The Runaway Family

by Diney Costeloe

  “Good morning, Anna,” Ruth said briskly, pleased that a quick search of her memory had produced the maid’s name. “Please would you tell Frau Bernstein that her mother and sister are here.”

  Anna eyed the invasion of children with disfavour, said she would see if Madam was at home, and, leaving them standing in the hall, with an anxious taxi driver hovering on the front step, she disappeared up the stairs.

  “Ruth! Mother! Why on earth didn’t you warn me you were coming?” cried Edith as she hurried down the stairs to greet them. She stared at them all, ranged in her front hall, where Anna had left them. “Come in! Come in here and sit down.” She moved towards the door on her right, but Ruth laid her hand on her sister’s arm.

  “Sorry, Edith, but we need some money for the taxi. I’m afraid we haven’t any schillings.”

  Edith stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment, so that Helga had to say, “Edith, dear, please pay the taxi driver so that we can all come into the warm.”

  “Oh, yes, of course, Mother. I’ll get my bag.” She ran back up the stairs and returned moments later with money in her hand. She paid the relieved-looking taxi driver and closed the front door behind him. Anna, watching all this wide-eyed, was hovering beside the door leading to the kitchen. Edith turned to her.

  “We’ll be in the morning room,” she said. “Please bring some coffee, Anna, and some milk for the children.”

  The maid disappeared to the kitchen and Edith opened the door off the hallway. “Now then, all of you, come in here and sit down.” She turned to the children who had trailed into the room behind their mother. “You’d like a drink of milk, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’m hungry,” whined Inge. No one told her to be quiet and not to be rude. Inge spoke for all of them; they were all hungry.

  “I’m sure you are, pet,” cooed her Aunt Edith. “Anna shall bring you a biscuit.”

  “I’m afraid she needs more than a biscuit, Edith,” Ruth said quietly. “She hasn’t eaten since yesterday. None of us has!”

  “What!” cried Edith. “You poor things, you must be starving!” She went back out into the hall and called the maid back again. “Anna, please ask Cook to prepare a meal for my sister and her family, and have it laid out in the dining room… straightaway.”

  Anna murmured, “Very good, madam,” but it was clear that she didn’t welcome the intrusion of so many people.

  “Now,” Edith said brightly, “sit down, all of you, and tell me why you’re here.”

  Before Ruth could reply, Helga spoke. “We’re here, Edith dear, because Kurt has been arrested, Ruth’s home has been burnt down round her ears, and I have been turned out of mine.” Her tone was terse. She was angry at her elder daughter’s lack of thought.

  Edith gasped. “Kurt arrested? How awful! What did he do?”

  “He didn’t do anything,” snapped her mother. “He’s a Jew! No further reason is needed.”

  “Well, thank goodness it isn’t like that here!” exclaimed Edith. She turned to Ruth. “What happened to the shop? How awful for you! How did it catch fire?”

  “It didn’t just ‘catch fire’, Edith,” said Ruth. “It was set on fire. There was a riot one night in Kirnheim. A mob rampaged through the town, Kurt was taken away by the storm troopers, and the shop was set on fire. The children and I only just escaped with our lives.” She gave her sister a hard stare. “I did write and tell you what had happened and that we’d had to go to Munich and stay with Herbert, Kurt’s brother.”

  “Did you?” Edith’s eyes flickered. “I never got your letter… or I’d have answered, of course. Offered you a home with us.”

  “Well, that’s all right, then,” Helga said. “Because that’s why we’ve come to you now. We’ve nowhere else to go, and we need somewhere to stay.”

  Ruth saw the dismay flash in Edith’s eyes before she said, “Of course, Mother. You’re all very welcome.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ruth said. “We just need a place for a few days, until we can find somewhere of our own.”

  “That’s fine!” Edith said cheerfully. “We can always squeeze you in for a few days.”

  At that moment the door burst open and Paul, Edith’s son, came bounding into the room. He was a good-looking boy, tall for his fifteen years, with deep-set dark eyes, and a mop of dark curls, cropped short in a vain attempt to keep them in order.

  “Oma!” he cried, hugging his grandmother. “Anna told me you were here! How lovely to see you! And Aunt Ruth… have you come to stay? Are these my cousins? Laura, Inge, all grown up.” He gave each girl a hug before crouching down to look at the twins. “Well,” he said, “I haven’t met you two before. Peter and Hans, isn’t it? Which one of you is which? How will I ever tell?”

  The twins gurgled with laughter. “I’m Peter,” said Hans.

  “And I’m Hansi,” said Peter.

  “Other way round,” said Ruth, smiling for the first time since they had come into her sister’s house. “It’s their new game, to pretend to be each other. Peter has a small mole on his cheek. That’s how you tell until you know!”

  “Well, I shall call you both Hans-Peter,” Paul told them cheerfully, “then I can’t ever be wrong, can I?” He turned to Ruth. “Is Uncle Kurt with you, Aunt Ruth? Where’s he?”

  “I’m afraid not,” began Ruth, but Edith cut in smoothly.

  “Your uncle can’t come this time,” she said. “Now, go and find Naomi and wash your hands. We’re having an early lunch. Your cousins have come a long way and they are hungry.”

  “OK, Mother,” said Paul cheerfully, heading for the door in search of his sister.

  “And don’t say OK, Paul,” reprimanded his mother. “It’s common.”

  Paul gave her a grin, “OK,” he said, and left the room.

  “He’s growing into such a good-looking boy,” Helga said, “and so welcoming!”

  Edith glanced sharply in her mother’s direction to see if the comment was directed at her, but Helga was smiling fondly after Paul. “It’s lovely to see him again. I can’t wait to see Naomi.”

  “Well,” Edith said, “while we’re waiting for Cook to prepare lunch, I’d better show you your rooms. It will be a bit of a crush, I’m afraid, we don’t have a big house, you know, but I’m sure you won’t mind that.” She turned to the four children who were still standing silently round their mother. “Come along, children, and then we can all have some lunch.” She led the way upstairs, and along a landing to a room at the end. Pushing open the door, she stood aside to let her mother and her sister enter.

  Edith had said it would be a squeeze, and Ruth realised she was probably right, though the house was far bigger than any she, Ruth, had ever lived in. She, Helga and the twins were sleeping in the one big spare room and the two girls had folding beds in what was little more than a box room, down the landing from the other children, on the floor above. Anna had put the two suitcases into the spare room, and once the twins were reunited with their rabbits, and Inge with her silk scarf, they were happy to go back downstairs to the dining room. Laura had not taken her diary from the case, she simply checked that it was still there and then tucked it back among the clothes.

  By the time they had got back downstairs, Paul had reappeared with his sister, Naomi. Naomi, aged nine, was as fair as her mother had been as a child. Her long, blond hair was neatly braided, with pale blue ribbons at the end of each plait. Wide-set blue eyes looked out on the world through the palest of lashes, and her skin was almost translucent. Although she was less than one year younger than Laura, looking at them the difference could have been two or three. She recognised her grandmother, but hung back shyly behind her brother at the sight of so many other people that she didn’t know.

  “Come along, Naomi,” her mother said briskly. “Give Oma a kiss, then we can all sit down to lunch.”

  Helga held out a hand, and Naomi edged forward to take it. Helga smiled at her. “Hallo, Naomi darling. It’s so lovely to see you again.” She
made no move to hug or kiss the child; Naomi hadn’t seen her for two years, and needed time to get to know her again.

  “Now then, everybody,” Edith called, “let’s sit down at the table.”

  The lunch was served, and Ruth certainly couldn’t fault her sister’s cook. A meal had been produced that was both plentiful and filling. None of the Friedmans had seen so much food since they had left Kirnheim, and all of them ate hungrily, while their cousins ate with polite delicacy, and Edith picked at the food on her plate and pushed it away with most of it uneaten.

  What a waste, thought Ruth as she remembered the times they had all gone hungry recently. She caught her mother’s eye and knew that she was having the same thought.

  When they had all finished Edith said, “Now then, Paul, Naomi, I want you to look after your cousins while I talk to Oma and Aunt Ruth. You can play in the playroom, or you can take them in the garden if you like, but make sure you all have your coats on, it’s very cold today.”

  “Now,” Edith said as she poured them each a strong black coffee, “let’s take this into the drawing room, so Anna can clear, and you must tell me everything.”

  When they were settled in the drawing room, Ruth began her story. When she had finished, Edith was staring at her in horror, her coffee stone-cold in the cup beside her.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said. “You poor, poor things. Mother, how did you cope? It must have been terrifying with those Hitler youths throwing things at you.” She took her mother’s hand and squeezed it gently. “But at least you’re safe now. David will be home from the hospital soon,” she went on. “He’ll know what to do for the best.”

  Even after all I’ve told her, she has absolutely no concept of what we’ve all been through, Ruth thought, looking across at the concern on her sister’s face. Edith had aged well. At almost forty her face was largely unlined. Her blond hair was thick, cut into a fashionable bob, with no trace of the grey hairs now liberally threaded through Ruth’s dark hair. Her clothes were well cut and clearly expensive. She had changed from being Ruth Heber’s big sister, with whom Ruth had romped and played, into the perfect wife for David Bernstein, eminent orthopaedic surgeon.

  When David came home from the hospital later that day, it was to find his wife’s family installed in his house. He greeted his mother-in-law civilly enough, kissed his sister-in-law on the cheek and said he was delighted that they had been able to come on a visit. Then he went upstairs to change for dinner.

  “David wants us out as soon as possible,” Ruth whispered to her mother that night in the darkness. “I shall start looking for somewhere tomorrow. Will you be all right looking after the children? I’ll have to find them a school as well. They need to get back to some sort of normality. And I’ll need a job, too. I refuse to be beholden to David.” She sighed. “Tomorrow’s going to be a very busy day.”

  “You can’t do everything in one day,” said Helga. “David will have to put up with us until we are ready to move out. After all, we shan’t be in his way… he’s out all day.”

  Ruth lay in the warm comfort of the bed, but, despite her exhaustion, sleep still would not come. She listened to the regular breathing of the boys. When she had kissed them goodnight she had sat in the room with them until, each clutching his rabbit, they had dropped into exhausted slumber. Listening to them now, peacefully asleep in bed, she prayed that it would not be long before the last few nightmare weeks slid from their minds as she tried to provide them with a normal life. They were so young, surely the memories would recede and fade away as new, everyday experiences replaced them. Ruth was not so sure about the girls. Inge had become extremely clinging, needing her mother’s attention, or that of her grandmother, all the time. She had always been a rather volatile child, but had now begun to throw temper tantrums, as if she were a two-year-old again; that or withdrawn silences when she sat, thumb in mouth, silk scarf against her cheek.

  Then there was Laura. She had become Ruth’s rock. Old way beyond her years, Laura knew what had been happening to them. She had learned to recognise the disdain in people’s eyes; she had learned to keep a low profile, not to draw attention to herself. She was ten years old, but the look in her eyes was that of someone five times that age. She asked for nothing, expected nothing, except derision and contempt from the people she encountered. It would take a very long time for her to learn to trust again.

  “Ruth, have you still got Kurt’s passport?” Helga’s whisper broke in on her thoughts.

  “Yes, of course.” Ruth was surprised at the question. “Why?”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Do with it?”

  “Yes. If you’ve got it, Kurt can’t use it to get out of Germany, can he?”

  “No, of course not. But I don’t know where he is, do I?” Ruth sounded exasperated. “I can’t send it to him, can I?”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” replied Helga, ignoring her daughter’s irritable tone. “If you were Kurt, and you came home to find the family gone, what would you do?”

  “I’d go to Munich, to Herbert, but…”

  “Hold on a minute, darling, let’s really think this through. Suppose he does come home and then follows the trail, in the end he’s going to draw a blank. You and the children will have vanished. He will work out that you must have come to Vienna to Edith’s. Right?”

  “Probably.”

  “Almost certainly. Where else would you go?”

  “All right,” conceded Ruth and waited for her mother to go on.

  “If he knows you have the deed box, then he knows you have his passport. He’ll hope you have left it for him somewhere… or sent it to him somewhere.”

  “But where?” Ruth’s voice took on a tone of despair. “Where can I send it that he might think to look?”

  “To those friends who took you in after the fire.”

  “The Meyers?”

  “Yes, the Meyers. Think about it. If he goes home and finds the shop burnt out he will ask around to find out what happened. He will ask the Meyers. If you sent the passport there, addressed to him, they would give it to him when he asked.”

  “Leah Meyer asked me not to contact them again,” Ruth said. “She’s afraid the mail will be intercepted.”

  “I think you have to risk it.”

  “But suppose Kurt’s been there already. It’ll be too late!”

  “I know,” soothed Helga, “but surely it’s worth a try. If the Meyers have the passport and he goes to them, they’ll give it to him. If he doesn’t, then we are no worse off than if you have it. If he contacts us here…”

  “He won’t,” Ruth interrupted bleakly. “He won’t remember Edith’s address, and he certainly won’t know the phone number…”

  “He might. And if he did you’d be able to tell him where to go to collect his passport.” Helga sat up in the darkness. “Come on, Ruth, this isn’t like you! You’ve been so brave and done everything you could for the children. Now you must try and do this for Kurt. Let’s face it, darling, his passport is no good to him in Austria if he’s in Germany.”

  “All right, Mother,” agreed Ruth wearily, “I’ll send it tomorrow.”

  “Good!” said Helga with satisfaction. “Now then, stop brooding and try and get some sleep, or you’ll be no good to anyone in the morning.”

  Ruth gave a shaky laugh. “Yes, Mutti!” she said.

  Friday 10th December

  We moved out of Uncle David and Aunt Edith’s yesterday. Mutti has found us a home of our own. It is not very big, just three small rooms and a toilet in the passage. Oma, Inge and I sleep in one room, Mutti and the twins in another, and we live in the last. It has a stove, so it’s quite warm, and there is a table and some chairs and a cupboard to keep things in, but we haven’t got many things to keep. There is no room for anything else because the room is so small. I’m glad we have left Aunt Edith’s house. Everyone was very strict and seemed to be cross with us all the time. I�
�m scared of Uncle David. I think my cousin Naomi is too, but she loves her Opa. Everyone else is frightened of him, but Naomi isn’t. My other cousin, Paul, is nice, but he’s much older than we are. He’s at the gymnasium. He’s very clever and says he is going to be a doctor like his papa when he leaves school.

  Our apartment is near a big fairground. Mutti says we might be able to go there one day soon. I hope so, I want to go on the big wheel, but we haven’t got much money for fairgrounds.

  Mutti has found a school for me and Inge to go to. It is not very big, but my teacher is nice. She is called Fräulein Lowenstein. Inge is in the baby class, her teacher is called Fräulein Munt. We do arithmetic and write stories, and on Wednesdays we have art. I’m not very good at drawing, but Fräulein Lowenstein says it doesn’t matter as different people are good at different things. I like Fräulein Lowenstein.

  Oma looks after the twins as they are too little to go to school, and Mutti has got a job in a shop.

  All the shops are decorated for Christmas. We don’t have Christmas, but I do like the decorations.

  Ruth had been determined they should move out of Edith’s house as soon as possible, and she’d set about finding them somewhere to live the very next day. It took several more days, but eventually she had managed to find a three-roomed flat in a tall tenement, in the Leopoldstadt district. A twisting lane led off the street and halfway down there was an old brick archway leading into a courtyard, around three sides of which stood crumbling apartment blocks. From the courtyard, flights of outside steps led up to the flats above. Ruth and her family had moved into one on the first floor.

  Edith was horrified that they should live in such an area. “It’s all low Jews and working class,” she cried, “not for families like ours.”

  “It is for a family like mine,” Ruth retorted, “one that has no money and nowhere else to stay.”

  Edith looked slightly abashed, but she didn’t suggest that they stay longer with her, and it was David who paid a month’s rent in advance to secure them the apartment. Ruth was sure that this was more from the wish to get them out of his home than from true generosity, but she didn’t care. They had a roof over their heads. Many of their neighbours were Jewish and as they settled in there was the faintest comforting echo of Gerbergasse in the community around them. They were living very much hand-to-mouth, but they were in a place of their own. Helga was there to look after the children, so Ruth set out in search of a job.