I was nervous and jumpy all the time now. What made it worse was that I could tell Mama was frightened too. She tried to pretend everything was fine, but she jumped whenever the phone rang or there was a knock at the door.
It was worse, too, because I couldn’t go to school any more. Jewish children were now banned from German schools, and the nearest Jewish school had been burned down on Kristallnacht. So I had to stay at home all day. We only went out to buy food and essentials. I insisted on going with Mama every time she left the apartment, even if she was just going to buy bread. I knew it wasn’t logical, but somehow I felt she would be safer if I was with her.
But Mama had a great idea.
“Let’s learn English,” she said. “We can surprise Papa by speaking perfect English to him when he gets back.”
“When he gets back” was a phrase we both used a lot at that time. I had trained myself not to think about what might be happening to Papa. It felt as though I had a little box inside my head, where I locked away all the things I didn’t allow myself to think about.
We had learned a little bit of English at school. But when Mama was a child, her parents had wanted her to learn the language, so she’d had an English nanny for a while, and she had kept all her English workbooks.
My new best friends were two little leather-bound pocket dictionaries: a red one, which was German to English, and a blue one for English to German. I became completely absorbed. When I was learning English I could forget about the horrible world outside, sometimes for hours at a time. I made Mama test me on my vocabulary and at mealtimes we would try to speak in English. She had forgotten a lot, but it came back to her quite quickly, and she could correct my pronunciation.
Learning English and having Mitzi to keep me company made my new life indoors more bearable. In any case, even if we had gone outdoors, there was barely anywhere we could go. Jews were banned from parks, swimming pools, theatres, cinemas and ice rinks. The notices were everywhere: Juden Sind Unerwünscht. Jews Are Not Wanted.
Then, three weeks later, I woke one morning and heard a man’s voice in the apartment. My stomach clenched. Rigid with terror, I listened.
It wasn’t shouting. It was a quiet voice. It sounded like…
No. It couldn’t be.
A gentle knock at my door.
“Anna?” my mother called softly.
I sat up in bed, holding my breath.
The door opened. A figure stood in the shadowy doorway.
“Papa! Oh, Papa!”
I leapt into his arms and hugged him and hugged him. He hugged me back tightly and I laid my head on his chest, flooded with happiness.
But when we finally let each other go and I stepped back and saw him properly, I was shocked.
He looked stooped and thin and much, much older. He had bruises and cuts on his face, and he wasn’t wearing his glasses. His hair was greyer and thinner and his hands trembled.
“Oh, Anna, it’s so good to see you. You look so well. I’m sure you’ve grown.”
“Sit down, Walter,” said Mama gently, and we all sat on the bed, Mama and I on either side of Papa. He put an arm around each of us and we snuggled up together, my head on his shoulder.
“It’s so wonderful to be back with my girls. I’ve missed you so much.”
“You’re so skinny,” I said. “What did they do to you?”
He shook his head quickly, as though trying to dislodge the memories. “Let’s not talk about that. Tell me all about you.”
“But—”
He took my face in his wrinkled, shaking hands. They were like the hands of an old, old man.
“No more questions, Anna.”
“But—”
Mama gave me a warning look. “Anna, you mustn’t ask. Really. They told Papa that if he says anything about what happened there, they’ll come and get him again.”
I turned cold. What had they done to him? What must his life have been like in that camp?
“Anyway,” said Papa, “now that I’m back, I just want to hear about you. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
He was clearly making a huge effort to seem normal. If he could be that brave, after a month in a concentration camp, then there was no excuse for me not to be brave too.
“We have Mitzi now,” I said. “We went to Uncle Paul’s flat and fetched her. I made her a toy from a cork tied to a piece of wool and she loves it. When I pull it around the apartment she chases it and pounces on it like it’s a mouse.”
“That’s good,” he said. “Paul will be pleased.”
“Did you—” I began, and then I stopped. I had been going to ask him whether he’d seen Uncle Paul in Buchenwald.
“Mama says you’re learning English,” Papa said. And, relieved to have found a safer topic, I told him about the irregular verbs I’d learned yesterday.