Ruth made the children as comfortable as she could in Herbert’s second bedroom. It was not large, but it had a double bed in it, and by moving this against the wall, she was able to make space for some pillows on the floor beside it. The twins and Inge she tucked into the big bed, and Laura she settled on the pillows.
“Where will you sleep, Mutti?” asked Laura anxiously.
“I’ll be on the sofa in the sitting room,” replied her mother, “just across the passage. If you need me in the night, you only have to call.”
Once the children were settled, Ruth returned to the living room. Herbert was sitting at the table, the remains of his meal in front of him.
“They seem well-behaved children,” he remarked. “Have they gone to sleep?”
“They will very shortly,” answered Ruth. “They’ve had a long day, and a very frightening few days before it. They can feel safe here.” She sat down at the table opposite him. “I’m sorry we had to come, Herbert. I know it’s inconvenient to you, but we had nowhere else to go. The dear people who took us in had no room for us either, and they had their own problems.”
“Don’t we all!” said Herbert testily. “You shouldn’t have rung me at the office, Ruth.”
Ruth was startled at his sudden vehemence. “I’m sorry, Herbert, I didn’t know what else to do. Frau Schultz refused to let us stay, and I preferred not to stand in the street with the children until you came home.”
Herbert shuddered. “No, that would have been worse. One can’t afford to have attention drawn to one these days.”
“Has there been trouble here, too?” asked Ruth.
“My dear Ruth, there has been trouble everywhere. Even those of us who are fully assimilated are being watched. I am lucky to keep my place at the office. It’s only because the senior partner is Jewish that I have not been replaced. That is why I cannot afford to draw attention to myself by receiving private phone calls in office hours.”
“I see. Well, I’m sorry, Herbert. I won’t phone again. I am sure Kurt will be home soon, and then we can move away and try and start again.”
Ruth was sure of no such thing, but she knew Herbert had to get used to the idea of housing his brother’s family indefinitely. He was a bachelor, set in his ways and she could quite understand how he shuddered at such an invasion. He had her sympathy, but it was not going to stop her doing what was best for her children.
“In the meantime,” she continued, “I can look after you as well. When does Frau Schultz come? I don’t want to get in her way.”
“She won’t come again until Friday,” Herbert replied. He got up from the table and picking up his newspaper, carried it to his chair. It was a firm indication that the conversation was over, and that he expected Ruth to clear away the meal.
The rest of the evening was passed in silence. Once the dishes were done, Ruth went into the bathroom and washed the children’s clothes. Tomorrow she would have to set about finding them some more. At last Herbert bid her goodnight and she was able to settle herself down on the sofa, trying to get comfortable with the pillow and the blanket he had found for her. Despite feeling exhausted by the events of the day, and with her shoulder and her ankle both aching abominably, it was a long time before she slept.
When Herbert had left for work the next day, Ruth set about the housekeeping. Frau Schultz had clearly been doing the minimum she could get away with, and the state of the kitchen left a lot to be desired. First, however, she had to occupy the children. Herbert had found them each a notepad, the sort he used in his office, and provided a pencil for each from his desk, so Ruth sat them round the table in the living room with some schoolwork. Laura and Inge each had a page of sums to do. The twins joined the dots she had drawn on the page to form letters.
When the front door opened and Frau Schultz made her appearance, every one of them was fully occupied.
“Good morning, Frau Schultz,” said Ruth, surprise in her voice. “I didn’t think you came to Herr Friedman today.”
The old woman ignored the remark and pushed her way into the kitchen, demanding, “What do you think you are doing in my kitchen?”
“Cleaning it,” replied Ruth succinctly. “It’s dirty.”
“Herr Friedman doesn’t complain.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t,” agreed Ruth, “but it doesn’t alter the fact that it needs a good clean.”
“In which case, I’ll leave you to clean it,” replied Frau Schultz. “You can tell Herr Friedman I’m not working for him while the place is a Jewish orphanage. If he wants me back, he can come and find me. And you can tell him he owes me a week’s wages, which I’ll come and collect on Saturday.” With that, she turned abruptly and left the apartment, slamming the front door behind her.
Ruth sighed. Now Herbert had lost his housekeeper, not that she deserved that name if the grime round the gas stove and the state of the floor were anything to go by; but Ruth could only hope that she could be persuaded back when she and the children had moved out.
There was little food in the larder, and just one plate of cold meat in the tiny refrigerator that stood in a corner of the kitchen. Certainly not enough to feed them all, so when the kitchen was clean, Ruth gathered up the children, and with a little of her carefully hoarded money in her purse set out to buy a few basic groceries. The children’s clothes would have to wait a little longer.
It was a glorious summer’s day, and as they emerged from the apartment building Ruth felt the sun on her face, and for the first time in days her spirits lifted. They were in an area where no one knew them; for a while they would have the luxury of not being branded Jews. Gathering the children round her, she made her way down the street to the shops she had seen when they arrived. There was no kosher butcher of course, but she soon found a grocer’s where she could buy bread and cheese, some eggs, potatoes, flour and butter. She had left the children outside the shop in charge of Laura.
She found herself in a shop very like her own, though it was clearly not Jewish, with a flitch of bacon hanging up behind the counter. Ruth averted her eyes, and gave her attention to the shopkeeper, a large, comfortable-looking woman with grey hair scraped back into a bun. Her eyes, a faded blue, peered at her customer from a wealth of wrinkles, and she smiled.
“Good morning,” she said, “isn’t it a beautiful one?”
“Good morning,” Ruth replied, returning the smile. “It is indeed.”
“What I can I get you?”
Ruth went through her list, and the woman placed the packages on the counter. As Ruth counted the money from her purse, the woman said casually, “I haven’t seen you round here before. Have you just moved in to the area?”
“No.” Ruth was immediately on her guard. “No, we are just visiting family. Only here for a few days, I’m afraid. Thank you.” She picked up her purchases and put them into the shopping bag she’d found in Herbert’s kitchen. “I think I’ll take the children to the gardens on our way home.”
The woman glanced out of the window to where the children were waiting patiently on the pavement. “They’ll enjoy that,” she said. “Lovely looking children, especially the little girl… such pretty blond hair.”
“Indeed. Thank you.” Ruth forced a smile and left the shop. As she did so she made way for another customer to enter, and saw with some dismay that it was Frau Schultz. The woman glared at her, pushed roughly past her into the shop, and said to the shopkeeper, “Well, Frau Schneider, I see you met the Jewish orphanage.”
The door swung closed on her malice, and Ruth hurried the children away, urging them along the road, back towards the apartment.
“Mutti, you said we could play in the gardens on our way home,” Inge said, looking longingly across the road at the open iron gates that gave onto the park.
“Not just now,” Ruth replied. “We have to go home and eat some lunch first, and the twins need their nap afterwards. Then perhaps we’ll go.”
“That’s not fair,” Inge wailed. “You said we could go.” She dragged her feet as her mother hurried her along the pavement. “You promised, Mutti, I want to play on the swings.”
“I didn’t promise,” snapped Ruth. “I said we might go, and we still might, but not if you make a fuss now. Come along, it’s time for lunch.”
The little group trailed back up the stairs to Herbert’s flat. Once inside, Ruth locked the door and put the bolt across. She didn’t want Frau Schultz to think she could walk in whenever she chose. Laura returned to her station by the window. She too was disappointed that they weren’t going to spend some time in the gardens. She had been looking forward to the freedom of playing in the sunshine. She didn’t know why her mother had changed her mind, but she knew that moaning like Inge wouldn’t make her change it back again, so she sat down with the boys and played pat-a-cake with them while her mother put some food on the table.Ruth had been dismayed as she heard Frau Schultz’s comment. Their anonymity had been lost; they were now marked as Jews in this area as well. Her instinct had been to get the children back to the safety of Herbert’s flat as soon as possible, but now as she gave them their lunch she looked at their pale faces and anger stirred again. Why shouldn’t her children play in the gardens, run among the trees, slide down the slide? Why should she hide them in this dreary apartment on a glorious summer’s day, when other children were outside with sun on their faces?
“When the boys have had a nap, we’ll go to the park,” she said as she cleared the plates away. “You should rest, too, Inge. Lie on the bed for half an hour, and then we’ll go out.”
*
Frau Schultz and Frau Schneider watched through the shop window as Ruth gathered up her children and led them back along the street.
“What did you mean… Jewish orphanage?” asked Frau Schneider as the little family disappeared from view.
“Turned up on Herr Friedman’s doorstep yesterday afternoon, didn’t they!” replied Frau Schultz. “Demanding to come in. Said she was his sister-in-law. Said she had nowhere else to go.”
Frau Schneider’s eyes were wide. “Did you let them in?”
“Had to, didn’t I? She rang him at his office, and he said they could stay. Had to, didn’t want a rabble like that standing on his doorstep, did he?”
“You wouldn’t know they were Jews,” Frau Schneider remarked. “The little girl, anyway, lovely fair hair and blue eyes.”
“Yes, that’s what’s so awful,” agreed Frau Schultz. “You could be fooled into thinking they were true Germans!”
“But you work for Herr Friedman,” pointed out her friend, “and he’s a Jew.”
“Not anymore I don’t,” snapped Frau Schultz. “Went in this morning to see if I could be of help, and found that woman cleaning my kitchen. Told me it was dirty! Dirty! That’s the word I’d use for them. Dirty Jews. I told her, I said if that’s what she thought she could tell Herr Friedman that I wasn’t working there anymore and I’d collect my money on Saturday.”
“But I suppose Herr Friedman isn’t a proper Jew,” Frau Schneider said thoughtfully. “I mean, he doesn’t go to the synagogue on Saturdays or anything. If you hadn’t said, I wouldn’t have known he was a Jew either.”
“A Jew is a Jew is a Jew,” said Frau Schultz judiciously. “I’ll be more choosy who I work for in the future, I can tell you.”
“You might not be able to find another job that easy,” pointed out her friend.
Frau Schultz knew that there was a lot of truth in that, and it was not comforting. “That’s what I mean,” she snarled. “Them Jews are keeping good honest Germans out of work. Taking all the jobs.”
“Will they be staying with him long?” wondered Frau Schneider, ignoring this tirade. “There can’t be much room for them all in that apartment.”
“More room than we’ve got,” Frau Schultz snapped. “I live in one room and share a bathroom. You have only two rooms above your shop for you and Herr Schneider. What does a single man need with all the space he has?”
“Well, he hasn’t much space now,” Frau Schneider laughed. “Poor man can’t know what’s hit him with those four kids descending on him! Now,” she smiled, “what can I get you today?”
Frau Schultz made her purchases and then walked back to the tiny room she rented above the tobacconist shop in the next street. As she passed the gardens she glanced in, but there was no sign of the Jewish children playing there. She smiled grimly. That woman must have read the notice that had been placed there only last week. Jüden Verboten! No Jews Allowed! More and more, Jews were being made to understand their place. Herr Hitler was right, they were at the root of all Germany’s problems. Get rid of the Jews and there would be plenty of jobs, plenty of houses, plenty of money for ordinary Germans like herself. The German people could reclaim their own country and make it strong again. Widows, like herself, wouldn’t have to struggle to make a living.
When she had first gone to work for Herr Friedman, Eva Schultz had not known that he was a Jew. He was a man who kept himself to himself; a quiet man who went nowhere but his office and hardly knew his neighbours. She was well pleased with the work, it was in no way arduous. She went in three days a week, to clean, to do the laundry and to prepare Herr Friedman’s evening meals. One meal she would leave in the oven for that night, and another, cold, on a plate in his refrigerator for the next day. Frau Schultz envied him that refrigerator. Fancy a man on his own having such a luxury. However, he paid well, and left money for her to do the shopping. That was a bonus. It was easy enough to buy some extra slices of meat, a few more eggs, another small piece of cheese, charging it up to him. He had little idea of the price of food and simply left her some money for the housekeeping each week. She was careful to leave him the change each week, amounts that varied slightly, so that he didn’t ask any awkward questions. Then she had discovered that he was Jewish. Snooping among his papers one day, she read a letter he’d received from his brother about the family going to Vienna for a bar mitzvah. Bar mitzvah! Herr Friedman was a Jew! She was working for a Jew. After that she stole from him more regularly and without compunction. She didn’t like the idea of working for a Jew, but it was worth putting in the minimal amount of time she gave to cleaning his apartment, to enable her to help herself to the extras to which she felt she was entitled. The arrival of his sister-in-law with her hordes had now put paid to that. It was clear that woman had already realised what she was up to, and no doubt she would tell Herr Friedman when he got home this evening… and her job really would be gone. Another example of Jews taking the bread from the mouths of a good, honest German.
Back in her room, Eva dumped her shopping onto the table. She filled the kettle from the single, cold-water tap over the basin in the corner and set it to boil on the gas ring that stood beside it. Kicking off her shoes, she flopped into the one easy chair that stood in front of the gas fire. Behind her was an alcove, curtained to conceal her bed. She looked round her, taking in again the dreariness of her accommodation. She had lived here for five years now, ever since her husband, Ernst, had been killed in an accident on the building site where he had worked as a labourer. The chain of a hoist, lifting a pallet of bricks to the first-floor scaffolding, had snapped and the bricks had fallen on Ernst, killing him instantly. An accident, a dreadful accident, the building firm had said. Very sad… their condolences to the grieving widow. Ernst had had no pension, they had had no savings, and despite the whip-round organised by his mates, Eva Shultz had found herself almost destitute. She had to move out of the small apartment they rented, and had found this dismal room only through the good offices of one of Ernst’s workmates, whose sister was married to the tobacconist in the shop below. The whip-round had provided her with the first month’s rent and then she had had to find some work to support herself, and find it quickly. It was a card in the tobacconist’s window that caught her eye. Housekeeper wanted for quiet, single gentleman. Eva applied, got the job and began working for Herbert Friedman.
As she drank the weak coffee she had made, Eva thought now about the family who had arrived so unexpectedly. Clearly they were in some sort of trouble, or they wouldn’t have descended on Herbert so suddenly. Where was the husband, she wondered, the one who was Herbert’s brother? Little had been said during the phone conversation she had overheard, but it was clear that they had nowhere else to go. The idea that they, too, had been turned out of their home gave Eva a certain satisfaction, and it was that and the conversation she’d had with Frau Schneider in the shop that had given her the glimmerings of an idea. As she sipped her coffee, she wondered if it might work, and then shivered at her own temerity. She would ponder it, she decided, look into how it could be done. The seed was sown, and as she got to her feet to put away her meagre provisions, the last she would buy with Herbert Friedman’s money, she thought about his refrigerator, and smiled.
*
Ruth was as good as her word, and when the twins awoke from their nap, she took the children down the stairs and across the road to the gardens opposite. The wrought-iron gates stood wide and welcoming, but the newly painted sign mounted on a pole just inside made her pause.
No Jews allowed!
Of the children, only Laura could read the words, and she glanced anxiously at her mother. Ruth gave her a reassuring smile, marched determinedly through the gate and took the path that led to the children’s playground. This was surrounded by a low fence, with another, more succinct sign on its gate. No Jews. Ignoring it, Ruth pushed open the gate and let the children run in. Inge headed straight for the slide, and the twins ran happily across to the sandpit where two small girls were digging a sand castle. Laura followed the boys, while Ruth called to Inge to hold tight as she climbed the steps to the top of the slide.
A nursemaid, with a pram beside her, was sitting on a bench, uninterestedly watching the little girls in the sandpit. She hardly noticed the twin boys and their elder sister who joined them. The boys had nothing to dig with except their hands, but they set to work piling sand into a heap for their castle, laughing and chatting to each other as they did so. Her charges watched for a moment, pausing in their own efforts.
“Would you like to help?” Laura asked the little girls. “Hansi and Peter would love you to help them.”
The elder of the two girls, aged about six, nodded shyly, and they both edged nearer to the twins.
“What’s your name?” Laura asked the older sister.
“Angela,” replied the girl. “Come on, Erna, come and help.”
The five children played together. The boys digging energetically with their hands, the girls filling their bucket, and Laura upending it carefully to make turrets for the castle.
Inge had moved from the slide to the swings, and Ruth, seeing that Laura was looking after the twins, went across and pushed Inge, so that she squealed with delight as she sailed up into the air. All the children were laughing and shouting with pleasure as they played together in the sunshine. The nursemaid was now dozing on her bench in the heat of the afternoon sun, and the baby lay waving its arms, batting the rattles that were strung across the pram. Having had her fill of swinging, Inge jumped off and ran across to the sandpit to see what the others were doing. Ruth followed her and together they admired the splendid castle that now stood in the middle, a turret on each corner and a feather as a flag.
“No Jews allowed!”
The harsh voice behind them made her jump and Ruth spun round to see a uniformed park keeper, accompanied by Frau Schultz.
“I beg your pardon?” Ruth replied.
“No Jews allowed. Can’t you read?”
“The notice is on both gates,” Frau Schultz put in sweetly. “I’d have thought you’d have seen it,” adding with venom, “or are you blind… as well?”
The nursemaid started up from the bench, one hand grasping the pram as if it might escape her, the other beckoning frantically to the two little girls in the sandpit.
“Angela, Erna, come away at once!” As the surprised girls moved towards her, she grabbed Erna by the hand, and called Angela again. “Come away, Angela. Come away from those dirty children. Whatever would your mother say?”
She pulled the children away, and, pushing the pram, hurried off down the path. As she went, Ruth heard the younger girl pipe, “Nanny, what’s a Jew?” If she gave one, the nursemaid’s answer was lost as she sped her charges away.
“Out!” The park keeper was pointing at the gate. “Out of here, out of the gardens, and don’t come back or I’ll call the law.”
“Come along, children,” Ruth said quietly. “We must go home now.” She took the twins by the hand, and, edging the girls in front of her, made her way to the gate.
“Trouble is,” she heard the park keeper saying, “you wouldn’t know they was Jews, would you? Not from the look of them.”
“That’s why you have to be so vigilant,” replied Frau Schultz. “But don’t worry, Herr Maus, I won’t report you… this time.”
“Vile woman,” murmured Ruth under her breath. “Vile and evil woman!”
“What did you say, Mutti?” asked Inge.
“Vile and evil woman! Vile and evil woman!” chanted the twins, delighted with the words.
Ruth jerked them to a halt, so roughly that they cried out. “Be quiet!” she admonished. “Be quiet and don’t speak again until we get home, or I’ll take a wooden spoon to you!”
As they crossed the road to the apartment block, Ruth risked a glance back over her shoulder. The park keeper had moved away, but Frau Schultz still stood by the sandpit, watching them leave. She was too far away to see the expression on her face, but the set of her head and shoulders shouted “triumph” as loudly as if she had actually called after them.
She must have heard me say that I’d take the children there, thought Ruth, as she hurried them up the stairs to Herbert’s apartment. She must have been watching, so that she could report us.
Herbert listened in horror to the events of the day when Ruth related them to him that evening.
“How could you have been so stupid?” he raged at her. “How could you have drawn such attention to yourselves? Can’t you read, you stupid woman? Didn’t you see the sign that says ‘No Jews’?”
“I saw it,” Ruth replied, trying to keep her own anger in check. “I saw it, but who was to know round here that we are Jews?”
“Frau Schultz!” Herbert almost shrieked. “As you discovered.”
“Well, we won’t go again,” sighed Ruth.
“You’d better not!” Herbert snapped. “You’ll be watched now,” he went on bitterly. “You’ll be watched, I’ll be watched, we’ll all be watched from now on. You should have gone to your mother, that’s where you should have gone. You should have gone to your mother, not come here with your brood.”
“I came here, because Kurt… your brother, Kurt… told me to,” hissed Ruth. “It is here he will come looking for us. Here he will come looking for his brood. They’re your brother’s children, Herbert. Your nieces and nephews. They’re family. I am his wife. We’re family.”
“Yes, yes,” Herbert replied testily, “but family is no protection these days.”
“You mean we’ve put you in danger, Herbert, by coming here. Is that what you mean?”
“No, no.” Herbert waved a placatory hand. “But all Jews are in some sort of danger these days, especially…” he paused, trying to choose the right words, “…especially practising Jews. They are noted. I haven’t been to the synagogue for years. I no longer follow the dietary requirements. I am not a Jew in any real sense. I’m German through and through, the fact that I had Jewish parents is beyond my control.”
“Beyond your control,” agreed Ruth, “but true none the less. As far as the authorities are concerned you’re a Jew. The new laws apply to you as they do to the rest of us.”
Ruth could see Herbert was about to argue, and she was too tired. “Never mind,” she sighed, “let’s not argue now. Come to the table, I’ve made dinner for you.”
Herbert was happy enough to do as he was bid. The food, though plain, was a great improvement on what Frau Schultz had been in the habit of leaving him, and he found himself looking forward to the meal that would be waiting for him when he got home.
Laura’s Diary
24th July 1937
We have come to stay with Uncle Herbert in Munich. He wasn’t very pleased to see us and I don’t like it here. We are all sleeping in one room, except for Mutti and she’s got to sleep on the sofa in the living room. I wish we could go home again, but I know we can’t. I wish Papa was here. Uncle Herbert is his brother, but he’s not like him. Papa is always kind, but Uncle Herbert is always cross. He has a cross voice and a cross face and it’s nice when he goes to his office.
Laura paused, chewing her pencil thoughtfully, and then wrote,
25th July 1937
We can’t go out like we did at home, there is nowhere to play. Mutti took us to the park. Hansi and Peter played in the sandpit. I helped them. We made a castle with two girls. A man came and told us to leave. He said Jews weren’t allowed to play in the park. The nasty lady who was here when we got here was with him. She was smiling, but she was horrible.
Laura stopped writing and looked at what she had written in the notebook Mutti had found for her. Mutti had suggested she write a story. Laura had always loved writing stories and had done so as long as she could remember. At school the teachers used to encourage her, especially Fräulein Lederman, but that was until everything changed, when Fräulein Lederman had to leave and Fräulein Karhausen took her place. From then on Laura was left out. Oh, not from the actual classroom, just from the activities that went on inside it. She and two other Jewish children, Olga and Elfriede, were made to sit at the back… where they were ignored. Fräulein Karhausen never asked them to provide answers in class, even when nobody else could; she never looked at the work they produced, never corrected it, no stars were given, indeed their names weren’t even on the star chart. But Laura had continued writing. She began to keep a diary, which she wrote every evening when she had finished her homework, homework that was required but never looked at. Papa had given her a beautiful notebook in which to write her diary, but that, like everything else she owned, had been destroyed in the fire. All her thoughts and ideas had vanished in the smoke that billowed from the window into the night sky.
Ruth had not suggested that Laura start her diary again, she thought it would be unhealthy to keep a record of the dreadful things that had happened. They were best forgotten as soon as possible, so that the slithering skein of life could be grasped once more, and some sort of normality could be re-established.
“Why don’t you write a story?” she suggested. “One you could read to the twins. They always love your stories.” It was true, Hansi and Peter did always love her stories, begging her for new ones, but today there were no stories in her head, only the events of the last few days, churning and bubbling like an over-boiling saucepan. The men coming to the apartment. Papa being arrested. The fire. Staying with the Meyers. Finding the box. Suddenly their lives had been turned upside down, and Laura felt that if she didn’t write it all down, set it in some sort of order in her mind, it would overwhelm her and she would sink under its weight. Mutti needed her help. She, Laura, was almost eleven, after all. She must be strong and help Mutti, especially with the twins. They had always been her beloved brothers. She loved Inge, of course she did, but Peter and Hansi… she would be strong for them. They were too young to understand what was happening.
“When’s Papa coming?” Hansi had suddenly asked as he was being got ready for bed.
“Will he be here soon?” Peter had chimed in, finishing as he so often did his twin’s thought.
“Soon,” his mother had soothed, but Laura knew that she had lied. She didn’t know when and was only trying to comfort the little boys.
I should start this diary from the night of the fire, Laura thought now, and crossing out what she had written, began again.
19th July 1937
They took Papa away and we haven’t seen him since…
On the first Friday evening after their arrival at Herbert’s, Ruth had set the table for the Sabbath evening meal, carefully ironing the only white linen tablecloth she could find, before washing and laying out the silver and china she had discovered packed away in the sideboard. She polished two rather tarnished candlesticks, which still had the remnants of candles stuck into them, and set them in the middle of the table. Murmuring the familiar prayers, she lit them, and waited for Herbert to come home. As the children waited for him, seated round the table, they too seemed to be soothed by the familiar ritual of Friday evening. The meal would start when the man of the house, normally Kurt, but in this case Herbert, came home, but this evening Herbert did not come home. Kurt would have been to the synagogue, but Ruth knew that was the last place Herbert would be. She knew there was a synagogue not that far away, for she had discussed it with her brother-in-law. But when she had suggested she might take the children there on Saturday morning he had been adamant.
“It would be madness to go,” Herbert had stated. “I forbid you to go! Do you want to draw even more attention to your children? I forbid you to go.”
No, wherever Herbert was, he would not be at the synagogue this evening. Eventually she said the prayers herself and served the meal.
When the children were safely in bed Ruth sat in the living room, the table uncleared, and waited. At last she heard Herbert’s key in the lock, and as she turned to greet him saw the shock at what he saw before him register on his face.
“What’s all this mess?” he demanded, looking at the remains of the meal on the table.
“It’s your supper, Herbert,” she replied quietly. “It’s the Sabbath.”
“Well, I don’t want it!” he snapped. “You can clear it away.” When she hesitated he rounded on her. “You may not work on the Sabbath in your own home, Ruth,” he growled, “but you do in mine. I have no intention of sitting looking at this stuff. Put it in the kitchen. I don’t want it. I’ve eaten.”
“If you’d said you were going out, I wouldn’t have cooked dinner for you.” Ruth forced herself to speak mildly, though she could feel the anger welling up inside her.
“Oh? So now I have to account to you for my movements, do I?”
“Of course not,” Ruth replied, “but it seems a pity to waste food when we have so little of it.”
Herbert suddenly seemed to sag, and dropping into his chair said, “Just put it in the kitchen, Ruth, you can leave the washing-up until tomorrow evening if you must.”
Accepting this compromise, Ruth got up. After all, with the changed state of things, there was no way she could do no work on the Sabbath. She cleared the table, stacking the dishes neatly beside the kitchen sink, which was where Frau Schultz saw them the next morning when she called to demand her money.
“And she had the audacity to call my kitchen dirty,” she said to Frau Schneider, as she recounted her visit. “Dirty crockery and cutlery, in heaps by the sink. Nasty Jewish food. Beginning to smell in this heat, I can tell you.” She sniffed as if the smell was still in her nostrils. “No German would live in a pigsty like that.”
“No, indeed.” Frau Schneider nodded judiciously, even as she thought of the squalid state of her own kitchen upstairs where no one had washed a plate for days. “Just the Jews.”
Over the next few days Ruth slipped into a routine of cooking and cleaning for Herbert, for Frau Schultz, true to her word, and much to Ruth’s relief, did not reappear. Ruth spent time with her children, making them do some lessons every day, before taking them out for some fresh air in the afternoon. Not to the gardens, though. She dared not venture there again. She knew she had been stupid to ignore the notice and take the children there in the first place. She had put them at risk, and she was determined not to do so again.
Nor did she return to Frau Schneider’s shop, but walked the children further afield, to shops where they were not known, buying her groceries in different places, so that they were not recognised as “locals”. Herbert had given her some money, and so she managed to buy them all another set of clothes, pinafores and blouses for the girls, shorts and shirts for the twins. There was no money for shoes. Once she thought she saw Frau Schultz walking along the street behind them, but when she looked back a second time there was no sign of the woman, and she decided she must have been mistaken. Surely not even Frau Schultz would bother to trail them round the area to warn the shopkeepers that they were dealing with Jews. Surely not.