Jackie French - Hitler's Daughter

‘Why not?’ demanded Ben. ‘Fairies and dumb stuff aren’t real, are they?’

‘No, of course not. But…’

‘They are too real,’ interrupted Little Tracey.

‘But…’ Mark stopped. It did seem different somehow to make up stuff about a real person. But there was no way he could put his feeling into words. ‘Okay then,’ he said finally. ‘What was her name?’

‘Valdimara,’ said Ben with glee.

‘You got that from TV last night,’ objected Mark. ‘You know, that Vampire Princess thing.’

‘So what?’

‘You can’t have someone from TV in The Game. Anyway, Valdiwhatsit isn’t German.’

‘Austrian,’ said Anna softly. ‘Hitler was Austrian.’

‘What’s the difference?’ said Ben, irritated. ‘Who knows any Austrian names anyway?’

‘Her name was Heidi,’ stated Little Tracey.

‘But that’s from that soppy book…’

‘Oh, for Pete’s sake, what does it matter?’ demanded Mark. ‘The bus’ll be here soon. Go on, Anna. Her name was Heidi and she was Hitler’s daughter.’

‘And she lived in a castle,’ decided Little Tracey.

‘It wasn’t really like a castle,’ said Anna slowly. ‘But it was big, with wide terraces, and so many rooms that…that Heidi could never count them.’

Mark settled back on the seat. It always took a while for Anna to settle in to a story. But it was pretty good when she did. She always added details so you sort of saw the story in your mind.

‘There were Fräulein Gelber’s rooms, which smelt of cigarettes. Fräulein Gelber wasn’t supposed to smoke. Duffi said that smoking gave you cancer. He was the only leader in the world to try to stop his people smoking. But Heidi knew Fräulein Gelber still smoked anyway.

‘The kitchens smelt of flour: cold flour in the sacks, and hot flour in the oven, and even spilt flour had a different smell, though when Heidi told Fräulein Gelber she just laughed.

‘There were the “don’t go down there” rooms, where Duffi talked with people in uniforms and women in flowery dresses.’

‘Who was Duffi?’ demanded Ben.

‘Hitler,’ said Anna. ‘I don’t know why she called him Duffi. I don’t even know if it means anything. It was just what she did.’

Ben sniffed. ‘Dumb,’ he said. ‘Go on then. Get to a good part.’

‘Duffi’s own rooms were upstairs, but she was never to go there either. When Duffi visited he came to her rooms instead.’

Little Tracey bounced on the seat. ‘What were Heidi’s rooms like?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Anna.

‘I know,’ said Little Tracey. ‘They were really, really big, and everything was pink and she had one of those beds with curtains and it was pink as well, and all of one wall was a TV and…’

‘They didn’t have TV then,’ objected Mark.

‘Who cares?’ said Ben. ‘It’s just a story. Go on Anna. Get to the battles.’

‘The battles?’

‘Yeah, you know. The good stuff. The Russian front and Rommel in Egypt and the V2 rockets.’

‘How d’you know all this?’ demanded Mark.

‘I did a project last term, dummy. It’s cool. Go on, Anna. How about she goes to Egypt with Rommel and drives a tank through the Sahara Desert? Or flies a Messerschmidt—that’d be even better.’

Anna fiddled with the zipper on her parka. ‘I don’t know about Messerschmidts—or about any of the battles. Look, this isn’t going to work. Hitler’s daughter was a silly idea. Forget I started it, okay? How about another story? Tracey, you can choose.’

‘I want a story about Heidi,’ said Little Tracey.

‘Okay,’ said Anna hurriedly. ‘Let’s make her a princess. Princess Heidi.’

‘No,’ said Little Tracey stubbornly. ‘I want a story about the other Heidi. The one you were talking about.’

‘But… oh, alright then. But I can’t tell you about battles. She never saw any battles.’

‘She must have!’ declared Ben. ‘She was Hitler’s daughter!’

Anna shook her head. ‘He kept her away from all the battles. He kept her away from everyone. No one knew he had ever been married, and no one knew about Heidi. She lived with Fräulein Gelber at Berchtesgaden—that was where Hitler had a house in the country and that was the only world she knew.’

‘But why?’ insisted Mark. ‘Why did he keep her secret?’

‘What does it matter?’ asked Ben. ‘It’s just a story anyway.’

‘Because she had a birthmark,’ said Anna softly. ‘A great red blotch across her face. And one of her legs was shorter than the other, so she limped…just a little bit.

‘But Hitler wanted to breed a perfect race—the Aryan race it was called. Children with blue eyes and blonde hair, tall children who could run and jump and conquer the world. But his daughter was small like him, and dark, and her face was marked like an iron had burnt across it, and she limped.’

‘Then he didn’t love her.’ Little Tracey’s voice was very small.

‘Of course not,’ said Mark. ‘He was Hitler. I bet Hitler never loved anyone.’

‘I don’t know if he loved her or not,’ said Anna. ‘She always hoped he did.’

‘But someone like Hitler couldn’t…’ began Mark.

‘Hey, here’s the bus!’ Ben jumped to his feet. ‘That story’s weird.’

‘I said it wasn’t working,’ said Anna defensively.

‘It’s not weird! I like it!’ insisted Little Tracey.

The bus screeched to a stop in front of them, splashing yellow water on all sides. It was the smallest on the school bus run, mini-bus size really.

‘Thought you’d have melted in the rain by now,’ called old Mrs Latter. She wore her green hat like a tea-cosy this morning, pulled right down over her salt-and-pepper ponytail, and she had on her green gumboots with a crack at the heel. ‘Sorry I’m late. Any of you listen to that stuff the Prime Minister said on the news this morning?’

No one had.

Mrs Latter sighed. She liked a good argument about the news, which was why the bus was always late—she wanted to stop and argue about it with her husband.

‘Come on, hop on then,’ she said, wiping her nose on one of her husband’s handkerchiefs.

Little Tracey scrambled onto the bus first, like she always did, and bounced into the front seat behind Mrs Latter. Mark ambled behind Anna, with Ben following on his heels.

The bus lurched out from the side of the road, and began to wind its way between the paddocks. The cows watched them go, the rain dripping from their fringes, their droppings steaming on the cold ground behind them.

‘Anna?’

Anna turned round. ‘Yeah. What?’

‘What happened to Heidi’s mum?’

‘I think she died,’ said Anna. ‘She must’ve died. Heidi never knew her.’

‘Oh,’ said Mark. He hesitated. ‘Anna?’

‘Yes?’ Anna craned her head around again.

‘Will you go on with the story tomorrow?’

‘Yes. No. If it’s raining maybe. I thought you didn’t like it.’

‘It’s alright,’ said Mark.

Something was wrong. Unfinished. It niggled at him all the way through school.

It was Anna’s story of course. That’s what was wrong. She wasn’t telling it properly, not like it should be told.

Because somehow Mark knew that the story was THERE, in Anna’s mind. She shouldn’t have let them butt in. It was almost, almost like she didn’t want to tell it at all.

It shouldn’t have mattered, of course. It was just one of Anna’s stories, like the one about the goldfish that swam to Tasmania or the wild horses that took over the school or the secret gold mine under the butcher’s.

But somehow Heidi had become real…no, she wasn’t real, not yet. It was as though she MIGHT be real, if Anna just told them more.