take it off. He raises his eyebrows when he sees the bugle, but he doesn’t say anything. Then I take off two of my three sweaters, and that makes him smile. His eyes are light gray, and they crinkle up in a kind way.

  I keep the notebook in my secret place up my sleeve.

  We go into the kitchen and Auntie Irene shows me where to sit, and she even lets me put the bugle on the table next to me.

  Uncle Don says something in English, which I don’t understand, of course, and then he puts his fist to his lips and sort of blows and points to the bugle.

  He wants me to play, I think, and I nod. Papa had just started to teach me the wake-up call, so I play the first few notes and then it goes all croaky, and I stop. Uncle Don gives me an approving nod. I take my special rag out of my pocket and rub it over the bugle. I think it got a bit dusty on the train. Auntie Irene says something in a nice voice to Uncle Don. They both nod at me and smile.

  Papa would be proud of me, I think, and I give a small smile back.

  Auntie Irene puts down a cup of what looks like milky coffee, but when I drink some it’s tea with so much milk and sugar it tastes disgusting. I only drink milk or water at home. Uncle Don is cutting some bread. At least it looks like a loaf of bread, but it’s white! He puts butter and jam on a slice and gives it to me. The jam tastes nice, and I eat three slices, but when Auntie Irene wants to pour me some more tea, I put my hand over the cup and shake my head.

  All the time they talk in English to each other and sometimes to me. On the train Lotte taught me yes, no, please, and thank you, but apart from those words and tea, which is almost the same in German, I can’t understand a word. It makes me feel so lonely.

  Finally, Auntie Irene takes me upstairs to my new bedroom. She helps me find my pajamas in my suitcase, and I change for bed. Then she gives me a kiss on my cheek and strokes the hair on my forehead for a minute. I like that. Mutti used to do that sometimes. Then Auntie Irene goes out and closes the door, and I’m all alone.

  My new bedroom’s cold, with big, dark furniture. The bed’s lumpy, and the sheets are all scratchy. Nothing looks or feels or smells like home. A dog barks outside in the street, and it makes me think of Hanno’s warm body resting on my legs. How long do I have to stay here? I think, and finally tears pour down my face. I can’t hold them back any longer.

  Papa’s bugle is on the side table with the soft rag next to it. The rag was torn off an old shirt of Papa’s. I wipe my eyes on my pajama sleeve, wrap the rag around the bugle, and then tuck it into bed with me.

  Lotte would laugh, I think, but I saw her sneak Mutti’s silk scarf into her pocket before we left home. So she’s got something to cuddle as well.

  I lie there with my arm around the bugle, and then I remember I have to be a pioneer. So I pick up my notebook and write:

  They have white bread in England.

  Tea must have milk and sugar or it’s poisonous, I think.

  Sit upstairs on the bus. It’s UNBELIEVABLE!!!

  I don’t see Lotte for five whole days. I never thought I’d miss my moany sister so much. All I want is for her tell me, Shut up, pest!

  Every morning Uncle Don goes out at eight o’clock in blue overalls while I’m brushing my teeth. I think he goes to work, so he hasn’t lost his job like Papa. He gave me a long piece of string on the second evening and helped me tie it on my bugle, so now I can sling it over my back and carry it everywhere with me.

  For breakfast Auntie Irene makes me a boiled runny egg, which she puts in a tiny white cup and slices off the top. On the same plate there’s toasted white bread cut up into strips. On the first morning she showed me how to dip
the bread into the egg and kept saying a word I didn’t understand until she found it in Uncle Don’s German/English dictionary. The strips of toast are called soldiers in English.

  Nothing’s like home here. Even the toothpaste tastes funny.

  Mutti made me scrambled eggs for breakfast, never a runny egg, and we had dark rye bread with Zuckerrübensirup. It’s a yummy thick black syrup, my absolute favorite. Lotte and I used to fight over the last spoonful in the jar. But that was before the Jews couldn’t get much food anymore. We haven’t had Zuckerrübensirup for ages.

  Auntie Irene gives me strawberry jam on toast, which is delicious, and I’m allowed as much butter as I want. My stomach hasn’t rumbled once since I arrived in England. There’s plenty of food in Auntie Irene’s cupboard and the bread bin has a crusty new loaf every day.

  After breakfast I look at the dictionary for a bit, which is very boring, or go out in the garden if it isn’t raining. I’m allowed to practice my bugle in my room for a bit too and no one tells me off.

  Auntie Irene does her housework. Then we go shopping. I take the bugle, slung on my back with the string. As we walk along I can feel it bumping as though Papa’s behind me, giving me a pat like he used to do.

  I think of Mutti and Papa and my darling Hanno all the time. I miss them so much. At least I’m finding out about England and making my notes for Mutti and Papa, like a good pioneer.

  I like the shops. They’re so different from shops in Germany. The butcher shop doesn’t have the long, fat sausages hanging from hooks. Instead there are chickens, and the sausages are shorter than my hand. Auntie Irene seems to know I don’t eat pork because she only gives me chicken or fish, even when they have sausages.

  There’s a greengrocer and a baker and all the bread is white. There isn’t one loaf of bread like our dark rye bread. It’s very strange. I like the smell in the baker’s but out in the street there are big red buses and trucks, making a lot of noise and spewing out thick smoke all the time. Back home in Frankfurt, our streets are much quieter and when the linden trees bloom, you can smell the thick, sweet scent all the way to school.

  All the food here looks so different. The cheese is not as yellow as our cheese and they cut it from big square blocks. Even the apples don’t look like our apples. I make notes in my head for Mutti and Papa.

  The best shop is the newspaper shop. They sell cigarettes and tobacco and they also sell candy, the hard kind you can suck for ages. Every day Auntie Irene lets me choose something. I’m allowed two ounces in a paper bag, which is quite a lot really and only costs two pennies. It’s so long since I had any candy, and I suck each piece slowly to make them last all day.

  The candy is in huge glass jars lined up on a shelf behind the counter. I always choose something different, so I can tell Mutti and Papa about the best ones. So far, I like a stripey black-and-white candy called a bull’s-eye and another called a pear drop. Maybe I can learn English by eating candy.

  Auntie Irene and Uncle Don do their best to teach me English. Every evening Uncle Don points to words in his dictionary like bread and cheese and then repeats them over and over. I’m too scared to say anything much, but I’m getting quite good at remembering and understanding. It makes me feel like an explorer meeting a whole new tribe in the jungle when I learn a new word. Sort of like an adventure, only I wish Emil was here, and Hanno, of course.

  I’ve learned to say bugle in English and I even taught Uncle Don the German word Bügelhorn. He likes it when I teach him a word in German.

  The Evanses have a piano in the front room and Uncle Don plays songs and other tunes. He’s teaching me to play the English national anthem, “God Save the King.” I can play the first few notes with one finger, which is good fun.

  But mostly I just feel homesick. All I want to do is get back on the train and go home. I don’t care about Hitler or the soldiers anymore. I just want to see Mutti and sleep in my own bed again.

  Everything’s so different in England. It makes me feel like I’m from a strange new tribe. The mailboxes are red! They’re huge and stand up on the street. Proper mailboxes should be yellow and screwed on the wall like back home in Frankfurt.

  The English don’t live in apartments; they live in little houses stuck together in a row. Every house has a small front garden with a fence and a gate, which must be kept shut always. If our front gate is left open by the milkman, Auntie Irene tuts and says annoyed words in English.

  Inside the house there’s a sitting room with the piano in it and we sit there in the evenings to listen to the radio. There’s a kitchen at the end of the hall, where we have all our meals. We also have to wash in the kitchen sink and Auntie Irene gives me a bath in a tin bath once a week. It’s quite good fun. The toilet is a little shed at the end of the garden but I have a pot at night under the bed, in case I need it. It’s a bit creepy going down the garden to the toilet when it’s dark but Auntie Irene always goes with me and waits outside for me. We have to take an umbrella when it rains.

  Upstairs there are just two bedrooms. The garden at the back of the house has a strip of grass and a concrete path down one side. Along the fences there are some bushes and some green shoots sticking up from the black earth. Maybe Auntie Irene likes flowers. I don’t know the names of any English flowers or even many German ones. There’s also a small shed where Uncle Don keeps his lawn mower.

  On the first morning Auntie Irene opened the back door and pushed me out into the garden. It was very cold and muddy on the grass so I had to walk on the path down the side. It rains all the time in England.

  I didn’t know what to do. There was nothing to play with and no trees to climb. I walked down to the shed and tried the door, but it was locked.

  Then I heard a whistle and, looking around, I saw a boy, at least fifteen, wearing a peaked cap, leaning on the fence.

  He said something to me in English, but I didn’t understand, which was a shame because his face was as cheery as his whistle, and he had bright blue eyes which sort of laughed as he talked.

  He seemed to understand because he pointed to himself and said, “Alec.”

  I nodded and said, “Rudi.”

  I had my bugle on my back and he pointed to it. I pulled it around and blew a few notes. That made him laugh and he saluted me like a soldier. It was great.

  I look for him every morning now, but I haven’t seen him again. Anyway, he won’t want to play Tarzan with a little kid like me, will he?

  Today is Sunday. Auntie Irene has been busy putting a chicken in the oven and peeling potatoes and carrots. Uncle Don keeps saying sentences with Lotte in them. Eventually I realize that Lotte is coming for lunch.

  Finally! I thought I’d never see her again.

  The morning goes very slowly and then as the kitchen clock strikes twelve there is a knock on the door. I race down the hall, open the door, and throw myself at my big sister.

  She doesn’t push me away. She sort of clings to me and whispers in my ear in German how much she’s missed me. It feels so good my bottom lip wobbles but I manage not to cry.

  I pull her down to the kitchen and Lotte says in English, “Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Evans. I thank you for telling me to come to the lunch.”

  “Good English,” I mutter in German.

  Lotte learned some English in school last year and anyway, she learns really quickly. I’m so much slower, I think with a sigh.

  “You have to learn too,” Lotte says back in a low voice.

  I go red, and Uncle Don gives me a wink. Maybe he understands some German.

  “Come and sit down, dear,” says Auntie Irene, her cheeks looking hot from the cooking.

  Uncle Don pulls out a chair, next to my usual place.

  It’s wonderful having Lotte next to me. Lunch is delicious, but I’m dying for it to be over because Lotte has promised to take me out for a walk. That means we c
an speak German.

  Finally, we’ve finished all the food—including apple pie and custard, which is my favorite dessert—and Lotte says to me in German that we can go out.

  I race down the hall, pull on my coat, and am at the end of the path before Lotte can stop me.

  “Say goodbye, Rudi,” she hisses at me in German when she reaches the gate.

  I turn and call out in English to Uncle Don, who is just closing the front door. “Goodbye, Uncle Don!”

  He gives me his kind smile and a nod, so that’s all right.

  Then Lotte takes my hand, which feels so good, although I would’ve hated it back in Germany. We walk off to the park at the end of the road.

  “They’re very nice, Rudi, aren’t they?” Lotte says in German.

  “Yes,” I say, “but I miss Mutti and Papa and you and Hanno and Frankfurt and my bedroom…” The tears I’ve been holding back all morning come rushing out.

  Lotte holds my hand and waits for me to stop, which takes ages.

  Then she says in a quiet voice, “I know, Rudi. I miss home too. But Germany hasn’t been safe for Jews for so long and won’t be until Hitler goes.”

  “So why don’t people get rid of him?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t understand it either. It’s madness, as Papa says. But for now we are very lucky to be here and to be safe.”

  “But Mutti and Papa aren’t safe,” I say, still feeling miserable.

  “They’re trying very hard to get permits to leave. Mutti wrote and said maybe they can go to Cuba. Other Jews have gone there,” says Lotte, but her face is very pale.

  “Why don’t they just jump on a train like us and come to London?”

  “It’s not permitted,” is all Lotte says. Then she starts to ask me all sorts of questions about my week.

  I dig in my pocket and pull out a crumpled paper bag with a bull’s-eye and a pear drop I’ve saved for her.