Remember Me (9 page)

“Don’t look so worried, dear,” said Miss Barton.

Easy to say.
She knew Aunt Vera. She looked her least approachable, and her face was flushed as though she was angry.

“I expect you are surprised to see Mrs. Abercrombie Jones here in the middle of the day.”

“Yes, Miss Barton. Good morning, Aunt Vera.”

“An opportunity has come Mary Anne’s way, Mrs. Abercrombie Jones, which requires a guardian’s consent.” Miss Barton smiled at Aunt Vera, who sort of smiled back. “If Mary Anne had arrived earlier in this country, she would have sat the scholarship exam with her class. As it is, she has caught up remarkably well and has been offered a free place at St. John’s Grammar School for Girls. Well done, my dear. Miss Lacey, the headmistress there, suggests that Mary Anne start school after the Easter holidays. The scholarship includes books, fees, and an allowance toward school uniforms. It would be a pity to deny her such an opportunity. So many more avenues will open up – even university will be within her reach from grammar school. I do hope, Mrs. Abercrombie Jones, you will permit Mary Anne to accept the award.”

Marianne held her breath.
Surely Aunt Vera won’t say no?
It would be something for Aunt Vera to boast about to her friends: “Look how our little refugee has progressed.”

Marianne looked down at the Indian carpet, studying the red and brown design as if her life depended on her memorizing the pattern. She would not let Aunt Vera see how much this meant to her.

Aunt Vera cleared her throat. “I shall of course discuss the matter with my husband. I cannot possibly give you an immediate answer, Miss Barton. It is a very kind gesture; however, I feel … 
we
feel that Mary Anne must begin to learn something that will
enable her to earn her living as soon as possible. Most girls leave school at fourteen. Mary Anne should not be pampered because she is a refugee.”

Miss Barton said, “Mary Anne’s achievement does you and your husband great credit. That will be all, Mary Anne. You may return to class.”

Marianne carefully replaced her chair against the wall. “Thank you, Miss Barton. Good-bye, Aunt Vera.”

There, I’ve managed to say the name correctly for once. Surely that will count for something?

Outside the headmistress’ study, the secretary smiled at her, and asked, “Everything alright, dear?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Marianne didn’t know how she could sit through history class, or the next five minutes, without telling Bridget her news. If only Aunt Vera could be persuaded to let her go to St. John’s. She wouldn’t be fourteen for over two years, and not even twelve till May. Lots could happen in that time. She didn’t want to have to live and work in other people’s houses like Miriam and her friend. She wanted to have a choice.

Class had begun. Marianne apologized for being late and sat down. Bridget passed her a note. “What did you do? Are you in trouble?”

Marianne wrote: “I got a skolership to your grammar school.” She dropped the note between their desks.

“Stand up, Mary Anne Kohn,” thundered Mr. Stevens. “Bring me that note.”

“Pardon?” Marianne tried to push it under her desk with the toe of her shoe. Beside her, Bridget was trying to smother her laughter.

“I am sure you are perfectly able to understand a simple request. Bring me that note.”

“Yes, Sir.” Marianne picked up the piece of paper and gave it to Mr. Stevens. He read it without comment.

“Return to your desk. I trust, Bridget, that you have recovered from your fit of apoplexy. You will both stay after school and write five hundred times: ‘I must pay attention in class.’ Congratulations, Mary Anne. Oh, and write the word ‘scholarship’ correctly twenty-five times.”

Marianne smiled at Mr. Stevens, thinking him the nicest teacher in the whole school. She decided to send Mutti a copy of the composition – it might help persuade her to come to England.

N
othing more had been said to Marianne about St. John’s Grammar School for Girls, except one Sunday after church, when the vicar said, “I hear our little protégée has won a scholarship, Mrs. Abercrombie Jones.”

Aunt Vera smiled, but said nothing.

“Must be doing something right, wouldn’t you say, Vicar?” said Uncle Geoffrey, and laughed, but Marianne had not known she was going for certain until she was measured for her uniform. It was like having an early birthday present – the only one this year, except for the box of chocolates Bridget had given her.

By June the weather had turned hot, and Marianne and Bridget were sprawled on the grass at the edge of the playing field.

“We’re bound to be at war soon. It’s exciting in a way, isn’t it?” said Bridget. “I don’t mean the killing, but being evacuated on our own, not knowing where we’re going to end up. We’ll have
fun, Mary Anne. Let’s tell everyone we refuse to be separated, that my mother says we have to stay together.” Bridget rolled over on her back, shielding her eyes with her straw hat.

Marianne shivered in spite of the heat. The very thought of another railway station and a train journey made her feel sick and afraid.

Everyone seemed to be almost looking forward to the war.
Funny how quickly people get used to something terrible.

They watched the sausage-shaped silver barrage balloons over-head. They’d been told that the balloons would confuse the German planes when they came, so they’d just turn back. Marianne was afraid that Marshall Goering, shaped like a balloon himself in his gold-braided uniform, would find a way to get the planes through and bomb them all.
If there’s nothing to worry about, why are shelters being built, ditches dug, and sandbags filled? And why are we going to be sent away?

The whistle blew. Lunch hour was over. Bridget and Marianne ran so as not to be late for geography. Marianne liked this class. It was soothing coloring maps of Europe, and outlining the different countries in black ink. She placed a red dot for the capital of each country, and printed the name beside it.

When she came to Czechoslovakia, a tear fell on Prague, so that it looked as if tiny rivers branched out of the city. She dried the smudge with a piece of blotting paper. It didn’t look too bad. She was always crying lately. She hated being such a baby.

Whenever she dusted the dining room, she took a long time with the glass decanter set that Uncle Geoffrey had said came
from Prague. Liking the idea of touching something from the country which harbored her father, her eyes filled with tears every time.

Aunt Vera noticed last week. “What’s the matter, Mary Anne? Big girls of twelve don’t cry for no reason,” she said.

“I’m getting a cold, Aunt Vera. My eyes are watering, that’s all.”

Marianne didn’t feel like confiding that she hadn’t seen her father since last November, and then for only a short time. She was beginning to confuse him with Leslie Howard, the film star. She’d seen him in her first English film,
The Scarlet Pimpernel.
It was all about saving the aristocracy from the guillotine in the French Revolution. Leslie Howard had escaped his pursuers over and over again. She’d watched in agony, fearing each time would be his last. Perhaps her father would manage to escape, too.

Miss Beasley rapped on the table. “Put your work on my desk, girls, and line up in single file to go to the gymnasium. Bring your gas masks. No talking, please.”

Gas mask drill was worse than eating porridge on mornings when Gladys had quarreled with her fiancé. On those days the porridge was always lumpy or scorched.

Marianne didn’t know anyone who liked wearing a gas mask, even though the drill meant they sometimes got out of classes like math.

“Hold you breath, girls, jut out your chin, hold the straps, and now put them back over your head,” said the gym teacher.

What they didn’t warn you about was the way your ears roared, as though you were on the deck of a ship in a howling gale when you let out your breath, or about the stench of new rubber. You had to keep the mask on for at least ten minutes. Marianne had found a way to keep the procedure bearable. She recited the last two lines of Walter de la Mare’s poem “Five Eyes.” Her English teacher said it would help her pronunciation:

Out come his cats all grey with meal —
Jekkel, and Jessup, and one-eyed Jill.

By the time she’d remembered to make the hard
J
sound three times in a row, it’d be time to pull off the gas mask. All the girls looked the same when they emerged from the masks – red and perspiring – and some had tears in their eyes because they hated wearing the masks so much.

Talk of war was everywhere. Uncle Geoffrey’s office was going to be evacuated to Torquay any day, right away from London. Aunt Vera had been up to the little seaside town to speak to real estate agents.

Every morning Marianne would rush downstairs to see if there was a letter for her. There was a slot at the front door for the postman to put the letters through. But Gladys had usually picked the post up before she could get to it, and put it beside Uncle Geoffrey’s plate, and then she’d have to wait till he gave it to her after he’d finished his breakfast.

At last one morning a letter arrived. Marianne was almost afraid to open it.

The summer holidays would be starting in July, and she and her mother would have till the middle of September before school began again.
Will Mutti recognize me?
She’d grown a lot, nearly two inches. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She’d help her mother, look after her. It would be lovely to sit down together,
the way they used to, both of them drinking coffee, and filling in all the gaps of their time apart. Letters were never enough.

The days passed – still there was no news of her mother’s arrival.

The summer holidays began, and a letter was sent to each girl’s home outlining instructions to follow if war was declared before the start of the new term.

Still no news from Mutti.
Something must have happened. Supposing Mutti has been arrested?

The nightmare began again. It was always the same one. She was back in Germany. She watched her mother coming down the street, walking arm in arm with her grandmother towards her grandparents’ house. A car stopped beside them. Soldiers pulled them into the car. Marianne called out. They didn’t see or hear her. The car roared away. She was left alone in the empty street.

That was the moment Marianne woke up, and only the reality of holding her bear and humming their familiar lullaby gave her enough courage to go back to sleep.

T
he sun shone every day. It should have been a perfect summer, but it wasn’t. Marianne waited for news of her mother’s arrival, and the country waited for war. In Parliament, Mr. Chamberlain, the prime minister of England, said that England would stand by Poland, if she was attacked by Hitler.

Marianne helped Gladys hem blackout curtains for all the windows. Not even a sliver of light was allowed to show through.

Uncle Geoffrey stored cans of petrol in the garage. “That’s the first thing that will be rationed when war comes,” he said.

Aunt Vera, Gladys, and Marianne were putting away vast amounts of tinned food in the pantry. “I have no intention of running short of food if there is a siege. How many tins of fruit do we have now, Gladys?” Aunt Vera said.

“One dozen tins of peaches, six large tins of pears, and one dozen tins of fruit salad, Madam.” Gladys spoke from the top of
the stepladder in the pantry. Marianne had scrubbed all the shelves earlier.

“Mary Anne, I want you to run down to Brown’s, and ask for six tins of pineapple chunks – large tins. Have him charge my account. Oh, and ask him to deliver another six tins of corned beef. Is there anything else, Gladys?”

“It wouldn’t hurt to have some jars of jam and marmalade, Madam. It might be hard to get sugar later on to make jam.”

“Very well. Mary Anne, add six jars of marmalade and four jars of strawberry jam. Can you remember all that?”

“Yes, Aunt Vera.”

How long do they think the war is going to last? And “siege,” doesn’t that mean holding out against the invader? If the invader is Hitler, can they hold out?
Marianne ran all the way to the greengrocer at the corner of the High Street.

It was quite embarrassing asking for so much food. Mr. Brown raised an eyebrow. He probably thought that Aunt Vera was being greedy. On the way back, Marianne saw that someone had chalked a slogan on the side of the store:
YESTERDAY VIENNA AND PRAGUE, TOMORROW WARSAW AND LONDON.

It was true. Marianne tried to think of logical explanations for her mother’s silence. The only bearable one was that her mother was trying to surprise her.

Uncle Geoffrey kept the government pamphlets, which arrived almost daily, in a folder on the sideboard:
WHAT TO DO IN AN AIR RAID AND IF THE INVADER COMES
, along with warnings about always carrying your gas mask.

One day a man came to school, and talked about what happened in the 1914-1918 war, and showed them gruesome pictures about the effects of mustard gas. Some of the girls had looked at Marianne as if she were personally responsible. She remembered the day she had blurted out, “My father fought in the last war.” Hilary, who was always making catty remarks, said in that snobbish voice of hers, “On whose side, my dear?” Only the bell at the end of recess had saved her having to answer.