by Debbie Rix
Now from her seat on the cart, she waved enthusiastically at Magda, who reluctantly waved back. She did not like Erika, but it would not be sensible to make an enemy of her. Relieved that they did not stop to talk, but instead continued on up the lane, Magda crossed the road swiftly and ran into the woods on the other side. The autumnal sun filtering through the tall pine trees cast long shadows as she ran downhill, heading for the stream at the bottom of the valley. Slithering down the slope, she inhaled the sharp tang of the pine forest, her mind clouded by her brother’s words – ‘Hitler is evil’. Evil… what did he mean? How could the leader of their country be an evil man? Her teacher at school had taught them that Hitler was inspirational; that he had saved their country, and given everyone back their jobs and their pride. As for invading neighbouring countries – surely he was only taking back what was rightfully theirs?
At the bottom of the hill, as the ground levelled out, was a copse of deciduous trees – oak and ash – already turning golden with autumn colour, their fallen leaves forming drifts underfoot that crunched as she walked. In the centre of the copse, was a small clearing where she and Karl had often set up a camp when they were young. Karl had always been the leader – enthusiastically erecting the tent, and building a little fire on which they could cook their supper. As she helped him stir a pot of stew, or bake potatoes in the embers, he would guide and protect her. After supper they would lie under the stars and Karl would tell her stories. Later, when it was time to sleep, he would tuck her up in their little tent and they would lie next to one another, listening to the rustle of woodland animals outside. With him beside her, she felt no harm could ever befall her.
Sometimes, he would suggest she brought a friend, and the person she most often invited was Lotte Kalman, the doctor’s daughter. Lotte had long brown hair and bright blue eyes, the colour of forget-me-nots. The two girls shared a birthday, and had much in common – most especially their love of camping. Magda thought about their last camping trip, when she and Lotte had been around nine years old. It was just before Karl left for university in Heidelberg. He brought his guitar down from the house, and once they had cooked their supper, they had sat under the stars singing folk songs – not the nationalistic songs that were encouraged by the Hitler Youth, but Russian and Norwegian folk songs. The girls had loved that weekend. A few months later, on their tenth birthday, Magda was informed she was now old enough to join the Young Maidens. Excited at the prospect of further camping trips in the woods she had rushed to find Lotte, but found her crying in the corner of the playground.
‘What’s the matter Lotte?’ she had asked her friend, putting her arm around her.
‘I can’t join,’ whimpered Lotte.
‘What do you mean – join what?’
‘The Young Maidens…’
‘Why not?’ asked Magda, innocently.
‘Because I am… I am Jewish.’
On her first evening with the group Magda asked the youth leader, Fräulein Müller, why her friend Lotte – who had eyes as blue as Hitler’s – was not allowed to join the others. Magda remembered the expression on the Fräulein’s face to this day; it was a look of shock – revulsion even.
‘Because Jews are at the bottom of the racial scale of non-Aryans,’ Fräulein Müller replied, furiously. She spoke to Käthe about it that evening when she came to collect Magda. Waiting to go home, Magda had watched, guiltily, as her mother was harangued by the youth leader, her face contorted with rage. Her mother, by contrast, had looked upset, even a little frightened. After that Käthe no longer suggested she brought Lotte home to play, and often made excuses when Magda was invited to visit Lotte’s house. Then one day, the Kalmans simply disappeared. It was rumoured they had moved to Munich, and Magda imagined they must have chosen to go – perhaps they had family there, she told herself. But she remembered women muttering together in the village shop about how you couldn’t have a Jewish doctor.
‘It’s a disgrace,’ one woman had said. Magda thought this was odd, as Dr Kalman had always shown her great kindness, on one occasion sitting by her bed all night when had the measles.
‘They have been rounded up,’ Karl had said in his letter. What did that mean? Had Lotte and Dr Kalman been rounded up? She thought of her father herding cattle. Is that what had happened? She didn’t like to think of the Kalmans suffering in any way. Perhaps Lotte and her family had gone abroad? She hoped so – poor Lotte…
It had rained heavily the night before and the stream was full to bursting, bubbling over the stony bed, each rock crested with foam. Magda sat on the river bank, thinking of all the times she and Karl had come down together to throw stones into the stream, watching the ripples spread out across the water. They had fished here too, taking river trout back to Mutti to cook in lots of butter for their supper. Although much older than her, Karl was her best friend – the one person, apart from her father and mother, she admired and trusted completely. But now it seemed something had happened to him since he had moved to England. Perhaps they had imprisoned him and forced him to write these terrible things to her. Might that be the reason he had told such lies? Her teacher at school had explained how, under Herr Hitler, Germany was becoming the most successful economy in Europe. Other countries, he had told them, envied that success. Had the English been so envious that they had imprisoned her brother and forced him to write these lies against his will? The thought of her beloved brother locked in a dark, dank prison cell brought tears to her eyes and she ran hurriedly back up the hill, through the pine forest, back to the farm.
In the kitchen, Käthe was serving supper.
‘Ah Magda… good, you’re here. Where did you go in such a hurry?’
‘Just for a walk,’ Magda said, washing her hands at the kitchen sink.
Her text book, notebook and pens had been tidied away by her mother and lay on the dresser.
‘You’ve not started your project yet,’ Käthe said, ladling rabbit stew and potato dumplings onto Magda’s plate.
‘I’ll do it later,’ said Magda.
‘How is Karl? Can I read his letter?’
‘No!’ Magda said, abruptly, remembering Karl’s instructions that she should ‘Say nothing to anyone.’
‘Oh, why not?’ her mother asked.
‘He said he would write to you; this letter was just for me.’
‘I see,’ said Käthe, her eyes betraying the hurt she felt. ‘Well at least you can tell us his news,’ she said, hopefully.
Magda stabbed a piece of rabbit with her fork but felt unable to eat. The memory of the rabbit’s head oozing blood on the draining board made her gag. ‘We have their blood on our hands…’
She stood abruptly, knocking her chair to the ground and ran from the table and outside to the yard, where she vomited violently.
Later, resting in bed, feeling her mother’s cool hands stroking her forehead, she brooded over Karl’s letter.
‘Mutti,’ she said, ‘why did Lotte and Doctor Kalman leave the village?’
‘What an odd question,’ her mother said. ‘What makes you ask that now?’
‘I just wondered. They left so suddenly. I liked Lotte.’
‘Yes… well… they went to be with their own people. It was better that way.’
‘So they are with their friends and family?’ asked Magda, hopefully.
‘Yes… now stop worrying about silly things and tell me – was there something in Karl’s letter that has upset you?’
Magda’s eyes filled with tears, but she blinked them away and turned over in bed to face the wall.
Her mother stroked her hair.
‘Well, maybe you’ll tell me tomorrow. Try to sleep now.’
Käthe blew out the oil lamp and closed the pine door with a click.
Chapter Three
Keswick, The Lake District
September 1939
The train journey from Newcastle to the small Lakeland town of Keswick would take most of the day. Imogen stood beneath the v
aulted ceiling of Newcastle station saying her farewells to her parents, alongside her best friend Joy Carr. The two girls had met, aged eleven, on their first day at Newcastle Girls’ High School. Joy’s first words to Imogen had sealed their relationship forever.
‘Are you naughty?’
‘Yes,’ said Imogen, uncertainly. ‘At least I think so.’
‘Excellent,’ Joy had said, disarmingly. ‘You and I are going to be the best of friends.’
Now, standing on the windswept station platform, Joy jiggled with excitement as she said a cheery goodbye to her parents. Imogen by contrast was overcome with nerves, her stomach jittering with butterflies.
‘You will remember to write, won’t you?’ Imogen’s mother insisted, holding onto her stylish rust-coloured felt hat, as a gust of wind blew through the station.
‘Of course, Mummy.’
Imogen could tell that her mother was doing her best to be brave and she was determined to reciprocate. But she could feel her eyes smarting with tears, her throat aching as she swallowed back the sadness.
‘And don’t get into too much mischief,’ her father added.
‘No Daddy…’
‘Not much chance of that,’ her mother said, smiling, tears brimming in her eyes. ‘Come here darling.’
She held Imogen to her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe.
‘I love you,’ Imogen whispered into her mother’s neck.
‘I love you too,’ Rose replied.
All around them children were wishing their families goodbye. Amidst the tears and last minute instructions, the guard blew his whistle. The train expelled a great draught of steam from its funnel.
‘Quick,’ Rose said. ‘Get on… you don’t want to miss it.’
Imogen’s father efficiently stowed their luggage in the overhead rack.
‘Don’t speak to strangers,’ he instructed as he kissed them both goodbye on the tops of their heads.
Then he was gone, the door slamming behind him. On the platform Rose was flapping her hands, trying to say something, but Imogen couldn’t hear her. She finally dropped the window down just in time to hear her mother shouting, ‘open the window’. The girls waved bravely at their parents, as the train drew out of the bustling, dark station and into the sunlight as it crossed the glistening Tyne.
The train had been specially commissioned, and was filled with children from a variety of schools – some as young as four or five years old. Imogen and Joy shared their carriage with three very young children who, judging by their uncanny likeness to one another, were all from the same family. The little trio consisted of two boys who wore matching caps and long socks that sagged around their ankles and a little girl with blonde curls peeking out beneath her blue beret. They sat snuggled up against one another, with labels pinned to their woollen coats, their belongings wrapped in cream cotton bags, looking utterly forlorn and lost, their faces smeared with tears, their noses running.
Imogen removed a handkerchief from her pocket and offered it to the eldest boy, who stared at it blankly. So she took the handkerchief and one by one wiped their faces.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, smiling encouragingly. ‘Joy and I will look after you… won’t we?’ She nudged her friend who had already opened the small picnic hamper her mother had given her and was inspecting its contents.
‘Sure,’ Joy said cheerfully, whilst secretly wishing her friend had not volunteered their services. This was an adventure and she was determined to enjoy it, not to play nursemaid to a posse of small children.
Once they were out in the countryside, the train chugging contentedly along, the little children drifted off to sleep. Imogen and Joy, relieved – at least temporarily – of babysitting duties, began to enjoy themselves. They shared their packed lunches and planned the fun they would have away from home.
‘It’s going to be terrific,’ Joy said, cramming a potted meat sandwich into her mouth. ‘I’ll be away from my mother and her strict bedtimes. School will be chaotic – probably with no homework either. It will be like being on holiday. Oooh you lucky thing, you’ve got cake!’
Imogen broke her piece of cake in two and handed one half to Joy.
‘Thanks,’ Joy said, stuffing it into her mouth. ‘Your mother’s cakes are always the best.’
The youngest child – a boy with liquid dark brown eyes – woke up and gazed longingly at Imogen’s piece of cake. She halved it once again and handed it to him.
‘Have you got any lunch?’ she asked him.
He shook his head mournfully. Imogen nudged Joy.
‘Give them one of your sandwiches,’ she said.
‘Must I?’ asked Joy.
‘Don’t be so mean,’ said Imogen as she laid out a white napkin supplied by her mother with a selection of sandwiches and a small piece of cake for each of the children.
As the little ones ate, the train rattled across the bleak brown landscape of the Pennines, stopping at Carlisle station, where they were all herded onto a branch line train called ‘The Merry Carlisle’. Now heading south, the train climbed over moorland, before clattering downhill through the little station of Troutbeck, and on past the granite quarries, gorging smoke up into the atmosphere. As the hills of the Lake District rose up on either side of the line, the train criss-crossed gurgling rivers before arriving finally at Keswick station late in the afternoon.
Climbing out of the train, Imogen admired the pretty Victorian station buildings and the distant grey mountains – their summits already covered with a sprinkling of snow. She and Joy helped the little children out of the carriage and along with hundreds of others, they were ushered into the ticket office, where a tall woman wearing a dark blue suit and grey trilby hat stood behind a table.
‘Evacuees – queue here please.’
The little boy with liquid brown eyes looked up, bewildered, at Imogen.
‘That’s you,’ she said, gently. ‘Queue up here, and give your name when they ask you.’
Once they had all been ticked off someone’s list, they were herded onto buses and driven into town. As a rain-sodden mist descended, the younger children, exhausted from the journey and frightened at the unfamiliarity of it all, began to cry. As Imogen gazed out of the rain-spattered bus at the dark stone buildings of Keswick, she clutched at Joy’s hand, still sticky from cake. ‘We will be all right, won’t we?’ she whispered.
Arriving at a church hall, they were allocated, in alphabetical order, to local families. To their horror, Joy Carr and Imogen Mitchell were to be sent to opposite ends of the town.
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Joy, indignantly. ‘We’re not going to be together.’
‘I know,’ said Imogen, tears welling up. ‘I thought at least we’d be in the same house and could help one other. I’m going to be with Helen!’
‘Poor you!’ said Joy. ‘She’s an awful wet… and such a goody-two-shoes.’
‘I know!’ said Imogen. ‘But what about you – where are you going to live?’
‘I’m with some family called the Metcalfe’s,’ said Joy, gloomily. ‘Mrs Metcalfe is over there, crying. I hope that’s not my fault! I’m not that bad am I?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Imogen, encouragingly.
‘And not only that,’ Joy continued. ‘I’m sharing with that poisonous creep Millicent Clark. I hate her!’
‘Oh Joy!’ said Imogen. She looked around the hall searching for the little children they’d shared the journey with. A kindly looking woman with red hair was kneeling down, talking to the eldest boy, whilst holding the hand of the little blonde girl, who sucked her thumb, sleepily, and leant gratefully against the woman’s shoulder. ‘At least they’ll be all right,’ Imogen thought. ‘Well, maybe it won’t be so bad,’ she said encouragingly to Joy. ‘I’m sure Millicent must have a good side, and although Helen is a bit wet, she’s not an altogether bad person.’
Imogen and her housemate Helen were introduced to their new landlady, Mrs Latimer. She was grey-ha
ired, with soft peachy skin, beautifully manicured hands and kind grey eyes. She smiled sweetly at her two charges.
‘Well girls,’ she said, ‘I’m sure we’ll all get along famously. Do you want to come with me?’
Imogen waved a forlorn goodbye to Joy who was standing sullenly next to Millicent and the weeping Mrs Metcalfe, and climbed into Mrs Latimer’s battered Austin Seven.
The Latimers’ house stood in a commanding position overlooking the town. Built at the turn of the century it was a detached pebble-dashed house, painted off-white, the window frames and front door picked out in dove grey, topped by a dark slate grey roof. There was a tidy front garden with well-clipped shrubs and hedges. It reminded Imogen of her grandmother’s house in Aberdeenshire.
The room she was to share with Helen was at the back of the house. Single beds stood on either side of the window, beneath which was a small writing table and chair.
‘This was my boys’ room,’ Mrs Latimer said, as she showed the girls around. ‘They’re both away now. They’ve already joined up, so the room was sitting empty, and I thought it would be nice to have some company.’
This explained the ‘masculine’ decoration, Imogen thought, as she noted the dark blue curtains and matching bedcovers.
‘Come down, as soon as you’re settled,’ Mrs Latimer said. ‘And I’ll show you the view.’