I take a step backward. Perhaps she doesn’t like children.
“Come on now, Ruth. There’s no need for that. Let’s go.” Herr Goldschmidt tugs on his wife’s arm, but she doesn’t move and her dark eyes narrow into snake-slits.
“Your father”—she sounds like she’s hissing the words—“forced them out. Those trumped-up charges. The campaign in that paper of his. It was criminal . . . all lies and falsehoods . . .”
“Ruth! Please!” Herr Goldschmidt shakes her arm, but she is unstoppable, trembling and spitting her words at me.
“The Druckers were good people. Successful. But that creates jealousy, doesn’t it? Envy from lesser folk. And now there he sits, like a lord, in his stolen house . . .”
“Ruth!” Herr Goldschmidt’s voice is high and sharp. He turns back to me. “I’m sorry for my wife’s words, she’s not herself today . . .”
But by now I’m certain the old woman is a witch and I’m running hard and fast away from them, before she can spray me with poisonous spit. I don’t stop until I’m safely inside my iron gate, my heart thudding like racehorse hooves in my chest.
A car is parked outside in the street, and I find a young woman standing in the hallway wrapped like a fat bockwurst in a tight brown suit. She has chubby cheeks, a snub nose, and the thickest lips I’ve ever seen. Her hair is the color of a paper bag, plaited and so fiercely wrapped around the top of her head that the skin above her ears is taut and red. She gives me a surprised look.
“Hello,” she says in a kind voice. “I’m Fräulein Müller. And you must be Herta?”
Vati, big as a bear and smart in his stiff Schutzstaffel uniform, appears from the study. He hands a couple of thin document folders to Fräulein Müller.
“Hello, Schnuffel. I’m afraid I must leave you for a couple of days. I have to go to Berlin, on SS business.” He hugs me, pressing my head into his chest. The hard buckle on his leather chest strap digs into my cheek. “Where’s your mother? Hélène, Hélène!” His voice reverberates in his chest.
“Franz?” Mutti, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and a floaty dress, evidently recovered from her headache, glides in from the back garden, a bunch of flowers in one hand, scissors in the other. Karl trails in behind her. “What are you doing home so early?” Mutti asks in surprise.
“Ah, there you are. Hélène, this is Hilda Müller, my new secretary.” The young woman smiles and nods at Mutti. “Listen, I have to travel to Berlin. It’s urgent—more trouble with the Communists.” He sighs. “But I must also finish my weekly editorial for the Leipziger this afternoon so the copy is ready for tonight’s deadline. Fräulein Müller will accompany me to organize that.” He stops suddenly and rubs his hands over his face, kneading his eyes with the tips of his fingers. Poor Vati is exhausted with his two jobs.
“Will you stay with Oma Annamaria?” Karl asks.
“Not if I can help it,” Vati replies swiftly. “What I meant to say,” he adds, “was I shall visit my mother if I have the time, but I’m likely to be far too busy.” He turns to Mutti. “I’ll telephone this evening,” he says, taking her hands and kissing her on the cheek. “Good-bye, Schnuffel,” he says to me. “Be good for your mother.”
“Yes, Vati.” I look up to his face, framed by slicked-back, fair hair. I search his pale eyes for affection and hope he sees only goodness in mine. But he is already looking at his watch.
“We must go.” He turns to Karl. “I’m leaving you in charge, young man. Take care of your sister and mother.”
We stand at the front door and watch Vati and Fräulein Müller climb into the waiting sleek black car. The woman’s skirt is so tight it scrunches up around her thighs as she gets in. Her behind is large and round and she waddles like a goose.
“Mutti,” I say, once they have gone, “the Goldschmidts, who live across the road, told me Vati stole this house. But how can you steal a house?”
Mutti whirls around and stares at me. “They said what? Why were you talking to them?”
“They’ve got a little dog. I just wanted to stroke it. Can I have a dog now we live here?”
“You mustn’t talk to such people.”
“I only wanted to pet the dog.”
“But they are Jews, Hetty.”
The word sends a shiver down my back. How was I to know? Karl wrinkles his nose and says, “Dirty pigs, Jews.”
“They have nothing better to do than spread evil lies,” Mutti says, her voice firm. I watch her put the flowers in a vase and fill it with water. “That is what these people do. It’s very important you don’t speak with them again. These are difficult times. That’s why Vati does all this work for the SS as well as running the newspaper. They must protect Hitler and ban all the parties who seek to oppose him. Pick your friends carefully, Hetty. Stick only with good Germans, like us. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mutti.”
I follow her back outside, not wanting to be on my own. I look around the bushes and flowers at the edge of the garden. Everything looks calm and friendly, but I can feel the evil hovering outside the safety of our iron railings, and I shudder. I imagine a great big guard dog, patrolling the garden. Just the idea of it makes me feel safer.
Three
October 8, 1933
There’s a knock at the front door.
“Who can that be, at this time on a Sunday morning?” Mutti frowns. Tall and willowy, dressed in peach chiffon, she bobs down the stairs. A strand of hair works its way loose from the dark sweep of her chignon and she threads it behind her ear.
I pull open the heavy front door. Walter stands on the doorstep, hands in his pockets. I throw the door open wider and breathe in, willing myself taller.
When Walter was a small boy, he would have looked like one of those chubby, blond cherubs that float about among the clouds in paintings of Mary and baby Jesus. Now he’s fourteen, he still has blond curly hair and blue eyes, but he isn’t chubby anymore; he’s long and lean like a half-grown horse. A boy-man.
“Karl!” Mutti calls. She stands, holding the smooth knob of wood at the end of the banister as if she is afraid to let go.
“Good morning, Frau Heinrich,” Walter says politely, stepping through the open door. “I wonder if Karl might be free?”
“Come up,” Karl calls, his grinning face appearing at the top of the stairs. “We can chat in my room.”
“Hi, Walter,” I say.
He bends down to untie his shoelaces and doesn’t seem to notice me at all.
“Do you want to come out to the treehouse?” I try. But he runs up the stairs after Karl.
Vati appears from his study, his hands on his hips. He scowls at Walter’s back. “That boy again,” he mutters, glaring at Mutti. “You’ve not told him, have you?”
“Come on, Franz.” Mutti sighs, her hands dropping to her sides, shoulders sagging. “Please, not this again.”
“Just because he once rescued . . .” Vati throws me a look and I know he means the Almost Drowning. “I don’t like it . . .” He turns and the study door bangs shut, abrupt and loud.