When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

At five o’clock when Anna and Max were going home it had only just stopped. Peter and Marianne Kentner saw them to the door. The snow lay thick and dry and crunchy all over the road and the moon was shining down on it.

‘Why don’t we go tobogganing in the moonlight?’ said Peter.

‘Do you think they’d let us?’

‘We’ve done it before,’ said Peter, who was fourteen. ‘Go and ask your mother.’

Mama said they could go provided they all stayed together and got home by seven. They put on their warmest clothes and set off.

It was only a quarter of an hour’s walk to the Grunewald, where a wooden slope made an ideal run down to a frozen lake. They had tobogganed there many times before, but it had always been daylight and the air had been loud with the shouts of other children. Now all they could hear was the soughing of the wind in the trees, the crunching of the new snow under their feet, and the gentle whir of the sledges as they slid along behind them. Above their heads the sky was dark but the ground shone blue in the moonlight and the shadows of the trees broke like black bands across it.

At the top of the slope they stopped and looked down. Nobody had been on it before them. The shimmering path of snow stretched ahead, perfect and unmarked, right down to the edge of the lake.

‘Who’s going down first?’ asked Max.

Anna did not mean to, but she found herself hopping up and down and saying, ‘Oh please – please …!’

Peter said, ‘All right – youngest first.’

That meant her because Marianne was ten.

She sat on her sledge, held on to the steering rope, took a deep breath and pushed off. The sledge began to move, rather gently, down the hill.

‘Go on!’ shouted the boys behind her. ‘Give it another push!’

But she didn’t. She kept her feet on the runners and let the sledge gather speed slowly. The powdery snow sprayed up all round her as the sledge struck it. The trees moved past, slowly at first, then faster and faster. The moonlight leapt all round her. At last she seemed to be flying through a mass of silver. Then the sledge hit the hump at the bottom of the slope, shot across it, and landed in a dapple of moonlight on the frozen lake. It was beautiful.

The others came down after her, squealing and shouting.

They went down the slope head first on their stomachs so that the snow sprayed straight into their faces. They went down feet first on their backs with the black tops of the fir trees rushing past above them. They all squeezed on to one sledge together and came down so fast that they shot on almost to the middle of the lake. After each ride they struggled back up the slope, panting and pulling the sledges behind them. In spite of the cold they were steaming inside their woollies.

Then it began to snow again. At first they hardly noticed it, but then the wind got up and blew the snow in their faces. All at once Max stopped in the middle of dragging his sledge up the slope and said, ‘What time is it? Oughtn’t we to be getting back?’

Nobody had a watch and they suddenly realised that they had no idea how long they had been there. Perhaps it was quite late and their parents had been waiting for them at home.

‘Come on,’ said Peter. ‘We’d better go quickly.’ He took off his gloves and knocked them together to shake the caked snow off them. His hands were red with cold. So were Anna’s, and she noticed for the first time that her feet were frozen.

It was chilly going back. The wind blew through their damp clothes and with the moon hidden behind the clouds the path was black in front of them. Anna was glad when they were out of the trees and in a road. Soon there were street lamps, houses with lighted windows, shops. They were nearly home.

An illuminated clockface showed them the time. After all it was not yet quite seven. They heaved sighs of relief and walked more slowly. Max and Peter began to talk about football. Marianne tied two sledges together and scampered wildly ahead on the empty road, leaving a network of overlapping tracks in the snow. Anna lagged behind because her cold feet hurt.

She could see the boys stop outside her house, still talking and waiting for her, and was just going to catch them up when she heard the creak of a gate. Something moved in the path beside her and suddenly a shapeless figure loomed up. For a moment she was very frightened – but then she saw that it was only Fräulein Lambeck in some sort of furry cloak and with a letter in her hand.

‘Little Anna!’ cried Fräulein Lambeck. ‘Fancy meeting you in the dark of the night! I was just going to the post box but did not think to find a kindred spirit. And how is your dear Papa?’

‘He’s got ’flu,’ said Anna automatically.

Fräulein Lambeck stopped in her tracks.

‘Still got ’flu, little Anna? You told me he had ’flu a week ago.’

‘Yes,’ said Anna.

‘And he’s still in bed? Still got a temperature?’

‘Yes,’ said Anna.

‘Oh, the poor man!’ Fräulein Lambeck put a hand on Anna’s shoulder. ‘Are they doing everything for him? Does the doctor come to see him?’

‘Yes,’ said Anna.

‘And what does the doctor say?’

‘He says … I don’t know,’ said Anna.

Fräulein Lambeck leaned down confidentially and peered into her face. ‘Tell me, little Anna,’ she said, ‘how high is your dear papa’s temperature?’

‘I don’t know!’ cried Anna, and her voice came out not at all as she had meant but in a sort of squeak. ‘I’m sorry but I must go home now!’ – and she ran as fast as she could towards Max and the open front door.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ said Heimpi in the hall. ‘Someone shoot you out of a cannon?’

Anna could see Mama through the half-open door in the drawing room.

‘Mama!’ she cried, ‘I hate lying to everybody about Papa. It’s horrible. Why do we have to do it? I wish we didn’t have to!’

Then she saw that Mama was not alone. Onkel Julius (who was not really an uncle but an old friend of Papa’s) was sitting in an armchair on the other side of the room.

‘Calm yourself,’ said Mama quite sharply. ‘We all hate lying about Papa, but just now it’s necessary. I wouldn’t ask you to do it if it weren’t necessary!’

‘She got caught by Fräulein Lambeck,’ said Max who had followed Anna in. ‘You know Fräulein Lambeck? She’s ghastly. You can’t answer her questions even when you’re allowed to tell the truth!’

‘Poor Anna,’ said Onkel Julius in his high voice. He was a gentle wispy man and they were all very fond of him. ‘Your father asked me to tell you that he misses you both very much and sends you lots of love.’

‘Have you seen him then?’ asked Anna.

‘Onkel Julius has just come back from Prague,’ said Mama. ‘Papa is fine and he wants us to meet him in Zurich, in Switzerland, on Sunday.’

‘Sunday?’ said Max. ‘But that’s only a week. That’s the day of the elections. I thought we were going to wait and see who won, first!’

‘Your father has decided he’d rather not wait.’ Onkel Julius smiled at Mama. ‘I do think he’s taking all this too seriously.’

‘Why?’ asked Max. ‘What’s he worried about?’

Mama sighed. ‘Ever since Papa heard of the move to take away his passport he’s been worried that they might try to take away ours – then we wouldn’t be able to leave Germany.’

‘But why should they?’ asked Max. ‘If the Nazis don’t like us, surely they’d be glad to get rid of us.’

‘Exactly,’ said Onkel Julius. He smiled at Mama again. ‘Your husband is a wonderful man with a wonderful imagination, but frankly in this matter I think he’s off his head. Never mind, you’ll all have a lovely holiday in Switzerland and when you come back to Berlin in a few weeks’ time we’ll all go to the Zoo together.’ Onkel Julius was a naturalist and went to the Zoo all the time. ‘Let me know if I can help with any of the arrangements. I’ll see you again, of course.’ He kissed Mama’s hand and went.