by Judith Kerr
Anna removed her eyes from Madame Socrate and risked a quick glance sideways. The girls were no longer staring but smiling and she felt much better. Then Colette led her to a desk next to her own, Madame Socrate said something, and the girls—all except Anna—began to recite in unison again.
Anna sat and let the sound drone over her. She wondered what they were reciting. It was strange to be having a lesson at school without even knowing what it was about. As she listened she detected some numbers among the droning. Was it a multiplication table? No, there were not nearly enough numbers. She glanced at the book on Colette’s desk. There was a picture of a king with a crown on the cover. Then it came to her, just as Madame Socrate clapped her hands for the recitation to stop. It was history! The numbers were dates and it had been a history lesson! For some reason this discovery made her feel very pleased.
The girls were now taking exercise books out of their desks and Anna was given a brand-new one. The next lesson was dictation. Anna recognised the word because once or twice Mademoiselle Martel had dictated a few simple words to her and Max. But this was a very different matter. There were long sentences and Anna had no idea what any of them meant. She did not know where one sentence ended and another began—not even where one word ended and another began. It seemed hopeless to embark on it—but it would look even worse if she just sat without writing at all. So she did what she could to translate the incomprehensible sounds into letters arranged in what seemed like possible groups. After she had covered most of a page in this strange manner the dictation came to an end, the books were collected, a bell rang and it was time for break.
Anna put on her coat and followed Colette into the playground—a paved rectangle surrounded by railings which was already filling up with other girls. It was a cold day and they were running and skipping about to keep warm. As soon as Anna appeared with Colette a number of them crowded round and Colette introduced them. There were Claudine, Marcelle, Micheline, Françoise, Madeleine ... it was impossible to remember all their names, but they all smiled and held out their hands to Anna and she felt very grateful for their friendliness.
Then they played a singing game. They linked arms and sang and skipped forwards, backwards and sideways in time to the tune. It looked rather tame at first, but as the game went on they went faster and faster until at last they got into such a tangle that they collapsed in a heap, laughing and out of breath. The first time they did this Anna stood and watched, but the second time Colette took her hand and led her to the end of the row. She linked arms with Françoise—or it might have been Micheline—and did her best to follow the steps. When she went wrong everybody laughed, but in a friendly way. When she got it right they were delighted. She became hot and excited, and as a result of her mistakes the game ended in an even bigger muddle than before. Colette was laughing so much that she had to sit down and Anna was laughing too. She suddenly realised how long it was since she had really played with other children. It was lovely to be back at school. By the end of break she was even singing the words of the song, though she had no idea what any of them meant.
When they went back into the classroom Madame Socrate had covered the blackboard with sums and Anna’s spirits rose. At least for this she did not need to know French. She worked away at them until the bell went and morning school was over.
Lunch was eaten in a small, warm kitchen under the supervision of a large lady called Clothilde. Nearly all the children lived near enough to go home to eat and there was only one other, much younger girl who stayed, apart from a little boy of about three who seemed to belong to Clothilde.
Anna ate her sandwiches but the other girl had meat, vegetables and a pudding, all of which Clothilde cheerfully heated up for her on the stove. It looked a much nicer lunch than her own and Clothilde thought so too. She made a face at the sandwiches as though they were poison, crying, “Not good! Not good!” and gave Anna to understand, with much pointing to the cooker, that another time she should bring a proper lunch.
“Oui,” said Anna and even ventured “Demain”, which meant tomorrow, and Clothilde nodded her fat face and beamed.
Just as they were coming to the end of this exchange which had taken some time, the door opened and Madame Socrate came in.
“Ah,” she said in her slow, clear voice. “You are speaking French. That is good.”
Clothilde’s little boy ran up to her. “I can speak French!” he cried.
“Yes, but you can’t speak German,” said Madame Socrate and tickled his little tummy so that he squeaked with delight.
Then she beckoned to Anna to follow her. They went back to the classroom and Madame Socrate sat down at a desk with Anna. She spread the morning’s work out in front of them and pointed to the arithmetic.
“Very good!” she said. Anna had got nearly all of it right. Then Madame Socrate pointed to the dictation. “Very bad!” she said, but made such a funny face as she said it that Anna did not mind. Anna looked at her book. Her dictation had disappeared under a sea of red ink. Nearly every word was wrong. Madame Socrate had had to write the whole piece out again. At the bottom of the page it said in red, “142 mistakes” and Madame Socrate pointed to the number looking amazed and impressed, as though it were a record—which it probably was. Then she smiled, patted Anna on the back and asked her to copy the corrected version. Anna did so very carefully, and though she still could only understand very little of what she had written it was nice to have something in her book that was not all crossed out.
In the afternoon there was art and Anna drew a cat which was much admired. She gave it to Colette for being so kind to her and Colette told her in her usual mixture of quick French and dumb-show that she would pin it up on the wall of her bedroom.
When Mama came to fetch her at four o’clock Anna was very cheerful.
“How was school?” asked Mama, and Anna said, “Lovely!”
She did not realise until she got home how tired she was, but that evening, for the first time in weeks, she and Max did not have a row. It was exhausting going back to school again the next day, and the day after that, but the following day was Thursday when no one goes to school in France and she and Max both had a whole day off.
“What shall we do?” asked Max.
“Let’s take our pocket money to Prisunic,” said Anna. This was a store she and Mama had discovered on one of their shopping expeditions. Everything in it was very cheap—in fact nothing in the whole store cost more than ten francs. There were toys, household goods, stationery and even some clothes. Anna and Max spent a happy hour finding all the different things they could afford, from a cake of soap to half a pair of socks, and finally emerged with two spinning tops. In the afternoon they played with them in a little square near home till it got dark.
“Do you like your school?” Max suddenly asked as they were walking back.
“Yes,” said Anna. “Everybody is very nice, and they don’t mind if I can’t understand what they say. Why? Don’t you like yours?”
“Oh yes,” said Max. “They’re nice to me too, and I’m even beginning to understand French.”
They walked in silence a little way and then Max suddenly burst out with, “But there’s one thing I absolutely hate!”
“What?” asked Anna.
“Well—doesn’t it bother you?” said Max. “I mean—being so different from everyone else?”
“No,” said Anna. Then she looked at Max. He was wearing a pair of outgrown shorts and had turned them up to make them even shorter. There was a scarf dashingly tucked into the collar of his jacket and his hair was brushed in an unfamiliar way.
“You look exactly like a French boy,” said Anna.
Max brightened for a moment. Then he said, “But I can’t speak like one.”
“Well of course you can’t, after such a short time,” said Anna. “I suppose sooner or later we’ll both learn to speak French properly.”
Max stumped along grimly.
Then he said, “Well,
in my case it’s definitely going to be sooner rather than later!”
He looked so fierce that even Anna who knew him well was surprised at the determination in his face.
Chapter Sixteen
One Thursday afternoon a few weeks after Anna had started school she and Mama went to visit Great-Aunt Sarah. Great-Aunt Sarah was Omama’s sister but had married a Frenchman, now deceased, and had lived in Paris for thirty years. Mama, who had not seen her since she was a little girl, put on her best clothes for the occasion. She looked very young and pretty in her good coat and her blue hat with the veil, and as they walked towards the Avenue Foch where Great-Aunt Sarah lived, several people turned round to look at her.
Anna had put on her best clothes too. She was wearing the sweater Mama had knitted, her new shoes and socks, and Onkel Julius’s bracelet, but her skirt and coat were horribly short. Mama sighed, as always, at the sight of Anna in her outdoor things.
“I’ll have to ask Madame Fernand to do something with your coat,” she said. “If you grow any more it won’t even cover your pants.”
“What could Madame Fernand do?” asked Anna.
“I don’t know—stitch a bit of material round the hem or something,” said Mama. “I wish I knew how to do these things, like her!”
Mama and Papa had been to dinner with the Fernands the previous week and Mama had come back bursting with admiration. In addition to being a wonderful cook Madame Fernand made all her own and her daughter’s clothes. She had re-upholstered a sofa and made her husband a beautiful dressing-gown. She had even made him some pyjamas when he could not find the colour he wanted in the shops.
“And she does it all so easily,” said Mama for whom sewing on a button was a major undertaking—“as though it weren’t work at all.”
Madame Fernand had offered to help with Anna’s clothes, too, but Mama had felt perhaps that would be too much to accept. Now, however, seeing Anna stick out of her coat in all directions, she changed her mind.
“I will ask her,” she said. “If she just showed me how to do it perhaps I could manage it myself.”
By this time they had arrived at their destination. Great-Aunt Sarah lived in a large house set back from the road. They had to cross a courtyard planted with trees to reach it and the concierge who directed them to her flat wore a uniform with gold buttons and braid. Great-Aunt Sarah’s lift was made of plate glass and carried them swiftly upwards without any of the groans and shudders Anna was used to, and her front door was opened by a maid in a frilly white apron and cap.
“I’ll tell Madam you’re here,” said the maid, and Mama sat on a little velvet chair while the maid went into what must be the drawing-room. As she opened the door they could hear a buzz of voices and Mama looked worried and said, “I hope this is the right day ...” But almost at once the door opened again and Great-Aunt Sarah ran out. She was a stout old lady but she moved at a brisk trot and for a moment Anna wondered whether she would be able to stop when she reached them.
“Nu,” she cried, throwing her heavy arms round Mama. “So here you are at last! Such a long time I haven’t seen you—and such dreadful things happening in Germany. Still, you’re safe and well and that’s all that matters.” She relapsed into another velvet chair, overflowing on all sides, and said to Anna, “Do you know that the last time I saw your Mama she was only a little girl? And now she has a little girl of her own. What’s your name?”
“Anna,” said Anna.
“Hannah—how nice. A good Jewish name,” said Great-Aunt Sarah.
“No, Anna,” said Anna.
“Oh, Anna. That’s a nice name too. You must excuse me,” said Great-Aunt Sarah, leaning perilously towards her on the little chair, “but I’m a bit deaf.” Her eyes took in Anna properly for the first time and she looked astonished. “Goodness, child,” she exclaimed. “Such long legs you have! Aren’t they cold?”
“No,” said Anna. “But Mama says if I grow any more my coat won’t even cover my pants.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wished she had not said them. It was not the sort of thing one said to a great-aunt one hardly knew.
“What?” said Great-Aunt Sarah.
Anna could feel herself blushing.
“A moment,” said Great-Aunt Sarah and suddenly, from somewhere about her person, she produced an object like a trumpet. “There,” she said, putting the thin end not to her mouth as Anna had half-expected, but to her ear. “Now say it again, child—very loudly—into my trumpet.”
Anna tried desperately to think of something quite different that she could say instead and that would still make sense, but her mind remained blank. There was nothing for it.
“Mama says,” she shouted into the ear trumpet, “that if I grow any more my coat won’t even cover my pants!”
When she withdrew her face she could feel that she had gone scarlet.
Great-Aunt Sarah seemed taken aback for a moment. Then her face crumpled up and a noise somewhere between a wheeze and a chuckle escaped from it.
“Quite right!” she cried, her black eyes dancing. “Your Mama is quite right! But what is she going to do about it, eh?” Then she added to Mama, “Such a funny child—such a nice funny child you have!” And rising from the chair with surprising agility she said, “So now you must come and have some tea. There are some old ladies here who have been playing Bridge, but I’ll soon get rid of them”—and she led the way, at a gentle gallop, into the drawing-room.
The first thing that struck Anna about Great-Aunt Sarah’s old ladies was that they all looked a good deal younger than Great-Aunt Sarah. There were about a dozen of them, all elegantly dressed with elaborate hats. They had finished playing Bridge—Anna could see the card tables pushed back against the wall—and were now drinking tea and helping themselves to tiny biscuits which the maid was handing round on a silver tray.
“Every Thursday they come,” whispered Great-Aunt Sarah in German. “Poor old things, they have nothing better to do. But they’re all very rich and they give me money for my needy children.”
Anna, who had only just got over her surprise at Great-Aunt Sarah’s old ladies, found it even more difficult to imagine her with needy children—or indeed with any children at all—but she did not have time to ponder the problem for she was being loudly introduced along with Mama.
“My niece and her daughter have come from Germany,” shouted Great-Aunt Sarah in French but with a strong German accent. “Say bongshour!” she whispered to Anna.
“Bonjour,” said Anna.
Great-Aunt Sarah threw up her hands in admiration. “Listen to the child!” she cried. “Only a few weeks she has been in Paris and already she speaks French better than I!”
Anna found it difficult to keep up this impression when one of the ladies tried to engage her in conversation, but she was saved from further efforts when Great-Aunt Sarah’s voice boomed out again.
“I have not seen my niece for years,” she shouted, “and I have been longing to have a talk with her.”
At this the ladies hurriedly drank up their tea and began to make their farewells. As they shook hands with Great-Aunt Sarah they dropped some money into a box which she held out to them, and she thanked them. Anna wondered just how many needy children Great-Aunt Sarah had got. Then the maid escorted the ladies to the door and at last they had all disappeared.
It was nice and quiet without them, but Anna noticed with regret that the silver tray with the little biscuits had disappeared along with the ladies and that the maid was gathering up the empty cups and carrying them out of the room. Great-Aunt Sarah must have forgotten her promise of tea. She was sitting on the sofa with Mama and telling her about her needy children. It turned out that they were not her own after all but a charity for which she was collecting money, and Anna who had briefly pictured Great-Aunt Sarah with a secret string of ragged urchins felt somehow cheated. She wriggled restlessly in her chair, and Great-Aunt Sarah must have noticed for she suddenly interrupt
ed herself.
“The child is bored and hungry,” she cried and added to the maid, “Have the old ladies all gone?”
The maid replied that they had.
“Well then,” cried Great-Aunt Sarah, “you can bring in the real tea!”
A moment later the maid staggered back under a tray loaded with cakes. There must have been five or six different kinds, apart from an assortment of sandwiches and biscuits. There was also a fresh pot of tea, chocolate and whipped cream.
“I like cakes,” said Great-Aunt Sarah in answer to Mama’s look of astonishment, “but it’s no use offering them to those old ladies—they’re much too careful of their diets. So I thought we’d have our tea after they’d gone.” So saying she slapped a large portion of apple flan on to a plate, topped it with whipped cream and handed it to Anna. “The child needs feeding,” she said.
During tea she asked Mama questions about Papa’s work and about their flat, and sometimes Mama had to repeat her answers into the ear-trumpet. Mama talked about everything quite cheerfully, but Great-Aunt Sarah kept shaking her head and saying, “To have to live like this ... such a distinguished man ...!” She knew all Papa’s books and bought the Daily Parisian specially to read his articles. Every so often she would look at Anna, saying, “And the child—so skinny!” and ply her with more cake.
At last, when no one could eat any more, Great-Aunt Saran heaved herself out from behind the tea-table and set off at her usual trot towards the door, beckoning to Mama and Anna to follow. She led them to another room which seemed to be entirely filled with cardboard boxes.
“Look,” she said. “All this I have been given for my needy children.”
The boxes were filled with lengths of cloth in all sorts of different colours and thicknesses.
“One of my old ladies is married to a textile manufacturer,” explained Great-Aunt Sarah. “So he is very rich and he gives me all the ends of material he does not want. Now I have an idea—why shouldn’t the child have some of it? After all it is for needy children, and she is as needy as most.”