He had been to a naturalists’ congress in Italy and had left a day early in order to come and see them on his way back to Berlin.
“I’m honoured and grateful,” said Papa.
“The Nazis certainly are very stupid,” said Onkel Julius. “How could you possibly be an enemy of Germany? You know of course that they burned all your books.”
“I was in very good company,” said Papa.
“What books?” asked Anna. “I thought the Nazis had just taken all our things – I didn’t know they’d burned them.”
“These were not the books your father owned,” said Onkel Julius. “They were the books he has written. The Nazis lit big bonfires all over the country and threw on all the copies they could find and burned them.”
“Along with the works of various other distinguished authors,” said Papa, “such as Einstein, Freud, H. G. Wells …”
Onkel Julius shook his head at the madness of it all.
“Thank heavens you didn’t take my advice,” he said. “Thank heavens you left when you did. But of course,” he added, “this situation in Germany can’t go on much longer!”
Over lunch in the garden he told them the news. Heimpi had found a job with another family. It had been difficult because when people heard that she had worked for Papa they did not want to employ her. But it was not a bad job considering. Their house was still empty. Nobody had bought it yet.
It was strange, thought Anna, that Onkel Julius could go and look at it any time he liked. He could walk down the street from the paper shop at the corner and stand outside the white painted gate. The shutters would be closed but if he had a key Onkel Julius would be able to go through the front door into the dark hall, up the stairs to the nursery, or across into the drawing room, or along the passage to Heimpi’s pantry …Anna remembered it all so clearly, and in her mind she walked right through the house from top to bottom while Onkel Julius went on talking to Mama and Papa.
“How are things with you?” he asked. “Are you able to write here?”
Papa raised an eyebrow. “I have no difficulty in writing,” he said, “only in getting my work published.”
“Impossible!” said Onkel Julius.
“Unfortunately not,” said Papa. “It seems the Swiss are so anxious to protect their neutrality that they are frightened of publishing anything by an avowed anti-Nazi like myself.”
Onkel Julius looked shocked.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “I mean – financially?”
“We manage,” said Papa. “Anyway, I’m trying to make them change their mind.”
Then they began to talk about mutual friends. It sounded as though they were going through a long list of names. Somebody had been arrested by the Nazis. Somebody else had escaped and was going to America. Another person had compromised (what was “compromised”? wondered Anna) and had written an article in praise of the new regime. The list went on and on. All grown-up conversations were like this nowadays, thought Anna, while little waves lapped against the edge of the lake and bees buzzed in the chestnut trees.
In the afternoon they showed Onkel Julius round. Anna and Max took him up into the woods and he was very interested to discover a special kind of toad that he had never seen before. Later, they all went for a row on the lake in a hired boat. Then they had supper together, and at last it was time for Onkel Julius to leave.
“I miss our outings to the Zoo,” he said as he kissed Anna.
“So do I!” said Anna. “I liked the monkeys best.”
“I’ll send you a picture of one,” said Onkel Julius.
They walked down to the landing stage together.
While they were waiting for the steamer Papa suddenly said, “Julius – don’t go back. Stay here with us. You won’t be safe in Germany.”
“What – me?” said Onkel Julius in his high voice. “Who’s going to bother about me? I’m only interested in animals. I’m not political. I’m not even Jewish unless you count my poor old grandmother!”
“Julius, you don’t understand …” said Papa.
“The situation is bound to change,” said Onkel Julius, and there was the steamer puffing towards them. “Goodbye, old friend!” He embraced Papa and Mama and both children.
As he walked across the gangplank he turned back for a moment.
“Anyway,” he said, “the monkeys at the Zoo would miss me!”
As Anna went on attending the village school she liked it more and more. She made friends with other girls apart from Vreneli, and especially with Roesli, who sat next to her in class and was a little less sedate than the rest. The lessons were so easy that she was able to shine without any effort, and though Herr Graupe was not a very good teacher of the more conventional subjects he was a remarkable yodeller. Altogether what she liked best about the school was that it was so different from the one she had been to before. She felt sorry for Max who seemed to be doing very much the same things at the Zurich High School as he had done in Berlin.
There was only one thing that bothered her. She missed playing with boys. In Berlin she and Max had mostly played with a mixed group of both boys and girls and it had been the same at school. Here the girls’ endless hopscotch began to bore her and sometimes in break she looked longingly at the more exciting games and acrobatics of the boys.
One day there was no one even playing hopscotch. The boys were turning cartwheels and all the girls were sitting demurely watching them out of the corner of their eyes. Even Roesli, who had cut her knee, was sitting with the rest. Vreneli was particularly interested because the big red-haired boy was trying to turn cartwheels and the others were trying to teach him, but he kept flopping over sideways.
“Would you like to play hopscotch?” Anna asked her, but Vreneli shook her head, absorbed. It really was too silly, especially as Anna loved turning cartwheels herself – and it wasn’t as though the red-haired boy was any good at it.
Suddenly she could stand it no longer and without thinking what she was doing she got up from her seat among the girls and walked over to the boys.
“Look,” she said to the red-haired boy, “you’ve got to keep your legs straight like this” – and she turned a cartwheel to show him. All the other boys stopped turning cartwheels and stood back, grinning. The red-haired boy hesitated.
“It’s quite easy,” said Anna. “You could do it if you’d only remember about your legs.”
The red-haired boy still seemed undecided, but the other boys shouted, “Go on – try!” So he tried again and managed a little better. Anna showed him again, and this time he suddenly got the idea
