A Small Person Far Away

A Small Person Far Away
Judith Kerr

Partly autobiographical, this is the third title in Judith Kerr’s internationally acclaimed trilogy of books following the life of Anna through war-torn Germany, to London during the Blitz and her return to Berlin to discover the past…Berlin is where Anna lived before Hitler, when she was still a German child; before she spoke a word of English, before her family had all become refugees. Long before her happy new existence in London. But Mama is there, dangerously ill. Anna is forced to go back, to deal with questions of life and death, to face old fears, and to discover the past which she has so long shut away.

First published in Great Britain by

William Collins Sons & Co Ltd in 1978

First published in Lions in 1993 and

reprinted by Collins in 1995

This edition 2017

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

Text copyright © Kerr-Kneale Productions Ltd 1978, 1989

Cover illustration and design © Kerr-Kneale Productions Ltd 2017

Judith Kerr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007137626

Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780007385508

Version: 2017-08-23

Dedication (#ulink_3517a944-4a78-55a6-b4e0-3319d6bccba4)

For my husband

Contents

Cover (#u1cd6428a-1038-52cf-90f4-45e3d7060bbd)

Title Page (#u483e93db-52fe-5423-9900-dd4194574e9a)

Copyright (#u3aebc1d7-8f63-5db2-890c-d20af5b9a2da)

Dedication (#ulink_88663505-1866-530a-a434-b98b00e51b84)

Saturday (#u5228373c-e52a-592e-995c-c3ced68e96d1)

Sunday (#u9204210a-4401-5a91-8004-c6268db9aa64)

Monday (#litres_trial_promo)

Tuesday (#litres_trial_promo)

Wednesday (#litres_trial_promo)

Thursday (#litres_trial_promo)

Friday (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Saturday (#ulink_825fda91-2b1f-5c44-a922-1c89185e2e60)

The rug was exactly the right red – not too orange and not too purple, but that lovely glowing shade between the two which was so difficult to find. It would look marvellous in the dining room.

“I’d like it, please,” said Anna. Clearly it was her lucky day.

She glanced at her reflection in a glass-fronted showcase full of table linen as the assistant led her to his desk. Her green coat – not passed on to her by friends but bought by herself – hung easily from her shoulders. The printed silk scarf, the well-cut dark hair and the reasonably confident expression were all in keeping with the status of the store around her. A well-heeled young Englishwoman out shopping. Well, she thought, nowadays I suppose that’s what I am.

While she wrote out a cheque and the assistant copied her name and address for the rug’s delivery, she imagined telling Richard about it. It would make their flat almost complete. All that was needed now were little things like cushions and lampshades, and perhaps, if Richard finished his script soon, they would be able to choose those together.

She became aware of the assistant hesitating over her name on the cheque.

“Excuse me asking, madam,” he said, “but is that any relation to the gentleman who writes for television?”

“My husband,” she said and felt the usual fatuous, self-congratulatory grin spread over her face as she said it. Ridiculous, she thought. I should be used to it by now.

“Really?” The assistant’s face was pink with pleasure. “I must tell the wife. We watch all his plays, you know. Wherever does he get his ideas from, madam? Do you help him at all with his writing?”

Anna laughed. “No,” she said. “He helps me.”

“Really? Do you write as well then?”

Why did I ever start on this? she thought. “I work in television,” she said. “But mostly I just rewrite little bits of other people’s plays. And if I get stuck, I ask my husband when I get home.”

The assistant, after considering this, rightly dismissed it. “When that big serial of his was on last year,” he said, “the wife and I stayed home for it every Saturday night. So did just about everyone else our way. It was so exciting – not like anything we’d ever seen.”

Anna nodded and smiled. It had been Richard’s first great success.

“We got married on the strength of that,” she said.

She remembered the register office in Chelsea, next to the foot clinic. Richard’s parents down from the north of England, Mama over from Berlin, their own friends from the BBC, cousin Otto passing out at the reception and saying it was the heat, but it had really been the champagne. And the taxi coming and Richard and herself driving off and leaving them all behind.