When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr

Author:Judith Kerr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.

Chapter Thirteen

When Anna woke up in the morning it was bright daylight. Through a gap in the yellow curtains she could see a patch of windy sky above the rooftops. There was a smell of cooking and a clicking sound which she could not at first identify, until she realised that it was Papa typing in the room next door. Max’s bed was empty. He must have crept out while she was still asleep. She got up and wandered out into the hall without bothering to dress. Mama and Grete must have been busy, for all the luggage had been cleared away and through the open door she could see that Mama’s bed had been turned back into a sofa. Then Mama herself appeared from the dining-room.

“There you are, my darling,” she said. “Come and have some breakfast, even though it’s nearly lunch-time.”

Max was already installed at the dining-room table, drinking milky coffee and pulling pieces off a long and incredibly thin loaf of bread.

“It’s called a baguette,” explained Mama, “that means a stick”—which was exactly what it looked like.

Anna tried some and found it delicious. The coffee was good too. There was a red oilcloth on the table which made the cups and plates look very pretty, and the room was warm in spite of the blustery November day outside.

“It’s nice here,” said Anna. “We wouldn’t have been able to have breakfast in our pyjamas at the Gasthof Zwirn.”

“It’s a bit small,” said Mama. “But we’ll manage.”

Max stretched himself and yawned. “It’s nice having our own place.”

There was something more that was nice. Anna could not at first think what it was. She looked at Mama pouring coffee and at Max tilting back his chair as he had been told a hundred times not to. Through the thin walls she could hear Papa’s typewriter. Then it came to her.

“I don’t really mind where we are,” she said—“as long as we’re all together.”

In the afternoon Papa took them out. They went on the Underground which was called the Metro and had a peculiar smell. Papa said it was a mixture of garlic and French cigarettes and Anna rather liked it. They saw the Eiffel Tower (but did not go up it because it would have cost too much) and the place where Napoleon was buried, and at last the Arc de Triomphe which was quite near home. By this time it was getting late, but Max noticed that you could go up to the top and that it was quite cheap, probably because it was not nearly as high as the Eiffel Tower—so they went.

No one else wanted to go to the top of the Arc de Triomphe on this cold, dark afternoon and the lift was empty. When Anna stepped out at the top she was met by an icy blast of wind and a prickle of raindrops and she wondered whether it had been a good idea to come. Then she looked down. It was as though she were standing at the centre of a huge sparkling star.

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