Alarm instantly struck his small face. His eyes opened wide and he cried fretfully, ‘But why aren’t you coming with us, Mutti? I want you to come too!’
‘Sssh, sweetheart, there’s no reason to get upset.’ Wishing to calm and reassure him, she took his hand in hers and held it tightly. ‘I have to go to Berlin tomorrow, to help Papa. We must bring your grandmother to England. Remember, I told you she was ill, and Papa cannot manage to do everything for her himself. He needs me to take care of Grandmama on the journey, she’s an old lady, and she needs properly looking after, you know.’
‘I don’t want to go without you!’ Maxim wailed. His top lip began to tremble and he flung himself against her body and promptly burst into tears as he clutched her.
Ursula wrapped her arms around him and held him close to her, stroking his hair, hushing him gently. It was hard for her to part with this child, even for so short a time. They had waited so long for him, for so many years of their marriage, and she loved him so very much. He was part of her… her heart.
Tears welled, she was unable to speak, so she simply sat there holding her little son in her arms, rocking him to and fro, her love enveloping him.
Finally, when she was composed enough, she said, ‘I’ll be with you in ten days, not much longer, Mauschen, and then we’ll be together again… you and me and Papa… just like we always were in Berlin.’
The child drew away from her and peered into her face, and then he put a chubby hand against her cheek and stroked it. ‘Promise, Mutti,’ he whispered, his voice still tearful.
‘I do. I promise.’ Ursula took a handkerchief out of her suit pocket and wiped his damp cheeks. ‘There, that’s better, my little love,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘No more tears. We won’t be separated for long, and you have sweet Teddy to look after you until I get there.’
Maxim nodded and gave her a faint watery smile in return. ‘And when you come, will you bring Papa and Gangan with you, Mutti?’
‘Of course! That’s why I’m going back… to get them.’
He gazed at her thoughtfully and then he tilted his head on one side, and said, ‘You won’t lose me, will you, Mutti?’
Taken aback by this question, and instantly noticing the worry settling on his face, she exclaimed, ‘How could I lose you! Whatever makes you say a thing like that, darling?’
‘Teddy read me a story once… about a boy called Hans… his mother lost him… and she couldn’t find him… not ever. I don’t want to be a lost boy. Don’t lose me, Mutti. Please.’
‘Never, darling! Never, never, never! You’re far too precious. And I love you far too much.’ She reached out for him again and brought him close into her arms and hugged him, and he clung to her tenaciously, with all his might.
The sudden sound of knocking on the door made Ursula release him and she stood up quickly. At this moment, Teddy came hurrying into the living room exclaiming, ‘That must be the porters!’ She went through into the foyer and opened the door, asked the two bell boys standing there to come inside.
‘Maxim, would you like to take them into the bedroom, show them the suitcases which are to be taken down to the lobby?’ Ursula suggested, wanting to distract him and also to speak to Teddy alone for a moment.
‘Oh yes, I would!’ Maxim cried, jumping down off the sofa and running over to the bell boys.
The two women watched him usher them into the bedroom, and then turned to look at each other.
Ursula said in a very low voice, ‘I won’t leave for Berlin until I know you’ve arrived. I’ll wait here at the hotel until I hear from you.’
‘I’ll telephone you as soon as we get to Aunt Ketti’s.’
‘You do remember everything I’ve told you, don’t you, Teddy?’
‘Every single thing… all of your instructions. I have the two letters in my handbag, along with the cash you gave me, and the list of your jewellery.’
‘I have great faith in you, Teddy, and your abilities. If anything should go wrong—’ Ursula’s throat closed and she glanced away, unable, suddenly, to continue. But shortly she was able to proceed, and she did so in the same quiet tone. ‘If we don’t make it to England, you will look after Maxim for me, won’t you? For as long as it’s necessary.’
‘You know I will!’ Teddy caught hold of Ursula’s arm reassuringly. ‘But you’ll be looking after him yourself. You’ll be with us soon. Everything will go according to your plan.’
‘I hope so.’ Ursula stepped closer and embraced Teddy warmly. ‘Take care of yourself, and of Maxim,’ she said.
‘I will, Frau Westheim, and remember, you have nothing to fret yourself about.’
‘I know. Now, I think that perhaps we should get off to the Gare du Nord. Although I’m going to miss you both most dreadfully, I’m glad I’m putting you on that boat train to London.’ There was a pause, and she stared into Teddy’s face, and the smile she gave her was brave. She finished softly, ‘You’ll be safe there, the two of you.’
PART 3
THEODORA
LONDON
1944
There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Psalm 91: The Bible
TWENTY-ONE
It was a perfect summer evening on the last day of August.
The brilliant sun had disappeared, its last flickering rays painting the rim of the sky with liquid crimson bleeding into saffron and amethyst and the palest of lilacs before dropping down behind the dim horizon. The sunset had been one of such incredible beauty Theodora had caught her breath in surprise and delight. Now the sky was turning a deep pavonian blue and filling with dusky clouds; twilight was rapidly descending, casting pearly and opalescent tints over the verdant green lawn, the old apple tree, the fragrant rose bushes and the rockery scattered with pretty alpine flowers.
In the garden spread out in front of the stone-paved terrace where she sat all things appeared transfixed. Nothing moved. Not a blade of grass nor a leaf nor any living creature stirred, and there was a hush over everything, as if the little garden lay under a vast body of pale, transparent water that was entirely motionless.
Teddy rested her head against the back of the canvas deck chair, listening to the silence, enjoying the peace which drifted around her. There was a heaviness in the air, but she did not find this unpleasant; it was a balminess really, and it added to the tranquillity she was feeling.
Theodora had had such a hectic day she was glad of this brief respite before she started to prepare supper. Maxim and his school friend Alan Trenton, who was staying with them for a few days, had kept her busy since early morning. Walking on Hampstead Heath—exploring, they called it; racing down to the Two Blues Tea Room in Hampstead village for a mid-morning snack of tea and biscuits; afterwards up to the heath again, to sail their boats on Whitestone Pond, and finally back down to the house for lunch.
She had made them sausages and chips and baked beans, their particular favourites at the moment, and there had been the rare luxury of two fresh eggs, which the grocer, Sam Giles, had let her have the day before. She had queued up for half an hour, standing in line outside the shop along with the other women waiting patiently to buy their groceries for the weekend. When it was her turn, Mr Giles had glanced at her three ration books, leaned over the counter and whispered conspiratorially, ‘You’ve got enough coupons left for two eggs, Miss Stein,’ and then he had brought out a brown paper bag surreptitiously, and, with sleight of hand, had quickly passed it to her. ‘Put this in your basket, ducks, and don’t say a word to anyone. I don’t want a riot on my hands, I’ve only got nine eggs in the entire shop, and two dozen women wanting them.’
Teddy had thanked him profusely, and had carefully carried the precious eggs back to the house, gratified that Sam Giles liked her, and that she had been a favoured customer over the yea
rs. Everything was scarcer than ever these days, especially fresh eggs, sugar, meat and imported fruits. They had not seen an orange, a banana or a grapefruit in the shops for years, and food rationing meant dreary meals most of the time. Something rare was therefore the greatest of treats, and it had given her immense pleasure to observe the way the boys’ eyes had gleamed at the sight of the eggs, when she had put their plates in front of them.
In the afternoon, Aunt Ketti had provided yet another treat. She had taken them to a matinee at the local picture house, to see Claude Rains in The Phantom of the Opera, which had come around for the third time since it had opened the previous year. The four of them had enjoyed it enormously. The technicolor film had been just ghoulish enough, and sufficiently scary, for the ten-year-olds to take great delight in it, and on the way home they had pranced ahead of Teddy and Ketti, pulling grotesque faces and aping Claude Rains emoting in the bowels of the Paris Opera House.
Ten years old, she mused. How the time had flown since they had come to England five years ago. Her only regret was that the Westheims had not been able to join them yet. Their whereabouts, their well-being and their safety were forever on her mind. Not a day went by without her thinking of them, and every night before she went to sleep she prayed for them, for their deliverance. Sometimes she found it hard to believe that Maxim was already ten, but he was, and he was grown up in so many different ways. She supposed this came from being away at boarding school with boys of his own age, out on his own, in a certain sense. He had become much more independent this past year. But that was all to the good. Whilst he was the centre of her life, she did not want Maxim to become a namby-pamby boy, permanently attached to her apron strings, forever reliant on her. Steadfastly, she had encouraged him to stand on his own two feet, and, much to her satisfaction, he had done so.
Academically, Maxim was brilliant.
When he was eight he had passed the entrance exam for Colet Court with the greatest of ease, and had won such high marks even Aunt Ketti had been suitably impressed. Teddy was particularly proud of the way he had handled the exams without blinking an eyelash, since the scholastic standards of the famous old school were extremely high, and also because she herself had tutored him.
After they had arrived in England in March of 1939, she had sent him to the little elementary school in Belsize Park near Aunt Ketti’s house, on her aunt’s recommendation. He had started in the September, a few months after his fifth birthday on June the twelfth, and he had settled in at once, had swiftly adapted himself, chameleon-like, to the English and their curious ways. There had never been any problems with him at the local kindergarten, nor at Colet Court thus far.
She had taught him English in the first five months they had lived with Aunt Ketti, before he had started at the kindergarten, and he had proved to have an aptitude for languages. He now spoke flawless English with the most perfect of English accents, and he was becoming fluent in French as well, which he was learning at the preparatory school.
Even though he had only been five when he had started at the kindergarten, Teddy had realised almost at once that the curriculum was not challenging enough for him, for he was an exceptionally clever boy, a quick student, and light years ahead of his age. And so she had begun to teach him herself at weekends, giving him lessons in more advanced English history, geography and mathematics. The latter, even at that age, had been his favourite subject and he had a unique affinity for, and an understanding of, numbers. Since attending Colet Court, maths had become his forte, and his teacher considered him to be a mathematical genius, only echoing what she herself had believed for a very long time.
The sudden shrill, insistent wailing of the air-raid siren disturbed the peace and tranquillity of the garden. It cut off her ruminations about Maxim, brought her up out of the deck chair with a leap, the war insinuating itself in her consciousness once again, as it did at some point every day.
There was a clattering sound behind her, and when she swung her head she saw that her aunt, Maxim, and Alan were rushing through the French doors which led from the back parlour out into the garden.
‘Doodlebugs again, Teddy!’ Maxim cried, using the common nickname for the V1 flying bombs which were being systematically launched on England by the Germans, from sites across the English Channel. As he spoke he was solicitous of Aunt Ketti, carefully helping her down the stone steps.
‘That’s one thing I’m absolutely certain of!’ Teddy called back pithily, turning around, beckoning to them urgently. ‘Let’s take to the safety of the shelter at once. Get a move on, the three of you! Please.’
‘We’re right behind you, lovey,’ Aunt Ketti assured her.
Teddy raced ahead to the air-raid shelter at the bottom of the garden, which had such a large quantity of sandbags protecting its roof of corrugated-iron and earth that it looked like a dugout in the trenches on the front lines.
Running down the three steps and wrenching open the door, she picked up the flashlight which was kept on the floor immediately inside, turned it on, made for the table straight ahead of her. Three large white candles in jam jars and two kerosene lamps stood on this, and she had just finished lighting them when Aunt Ketti came in with the boys.
Ketti closed the door firmly behind her and crossed the floor to her usual chair, sighing under her breath as she did so. Five years of war, of bombings and peril and fear, of deprivations and anxieties of all kinds, plus living in the shelter on a daily basis, had wearied her in a variety of different ways.
***
The Anderson air-raid shelter was of reasonable size, and there was ample room for the four of them. The local airraid warden, Jock Philips, and two of his helpers, had built the shelter for Aunt Ketti. This had been in September of 1939, not many days after the British Government, ultimately provoked to the limit of their patience by Hitler’s ruthless invasion of Poland, had declared war on Germany finally, as had France.
The three men had done an excellent job of erecting the shelter, which was actually pre-fabricated and came in sections. To be effective, the tunnel-shaped shelter had to be partially sunk into a hole in the ground. Its walls, floor and curved ceiling were made of the corrugated-iron panels, and these were joined together to form the whole. Earth was then piled on the roof outside and covered with sandbags for that extra protection.
Two bunk beds, stacked one on top of the other, stood against a wall, and there was a cot aligned along another; aside from the table holding the candles and the lamps, such items as two chairs and a worn Oriental rug added small but welcome touches of comfort. A paraffin stove occupied a corner, and this provided necessary heat for them in the cold weather.
Placed against a third wall was their all-important storage cupboard. Aunt Ketti and Teddy had stocked this to the hilt with tinned food such as Fray Bentos corned beef, Spam, Heinz tomato soup, baked beans, bottled fruits, tins of cocoa, Ovaltine, powdered milk and powdered eggs, and many Tizer bottles, emptied of their soda-pop and filled with water in case the mains were hit and there was a water shortage. A primus stove for cooking, several pans, a whistling kettle, plates, mugs, cutlery, and a thermos flask were ranged along the top of the cupboard, whilst a tea chest next to it contained a first-aid box and extra gas masks for them, just in case the Germans did use poison gas after all; a second tea chest held soap, toothpaste, and other toiletries, plus towels, hot water bottles, thick wool blankets, sweaters, scarves, woollen caps and gloves.
The two women had endeavoured to stock the air-raid shelter with the basic necessities of daily life. These were the essentials they knew they would require, should the house suffer a direct hit in one of the many bombing raids, when they would then be forced to live in the shelter permanently. Or until they could make other arrangements, at least.
Maxim, who had led Alan over to the cot, now said, ‘Sit here, Stubby old thing, I’ve got a new jigsaw puzzle, and we can have a go at it, if you like.’
‘Bang-on, Duke!’ Alan exclaimed, floppi
ng down on one end of the cot unceremoniously. He lolled back on an elbow, stared up at Maxim, and asked, ‘What’s the subject this time?’
‘A good one,’ Maxim answered, taking the puzzle out of the tea chest. ‘St George and the Dragon, and it looks jolly difficult.’
‘It won’t be for you, Genius,’ Stubby shot back, grinning. ‘Come on, don’t dawdle! Open it, and let’s start putting it together.’
‘You open it, Stubby.’ Maxim dropped the box on the blanket, and added, ‘I’ll get the tin tray from under the cot, so that we can set the puzzle up properly on a solid base.’ Once Maxim had produced the tray, the boys bent their heads over it, and soon they were so completely engrossed, sorting through the hundreds of pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, they were entirely oblivious of Teddy and Aunt Ketti and even the air raid outside.
During the boys’ exchange, Teddy had seated herself in the chair opposite Aunt Ketti, and she said to her softly, ‘I hope we’re not in for a long night of it again.’
‘You never know with the V1s. It depends how many they’re going to fire at us in the next few hours,’ Ketti answered dourly. ‘Hitler’s secret weapon has turned out to be a rather diabolical one, hasn’t it, Theodora?’
‘Yes, it has… so many people killed these past few months, hundreds in the London area alone. It makes my heart ache just to think about it.’ She shook her head. ‘I remember what Mr Churchill said on the wireless in July… that civilian deaths from the flying bombs have been on such a scale there’s been nothing like this since the Blitz. The way those bombs suddenly zoom over unexpectedly is horrible, and so frightening to everyone. I know they petrify me, Aunt Ketti.’
Ketti shuddered, made no verbal response, merely nodded. But she grimaced angrily to herself as she reached for the knitting bag she kept in the shelter, cursing the Mad Austrian, as she called Hitler, and the Nazis, under her breath. Heaving a small sigh, she took out the Fair Isle sweater she was making for Maxim, and within seconds her knitting needles were rapidly clicking away.