by Judith Kerr
There was nothing more she could say.
The smell of crisps became suddenly overwhelming and nausea returned, but she fought it down.
“Good luck with the job,” said Konrad. “I look forward to seeing your name on the television screen. And give my love to Richard.”
“I will.”
“Perhaps I’ll see you both at Christmas. I’ll be in London then to visit my family.”
“That’ll be lovely.” The part of her not occupied with the crisps noted that it was ludicrous of him to mention his family at this point, but replied, even more ludicrously, “And Mama will be there then as well.”
They looked at each other and then, to her relief, her flight was called.
“Goodbye,” she cried and, on an impulse, embraced him. “Look after yourself. And thank you!”
“For what?” he called after her, and it was true, she did not know. For making Mama happy in the past? For promising, with no great certainty, to look after her in the future? Or just because she herself was at last going home?
She turned and waved to him from Passport Control and he waved back. Then she watched him thread his way through the crowd in the lounge – a tall, fat elderly man with thinning hair and a stick. The great lover, she thought and it seemed very sad.
She was almost sick again as the plane took off – but here at least, she thought, they’ll just think it’s air sickness. She got as far as feeling for the paper bag provided, just in case, but as the plane rose up into the sky, away from the rubble and the re-building, from the dubious goods trains and the even more dubious people who claimed to have known nothing about them, away from the threatening Russians and the ex-Nazis whom they so much resembled, from the Grunewald and the German language and Mama and all her problems, it seemed as though her nausea had been left behind with all the rest.
She looked out at the blazing sky and felt a huge sense of relief. Well, I’ve made it, she thought, as though it had been some kind of escape. She was suddenly hungry, and when the stewardess brought her some breakfast, she devoured a double portion, to the last crumb. Afterwards she wrote a note to Mama, to be posted at London Airport. This way, she thought, Mama would get it tomorrow and it would be something, at least, to stave off depression. When she had stuck down the envelope, she leaned back in her seat and stared out at the sky.
“We have now left the Eastern Zone of Germany and are flying over the Western Zone,” said the stewardess through a little microphone. “In a few minutes you may see the city of Bremen on your left.”
The man beside her, a middle-aged American, stirred and smiled. “I guess it’s silly of me,” he said, “but I’m always glad when we get to this bit.”
She smiled back at him. “So am I.”
Already, as she looked back, her time in Berlin was beginning to shrink into the past. I didn’t do much good there, she thought, but with detachment, as though she were considering someone else. Small, fleeting images ran through her mind – Mama searching for a handkerchief under her pillow; the exact inflection of Konrad’s voice as he said, “The affair, of course, is finished.” Perhaps one day I’ll really write about it, she thought, and this time the idea did not seem so shocking. If I did it properly, she thought – the way it really was. If I could really describe Mama.
But as she picked through everything that had happened, there was a sense of something missing. Something forgotten, or perhaps neglected – something quite ordinary and yet important, that should have happened but hadn’t. If I could just remember that, she thought. But she was tired and it was lovely not to feel sick any more, and after a while she put it out of her mind.
What would Papa think about it all? she wondered. During his last years, when her German had faded and Papa’s English remained inadequate, they had made a joke of addressing each other very formally in French… Qu’en pensez-vous, mon père? she thought, and only realized from her neighbour’s astonished glance that she must have said it aloud.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I was dreaming.”
She closed her eyes to make it look more convincing, shutting out everything except the throbbing of the engines. Of course if you wrote about it, you’d have to put all that in, she thought. The different languages and the different countries. And the suitcases. Packed and re-packed so many times. Stored in the lofts and basements of the various shabby boarding houses, counted and re-counted on the train journeys from one temporary home to the next.
“Wir fahren mit der Eisenbahn,” said Mama. The iron railway. It even sounded like the noise the train made rattling across Germany. The compartment was dirty and Max had got his knees black from searching for his football under the seat. “Here comes the passport inspector,” said Mama and put her finger to her lips, so that Anna would remember not to give them away to the Russians. She could see them standing all along the frontier in an endless line.
“Anything to declare?” said Konrad, and she forgot and told him about the Professor’s pills, but Mama shouted, “I’m fifty-six years old,” and the train moved on, across the frontier, right through the middle of Paris and up Putney High Street.
“I’ve got the children through,” said Mama to Papa who was sitting by his typewriter in his shabby room. He smiled fondly, ironically, and without a trace of self-pity. “As long as we four are together,” he said, “nothing else matters.”
“Papa,” cried Anna, and found herself looking at the face of a stranger. It was quite close to her own, carefully made up and surrounded by permed, blonde hair. Below it was a crisp, blue blouse and a tailored tunic.
“We are about to land at London Airport,” said the stewardess. “Please fasten your seat belt.” She looked at Anna more closely. “Are you quite well?” she said. “You’re looking very pale.”
“Quite well, thank you.” She must have answered automatically, for she was still too much hung about by the dream to know what she was saying.
“Is someone meeting you at the airport?”
“Oh, yes.” But for one endless, panicky moment, she could not remember who it was. Papa? Max? Konrad? “It’s all right,” she said at last. “I’m being met by my husband.”
“Well, if there’s anything you need—” The stewardess smiled and moved on.
They dived down through the cloud, and below it was raining. Everywhere was wet, and there was mud on the airport floors from the passengers’ feet.
UK passports to the right, others to the left. She went through the gate on the right with more than the usual feeling of having conned someone, but the man smiled at her as though she belonged. “Not very nice weather to come home to,” he said.
The customs officers in their blue uniforms were easy and relaxed as usual. “What, nothing?” they said. “Not even a bottle of schnapps for the boyfriend?”
“Nothing,” she said, and there, beyond the partition, she could see Richard.
He was looking past her at a group of people just coming in, and for a moment she watched him as though he were a stranger. A slight, dark-haired man, carelessly dressed with a quick, intelligent face. English. Well – more Irish really. But not a refugee. He looked alone and unencumbered. He’s lived here all his life, she thought. He’s never spoken anything but English. Papa died years before I even met him. She felt suddenly weighed down with past words and places and people. Could she really belong with anyone so unburdened?
The customs officer made a white chalk mark on her suitcase, and at the same moment Richard turned and saw her.
“Anna!”
She grabbed her case and ran towards him. As she reached him, she saw that he looked tired and worried. She dropped the case and fell into his arms. He smelled of coffee, paper and typewriter ribbons.
“Darling,” she said.
He said, “Thank God you’re back.”
For the first time since she’d left him, she felt all of one piece. There were no more doubts. This was where she belonged. She was home.
“It’s been getting a bit frightening,” he said, as they sat together on the airport bus.
“The Suez business?”
“And Hungary.”
“But I thought that was all right.”
He looked astonished. “All right?”
“Settled.”
“Haven’t you heard? It’s in all the papers. You must have heard.”
“No.” But she knew from his face what it was. “Did the Russians—?”
“Of course. When they said they were moving out, they were just waiting for reinforcements. Now they’ve got them and they’ve pounced. Tanks all round Budapest. They’ve grabbed the Hungarian leaders. They’re closing the frontiers and chucking out the Western press.”
She felt suddenly sick. “So all those people—”
“That’s right,” he said. “God knows what will happen to them now. Apparently thousands of them are getting out while they can.”
Again! she thought, and was overcome by anger. “Surely someone must do something,” she said. “They can’t just be left.”
He said nothing.
“Well, can they?”
He smiled wryly. “The Labour Party are having a huge protest rally in Trafalgar Square.”
“About Hungary?”
“About us. How wicked we are, going into Suez like awful imperialists. And while we’re busy with our own little fiasco, the real imperialists are doing what they like.”
Outside the window of the bus, streets of identical red brick houses streamed past in the rain and were left behind.
“I think everybody’s scared,” he said. “You can see it in their expressions. It could so easily all blow up.”
More houses, a factory, a horse in a scruffy field. What about Mama? she thought. “You think there’ll be trouble in Berlin?”
He made a face. “If it did blow up, I suppose it wouldn’t matter where you were. But I’m very glad you’re back.”
“So am I. Oh, so am I.”
His coat was damp, and she could smell the tweed, mixing with the rubbery smell of other people’s macs.
“Will your mother be all right” he asked. “I mean, with Konrad?”
“I don’t know.” She wanted to tell him about it but suddenly felt too tired. “It’s very complicated,” she said.
“Konrad always seemed so responsible.”
“That’s the funny thing,” she said. “I think he is.”
At the air terminal in Kensington High Street the bus deposited them, and they stood on the kerb with her suitcase, trying to get a taxi. As usual in the rain, these all seemed to be full, and she stood there in the wet, peering out at the cars and buses splashing past through the puddles, and felt utterly exhausted.
He looked at her in concern. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “I think I had too much cognac last night. And very little sleep. There’s one!” A taxi had appeared round a corner, empty, and she hailed it.
“Poor love,” he said. “And you had the curse as well.”
The taxi came towards them and she watched it approaching, infinitely slowly. So that’s it, she thought – the thing that had been missing, the thing that should have happened in Berlin but hadn’t. She could see the driver’s face under his woolly cap, the wet shine of the metal, the water spurting from the wheels like a film in slow motion – she could almost count the drops – and she thought, good heavens, me! It’s happened to me! The taxi stopped.
“No,” she said. “I didn’t.”
He stared at her. “You didn’t?”
“No.” She could feel the happiness rising into her face and saw it echoed in his.
“Good God,” he said.
The driver watched them from behind the steering wheel. “You do want a taxi?” he asked with heavy irony.
“Of course.” Richard gave him the address and they scrambled in.
“Are you sure?” he said. “I suppose it could have been the strain.”
“No,” she said. “I was sick this morning, too. And there’s something else that’s funny – I keep smelling things.” She felt for the words. “I’m with child.”
She laughed with pleasure, and he laughed too. They sat very close together, thinking about it, while the taxi crawled through the traffic. Near Kensington Church Street a policeman stopped them to allow a small procession to cross the road. Middle-aged people, some with umbrellas, carrying placards. “Save Hungary” she read, but there were not many of them and they soon passed. Then up Church Street, down the side streets lined with trees, almost bare now, the sodden leaves clogging the gutters.
“I wonder what it will be,” said Richard. “Do you mind which?”
“Not really.” But she imagined a daughter. A little girl, running, laughing, talking… “I suppose it won’t speak any German.”
“You could teach it if you liked.”
“No,” she said. “No, I don’t think so.” Anyway, it wouldn’t be the same.
Much later, when it was getting dark, she sat in the little living room on the new striped sofa, listening to the news. She had unpacked, and telephoned James Dillon – though now, she supposed, she would only be able to do the new job until the baby was born – and had told Richard all about Mama. She had inspected the dining-room rug which looked just right but might not be suitable for a nursery, and they had decided on Thomas for a boy but had not been able to agree on a name for a girl.
The curtains were drawn, supper was cooking in the kitchen, and apart from the fact that the stack of typewritten sheets next to Richard’s typewriter had grown taller, she might never have been away. She could hardly remember Berlin, or even a time when she hadn’t known that she was pregnant.
The newsreader’s careful accents filled the room. The Egyptian army had been routed, a British cruiser had sunk a frigate, British and French infantry were ready at any moment to move in.
“Are you sure you want to listen to this?” asked Richard anxiously. He had got some glasses from the kitchen and was pouring her a drink.
She nodded, and the careful voice went on. “In Hungary the Russians have swept back in force…” He gave her a glass and sat down beside her. “… no one knows what will happen now to the brave people of Budapest… the Secret Police, wreaking a terrible vengeance… refugees, many of them children, pouring across the frontier…”
She sipped her drink, but it didn’t help.
“… never again, said a spokesman, will the West be able to trust…”
She found that tears were running down her face. Richard reached out, there was a click, and the voice stopped.
“It makes one weepy,” she said. “Being pregnant makes one weepy.”
“Everything makes you weepy,” he said. He raised his glass and said with fierce affection, “To our little creature.”
“To our little creature.” She wiped her eyes and sniffed. “It’s just –” she said – “it’s hardly the best time to start a baby, is it?”
“I don’t suppose it ever is.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t.”
He put his arm round her. “You’ll be a lovely mum.”
She was taken aback by the word. “A mum?” she said doubtfully.
He smiled. “A lovely, lovely mum.”
She smiled back.
Somewhere very far away, a small person in boots was running up some steps, shouting, “Ist Mami da?”
I wonder how I’ll do, she thought. I wonder how on earth I’ll do.
About the Author
Judith Kerr was born in Berlin of German Jewish parents. Her father, Alfred Kerr, a distinguished writer, fiercely attacked the Nazis long before they came to power and the family had to flee the country in 1933 when Judith was nine years old.
A Small Person Far Away is the third title in a trilogy of books based on Judith’s own experiences. The first, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, tells the story of the last-minute escape from Germany, village life in Switzerland, the family’s
refugee existence in Paris and their final arrival in England. The trilogy continues with Bombs on Aunt Dainty and A Small Person Far Away, which deal with her growing up in wartime London, her time at art school and her marriage to the writer, Nigel Kneale.
Judith is also well known as the author and illustrator of picture books of which the best-known are the hugely popular Mog stories and The Tiger Who Came to Tea, which has now been in print for over thirty years. She lives in London with her husband. They have a film designer daughter, a novelist son – and a cat, called Posy.
Other Works
Also by Judith Kerr
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
(also available as a Collins Modern Classic)
Bombs on Aunt Dainty
Out of the Hitler Time
Copyright
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 2002
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
77–85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is
www.harpercollinschildrensbooks.co.uk
4
Text copyright © Kerr-Kneale Productions Ltd 1978, 1989
The author asserts the moral right to be
identified as the author of the work.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 e-books.
EPub Edition © MAY 2012 ISBN 9780007385508
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
