‘This is my daughter, Anna.’
Mama had spoken in English because the visitors were from England. If they had been French from France it would have been easy – it was one of her best subjects at school – but she only knew a few words of English: Good morning, good night, thank you very much, my name is Anna Stein … The woman from England was smiling at her and holding out her hand.
‘How do you do, Anna.’
She shook the woman’s hand and then the husband’s afterwards. He was a doctor – a psychiatrist, like Papa. They were the first English people she had ever met and she watched them closely at the dinner table; studied them as they ate and drank and talked with Mama and Papa. They weren’t Jewish, she was sure of that. They had the wrong colouring and the wrong-shaped faces and noses and they’d never eaten matzos or klops before. They were well-dressed but their clothes were boring. The woman wasn’t elegant, like Mama, and she showed large front teeth when she smiled. The husband leaned across the table and asked in very bad German how old she was. His pronunciation made her want to giggle but Mama’s eye was on her and she answered him politely. ‘Vierzehn? Fourteen,’ he said, nodding. ‘Unsere Tochter, ist zwölf Jahre alt.’
He smiled at her and the woman smiled too. They were being friendly, she realized, but she couldn’t see what them having a daughter of twelve had to do with her. After the meal was over Mama played the piano to entertain them: a Beethoven sonata, a Chopin mazurka, and a Strauss waltz. The English sat as still as statues and at the end of each piece they clapped hard – hardest for the Strauss. She could tell that they liked the waltz best.
‘We will excuse you now, Anna,’ Mama said. ‘You may say good night to our guests.’
She went to her room, relieved to escape from a dull evening. Mama and Papa went on talking in English with the visitors. They talked on and on for a long time but whatever it was they were discussing couldn’t have been very amusing because nobody laughed once. It sounded an ugly language to her. After a while she shut her door so she couldn’t hear them any more, undressed and put on her cotton nightgown. It was stiflingly hot in the room and she opened the two windows as wide as she could and leaned out. The lamplight fell in golden pools on the old cobblestones of the Wallstrasse, and squares of light glowed from windows up and down the street. She could see straight into the Fischer family’s sitting-room directly opposite. Papa Fischer was in his armchair reading, his wire spectacles stuck on the end of his big nose and his black beard jutting out from the end of his chin like a spade. Mama Fischer, fat as a barrel, was bent over her sewing and Jacob and Gideon were sitting at the table, studying. They were always studying, always buried in books, always so serious. Once she had asked Gideon if he ever did anything else and he had looked at her with his gentle brown eyes, all puzzled, and said exactly what sort of thing did she mean? Anna leaned a little further out of the window. It was so hot – the air as thick as soup. All of Vienna was suffocating. Not a breath of wind for days and days. Too hot to sleep. Too hot to do anything. Footsteps sounded from further along the street and two men came into one of the pools of lamplight: young men strolling along. She drew back quickly but one of them had caught sight of her. He stopped and stared upwards. ‘Guten Abend, Fräulein.’ He had nice blond hair and he was handsome. A student, most probably, by the cheap clothes he was wearing – but he wore them with style, a loose black tunic slung across his shoulders. He smiled up at her. ‘Es ist ein schöner Abend, und Sie sind ein schönes Mädchen.’ She was used to men smiling at her – men of all ages – and paying her compliments, telling her she was beautiful. Because he was handsome she smiled back. After all, she was perfectly safe where she was. ‘Guten Abend, mein Herr.’
The young man bowed and flourished one hand. ‘Dieter Rach. Ich stehe zu ihren Diensten, liebes Fräulein. Wie heissen Sie, wenn ich fragen darf?’ Naturally, she had no intention of telling him her name. Mama would be very angry if she knew she had spoken to him at all, especially in her nightdress. He stepped closer, still smiling, teeth gleaming, eyes shining in the lamplight. His companion tugged his arm impatiently. ‘Come, Dieter, what are you thinking? You don’t want anything to do with her. She’s a Jewess, can’t you tell? They’re all dirty Jews in this street.’
The smile faded and vanished. He stared up at her. ‘Ach … natürlich. Of course, I see now. So she is. Stupid of me.’
They strolled on down the Wallstrasse. Anna would have thrown something at them if there had been anything to hand. Cretins! Pigs! She stuck out her tongue as far as it would go. How dare they speak of dirty Jews! How dare they! It was they who were dirty to speak in such a way. She was trembling with outrage. Well, that was nothing new either. On her first day at school she had discovered that to be Jewish was to be hated and despised. The other girls had either teased her or snubbed her and the teachers had picked on her. Mina, her one true friend there, was Jewish, too, and neither of them was ever invited to Gentile homes. Nobody could explain properly why it was so – not Papa or Mama, or Grandmama, or Aunt Liesel or Aunt Sybille, or Uncle Joseph or Uncle Julius … nobody. The Jews had always been blamed for things, was all they said, driven out, hounded, and that was why they kept together. It was safer and better. Mama’s mother and father had fled from persecution in Russia and come to Vienna where, it seemed, nobody much wanted them either. Grandpapa had died long ago and she couldn’t remember him at all but how could anyone hate Grandmama who was always helping the poor and doing good works?
The heat was worse, the bedroom like an oven. She switched out the lamp and collapsed on the bed, fanning herself with a book. The English were leaving. She listened to them making their polite farewells in the hallway, the door closing after them, their steps ringing on the stone stairway and then in the street below, walking away in the same direction as the two young men. After a while she heard her mother playing the piano – something slow and quiet. Liszt? Or perhaps it was Schubert? Yes, definitely Schubert – his last sonata, the one in B flat. Mama loved Schubert. The notes hung on the air, each one separate, like pearls on a string. Mama is sad tonight, she thought. Very sad. Something is wrong. After a time the playing stopped. She heard Papa going to their bedroom and then the soft click of her own door as Mama opened it a little way.
‘Anna … are you asleep?’
‘It’s too hot, Mama. How can I sleep when it’s like this?’
‘You must try, or you will be tired tomorrow.’
‘What does it matter? It’s the holidays.’
‘There is still your piano practice – you need to work hard on that Impromptu – it’s very ragged. And there is studying that you should do if you want to do well in school.’
‘I hate that school. All the girls are horrible, except Mina.’
Mama came into the room and sat on the end of her bed. Anna could only see the shape of her in the darkness, not her face, but she knew for sure that she was sad. She sat up, hugging her knees. She loved the chats she sometimes had with Mama – just the two of them, talking about all sorts of things together. Perhaps Mama would tell her what had made her feel sad.
‘How would you like to go to another school, Anna? A very different one?’
‘With all Jewish girls?’
‘No …’
‘Then it wouldn’t be any different, would it? They’d still hate me.’
‘Papa and I were thinking of a school in England.’
‘In England! What are you talking about, Mama? Is it a joke?’
‘No, it’s not a joke. What would you think of going there to school – just for a while?’
‘I wouldn’t go. What a strange idea, Mama.’
‘Papa and I have our reasons. We have been talking about it with the English guests.’
‘With them? What has it to do with them?’
‘They have been telling us all about England and the schools there. Their daughter goes to an excellent one in London, they say. A private day school, like yours. We think, Papa and I, that it would be good if you went there – for a time. Frau Ellis has been most kind and said she would have you to live with them. You could come home in the holidays.’
It wasn’t a joke. Mama was quite serious. They’d been plotting to send her away. Planning it all behind her back with the English visitors, talking away in English so she wouldn’t understand. They’d arranged it all and that was why Mama was sad. She felt sick with horror. ‘I refuse to go. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t! I’d sooner die. I will die if you make me go … I’ll kill myself!’
‘Sssh, Anna. That will do. Please, control yourself and listen to what I have to say.’
‘I don’t care what you have to say. I’m not going. How could you be so cruel, Mama!’
‘Please, Anna, you must understand that Papa and I are only concerned with what is best for you. Best and safest.’
‘Safest? What do you mean, safest? Those stupid girls at school can’t do me any harm.’
‘I’m not talking about schoolgirls; there are others who might. You know how it is for all Jewish people – you have experienced it yourself – and lately it has been getting worse. People are turning against us. Papa has fewer and fewer patients. They do not want to be treated by a Jew. Old patients have left, new ones do not come. It is the same for other Jews in other professions and trades. And Papa believes that it will get even worse. Much, much worse.’
‘I don’t mind if we’re poor.’
‘If that were all, Anna, we would not be worrying like this. We should endure, just as Jews have done for centuries and been made all the stronger. But there is more. Think of the terrible assassination of our Chancellor – brutally murdered by the Nazis, the very people who most hate us. The Nazi Party is in power in Germany. They parade through the streets with burning torches, and they chant and shout like men possessed by the devil. Their Führer, Adolf Hitler, detests the Jews. He burns books by Jews, his soldiers beat and kick Jews. Jews are forbidden to work for the civil service. Forbidden entry to places. All kinds of difficulties are put in their way. The Nazis are our deadly enemies.’
‘But that’s in Germany.’
‘Many people believe that Austria may soon unite again with Germany and become Nazi as well. If that happens every Jew here will be in danger too. It is impossible for us to hide ourselves; impossible to conceal what we are. We can never be only Austrian; we will always be Jews as well.’
‘How do you mean, danger? What sort of danger?’
‘We don’t know exactly …’
‘What could they do? They can’t put us in prison if we have done nothing. It would be against the law. There is no crime in being Jewish.’
‘The law is not saving the Jews in Germany from persecution. It did not save them in Russia and it will not save us here. That is why we want you to go to England – just for a while, at least, until we can be more sure of things. We don’t want you growing up where there is such hatred.’
‘I won’t go. I won’t leave you. If there is danger, then what about you and Papa?’
‘It is not so easy for us to leave. Papa’s work is here in Vienna and my place is here with him. But we will come and visit you whenever we can and perhaps we will try to come to live in England as well. Papa was talking with the English doctor this evening and he thinks it may be possible for Papa to work there. Did you like them – our English guests?’
She shrugged. ‘They were all right. Very dull, though. I think all the English must be dull. And wear dowdy clothes.’
‘Nonsense, Anna, that’s not so. They are a very civilized people and their country is one of the most beautiful in the world.’
‘One of the girls at school went there once. She said it rained every single day and that it was all grey.’
‘Perhaps in winter, but they have nice summers.’
‘How do you know? You’ve never been there.’
‘From what I’ve heard. Anyway, the weather is not important. They have good schools – that is well known – and you will be able to go with their daughter. She is called Elizabeth, but I believe they call her Lizzie.’
‘She’s only twelve.’
‘She’ll be thirteen in January.’
‘She’s still a baby. I’d hate being with her. And I’d hate going to England. I don’t speak any English. I wouldn’t understand a word.’
‘You’d very soon learn, and it’s a wonderful, rich language. The language of William Shakespeare.’
‘It sounds stupid. And ugly. And when that Englishwoman laughed it was like a horse neighing. Her teeth were like a horse’s, too.’
‘Anna! That will do. You’re being extremely rude and very silly. Frau Ellis is a charming person and it is most kind of her to offer to have you.’
‘They’re not Jews, though, are they?’
‘No …’
‘So, they won’t know about us, will they? They won’t understand.’
‘The English are very understanding and tolerant people. Many, many refugees have made their homes there. Your faith will be respected.’
How could they even think of doing this to her? Sending her off like a parcel to live with strangers. Foreigners. They must want to get rid of her. They couldn’t love her or they would never want her to go. Mama was still talking, still trying to win her over. ‘… it will be a wonderful new experience for you. You will learn a new language, make new friends, see another country—’
‘Stop it! I don’t want to hear any more. I won’t listen to another word. It’s all lies …’ She stuffed her fingers in her ears and flung herself face down on the pillow, sobbing. Mama stroked her hair but she buried her face the deeper. After a while, the stroking stopped and she knew that Mama had gone away, leaving her alone. She cried into her pillow until she could cry no more and lay exhausted in the darkness. Outside in the Wallstrasse there were footsteps again – the sound of heavy boots on the cobblestones and men’s voices, harsh and mocking. And then, suddenly, the sound of breaking glass. Anna jumped off the bed and ran to look out. A group of soldiers were throwing stones up at the Fischers’ lighted sitting-room window and there was a big hole in the broken pane. Papa Fischer had leapt to his feet, his book fallen from his hand, the wire spectacles from his nose. She saw Frau Fischer’s shocked and frightened face, sewing clutched to her bosom, and Jacob and Gideon looking up from their books with mouths agape. There was another stone thrown and another hole in the glass. Herr Fischer grabbed at the wall switch and the light went out.
‘Schmutzige Juden, schmutzige Juden.’ The soldiers chanted as they moved off down the street. ‘Dirty Jews, dirty Jews …’
‘Papa, you don’t really mean to send me away to England, do you? Not if I don’t want to go?’
Her father looked up from his writing-desk. He took off his spectacles and laid them beside him. ‘We don’t want you to go either, Anna, but we think it’s wise. Mama told you why.’
She sat down in a chair beside the desk. ‘And I still don’t understand. What does it matter if a few people don’t like us here?’
He smiled at her. ‘Why should you understand, Anna? You are much too young, too trusting, too innocent. You have not yet encountered real evil, so, of course, you don’t believe that it actually exists. Do you remember when I went on that visit to Hamburg last month? To meet with some other doctors?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘The German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, paid a visit to the city while I was there. I walked out into the streets to see for myself how they received him. The pavements were lined with thousands cheering him all along the route, waving Nazi flags, applauding … When he spoke later from the balcony at the Rathaus the square in front was packed with people. You could hardly move for the numbers. They listened to him speaking of the new and mighty Germany that was being born again, of how he would lead them to greatness once more.’
‘But that has nothing to do with us.’
‘I’m afraid it has. He began to rant and rave against the Jews. To blame Jews and Jewish financiers for defeat in the last war and for everything else that has gone wrong for Germany since. He is making us his target. His scapegoat. He spoke of Jews as parasites, feeding on the blood of industrious Germans; of the need to expel the Jewish bacillus out of the national bloodstream, and all around me people were nodding in agreement. At the end they cheered and clapped as though he were a great prophet. Their saviour.’
She said curiously, ‘What was he like? Did you see him close up?’
‘He passed very near in his car and I could see him easily when he was on the town hall balcony. He is small, dark and very ordinary-looking. You wouldn’t glance at him twice in a crowd. And yet he has this extraordinary power over people. They believe what he says and they believe in him. And hatred for Jews is spreading all over Germany. I saw placards being carried in the streets telling people not to buy from the Jews. Deutsche kauft nicht bei Juden! Shops owned by Jews are boycotted, Jews dismissed from their jobs, and in many occupations proof of Aryan ancestry is demanded. I was told of Jews being attacked and beaten by ordinary citizens; of towns in parts of Germany with signs saying Jews enter this place at their own risk and where there are notices posted outside restaurants and hotels: Jews Not Wanted Here, Entry Forbidden to Jews. They speak of being judenrein – Jew free.’
‘But Adolf Hitler has no power in Austria. He can’t harm us here.’
‘Not yet. But my doctor friends in Hamburg believe that he would like to take over our country too. To reunite us with Germany. There are many people here in Austria who would be sympathetic to that.’
‘If he’s so wicked why isn’t anybody trying to stop him?’
‘Some brave people are, but the Nazis get rid of anybody who speaks against the Party. Anyone merely suspected of being opposed to them is threatened and some are arrested by the Sturm Abteilung, the Nazi troops, and put in prison or in special camps.’ Papa shook his head. ‘I have said enough, Anna. We do not want you to be frightened. We only want you to be safe – to go to England for a while – where such things do not happen.’
‘We’ll put Anna in the empty bedroom next to you, Lizzie, and I think it would be a good idea to make the old playroom into a sort of sitting-room for you both. You won’t mind that, will you?’
She did mind – rather a lot – but it seemed awfully mean to object. It had all been explained to her, after all. This girl, Anna Stein, was coming to stay for a while because it wasn’t very safe for her in her own country. She was Jewish, and some people in Austria didn’t like Jews. It sounded very peculiar but that was how it was.
‘What is she like, Mummy?’
‘I only saw her for a short while, when we went to dinner at the Steins’ apartment in Vienna, and she hardly speaks any English. Her parents are delightful. Charming. The father is a psychiatrist, just like Daddy, and Frau Stein teaches the piano. She plays brilliantly herself. I expect Anna plays too.’
She was probably brilliant as well. ‘What does she look like?’
‘Very pretty. Green eyes and long dark hair.’
‘In plaits?’
‘No, she wears it loose. But then she’s two years older than you, Lizzie. She seems rather more than that, in fact, but I’m sure you’ll both get on very well. It may be a bit difficult, at first, because of her not knowing English, but she’ll soon pick it up and I know you’ll help her to learn quickly. Her French is very good, apparently, so that will help.’
‘Mine’s not very good.’
‘Well, you know quite a lot of words and how to say simple things, so you can try speaking it sometimes. It will be excellent practice for you.’
The more she heard about Anna Stein, the less she liked the idea of her coming to live with them. ‘When will she be here?’
‘Not until the autumn – in time for the new term.’
‘How long will she stay?’
‘We don’t know that yet. If things settle down in Austria she may go home quite soon.’
‘If they don’t, though?’
‘Then she might be here for a long time. Several years, even. Daddy and I hope she will be company for you, Lizzie. Like having a sister.’
A sister? How could she ever be that? A foreigner who didn’t even speak English? Lizzie was used to being an only child. A special child because she had been adopted, she had always been told: specially chosen. ‘Why don’t her parents leave Austria as well, if it’s so horrid there for them? Couldn’t they all go and live somewhere else together?’
‘It’s not as simple as that. You can’t just go and live and work in other countries without permission. But Anna will be allowed to come to school here. Of course, they will miss her very much. It’s a great sacrifice on their part.’
It is for me, too, Lizzie thought. I don’t want a stranger here all the time. Not one bit.
‘Does she have to come and live with us?’
‘We promised that we would take care of her. Her parents are very worried.’
‘I don’t understand why people would want to harm them – just because they’re Jewish. What’s wrong with them?’
‘Nothing is wrong with them. I don’t understand, either, Lizzie, but some people in other countries – wicked people – try to make out that there is. Daddy and I felt that we should help the Steins. We’re very lucky to live in a country like England, you know. Very lucky indeed.’
She couldn’t see what that had to do with it. All she could see was that everything was going to change and that it would probably never ever be the same again.
‘Oh, Anna, how terrible!’ Mina was staring at her, appalled. ‘England! But why?’
‘Mama and Papa don’t think it’s safe for Jews here any more. And the other night some soldiers threw stones up at the Fischers’ window opposite us and broke it, so they’re really panicking now.’
‘Stones! How dreadful!’
‘The soldiers were probably drunk, that’s all.’
‘My parents don’t seem to worry.’
‘Lucky you, Mina. They won’t try to send you away. I’ve told mine I refuse to go.’
‘They’ll make you. You’ll have to do what they say.’
‘Then they’ll have to carry me onto the train.’
‘Oh, Anna … Do you remember in French class when Mademoiselle Deuchars said that the English were barbarians? Ils sont barbares. She said they were dirty and drunken and behaved like savages. Whatever will you do?’
‘Not go.’
‘You’ll have to.’ Mina’s face was tragic now. ‘And I’ll miss you so much, Anna. I won’t have a single friend at school. You know how all the other girls despise us. I’ll be so miserable.’
‘I told you,’ Anna said fiercely. ‘I’m not going.’
Matt unhitched Bean Goose’s painter and shoved her bow sideways away from the jetty so that she came round at right angles to the wind. He settled himself with his wonky hand on the tiller and grasped the mainsheet with his good hand. As he was on his own, he hadn’t put the jib up. He let the mainsail out and kept his course steady, steering for a distant marker upstream on the far bank – a tall tree. He was doing everything pretty well right so far. If Guy had been here he’d probably have told him he wasn’t, but Guy was on his way to the dentist in London with Mother to have his front tooth mended so, for once, he was out on his own. It didn’t happen often – not that that was Guy’s fault. He could take the dinghy out alone any time he wanted, but the truth was that he had to screw up the nerve to do it. He didn’t sail nearly as well as Guy. Guy knew by instinct what to do, whereas he often got it wrong. On his own, he always went upstream because it was much easier. It was OK pootling along up there and going round the creeks, but downstream, where the river became hugely wide and the great mass of water surged out to the North Sea, scared him. He’d never admitted it to a soul – least of all to Guy who was never afraid of anything – but he hated the sea. There was nothing kind about it, he thought. The sea was out to get you if it could and drown you in its freezing depths. The mighty ocean deep. The very words gave him the shivers. When he’d been learning to swim in the prep-school swimming-baths he’d almost drowned. The instructor’s idea of teaching had been to make you jump straight into the deep end when he blew a whistle. Swim or sink, boys. You’ll soon get the hang of it. Quickest way to learn. He’d sunk all right – gone down like a stone to the bottom and as soon as he’d come up he’d gone down again. And then up and down again. With only one good hand he couldn’t do proper strokes and with all the splashing and kicking from the others going on around him, nobody had noticed until it had almost been too late. He could never forget the terror of it: the frantic struggle to breathe, the way he’d clawed and fought and kicked. Then someone had grabbed hold of him and they’d hauled him out, choking and spluttering. The instructor had been furious with him. Stupid boy. You should have stayed near the side. He’d learned to swim soon after that – found a way to use his right arm that worked pretty well, though he wasn’t as fast as most of them.
He sailed on steadily, keeping the dinghy’s bow in line with his tree marker on the bank. The sun had gone in and some dark clouds were gathering. Bean Goose heeled as the wind freshened but he counterbalanced it all right by moving towards the windward side and easing the mainsheet. As he drew near to his tree he went about, pushing the tiller away from him so that the bow swung through the wind. The sail flapped loudly above his head and then filled again on the other side. He brought the tiller back to the centre and settled Bean Goose on her new course, sailing to windward. He hauled in the mainsheet, flattening the sails, and began beating steadily towards the mouth of the river. And the open sea.
Guy sat in the dentist’s chair, mouth open, wishing the fellow would get a move on and finish the job. He’d been fiddling about for ages. The whole thing was a bore and Mother had made a big fuss over it. Chaps were always getting teeth broken and chipped at school, or knocked out completely. It was usually a cricket ball, or playing rugger, or bashing up against the side of the swimming-baths, or going over bike handlebars like he’d done. If he hadn’t turned quite so sharply and been going a bit slower, he’d have made that corner OK.
‘Open a little wider, please.’
He stretched his aching jaw further and stared at the ceiling and the eighteen plaster rosettes along the edge – he’d been counting them on every visit since he was five. The third from the end on the right had a big chip out of it, like his tooth. Or like his tooth had been before old Payne had got to work on it. Rather a joke a dentist having a name like that; people must pull his leg about it no end.
‘You may close now. All done.’
Mr P. was washing his hands fussily at the basin in the corner and then drying them on a towel. It amused Guy that he was much taller than the dentist now. He’d looked up to him on every visit for years and years until one summer hols when he’d walked into the room for his appointment and found he was looking down instead.
‘Don’t bite on it for a few hours. And try not to knock it again, if you can help it. If you’re careful it should last for years.’
In the waiting-room his mother was sunk in the corner of a sofa, reading The Illustrated London News. ‘Let me see, darling? Heavens, that looks wonderful. You’d never know.’
He glanced in the mirror over the fireplace, baring his teeth. Behind him some rather glamorous woman in a red dress was watching him over her Tatler. He caught her eye and she smiled. He smiled back before he looked away from the mirror. ‘Good as new. Can we go and have some lunch? I’m famished.’ Striding down Harley Street towards Wigmore Street beside his mother, he found himself playing bears and stepping over pavement lines like he and Matt used to do. At the Orange Tree restaurant, where they always went after the dentist, he forgot about not biting on the front tooth but it didn’t seem to matter anyway as the fried plaice didn’t need much chewing, nor did the vanilla ice-cream. His mother looked at her wrist-watch.
‘We’ve got more than two hours before the next train. I’d like to go and see Aunt Helen, darling, if you don’t mind.’
That was OK by him. Wimpole Street was only round the corner and Mother’s sister was pretty decent. She fussed much less than Mother so she wouldn’t make a drama over the tooth. The house was actually rather grand. Uncle Richard’s consulting-room and his secretary’s office were on the ground floor but the rest of it was a normal home. The manservant, Hodges, opened the door and Aunt Helen appeared, all smiles. Cousin Lizzie, hovered in the background like a timid little mouse. His aunt drew her forward.
‘Do show Guy your paintings, Lizzie. He’d like to see them, wouldn’t you, Guy?’
He wouldn’t in the least, but he agreed graciously, seeing that his mother and aunt obviously wanted to have one of their sisterly chin-wags. There was a time limit for catching the train so it was no great sacrifice. He followed his cousin up three floors and then on up a steep and narrow flight of uncarpeted stairs to the very top of the house. Lizzie opened a door and beckoned him in. The attic room was surprisingly light and spacious and there was even a small fireplace. The only furniture was a wooden table and a couple of old kitchen chairs. He could see an open box of water-colour paints on the table, beside a pad and a jamjar full of cloudy water. Another jamjar held brushes. He said teasingly, ‘Is this your artist’s studio, then, Lizzie?’ She went pink in the face, like the time he’d caught her without her knickers. ‘It isn’t really a studio. I just pretend it is. The maid sleeps in the other room up here but this one was empty so Mummy said I could use it.’
‘It’s jolly nice.’ He went to the open window where there was a cooling breeze and looked out over the parapet and across the rooftops of London. There were hundreds of chimney-pots. Rows and rows of them, all shapes and sizes, sticking up jauntily as far as the eye could see. ‘I like your view.’
‘It should be north,’ she said solemnly. ‘But it’s east, so the light’s not really right for painting.’
That tickled him even more but he didn’t show it. ‘Well, come on, let’s see these pictures of yours.’
‘You don’t have to look at them – not if you don’t want to.’
He realized that she was just as reluctant to show them as he was to see them. ‘May as well, Lizzie, now we’ve come all the way up here.’
She edged aside so that he could see the water-colour of a sailing-dinghy with two figures on board. He looked at it in surprise. He’d expected infantile pictures – toytown houses, cotton-wool clouds, yellow suns with rays like bicycle spokes … all that sort of stuff – but she’d got the water and the sky rather well and the boat wasn’t bad either. ‘Is this meant to be Bean Goose?’ She nodded. ‘I don’t think I’ve got it quite right. I couldn’t remember exactly.’
‘Well, you’ve got the sail wrong – it’s too small – and you’ve forgotten the standing rigging for the mast. Otherwise it’s OK. Is that Matt and I?’ She nodded again. ‘Why aren’t you there, too? You came with us.’
‘I never do myself. I don’t really know what I look like.’
He tweaked one of her plaits. ‘You should look in the mirror and do a self-portrait. All the great artists did that. Rembrandt and van Gogh, and all that lot. Where’re the others you’ve done, then?’
‘There’s some underneath.’
He picked up the pad and flicked over the pages. The more he turned, the more it dawned on him that Lizzie was actually rather good. The subjects were quite grown-up – the view over the rooftops, some fruit in a bowl, a likeness of his aunt sitting in a chair … ‘I say, these really aren’t bad, Lizzie.’
‘Oh …’ She stared at him, her blue eyes round as marbles. ‘Do you really think so? Honestly, Guy?’
‘Yes, I do. Honestly.’ He turned more pages. ‘I think they’re jolly good. Are you going to be a real artist when you grow up?’
‘Gosh, no, I shouldn’t think so. You have to be brilliant.’
‘If you carry on like this, you might turn out to be. Perhaps you inherited it from your other mother and father.’ It was OK to say that, he reckoned, because everyone knew she was adopted, and she knew that they knew. Uncle Richard and Aunt Helen thought it was better. Maybe Lizzie’s real parents had both been artists and pretty casual about how they lived, which explained how they’d come to have Lizzie and then given her away. Rather intriguing. He put the pad down on the table. ‘It must be nice having this room up here all to yourself. You can pretend as much as you like when you’re alone.’
She pulled a face. ‘I won’t be alone much longer. There’s somebody coming to live with us in September. I expect she’ll want to come up here as well.’
He wasn’t very interested. ‘Oh, who’s that?’
‘Some girl. Mummy and Daddy met her parents in Vienna. She’s Jewish. That’s why she’s got to come and live here. Mummy says they hate them there.’
‘Sounds a bit rum. Why?’
‘I don’t know really.’
He said carelessly, ‘Actually, I’ve never met anybody Jewish. Can’t say I know much about them – except that they don’t believe in Jesus Christ. Perhaps that’s the problem – why some people don’t like them.’ He glanced at his wrist-watch. ‘Time Mother and I got a taxi or we’ll miss the train.’ On the way downstairs he said over his shoulder, ‘What’s her name, this Jewish girl?’
‘Anna. Anna Stein.’
‘Well, bad luck about it, anyway.’
They caught the train from Liverpool Street station with only a minute to spare. Guy watched the sooty buildings and the slum backyards sliding past and wondered how people could live in such hideous places. The carriage was full and two old women nattered non-stop to each other most of the way. To make matters worse, his tooth had started aching. By the time they arrived at Burnham station he was in a foul mood, not improved by the fact that it was pouring with rain and the soft top of the Alvis leaked like a sieve. ‘You ought to get it repaired, Mother.’
‘I know, darling, but it would cost such a lot. It will have to wait.’
He never thought much about money unless the lack of it prevented him from having something he really wanted – like a bigger and better boat or a decent bike. Father didn’t get paid a fortune in the Navy, he knew, but he had shares, or something, and Mother had some money of her own, so things were fairly comfortable. There just wasn’t enough to splash it around. When he’d finished with school and university he was going to make sure he earned enough to own three things: a thirty-foot sailing-yacht, a sports car and an aeroplane.
When they reached home he went up to the bathroom and hunted for some aspirin in the cabinet. He took two tablets and went into Matt’s room, expecting to find him with his nose in a book, but he wasn’t there. He wasn’t downstairs either and as it was raining cats and dogs he wouldn’t be outside in the garden. Maybe he’d gone off somewhere on his bike and was sheltering. Nereus was lying on the rug in the hall. ‘Where is he, Nereus? Where’s Matt?’ The Labrador lifted his head and thumped his tail and then lowered his head on his paws again. ‘Not telling, eh? Useless dog.’
He stuck his head round the kitchen door. The cook was peering at something in the oven. ‘Seen Matt anywhere, Mrs Woodgate?’ She straightened up creakily, her moon face shiny red from the heat. ‘Not all afternoon, Master Guy. He’s not been in here – not like he usually does when I’ve been baking.’
‘What’s for supper?’
‘Fish pie. And there’s no call for you to make that face. It’s good fresh cod, caught today. I’ve made a treacle tart for pudding. And I’ve baked some of those almond biscuits you like.’
‘Can I have one now?’
She huffed and puffed but she gave him one. She always did. He went off, munching the biscuit, wandered into the drawing-room and stood at the French windows. The rain was worse than ever, the wind gusting hard and whipping up the river’s surface. From the look of the sky there was plenty more bad weather to come, which would put the kibosh on any sailing tomorrow. Still, he could do some more work on the Fokker D-7 – finish off the fuselage so he could start putting the whole thing together and get the Hun markings on. He looked at his wrist-watch. Where the hell was Matt? Where on earth would the idiot have gone? He was still eating the biscuit and watching the rain and the river when he suddenly guessed what his brother had done.
Matt knew that he was going to drown. He had been swimming and floating alternately for what seemed like hours and all he could see around him were waves – grey-green waves with white crests, rising and falling in endless motion. He rose and fell with them and every so often one would break over his head. He knew the waves were playing a game – taunting and teasing him, biding their time. When Bean Goose had capsized she’d reared up suddenly like a horse and the next thing he’d known he was in the water, caught under her hull. He’d seen the dark shape of the dinghy above him and her mast pointing downwards towards the bottom and felt ropes dangling all round him. When he’d dived down to get clear of the hull he’d come up under the sail which was spread wide over the surface. His life-jacket had forced him hard up against the canvas so that he’d been trapped. It was the choking nightmare of the school swimming-baths all over again, only this time it had been even more terrible because there was nobody near who could help him. He’d tried diving down again and got tangled up with some rope. Somehow he’d managed to free himself and to dive down yet again to try and get clear of the sail. Once more he’d come up still trapped underneath it but on the third try, lungs bursting and with the last of his strength, he’d swum deeper and further and shot up to the surface and to air. The first breath had been agony. His lungs hadn’t worked properly and he’d had to made a great effort to go on breathing. For a long while he’d been too weak to do anything but breathe and float. His limbs had terrible pins and needles and were useless. Eventually, he had started swimming – slow, feeble strokes. Bean Goose was only a few yards away, bobbing along upside down, but the force of the tide was carrying her from him much faster than he could swim. And even if he could have reached her, he knew he’d never have been able to right her on his own. All he could have done was cling on and probably be carried further and further out to sea. Better to try and swim in the direction of the land. He’d set off and soon discovered that he was making no headway against the tide. He floated again for a while, dazed with shock and cold and fear. He’d been a complete fool and this was all his own fault. He’d seen the bad weather coming, felt the wind’s strength increasing, and yet instead of turning back to safety he’d gone on doggedly, driven by the stupid idea of overcoming his fear of the open sea and of proving that he could sail Bean Goose as well as Guy. Guy would never have got himself into a mess like this. When things had got hairy and Bean Goose had started to heel over he’d have eased the mainsheet and shifted his weight to windward. That’s what he should have done himself – only his brain had turned to jelly and he’d sat there like a fool, clinging on to the mainsheet for dear life, legs braced hard against the steepening tilt, until, of course, she’d gone over.
Another wave broke over his head, and then another, making him choke and retch. The salt water burned his throat and nostrils and made his eyes smart, and his teeth were chattering violently. The rain was driving down so hard now that he could hardly see. How much longer would he last before he drowned? There was no hope of rescue. Mother and Guy were in London and even when they got home, it could be ages before they found that he’d taken the dinghy. And when they did, they wouldn’t realize, at first, that he was in any serious trouble – not until he didn’t come back. And then they wouldn’t know in which direction he’d gone. He could have gone aground on any of the mud-banks and in any of the creeks. Out to sea was the last place they’d think of. A bigger wave lifted him up high and, through the rain, he caught a glimpse of the shore in the distance, further away than ever – no more than a thin dark line. Useless to try to swim for it; his crabwise stroke hadn’t the power to fight against the tide and the currents. Guy might have done it. Guy had won cups for swimming at school and broken the crawl record. But he wasn’t Guy. And he was going to drown. Choke to death as the water filled his lungs. His body would be washed ashore or maybe never found at all. The sea that he had always secretly feared would get him and keep him. Matt began to sob with terror.
‘They’ll find him, Mother. He can’t have gone far.’ She was sitting on the sofa, staring down at her hands in her lap. She hadn’t cried or had hysterics, but she kept on kneading her hands together, as though she was washing them, over and over again. It was driving him mad. ‘He’s not as good a sailor as you, Guy. Not nearly. He’d never manage on his own in this weather.’
‘He’s OK. He knows enough not to get into any serious trouble. He’ll be all right.’
She stopped the hand-kneading and lifted her head; he was shocked at her expression – at the way she was looking at him accusingly, as though it was all his fault.
‘You know why he did this, don’t you, Guy? Why he went off alone?’
‘I’ve no idea. He’s been on his own plenty of times before, anyway.’
‘Never out to sea. Not alone. He wanted to prove he could do it. Are you too self-centred to see that? Haven’t you ever realized how Matt must feel?’
‘If you mean about his arm, then you’re wrong, Mother. He’s never let it stop him trying anything. Nobody ever notices it or talks about it. He’s got nothing to feel upset about.’
She went on staring at him. ‘You’ve got a lot of very good points, Guy. You’re handsome, clever and charming, strong and brave … but you’re insensitive to others. You don’t really think or care about anybody but yourself. Maybe you’ll learn better one day – when you’re older. I hope so.’
The words wounded him deeply. So did the sudden suspicion – something that had never occurred to him before in his life – that his mother loved Matt better than himself. She’d sooner it was me out there, he thought, stunned. If she could have chosen between us, she’d sooner lose me.
‘That’s not fair, Mother. It wouldn’t do Matt any favours to mollycoddle him – it’s the last thing he’d want. He wants to be treated just like everybody else, that’s the whole point. And I’m just as worried about him as you, as it happens.’
Her face changed suddenly. ‘Yes … I know you are, Guy. And I’m sorry I spoke so harshly, darling. I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a state … overwrought. Forget what I said. I didn’t mean any of it.’
He said stiffly, ‘That’s all right.’ But she had meant it. And he doubted that he’d ever forget. The telephone shrilled suddenly from the hall and his mother jumped to her feet and rushed to answer it. He stayed where he was, holding his breath. From the sound of her voice and the words he could catch, he knew that the news was good. When she’d replaced the receiver she came to the drawing-room doorway.
‘They’ve found him?’
She nodded, her eyes brilliant. ‘The lifeboat picked him up five miles off Foulness Point. Apparently the dinghy had capsized … he’s been in the water for hours. They’ve taken him to hospital suffering from hypothermia, but otherwise he’s fine. Oh, Guy, thank God. Thank God!’ She moved blindly towards him and he put his arms around her. She wept on his shoulder.
‘What a complete ass you were, Matt. An absolute cretin.’
‘I know.’ He was grateful to Guy for acting normally, after all the drama of being carried off the lifeboat on a stretcher, Mother in tears, the nurses fussing round, the newspaper reporter wanting a story. ‘How do you feel after being snatched from the jaws of death, young sir?’ Actually, he felt a complete fool and mortifyingly embarrassed at the trouble he’d caused everyone. It was a relief to be able to talk to Guy alone while Mother was with the ward sister. ‘How did you know where I’d gone?’
‘We didn’t.’ Guy sat down on the chair beside the bed. ‘Not at first, anyway. I looked all over the place for you when we got back from London and then I suddenly guessed what you might have done. I went down to the jetty and found Bean Goose had gone. I thought at first you’d be bound to have taken her upstream and Mother and I took the car out to see if we could see you. When we couldn’t, we phoned the coastguard and the police. You were bloody lucky, you chump.’
‘I know,’ he said again. ‘I thought I’d had it.’ He heard himself sounding terribly casual and knew he’d never be able to tell a soul what a snivelling coward he’d been. ‘Sorry about all the fuss and bother.’
‘Well, you can imagine how Mother flapped … What on earth happened?’
He told Guy about Bean Goose capsizing. ‘I just sat there like a dummy instead of easing the mainsheet—’
‘You could have let it go completely, you know, and the tiller, too. She’d’ve looked after herself. Don’t you remember that time last year when we nearly went over? I just let go. The sail made a most frightful racket but she got herself right again.’
He remembered how scared he’d been. They’d been sailing round the mouth of the estuary in a roughish sea with Bean Goose thumping along, sending the spray flying, and a sudden squall had caught her. Guy had stayed cool as a cucumber, doing all the right things, while he’d clung on for dear life till the dinghy had got back on an even keel.
He started to shake again. He’d gone on shaking for ages after they’d picked him up out of the sea; couldn’t seem to stop himself. Guy was watching him.
‘You OK?’
He clenched his left hand under the bedcover, trying to stop the shakes. ‘Yes, fine, thanks. Bit cold still. I don’t suppose Bean Goose’s been found, has she?’
‘Not much chance of that, I’d say. She’ll probably drift around and then sink eventually.’
‘I’m terribly sorry, Guy.’
Guy smiled. ‘Actually, it’ll probably turn out to be a blessing in disguise. We could do with a bigger boat and if Father collects on the insurance maybe we’ll be able to have one. Something really decent to do some proper ocean sailing.’
Matt swallowed. ‘Yes, that’d be jolly good.’
They kept him in hospital for another day before he was allowed home. There were only two weeks left before the autumn term started and, much to his relief, no question of getting another boat before then. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to go in one again.
‘Shall I open the window a little more, Grandmama? It’s very hot in here.’
‘If you wish, Anna. But not too wide. It lets in all the dust and dirt from the street.’
Grandmama’s salon was so crammed with furniture and knick-knacks and old photographs of people dressed in funny, old-fashioned clothes that there was hardly space for one more thing. In winter, when the fire was lit in the grate and the curtains drawn, the room was very cosy but in summer it was too stuffy. Still, she always liked visiting Grandmama. She could talk to her about anything she wanted and Grandmama always listened. Sometimes Grandmama did the talking and told stories about her childhood in Russia where she had lived until she was eighteen. She still spoke German with a Russian accent and would often use Russian words, mixed up with German ones. On some visits, for a change, they spoke only French because they both liked the language. Grandmama would read aloud from French books – poetry and stories and collections of letters – and Anna would sit and listen. Sometimes she read too and Grandmama would correct her pronunciation.
‘Respirer. Tu n’as pas bien prononcé r. Rrrrespirrrer. En français la r est très important.’
She loved hearing about Russia. Grandmama’s father had been a banker and they had lived in a large house in Grodno near the border of Poland. She and her three sisters had had a governess and her brother a tutor, and a music teacher had come to the house to teach them all the piano and the violin. ‘He was Polish and very poor,’ Grandmama told her. ‘I remember that there were holes in his shoes and patches in his sleeves. My eldest sister, Natalia, fell in love with him and he with her.’
‘How romantic!’
‘But then Mama discovered them together and there were no more music lessons with the Polish teacher. We had a very old and ugly man instead. Not even Natalia could fall in love with him.’
‘Tell me about your count, Grandmama.’
‘Again? I’ve told you about him so many times.’
‘But I like to hear it. How you met him in the park.’
‘You know already.’
‘Tell me again.’
Grandmama sighed. ‘We had a little dog – a spaniel called Pushkin – and I used to take him to the park near the house in the afternoon. Then one winter’s day—’
‘It was snowing, don’t you remember?’
‘Yes, it was snowing – quite hard. There was a lot of snow on the ground and the lake was frozen. The winters were always very cold in Russia – much worse than here. My hands were so numb that by mistake I let go of Pushkin’s lead and he ran away from me – he was a very disobedient dog sometimes, you see. Very naughty. I ran after him, of course, but I couldn’t catch him; as soon as I got near he ran away again. And then a young man in the uniform of a cavalry officer came along and when he saw what was happening he called to Pushkin in a very firm voice and Pushkin stopped running at once and let him take hold of the lead.’
‘And he brought him to you and bowed and said: “I believe this is your little dog. Permit me to restore him to you.”’
‘I really do not see why you want me to tell the story again, when you know it so well.’
‘I shan’t interrupt any more, I promise. What did you say then?’
‘I thanked him, of course.’
‘And then?’
‘He asked if he could walk a little way with me – just in case Pushkin ran off again. So we walked together, and talked together.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘He was tall and broad-shouldered with dark hair and deep blue eyes and he had a beautiful voice – so low and musical. I can hear it still. He was very handsome in his soldier’s uniform.’
‘And after that you met often in the park? Secretly.’
‘Almost every day. At first I did not know that he was a count. And it would not have mattered to me what he was. He was Alexis, that is all.’
‘How old was he?’
‘Twenty-two. And I was sixteen. Just two years older than you, Anna, and a lot more foolish. I fell so in love with him.’
‘And he with you.’
‘And he with me.’
‘No wonder. I can see from the photographs how beautiful you were.’
‘Natalia was much the best-looking of us.’
‘Did the count ever kiss you?’
‘Only with his eyes. Anything more would have been most improper. He wrote me letters and gave them to me when we met. I hid them away and read them in secret when I was alone. He wanted us to be married and live together for always … Of course it was impossible. Quite impossible. We were from two different worlds: he an aristocrat and me a Jewish girl. Our families would never have permitted such a marriage. Neither his nor mine.’
‘You could have run away with him.’
‘I might have done, if I had found the courage. But then our secret was discovered. A friend of my mother’s saw us together in the park and the letters were found and destroyed. Of course I was not allowed to go out alone any more, and not so long after that we left Grodno to come and live in Vienna. I never saw him again.’
‘Were you very sad?’
‘At first I thought my heart would break, but, with time, it mended, and I understood how wrong it would have been. And then, of course, three years later I met your grandfather.’
Anna could remember very little about Grandpapa but she had a feeling that he had never quite measured up to the count.
‘Grandmama, why must Jewish people always marry each other?’
‘We must keep faith with ourselves. It is very important to our people. And the home is sacred to us. It is where we first encounter the laws that govern our lives, and it is from our parents that we learn the language of Jewish spirituality. It is where most of our great religious rituals take place. To have a Jewish home, both mother and father must share the faith. Natalia, you know, married a Gentile. It was a great mistake.’
‘The Polish piano teacher?’
‘Oh, no, not him.’
‘Who was it, then?’
‘But I’ve told you about her before.’
‘Tell me all over again.’
‘Well, she fell in love many times after that. She was always in love with somebody. Finally, she met a Roman Catholic artist just as poor as the piano teacher and ran away with him. Our parents were so distraught that they sat shiva – mourned her as though she were dead. I remember my mother weeping for days and days. They would have nothing to do with her again.’
‘How cruel of them!’
‘They weren’t really cruel. They truly believed that she was lost to them. Poor Natalia! She went to live in Paris with her artist and died in childbirth a year later. We did not know what had happened to her for a long time.’
‘That’s so sad.’
‘Yes. I was very unhappy for her. She was my favourite sister.’
‘I’ve forgotten what happened to the others – my other great-aunts?’
‘Tania emigrated to America with her husband and I never saw her again. She died a few years ago. Sophia never married and she died of tuberculosis when she was only thirty. My brother, Peter, drank himself to death before he was fifty.’
‘Did he marry?’
‘Yes. A Jewish girl, of course, but without a brain in her head. I imagine she drove him to the drink. They went to live in France too and never came to Vienna. Of the five of us I am the only one left now.’
‘Do you mind that?’
‘Sometimes very much. There is no-one to share all the childhood memories … But I have you and your dear mother and your good father. And your uncles on your father’s side and their children, your cousins. We are a good Jewish family.’
‘Why does everybody hate us, Grandmama?’
‘You have asked that question before, Anna. I do not know the answer but, in any case, not everybody does.’
‘Well, it feels like it.’
‘There are some Christians, especially Roman Catholics, who blame us for the killing of Jesus Christ. Others who do not like the fact that in our bible we are called the chosen people. But we were not chosen because we were superior, but to carry a specially heavy burden of faithfulness to God. And so it has proved. And perhaps our own strict rules and rituals set us apart. People do not always understand us and they often fear what they do not understand, and what they fear they can also hate – if they are ignorant and bigoted. My family left Russia because Jews were being murdered and nobody tried to stop it. My mother and father were so sure it would be better in Vienna – that we would be able to live here undisturbed and in peace. Now, that may no longer be so. There are signs that it is becoming dangerous, just as it was in Russia. Which is why you must go and live in England, Anna – for a while.’
‘I won’t go, Grandmama. I will not go and live far away in that uncivilized country.’
‘It is not uncivilized, Anna.’
‘They are barbarians. Mademoiselle Deuchars says so.’
‘And who is she, pray?’
‘Our French teacher. She says England is a horrible country and so are the English. She says they are dirty, dull and stupid.’
‘What nonsense! How can she say this?’
‘She lived there for a year. The English people that Papa and Mama want to send me to are not at all elegant. I saw that when they came to dinner.’
‘One does not have to be elegant to be civilized, Anna. It is extremely kind of these English to offer to take you into their home, and extremely ungrateful of you to reject them.’
‘I won’t leave Mama and Papa. Nor you. If it is so dangerous, then why are you staying? You don’t have any work here – not like Papa.’
‘I have a great deal of work here, Anna. There are many families in need of help. The Talmud instructs us that in a city where there are both Jews and non-Jews we should feed the poor of both, visit the sick of both, bury their dead and comfort the mourners. For the sake of peace. We must always remember our duty and perform it without complaint. In any case, I am too old to uproot myself all over again. But you are not. You are young with your whole life ahead of you and you must go. Go for one year. If you hate it so much after that time, then I promise that I will persuade your mama and papa to bring you home. They will listen to me.’
This was perfectly true. Grandmama was the head of the family. Everybody listened to her and everybody did as she counselled. Papa might be a clever doctor and Mama a wonderful musician, but they still paid attention to Grandmama.
‘And you will learn English while you are there. That will be good.’
‘It’s a hideous language.’
‘It may not be as pleasant to the ear as Russian or French but it is a very useful language to be able to speak.’ The old glass-domed clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour with its sweet notes. Grandmama raised a hand to signal the end of the conversation. ‘And now it is time for some tea so we will not discuss this any more.’
The tea, poured from a beautiful silver teapot, was dark as ink, with a thin slice of lemon floating on the top, and there was a honey kuchen full of nuts and filbert macaroons. Afternoon tea was always safe with Grandmama, unlike other meals. She kept strict kosher and sometimes the food served was horrible – chopped chicken livers, cabbage beef, boiled gefilte fish. But tea was always delicious and there was no boring kiddush like on Friday evenings when the wine and bread had to be blessed with the long Hebrew grace. Papa or Uncle Jacob always had to start off and they had to join in. On and on it went.
After tea Anna played to Grandmama. Like almost everything in the apartment, the piano had come all the way from Russia and was very old and very beautiful, with two heavy silver sconces to hold four candles.
‘A little Chopin, I think, please, Anna. Something pretty and light-hearted. Perhaps the “Grand Valse” …’
“It’s too difficult. Too fast.’
‘Very well. Play me a Nocturne – the one in E flat.’
Grandmama sat very still as she listened, her head, with its crown of soft snow-white hair, resting against the chair back and her hands lying along its padded arms. When Anna came to the end it was a few moments before Grandmama moved or spoke. At last she said quietly, ‘That was delightful, Anna. I shall miss your playing very much. When you are in England, you must be sure to continue your musical studies and to practise the piano as much as you can.’
‘I shall be miserable if I go, Grandmama. Nobody cares how unhappy I should be. I should die of unhappiness.’
‘We all care, Anna. And it is because we care so much about you that we are sending you away. Don’t you see?’
She shook her head vehemently. ‘No, I don’t. You just want to be rid of me.’
‘Rid of you? Oh, Anna … how could you even think such a thing? We will miss you every hour of every day and I shall probably miss you most of all.’
She started to cry then and Grandmama came and put her arms around her. ‘This will not do, child. There must be no sadness, only bravery. We must all be very brave. Dry your tears and play me something else. You can choose this time, but nothing sad.’
She wiped her eyes and sniffed hard as she turned the pages of the music book. Grandmama stayed beside her, one hand touching her shoulder. ‘This one?’
‘An excellent choice. Play it very boldly.’
The brisk notes of the Polonaise filled the salon and floated out of the open window into the Viennese street.
The whole family went with her to the Bahnhof: Mama and Papa, Aunt Liesel, Uncle Joseph, Uncle Julius, Aunt Sybille, the little cousins Shimon and Esther, Rachel and Daniel and, naturally, Grandmama. Mina came too and started crying almost at once which made it even harder not to cry herself. ‘No tears,’ Grandmama had whispered in her ear. ‘Show me how brave you are going to be. Make me very proud of you.’
When it came to saying goodbye to them each in turn, to the kissing and hugging and the last words, she couldn’t speak for the lump in her throat. She climbed up into the carriage and stood by the open door, looking down at them all. The engine was making too much noise for her to hear what they were saying but she could see the tears running down Mama’s cheeks, Papa comforting her, the aunts dabbing away with their handkerchiefs, Mina sobbing, the little cousins looking anxious. Grandmama, alone, was smiling at her. When the train started off and glided along the platform they all waved: a little forest of hands and handkerchiefs fluttering together, getting smaller and smaller as she was carried away.
Mr Potter shifts in his armchair. ‘I don’t see what all this has to do with my boat. Jews in Vienna. Those children in that other dinghy …’
‘I told you it would take a while to tell the story.’
‘Huh.’ He grunts and puffs at his pipe. ‘I can remember some Jews coming to live round the corner from our shop just before the war started. Polish Jews, they were. Could hardly speak a word of English. Nobody took to them much. Molly and I thought they were a bit odd, to tell the truth. Strange ways, and habits. We didn’t fancy them. Hard workers, though, I’ll give them that. They lived over an old bakery and the wife used to cook pies and pastry things and sell them in the front of the shop while the husband did tailoring at the back. It couldn’t have been easy for them. You couldn’t get the ingredients, or the cloth, or anything. We tried one of the pies once but it had a funny taste and Molly threw it away.’ He puffs out more smoke. ‘They only had the one kid – a small girl, but you hardly ever saw her. They sold up and went away after the war finished. I wonder what happened to them …’ He puffs again. ‘That Jewish girl, Anna – there were lots of them like her, weren’t there? They used to send them over on special trains, smuggle them out – the lucky ones. She ought to have been grateful instead of making such a song and dance about it.’
‘She didn’t understand the danger. Not then. Not at that stage. Her parents were among the few who did.’
‘We took too many refugees in, if you ask me. Enough mouths to feed without all that lot as well.’ He smokes some more for a moment. ‘The boy with the deformed arm puts me in mind of a lad at my old school. He was missing a hand – lost it in an accident. We used to tease him about it. Called him Hook. And one day he says to us, the next one calls me Hook, I’ll knock his block off. He was as good as his word. Punched a boy so hard he went down like a ninepin. Nobody ever called him Hook again, not after that. Funny, I haven’t thought about him for more than sixty years …’ He waves his pipe at me. ‘Well, come on, let’s hear some more.’