Pennies For Hitler

by Jackie French

  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.

  He hadn’t come to school again.

  Georg still didn’t understand how he could be Jewish — how Papa could be and Aunt Miriam too. Papa never killed babies. He wasn’t even rich, as Jews were supposed to be.

  Could … could the Führer be wrong, and Jews weren’t all evil? Or was he different from other Jews, and Papa and Aunt Miriam too, because they were only a little bit Jewish, so it didn’t count?

  If the Führer was wrong about Jews perhaps he was wrong about other things. About the English being weak and cowardly, about the French being arrogant and treacherous, about Americans being ruled by Jews and bankers.

  Maybe Germany didn’t even have the right to rule the world. If the Nazis did conquer the world then Jews would be hunted everywhere. And if they weren’t bad then what about the gypsies? Maybe even black people weren’t Untermensch, subhuman, at all. He vaguely remembered someone saying that in Berlin a black man from America won lots of running medals, and the Führer had had to shake his hand. A black man who was stronger and faster than the Aryan Super-race of Germans … Had he read it somewhere? No, it wouldn’t have been in the paper. Perhaps Papa had told him.

  Sometimes, as he walked the streets, he thought he saw Papa’s face, or Mutti’s flowered dress. He knew it wouldn’t be them, not really — they would have telephoned Aunt Miriam as soon as they landed in England. But it was good to pretend, just for a while, to follow them, trying not to catch up too soon, to delay the rush of disappointment when he saw a stranger standing in front of him with Papa’s hair or Mutti’s scarf.

  It was hard sometimes, to fill in the afternoon.

  In the park was a small café that sold tiny ice creams for the English coin, a penny. He began to buy a penny ice cream every day, learning about English money and English coins. He copied the way one of the nannies said, ‘An ice cream, please,’ so that his words wouldn’t sound like he had an accent.

  The library was across the park. He discovered it by accident, following some boys who had been playing catch with a ball. He told himself he followed them to see what English children did, in case they were different from German ones, but mostly it was because he had nothing else to do — not until Saturday afternoon, when Aunt Miriam would take him to a film, or Sunday, when they would go to church, have lunch in a restaurant and then go to a museum. Museums and films were educational, Aunt Miriam said. They would help him be more English.

  He looked up at the library building nervously. Were strangers allowed inside? You had to show your card at the University library before you were allowed in. But then a woman carrying a baby walked up the stairs and right past the woman at the desk inside without showing anything. He followed her. He could always apologise and leave if someone stopped him.

  No one did. The woman at the desk even smiled a welcome at him, before looking back at the books she was stamping. He stood in the foyer and looked around.

  It was tiny. The only library he knew back home was the big one at the University, with walls and walls of index files, and quiet tables for students to study at.

  This one was only two rooms: one for ‘Adults’ on one side of the foyer and one with a sign that said ‘Children’. The tall shelves of books were just like at the University. He slipped inside.

  One wall had big shelves, with books for little kids. But the other shelves had proper books, with lots of words. English words — but that was good. They’d help him to seem really English.

  He picked a book off the shelves, another of the Arthur Ransome adventures, and sat at a table with it. He had only read two chapters when the woman from the desk came up to him.

  He froze, hunting for English words to apologise. Perhaps the library was for students of a certain school, or children from certain families. Would she call the police? Why hadn’t she stopped him before?

  But she just smiled at him. ‘Library’s closing, dear. Would you like to take that out?’

  It took a moment to work out that she meant he could borrow the book. He shook his head cautiously.

  ‘You’re not a library member, are you? You get your mum to bring you down tomorrow and sign you up. It’s only threepence a week. Then you can take out four books at a time
.’

  He nodded, hoping an aunt would do. Threepence was only three pennies. It would have to be Saturday, when Aunt Miriam wasn’t working. He hoped they were open on Saturdays. He didn’t want to risk his accent being recognised by trying to ask.

  He put the book back on the shelf, with the Rs, exactly where it had been before. Papa (his heart clenched a little) had shown him how libraries worked. Alphabetical order seemed the same in England as at home. The lady smiled at him as he left.

  He went to the library every afternoon that week, as soon as he had eaten the lunch that Aunt Miriam had left for him. (She told the maid that she had guests to dinner often now, to explain the extra food.) The librarian smiled at him every time he came in.

  Aunt Miriam was tired when she came home from work. It was usually late, long after Georg had eaten his English dinner of baked beans on toast that he could make himself, or shepherd’s pie to heat in the oven left by the maid.

  He waited till Saturday morning, till Aunt Miriam had woken late and showered, and was frying sausages for breakfast. They weren’t like German sausages — they were coarse beef sausages, bland and fatty, instead of pork — but the smell made him homesick just the same. He made sure any tears were gone before Aunt Miriam put the sausages on the plates, with a fried egg each and bread fried in the sausage fat.

  ‘Aunt Miriam?’

  ‘Yes?’ said Aunt Miriam absently, frowning down at the newspaper headlines. Georg glanced at the newspaper. Hitler Tears Up Naval Treaty with Britain.

  ‘May I be a member of the library across the park? It is three pennies a week.’

  ‘Threepence, not three pennies. Yes, of course.’

  ‘The librarian said I should bring my mother. Will an aunt do?’

  ‘I should imagine so,’ said Aunt Miriam, her eyes on the paper. She took a forkful of sausage and dipped it in the egg yolk. ‘We’ll go down after breakfast.’