Anna At War

by Helen Peters

  The lady shook her head. “His name isn’t here. How is it that you’re looking after him?”

  I would have to tell the truth. Surely they wouldn’t send him back?

  “His mother gave him to me. She handed him through the train window. I promised I’d look after him.”

  She turned and spoke to the other lady in Dutch. They called another lady over. She looked at Ezra and they all held an intense conversation. Then the one who spoke German turned to me and said, very kindly, “Because the baby was not expected, no arrangements have been made for him. Therefore, we think the best thing to do would be to put him in an orphanage here in Holland and—”

  “No!” I shouted. “You can’t put him in an orphanage! His mother gave him to me to look after. I won’t leave him!”

  I grabbed Ezra from his basket and clutched him to me. The ladies looked startled. I felt startled. Had I really screamed like that? But I couldn’t stop now.

  “If the English people will take hundreds of children into their homes, surely they will take one little baby! I promised his mother I would take him to England. You can’t take him away from me.”

  The ladies stared at me. I stared back, the baby in my arms. I felt fierce and strong, grown up all of a sudden.

  The older lady said something to me in Dutch, clearly trying to calm me down.

  They had a murmured conversation. Then the young woman touched my arm.

  “We will see what can be done. Come over here, while we register the other children. Don’t worry. We will sort something out.”

  She took me by the arm and led me towards a bench beside the ticket office. Cold fear crept over me. What if they made me stay in Holland too? What if they put both of us in an orphanage?

  I pulled away from her and walked back to the table.

  “I’m going to England,” I said, “and so is Ezra. I’m going to wait here.”

  It took a long time. An endless queue of exhausted children, some crying, some almost asleep on their feet, filed slowly past the table, as the list filled up with ticks. Ezra woke and started to cry. I gave him the rest of the milk and went to the waiting room to change his nappy. I washed the wet nappy in the sink, wrung it out and tied it around the handle of my suitcase to dry. When I walked back to the table, the kind German-speaking lady looked up and smiled at me.

  “We will send a telegraph to the British authorities,” she said. “We will make arrangements. Do not worry. You can take the baby to England.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  White Cake and Bitter Coffee

  Even in that awful situation, it was exciting to be on a boat. Most of us had never seen the sea, and lots of the children went crazy, running up and down the staircases, above and below deck, exploring every corner of the ship. I secretly wished I could too, but I had to look after Ezra. The sailors were so kind and helpful. They warmed up his milk, gave us supper and gave up their own bunks so we could sleep. Ezra and I had a little cabin to ourselves. I was so exhausted and it was so lovely to lie down that I fell asleep instantly.

  When I first woke up, I had no idea where I was. Then I saw my parents’ hunched, defeated backs on the station platform, and my insides felt hollow again.

  I forced the image into the box and locked it away. Ezra was still sleeping peacefully.

  I lifted the blind that covered the porthole. Dazzling light flooded into the cabin. Outside, diamonds of light danced on a sparkling sheet of water that stretched on and on to a fiery pink and gold glow on the horizon. The sun was beginning to rise over the English Channel.

  It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. A sudden feeling of joy surged through me.

  “We’re free!” I whispered to Ezra. “We’re in England and we’re free!”

  Then I felt dreadful. My parents weren’t free.

  Soon, I told myself. Soon they would be free, too.

  Once I was dressed and had changed Ezra’s nappy, I found my way to the lounge. The ship was in dock, but the sailors were giving us breakfast before we left. When a steward saw me with the baby, he gave me a big smile and showed me to a seat at a table. He made the other children move along to make room for me. I showed him Ezra’s empty bottle and said the sentence I had practised as I was getting dressed. “Please may I have more milk?”

  “Oh, you speak English!” He sounded surprised.

  “A little,” I said, but inside I swelled with pride.

  He took the bottle. “Have some breakfast.” He indicated a plate on the table, heaped with thin slices of some sort of plain cake spread with butter. Then he went off to fill the bottle.

  “What is it?” I asked the other children.

  “I don’t know,” said a girl. “It’s very strange.”

  “It’s horrible,” said a little boy, screwing up his face.

  “It’s good,” said an older boy, with his mouth full, as he reached for another slice.

  “But why would they spread cake with butter?”

  He shrugged. “Try it.”

  He pushed the plate across the table. I took a slice and sniffed it. The butter didn’t smell like butter. Gingerly, I took a little bite. The white cake was soft and spongy and bland. Whatever was spread on it had the texture of butter but tasted different. It was all quite strange, but it wasn’t really horrible. Besides, I was hungry.

  “Were you seasick?” asked a girl.

  “No,” I said. “I was asleep.”

  “Lucky you,” she said. “I was sick all night.”

  The nice steward appeared, carrying Ezra’s bottle filled with warm milk. He handed me a cup of steaming coffee.

  “Thank you,” I said in English, and he smiled at me.

  I took a sip and spluttered. It wasn’t coffee. It had a horrible bitter taste. The other children laughed. Luckily, the steward had left. I wouldn’t have liked him to think I was being rude.

  “What is it?” I asked. “I thought it was coffee.”

  “It’s tea,” said an older girl opposite me. “The steward said English people drink tea with milk in it.”

  “It’s disgusting,” I said. But I made myself drink half of it, so as not to seem ungrateful. When the steward returned to clear our plates, I decided to try out my English again.

  “What is the name of this cake?”

  He laughed. I felt mortified. What had I said wrong?

  “That’s not cake,” he said. “It’s bread and butter.”

  I stared at him. Was he joking? At home, we ate rye bread, dark and dense, with a strong, rich flavour. This white spongy stuff in thin slices wasn’t like bread at all. I hoped everything in England wasn’t going to feel so alien.

  After breakfast was cleared away, the lounge became a sort of office. Several smartly dressed ladies came on to the boat and sat at a table. We had to wait in line again while they checked our papers and gave us all another label. This time, the labels had our names on.

  While I was waiting, I used my dictionary to help me work out what to say to the ladies about Ezra. I didn’t want to be unprepared, like I had been in Holland. So when it came to my turn, and the elegant woman in the fur coat looked at Ezra and said, “And who is this?” I was able to reply, “His name is Ezra Neumann. He has no papers. The women in Holland said they would speak to you on the telephone.”

  The woman in the fur coat smiled at me. “You speak English very well. I did speak to Frau Weissmuller in Holland. My colleague, Mrs Simons, is going to look after the baby until we can find him a permanent home. She will be there to meet him in London. Can you look after him until we get there?”

  Perhaps she was making a special effort to speak clearly, but I was really proud that although I couldn’t understand every word, I could catch her general meaning.

  “Yes, I can,” I told her.

  She smiled again. “That would be very helpful.”

  But I wasn’t doing it to be helpful. I just wanted to keep Ezra for as long as possible.

  An official ma
n stamped our papers and another man in uniform stamped the label. The sight of them in their uniforms made my stomach tense up, but these men were very different from German officials. They didn’t shout, and sometimes they even smiled at us. And when the man who stamped the labels accidentally stepped on a boy’s foot, he apologised to the boy! We all gaped at him.

  I was impatient to get off the boat and see England. But when we walked down the gangplank on to the quayside, we had to stand in line again while the British customs officers searched our luggage.

  By the time we got on the train, it was early afternoon. I was excited to see the English countryside, and to catch my first glimpse of London. I wondered if we would be able to see Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament or Tower Bridge, all the places I knew from my books.

  But as soon as I sat down on the comfortable upholstered seats (upholstered seats! Were we in First Class?) and settled Ezra’s basket on the floor, a wave of exhaustion swept over me. The rhythm of the train and the sound of the engine sent me straight to sleep.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Welcome to England

  I woke up as we drew in to Liverpool Street Station, a vast glass-roofed space swirling with steam. Ezra was still sleeping. I bent to pick up his basket, but a lady who spoke German came into our compartment and said, “Thank you for looking after the baby. I’ll take him now.”

  “But what’s going to happen to him?”

  “Mrs Simons will meet us here and take him home. He’ll be very well looked after, don’t you worry.”

  “But how will his mother know where to find him?”

  “We’ll keep all his details at Bloomsbury House,” she said.

  Before I could ask any more, a whistle blew and we were ushered out of the train into a huge crowd of people waiting on the platform. Immediately, people began shouting and waving. Eva, who was going to stay with her auntie, cried, “Tante Rosi, Tante Rosi!” and a small, dark-haired woman turned around and beamed, throwing her arms wide open as Eva pushed through the crowd. She swept Eva into an enormous hug. I looked at them and felt sick with loneliness and longing.

  The ladies in charge were desperately trying to keep order. One of them close to me blew a whistle that nearly deafened me. Everybody on the platform was startled into silence. In a loud voice, she gave what were clearly instructions, though I couldn’t understand most of the words. Then she gestured for everybody to follow her.

  She led us to a vast, gloomy underground room below the station. Another lady handed each of us a paper bag. Inside were sandwiches, made with that funny white bread again, and also an apple and an orange, which was nice. We had to sit in rows in one part of the room while our new foster parents sat in another part, behind a rope barrier. The list was in alphabetical order so, with the surname Schlesinger, I guessed I’d be waiting for hours.

  I sat there, cradling my orange. I couldn’t see anybody from my compartment on the German train, and it felt so strange not to be looking after Ezra any more. I looked all around the hall but I couldn’t see him anywhere. The mysterious Mrs Simons must have already taken him home with her. I hadn’t even said goodbye. Tears prickled my eyelids, but I bit my cheeks and blinked them back.

  I couldn’t just sit there, getting more and more anxious about meeting my foster parents. I had to distract myself somehow. I could read Heidi, but I was too nervous to concentrate on a book.

  Then I remembered. I hadn’t written to my parents. I’d promised them I’d write on the train.

  I felt a terrible wave of guilt. I quickly opened my case and got out my writing things.

  Writing to Mama and Papa was wonderfully comforting. It almost felt like talking to them. I told them all about Ezra and the lovely Dutch ladies and the kind sailors. I didn’t put in any of the bad stuff.

  When I eventually finished and looked up from the paper, I was surprised to see hardly any children left in the huge room. One of the organisers called out, “Renate Woolf?”

  Woolf? They’d reached W? But where was my family? Had they changed their minds? Had they forgotten me? Had I not heard when they’d called my name, because I’d been so absorbed in my letter? But wouldn’t somebody have come and found me?

  Perhaps I should walk over to the curtained-off part of the room where the smart ladies sat, and ask them why I hadn’t been called. But they might be annoyed if I did that. And what if they told me the family didn’t want me after all? If that was going to be the news, I didn’t want to hear it.

  I sat there, gripping the edges of the hard wooden bench, hovering half off the seat in an agony of indecision.

  “Anna Schlesinger?”

  I looked up. One of the ladies smiled and beckoned me towards the curtained-off area.

  “Would you like me to put a stamp on this and post it for you?” she said, looking at the envelope clutched in my hand.

  “Yes, please,” I said gratefully. “Thank you very much.”

  My stomach churned and my hands were damp with sweat as I walked up to the other end of the hall and behind the big tarpaulins.

  Another lady looked at me across a table covered with papers.

  “Anna Schlesinger?”

  “Yes.” My voice was a croak.

  “Anna, this is Mrs Dean, your foster mother.”

  She gestured to a pretty, plump woman with wavy dark hair and a warm smile, who hurried over and gave me a big hug. Relief flooded over me. A kind foster mother!

  Mrs Dean picked up my case and started talking to me in very fast English. I couldn’t understand a word she said. The lady at the table said something to her. I think she must have been telling her I didn’t speak much English, because when Mrs Dean turned back to me, she spoke more slowly.

  “Welcome to England, Anna. It’s so lovely to meet you.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Kent

  After the cold and gloom of the underground room, it was dizzying to walk out on to the hot and noisy London street. Immediately, a big red bus drew up in front of us: a double-decker bus, just like I had seen in pictures!

  Mrs Dean led me on to the bus and we sat right at the front, on the top deck. It was wonderful to look down on the London streets, with their grand grey buildings and the people walking briskly along the pavements. She asked me about the journey and I couldn’t remember how to say “long”, so I just said, “It was good, thank you.” Then I said, “Do you live in London?”

  Mrs Dean threw back her head and laughed.

  “Oh, bless you, no!” She said something I couldn’t understand, and she must have noticed my blank expression, because she slowed her voice down and said, “We live in the countryside. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. I was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t going to stay in London, but Mama always said the English countryside was very beautiful.

  “We have to get another train,” Mrs Dean said. “We live in Kent. In a village called Ashcombe.”

  I wondered whom she meant by “we”. Would it be rude to ask whether she had children?

  My curiosity got the better of me.

  “Do you have children?” I asked.

  She smiled at me. “You speak English very well. Yes, we have two children. Frank is seven and Molly’s twelve. That’s why we chose you. We thought it would be nice for Molly to have a friend the same age.”

  I was really pleased that I could understand that. At least, I hoped I’d understood it. I tried to picture Molly and Frank. I imagined them as smaller versions of Mrs Dean, with dark wavy hair and smiling, rosy faces.

  We got off the bus at another busy station, and within a few minutes we were on a train again.

  “We thought it would be nice,” said Mrs Dean, as she unwrapped a paper parcel of sandwiches, “if you called me Aunty Rose. And my husband you can call Uncle Bert.”

  I nodded and smiled. “Thank you,” I said, taking one of the sandwiches she offered. I didn’t like to tell her we’d been given sandwiches at the station. Besides,
I didn’t know how long it would be until my next meal.

  The upholstered seats were so comfortable that I could easily have gone to sleep, but I wanted to see the English countryside this time.

  First, the train crossed a wide grey river. I pointed at it.

  “River Thames?”

  Mrs Dean – Aunty Rose – gave a big smile. “Well done!”

  On the other side of the river, we passed a lot of dull grey buildings and rows of little houses. Then the houses stopped and the train was steaming through the countryside. And it was so beautiful.

  Bright-green fields were sprinkled with masses of wild flowers, pink and yellow and white. White blossoms foamed in the dense green hedgerows. We passed lovely stone churches, and little houses where the roofs seemed to be made of straw. Were they really made of straw? I wanted to ask Aunty Rose, but I didn’t know the words. I rifled through my dictionary, but by the time I had found the word for “straw”, we had passed the houses.

  By the time we finally got out at a tiny station, the light was starting to fade and there was nobody else around.

  “We have to get another bus now,” said Mrs Dean, carrying my case to a painted bus stop sign with a wooden bench beside it. So the journey still wasn’t over! She said something that was probably an explanation of where we were going, but I couldn’t understand a word.

  Opposite the station, the hands on the church clock stood at ten to nine. The quiet evening air was so fresh and sweet after the grimy coal-dust smell of the trains. The only sounds were the buzzing of insects and an endless choir of birds, twittering and chattering, cawing and cooing, chirruping and singing, in the hedges and trees and sky. One pair of birds soared higher and higher above me, singing all the way.

  Aunty Rose saw me looking at them and smiled. “Larks,” she said, pointing upwards. Then came a rumbling sound along the road. “Oh, good,” she said. “The bus.”