Bombs on Aunt Dainty

For a moment Anna thought it was all over, but the lady said a little reluctantly to Mama, “Forgive me, but there are so many people needing help that I have to ask you a few questions as well. How long have you been in this country?”

“Since 1935,” said Mama, “but we left Germany in March 1933 …”

Anna had heard it all explained so many times that she almost knew it by heart. Six months in Switzerland…two years in France…the Depression…the film script on the strength of which they had come to England…No, the film had never been made…No, it didn’t seem to matter then that Papa didn’t speak English because the script had been translated, but now of course…A writer without a language …

“Forgive me,” said the lady again, “I do realise that your husband is a very distinguished man, but while you’re in this difficulty, is there not anything more practical he could do, even for a little while?”

Papa, thought Anna, who couldn’t bang a nail in straight, who couldn’t boil an egg, who could do nothing but put words together, beautifully.

“My husband,” said Mama, “is not a practical man. He is also a good deal older than I am.” She had flushed a little and the lady said very quickly, “Of course, of course, do excuse me.”

It was funny, thought Anna, that she should be so much more impressed by Papa’s age which no one meeting him would particularly notice, than by his impracticality, which stuck out a mile. Once, in Paris, Papa had spent nearly all the money they had on a sewing machine which didn’t work. Anna remembered going with him to try and return it to the second-hand dealer who had landed him with it. They had had no money in Paris either, but somehow it hadn’t mattered. She had felt as though she belonged there, not like a refugee.

Mama was telling the lady about her job.

“For a while I worked as social secretary,” she said. “To Lady Parker – you may have heard of her. But then her husband died and she moved to the country. So now I’m helping sort out the papers belonging to his estate.”

The lady looked embarrassed. “And – er – how much …?”

Mama told her how much she earned.

“I have no qualifications, you see,” she said. “I studied music as a girl. But it helps to pay the bills at the Hotel Continental.”

Perhaps, thought Anna, she had felt different in Paris because Mama hadn’t had to work, or because they had lived in a flat instead of a hotel – or perhaps it was simply that England didn’t suit her. She didn’t really know a lot of English people, of course, only the ones at Miss Metcalfe’s. But certainly a lot of things had gone wrong for her soon after her arrival. For one thing she had grown much fatter, bulging in unexpected places, so that all her clothes suddenly looked hideous on her. Mama had said it was puppy fat and that she would lose it again, and in fact much of it had already melted away, but Anna still suspected England of being somehow to blame. After all, she had never been fat before.

The other girls at boarding-school had been fat too – Anna remembered great red thighs in the changing room and heavy figures lumbering over the frozen grass of the lacrosse field. But at least they hadn’t been shy. Her shyness was the worst thing that had happened to Anna in England. It had come upon her soon after the puppy fat, quite unexpectedly, for she had always been easy with people. It had paralysed her, so that when the English girls had made fun of her for being bad at lacrosse and for speaking with a funny accent, she hadn’t been able to answer. She had never had this trouble with Judy and Jinny, who were American.

“Well, Anna,” said the grey-haired lady as though she had been listening to Anna’s thoughts, “I hope you’ll enjoy the secretarial course more than your time at Miss Metcalfe’s.”

Anna came back to earth. Was it all settled then?

“I’ll speak to my committee tomorrow,” said the lady, “but I’m quite sure that there will be no difficulty.” And as Anna stammered her thanks she said, “Nonsense! I think you’ll be a very good investment.”

The sun had come out and it was quite warm while Anna and Mama walked back to the hotel.

“How much do you think I’ll be able to earn?” asked Anna.

“I don’t know,” said Mama, “but with your languages you should get at least three pounds.”

“Every week!” said Anna. It seemed an enormous sum.

Papa congratulated her, a little sadly.

“I must say, I’d never seen you as a secretary,” he said and Anna quickly pushed aside the thought that she hadn’t either.

“Papa,” she cried, “they said I was a good investment!”

“There I agree with them,” said Papa. He was wearing his best suit, or the one he considered least worn at present, ready to go out. “A meeting of the International Writers’ Club,” he explained. “Would you like to come? It’s not much of a celebration, but there is to be a tea.”

“I’d love to,” said Anna. The Writers’ Club was not very exciting, but now that her future was settled she felt restless. She walked quickly to the bus stop with Papa, trying not to think of the fact that soon her days would be filled with shorthand instead of drawing.

“The meeting is for the German section,” said Papa who was its president. “But the tea” – he smiled at himself for explaining the treat – “will be genuine English.”

When they arrived at the club’s premises near Hyde Park Corner most of the other writers were already assembled – a collection of the usual intelligent refugee faces and the usual frayed refugee collars and cuffs. Several of them came to greet Papa at the door, were introduced to Anna and said how like him she was. This often happened and always cheered her up. Nobody, she thought, who looked so like Papa could be completely hopeless.

“Is she going to follow in your footsteps?” asked a small man with pebble lenses.

“I used to think so,” said Papa, “But now I think she is more interested in drawing. At the moment” – he raised a hand regretfully – “she is planning to become a secretary.”

The man with the pebble lenses raised both hands in regretful echo. “What can one do?” he said. “One has to live.”

He and Papa went to sit on a small platform while Anna found a seat among the other writers. The theme of the meeting was “Germany” and a number of writers got up to speak. What a lot of them there were, thought Anna. No wonder there was no work for them.

The first one spoke about the rise of the Nazis and how it could have been avoided. Everyone except Anna was very interested in this and it provoked a whole succession of smaller speeches and arguments. “If only …” cried the writers. If only the Weimar Republic…the Social Democrats…the French in the Rhineland …

At last it came to an end and a sad man in a pullover rose to read out extracts from a diary smuggled out through Switzerland which had been kept by a Jewish writer still at liberty in Germany. Anna knew how such people lived, of course, but it was still horrifying to hear the details – the penury, the petty persecutions, the constant threat of the concentration camp. When he had finished, the other writers sat in silence and gazed gratefully at the moulded ceiling, and the large windows overlooking Hyde Park. At least they had got out in time.

There followed a completely uninteresting dissertation on the regional differences between Frankfurt and Munich, and then Papa stood up.

“Berlin,” he said, and began to read.

When, at the age of eight or nine, Anna had first realised that Papa was a famous writer, she had begged him to let her see something he had written and he had finally given her a short piece that he thought she might understand. She could still remember her embarrassment after reading it. Why, she had thought in shame, why couldn’t Papa write like everyone else? She herself was going through a phase at school of writing long, convoluted sentences full of grandiose phrases. She had imagined that Papa’s writing would be the same, only even grander. But instead Papa’s sentences had been quite short. He used ordinary words that everyone knew, but put them together in unexpected ways, so that you were startled by them. It was true that once you got over your surprise you saw exactly what he meant, but even so…Why, Anna thought, oh why couldn’t he write like other people?

“A little too soon, I think,” Papa had said afterwards and for years she had been shy of trying again.

Now Papa was reading something he must have typed quite recently on the rickety typewriter in his room. It was about Berlin. She recognised the streets, the woods nearby, there was even a bit about their house. That’s just what it was like, thought Anna.

Then Papa had written about the people – neighbours, shopkeepers, the man who looked after the garden (Anna had almost forgotten him), the owl-eyed secretary who typed Papa’s work. This bit was rather funny and the writers in the audience all laughed. But where were all these people now? asked Papa. Did the owl-eyed secretary raise her hand in the Hitler salute? Had the grocer joined the Storm Troopers – or had he been dragged off to a concentration camp? What had become of them after the Nazis had stolen their country? (Here Papa used a very rude word which made the writers gasp and then titter in relief.) We do not know, said Papa. Hitler has swallowed them up. And yet, if one went back perhaps it would all look just as it had looked before. The streets, the woods nearby, the house…He ended with the words with which he had begun. “Once I lived in Berlin.”

There was a moment’s silence and then the writers rose up as one writer and clapped and clapped. As Papa came down from the platform a small crowd formed round him, congratulating him and shaking his hand. Anna kept back but he found her near the door and asked “Did you like it?” She nodded, but before she could say any more they were swept into the room beyond where tea had been prepared. It was a lavish spread and while some writers made an effort not to appear too keen, others could not resist flinging themselves upon it. The tea had been provided by the main English section of the club and a sprinkling of English writers appeared along with it. While Anna ate an éclair and tried to tell Papa how much she had liked the piece about Berlin, one of them came up to talk to them.

“I heard the applause,” he said to Papa. “What were you speaking about?”

Papa, as usual, did not understand, so Anna translated for him.

“Ach so!” said Papa and adjusted his face to speak English. “I talk-ed,” he said, mispronouncing the mute ed at the end of the word as usual, “about Germany.”

The Englishman was taken aback by the Shakespearean accent but recovered quickly.

“It must have been most exciting,” he said. “I wish so much that I could have understood it.”

When Anna got back to the Bartholomews’, much later, she found a letter from Max inviting her to Cambridge for the weekend. Everything is happening at once, she thought. She forgot her shyness in telling Mrs Bartholomew all about the invitation, about Papa’s reading at the club and about her new career.

“And when I’ve finished the course,” she ended triumphantly, “I’ll be able to earn three pounds a week!”

Like Papa, Mrs Bartholomew looked a little regretful.

“That’s very good news,” she said after a moment. “But you know, don’t you, that you can live in this house as long as you like, so that if ever you should change your mind …”