Judith Kerr - Out of the Hitler Time trilogy - When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Bombs on Aunt Dainty, A Small Person Far Away

After this everything became vague. Mama and Papa were standing by her bed looking at a thermometer. Papa had his coat on. He must have gone out to buy the thermometer specially. Someone said, “A hundred and four”, but it couldn’t be her temperature they were talking about because she couldn’t remember having it taken.

Next time she opened her eyes there was a man with a little beard looking at her. He said, “Well, young lady,” and smiled and as he smiled his feet left the ground and he flew to the top of the wardrobe where he changed into a bird and sat croaking, “Influenza” until Mama shooed him out of the window.

Then suddenly it was night and she asked Max to get her some water, but Max was not there, it was Mama in the other bed. Anna said, “Why are you sleeping in Max’s bed?” Mama said, “Because you’re ill,” and Anna felt very glad because if she was ill it meant that Heimpi would be coming to look after her. She said, “Tell Heimpi …” but then she was too tired to remember the rest, and the next time she looked the man with the little beard was there again and she didn’t like him because he was upsetting Mama by saying, “Complications” over and over again. He had done something to the back of Anna’s neck and had made it all swollen and sore, and now he was feeling it with his hand. She said, “Don’t do that!” quite sharply, but he took no notice and tried to make her drink something horrible. Anna was going to push it away, but then she saw that it was not the man with the beard after all but Mama, and her blue eyes looked so fierce and determined that it didn’t seem worth resisting.

After this the world grew a little steadier. She began to understand that she had been ill for some time, that she still had a high temperature and that the reason she felt so awful was that all the glands in her neck were enormously swollen and tender.

“We must get the temperature down,” said the doctor with the beard.

Then Mama said, “I’m going to put something on your neck to make it better.”

Anna saw some steam rising from a basin.

“It’s too hot!” she cried. “I don’t want it!”

“I won’t put it on too hot,” said Mama.

“I don’t want it!” screamed Anna. “You don’t know how to look after me! Where’s Heimpi? Heimpi wouldn’t put hot steam on my neck!”

“Nonsense!” said Mama, and suddenly she was holding a steaming pad of cotton wool against her own neck. “There,” she said, “if it’s not too hot for me it won’t be too hot for you” – and she clapped it firmly on Anna’s neck and quickly wrapped a bandage round it.

It was terribly hot but just bearable.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” said Mama.

Anna was much too angry to answer and the room was beginning to spin again, but as she drifted off into vagueness she could just hear Mama’s voice: “I’m going to get that temperature down if it kills me!”

After this she must have dozed or dreamed because suddenly her neck was quite cool again and Mama was unwrapping it.

“And how are you, fat pig?” said Mama.

“Fat pig?” said Anna weakly.

Mama very gently touched one of Anna’s swollen glands.

“This is fat pig,” she said. “It’s the worst of the lot. The one next to it isn’t quite so bad – it’s called slim pig. And this one is called pink pig and this is baby pig and this one …what shall we call this one?”

“Fräulein Lambeck,” said Anna and began to laugh. She was so weak that the laugh sounded more like a cackle but Mama seemed very pleased just the same.

Mama kept putting on the hot fomentations and it was not too bad because she always made jokes about fat pig and slim pig and Fräulein Lambeck, but though her neck felt better Anna’s temperature stayed up. She would wake up feeling fairly normal but by lunch time she would be giddy and by the evening everything would have become vague and confused. She got the strangest ideas. She was frightened of the wallpaper and could not bear to be alone. Once when Mama left her to go downstairs for supper she thought the room was getting smaller and smaller and cried because she thought she would be squashed. After this Mama had her supper on a tray in Anna’s room. The doctor said, “She can’t go on like this much longer.”

Then one afternoon Anna was lying staring at the curtains. Mama had just drawn them because it was getting dark and Anna was trying to see what shapes the folds had made. The previous evening they had made a shape like an ostrich, and as Anna’s temperature went up she had been able to see the ostrich more and more clearly until at last she had been able to make him walk all round the room. This time she thought perhaps there might be an elephant.

Suddenly she became aware of whispering at the other end of the room. She turned her head with difficulty. Papa was there, sitting with Mama, and they were looking at a letter together. She could not hear what Mama was saying, but she could tell from the sound of her voice that she was excited and upset. Then Papa folded the letter and put his hand on Mama’s, and Anna thought he would probably go soon but he didn’t – he just stayed sitting there and holding Mama’s hand. Anna watched them for a while until her eyes became tired and she closed them. The whispering voices had become more quiet and even. Somehow it was a very soothing sound and after a while Anna fell asleep listening to it.

When she woke up she knew at once that she had slept for a long time. There was something else, too, that was strange, but she could not quite make out what it was. The room was dim except for a light on the table by which Mama usually sat, and Anna thought she must have forgotten to switch it off when she went to bed. But Mama had not gone to bed. She was still sitting there with Papa just as they had done before Anna went to sleep. Papa was still holding Mama’s hand in one of his and the folded letter in the other.

“Hello, Mama. Hello, Papa,” said Anna. “I feel so peculiar.”

Mama and Papa came over to her bed at once and Mama put a hand on her forehead. Then she popped the thermometer in Anna’s mouth. When she took it out again she did not seem to be able to believe what she saw. “It’s normal!” she said. “For the first time in four weeks it’s normal!”

“Nothing else matters,” said Papa, and crumpled up the letter.

After this Anna got better quite quickly. Fat pig, slim pig, Fräulein Lambeck and the rest gradually shrank and her neck stopped hurting. She began to eat again and to read. Max came and played cards with her when he wasn’t out somewhere with Papa, and soon she was allowed to get out of bed for a little while and sit in a chair. Mama had to help her walk the few steps across the room but she felt very happy sitting in the warm sunshine by the window.

Outside the sky was blue and she saw that the people in the street below were not wearing overcoats. There was a lady selling tulips at a stall on the opposite pavement and a chestnut tree at the corner was in full leaf. It was spring. She was amazed how much everything had changed during her illness. The people in the street seemed pleased with the spring weather too and several bought flowers from the stall. The lady selling tulips was round and dark-haired and looked a little bit like Heimpi.

Suddenly Anna remembered something. Heimpi had been going to join them two weeks after they left Germany. Now it must be more than a month. Why hadn’t she come? She was going to ask Mama, but Max came in first.

“Max,” said Anna, “why hasn’t Heimpi come?”

Max looked taken aback. “Do you want to go back to bed?” he said.

“No,” said Anna.

“Well,” said Max, “I don’t know if I’m meant to tell you, but quite a lot happened while you were ill.”