Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler

by Trudi Kanter

  “I need to find a job myself,” Walter says. “I’ll see Curlow tomorrow.”

  I decide not to say anything about my meetings with Curlow. I don’t want to turn Walter against him. We still need his help.

  * * *

  Walter started working at Mica as a laborer, earning three pounds a week. He traveled every day to Dalston. Then one day, as I came in from work, I found Walter sitting on the sofa looking completely beaten.

  “What is it?” I ask. Walter stares out of the window. “Tell me.”

  That morning, Walter had arrived at work to find the men staring in disbelief at the bombed-out, cracked walls and charred planks of their factory.

  “There was nothing left,” Walter said. “Just a black hole. The men sat down, smoked, and waited for the boss.”

  I knew that Mica Products was the secret center of Mr. Curlow’s heart. My eyes filled with tears, but Walter didn’t know the real reason; I was crying for Mr. Curlow. He had behaved like a gentleman. Even after our row, he had given me the letter that had freed Walter from internment, and then he had employed him. “Curlow had a plan.” Walter was smiling now. “ ‘We’ll build it all up again, everything as it was,’ he said. ‘Brick by brick, floors and ceilings, water and electricity. All of it! Who is with me?’ The men stood up one by one. Trudi, can you imagine, underneath the snowy sky, a thin voice started to sing, and everyone gradually joined in, louder and louder, ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow . . . ’”

  * * *

  Every morning, for many months, Walter put on his skiing outfit and traveled to work. He laid bricks, plastered walls, relaid electrical wiring, repaired machines. On the first day, when he returned home, I opened the door and nearly closed it again: outside stood a chimney sweep, black from top to toe. I recognized the blue eyes, and I kissed the black man. Every night after that, I gave him a large glass of brandy and helped him to undress. In his incredibly dirty face, his eyes were shining.

  6

  The air-raid shelter we use is in the basement of a small church in Baker Street. It is run by people from the church, who provide tea and biscuits and prayers and keep the shelter clean.

  One night, the bombing is the worst we have ever experienced. Even in the shelter, we hear the noise of exploding bombs, followed by the crash of falling masonry.

  I sit on a bench next to my parents, listening to the roar of the planes. Hitler followed us to Prague and now to London. Maybe we are being bombed by Austrian airmen.

  The shelter marshal announces that all able-bodied men are needed outside. Walter jumps up and runs upstairs. A few minutes later, I follow him. I stop at the entrance. The street is an inferno. I stare at the remains of Druce’s furniture store. The warden tells me it had a direct hit. Yellow, red-edged flames hiss viciously. They stretch long tongues and tails, twisting them left and right, driven by a strong wind, devouring everything they touch.

  A man in a blue tweed sports jacket comes out of the shelter. He leans against a wall, smokes, adjusts his red tie, smiles.

  “Why are you smiling?” I ask angrily.

  “I love to see a fire,” he replies, captivated by the flames. “Look at it.” His voice is drunk with excitement. “Listen to the furious noises. The flames are eating and eating, fighting each other. Watch it!”

  I watch, fascinated and frightened. Flames eat through the roof. The whole sky is yellow and pink. It is nighttime, the blackout is in force, yet in Baker Street it is daylight. We are a perfect target for the stream of bombers overhead. Where is Walter? I can’t go down to the shelter. I have to wait here. Walter’s in danger. Again.

  Druce’s is a shell, lit by fire from inside. It reminds me of my dollhouse. We used to put candles in it to achieve this effect.

  It is raining bombs. There is a tremendous explosion. My ears are ringing. I’m terrified. My hair is full of dust, it sticks in my eyes and covers my clothes. I sway and almost fall. The man holds and steadies me.

  “Why don’t you go downstairs, miss?”

  “My husband is out here!”

  I run up and down Baker Street. There are fires all around me. I can’t see through the smoke. I turn into George Street, and there he is. He’s with another man, running toward a smoldering heap of rubble that moments ago was a house.

  The sky is streaked with reddish-gold specks. Large gray flakes, high up above the fire, dance, twirl, twist, and sail down slowly, vanishing as they touch the ground. The flames are greedy beasts, beautiful and wild. The crackling and hissing makes them vicious.

  Ambulances and first-aid vans start to arrive. Doctors, soldiers, and civilians try to help. Cups of tea appear. A baby lies on the pavement, crying. I run to him. His mother is digging and digging in the rubble. To find the father? Blood and dirt on her hands, tears running down her grimy face. Her hair sticks to her cheeks. She won’t let me pick up the baby. A young man climbs out of a window, hangs on to the sill as the wall of a neighboring house collapses. Buildings cave in, as if crushed by a giant foot. Clouds of dust and smoke burst into the air.

  Walter is digging in the rubble, looking for people who are trapped. A tall young girl stands in the middle of the road, paralyzed. I grip her arm, try to move her, but it is as though she is riveted to the road. I try to persuade her to come with me, but she can’t hear me, and her eyes don’t see me. I stroke her dusty, blond hair. Tears fall down her frozen face. “Mother,” she whispers. Has she seen her mother, trapped, pinned under wreckage, dead?

  Eventually she moves, and I lead her along the burning street to the church door. I ask the man in the blue jacket to take her down to the shelter.

  I run back along George Street. Walter is still digging. In Baker Street, people lie buried under beams and floorboards. A hand sticks out of the rubble, the top of someone’s head. I’m going to be sick. A boy lies pinned under part of a roof. He is in agony; he tries to smile. An old woman, grateful for a mug of tea, jokes about the missing sugar.

  The bombers are coming back. I rush back to the church and go down into the shelter to see if my parents are all right. It is packed. Mother struggles through the crowd toward me. She is crying.

  “I was so worried. Why have you been so long?” She flings her arms around me. “Where’s Walter? What a terrible raid. Just look at all these people.” Father, tears in his eyes, grips my hand.

  Walter joins us, his face and clothes black with grime. His left hand is bandaged—he tried to pick up some metal rods that were too hot to handle. I stroke his hair.

  “It was terrible, darling. Terrible,” Walter says. He gropes for my hand. I am proud of him.

  More and more people crowd into the shelter. Some have to sit on the flagstone floor. They are dressed in their nightclothes. There is a huge unexploded bomb in Portman Square. We don’t know if our houses will still be there when we go outside. If we go outside. We are safe only from blast—not from a direct hit.

  A huge man with ginger hair is standing in front of my father, poking a thick finger in his chest. “Bloody enemy aliens! You have no right to be in here—your planes are killing our people. Go home!”

  Walter leaps at him. The man shakes him off easily and knees him in the stomach. Walter punches him in the face. Mother covers her eyes. Father has gone white.

  The shelter marshal, a slim young priest, shouts, “Stop this at once! These people have every right to be here.”

  The man carries on shouting: “We need their places. Bloody traitors!”

  “Look at him,” says the priest, pointing at Walter with his bandaged hand. “He’s bleeding. He’s exhausted from trying to rescue people. You—what have you done to help?” He pushes the man into another room.

  We sit huddled together on our benches. People gather around, making it clear they are on our side.

  The all clear sounds at dawn. We can go home. People scramble for the exit. We are carrying our mattresses and have to pick our way through the rubble. Mother walks slowl
y. I take her arm. Walter carries her mattress. Fires are still smoldering everywhere. No water is left to douse them. But our building is still standing.

  At home, exhausted, we climb the stairs to our bedrooms. There is a brown spot on the ceiling in my parents’ room, and when Father touches it, it is warm. Walter opens the trapdoor to the loft, and flames leap out at him. He shuts it again, runs downstairs, and telephones the fire brigade, who arrives in minutes. Bells ringing, headlights full-on, the fire engine stops in front of our house. Firemen in high black boots climb ladders, drag long hoses through the window. They wrench open the trapdoor and douse the flames.

  During the night, an incendiary had crashed through the roof and into the loft, which was full of old clothes and broken chairs, piles of magazines and papers. But the device landed on the small metal plate of one of Walter’s skis.

  The wood used for skis does not burn easily. For many hours, the bomb sat on the metal, gradually heating it. Eventually, the wood began to smolder, and when Walter opened the trapdoor, it was ignited by the draft.

  7

  “This is a war of the unknown warriors,” Churchill told the world in the summer of 1940. “The whole of the warring nations are engaged, not only soldiers, but the entire population, men, women, and children. The fronts are everywhere. Trenches are dug in towns and streets. Every village is fortified. Every road is barred. The front line runs through the factories. Workmen are soldiers with different weapons but the same courage.”

  * * *

  Between 1940 and 1942, the threat of invasion and the reality of aerial bombardment shocked the British nation. They urgently needed fighter planes. De Havilland was in the process of producing a small plane called the Mosquito, but to be fast, it had to be light, and they had not found a way to fix small plastic components securely to the wooden-lined walls of the plane. The vibrations of the Mosquito when in flight dislodged them. De Havilland sent out a call to all British plastics manufacturers asking for solutions.

  Like his father, Walter was something of an inventor. And out of all the plastics firms in the whole country, it was he and Mica who solved the problem. His coworkers were delighted; they bought a barrel of beer, drank to his health, and carried him around the yard on their shoulders, cheering. Walter was told that he could claim payment for his crucial invention. But he never did. “I have no claim,” he said. “It is the least I could have done for this country.”

  * * *

  By the end of 1942, Walter had worked his way up from foreman to manager and then to director. That Christmas, Curlow arranged a party at the factory.

  “Everyone is welcome,” Walter said. “Staff, suppliers, customers, wives, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends—everyone. There will be wine, beer, and whiskey, and we even have a dance band.”

  Walter didn’t want me to wear an evening dress; he asked me to wear something simple. But I wanted to look my best, for several reasons.

  “Can I wear the black crepe de chine with the yellow silk shawl?”

  “Do you have to wear the shawl?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, wear your shawl.”

  The large room is smoky and smells of beer. The band is playing. Curlow greets me politely, avoiding my gaze. We are seated at his table with some of the other directors and managers. Seated opposite me, her elbows on the table, is a blue-eyed redhead in a lilac dress that clings to her body.

  Walter’s secretary.

  Walter had never mentioned that he had a beautiful secretary. Or any kind of secretary.

  We ate and drank and danced. I had been married twice; I had some experience in flirting. And I never trusted women. I knew that if you think she’s after your husband, you need to watch her. At some point, she will give herself away. If she’s stupid, she will be all over him, but if she’s clever, she’ll glance at him only occasionally, touch his hand accidentally, move her leg against his under the table, look into his eyes, and part her lips.

  I felt her leg move, saw her look at my husband. So did Curlow. He frowned, looked at me, then smiled.

  I didn’t say anything to Walter. He would have denied it, and I had no proof. But there was no doubt that he had flirted with her. She was beautiful and bold, and Walter was vain.

  A few days later, Walter asked me, “Do you remember my secretary?”

  Do I? “Yes,” I said. “Why?”

  “Curlow sacked her the day after the party. Paid her two weeks’ salary and told her to leave immediately. No one knows why.”

  8

  The flat in Melina Court, St. John’s Wood, is empty when we see it for the first time. Almost all the occupants of the block have left London for the safety of the countryside. The rooms are large and bright. There are glass doors opening onto a terrace. Trees are almost close enough to touch. I will plant red geraniums in terra-cotta pots all along the black railings. There is sunshine everywhere, crowding through the windows, through every door. Everything seems gilded. I want to sit on the wooden floor and sing.

  Three weeks later, I am standing at the kitchen sink, washing china, glass, and cutlery and putting them away. The flat is No. 12; numbers divisible by three have always been lucky for me.

  We find some good curtains. The carpets from Walter’s flat in Vienna look wonderful. Our furniture, Mother’s French clock, and our silver from Vienna make the place seem luxurious.

  Things are looking up for us. Walter is doing very well at Mica, earning good money. Mr. Levy is delighted with my work at the Clarendon Hat Company and has increased my salary.

  * * *

  The train I took to Luton left at nine o’clock from St. Pancras. I was always late, arriving at the station just in time. The porters had got to know me and would keep the nearest carriage door open after the whistle had blown; they would shove me up into the carriage, roaring with laughter. They were always making bets that I would miss the train, but I never did.

  One morning, my friends the porters have almost had to throw me bodily onto the train. Breathless, I walk along past full compartments until I reach one with a space. I sit down, look up, and find myself opposite a commuter I have come to think of as Edward G. Robinson. He is well dressed, elegant, and solid, and I have noticed him often.

  That morning, as the train rattles out of St. Pancras, we begin to talk. His name is Meyer Woolfe. His father was a poor, Russian immigrant, a tailor who brought his children up to be hardworking, God-fearing, and honest. Meyer had married an East End milliner named Dora and started a wholesale business in the millinery trade. Eventually he went into retail, employing twenty-two girls to serve at the counters in his shop. He bought two factories, one in Whitechapel and one in Luton. Even with the war on, ladies were still wearing hats.

  While his business had prospered, his life had been hard in other ways. His only son had been killed in a direct hit on the famous Café de Paris in Piccadilly in 1941. His young daughter was suffering from leukemia.

  That evening, I sat in my favorite place, on the floor, with my head on Walter’s knees. “Can you imagine how the man must suffer?”

  After that, Mr. Woolfe and I often talked during the journey to Luton. Then one day, I was walking along the corridor when the door of a first-class compartment opened. Meyer beckoned me inside.

  “But I have a second-class ticket,” I protested.

  “Be my guest.” He laughed. “It’s much more comfortable here.”

  There were six deep seats covered in thick, dark gray velvet. Clean white linen squares embroidered with the letters LMS were fixed to their backs. The carriage was empty.

  “Now we can really talk,” said Mr. Woolfe, taking the window seat opposite me.

  I felt uncomfortable. I hardly knew him. Then he said, “I want you to come into business with me. The Reginald Hat Company needs someone like you.”

  “I have a job, thank you.”

  “With me, you’ll have much more than a job. You’ll have an important position in my company. Look,
Mrs. Ehrlich, come to my factory this lunchtime, pick out some wooden blocks, choose some hoods. By tomorrow, I’ll have them blocked. Take them home and make six model hats. I’d like to see your style.”

  A few days later, on the train, I said, “Your hats are ready, Mr. Woolfe.”

  “Could you bring them round to the house? We live in Finchley Road. I’d like my wife to see them. She’s a partner in the business—although she hasn’t done much since our son was killed.”

  “I am sorry, Mr. Woolfe, but I am not a midinette, arriving with boxes full of hats in Finchley Road. If you would like to see what I have done, please come to see me. I live in St. John’s Wood.”

  He came, he saw, I conquered. He took my hats back to Finchley Road, and the next morning offered me a directorship and a salary of one thousand pounds a year.

  “I’ll think it over,” I said.

  A few days later, he asked for my decision.

  “I am sorry, Mr. Woolfe, but I can’t accept your generous offer. You see, working at the Clarendon Hat Company has made me realize that I want to start my own business again.”

  He didn’t say a word, just looked out of the window until we reached Luton. I told Walter I had offended him.

  I didn’t see him the next day, nor the next. Then, the following Monday, he waited for me on the platform, took my arm, and led me to a first-class compartment. He offered me a partnership: thirty percent of the profits.

  I told him again that I would think about it. This time, I felt embarrassed, but it was a difficult decision to have to make. I explained to Walter. “Look, Mrs. Woolfe is a partner, even if she has stopped working. Mr. Woolfe’s brother holds no shares, but is a salesman and hopes to become a partner one day. This is a family business. One day, they might gang up on me. I am the outsider, and as the minority shareholder, I would have to do as they say. They might try to force me to sell, or drive me out by making me unhappy. I can’t let myself get into a situation like that.”