birthday – her tenth birthday – and not a single bit of it had been nice. She folded her arms on the railings and rested her head on them, pretending to look at the view so that no one should see how miserable she was. The water rushed past below her and the warm wind blew through her hair, and all she could think of was that her birthday had been spoilt and nothing would ever be any good again.
After a while she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Papa. Had he noticed how disappointed she was? But Papa never noticed things like that – he was too absorbed in his own thoughts.
“So now I have a ten-year-old daughter,” he said and smiled.
“Yes,” said Anna.
“As a matter of fact,” said Papa, “I don’t think you are quite ten years old yet. You were born at six o’clock in the evening. That’s not for another twenty minutes.”
“Really?” said Anna. For some reason the fact that she was not quite ten yet made her feel better.
“Yes,” said Papa, “and to me it doesn’t seem so very long ago. Of course we didn’t know then that we’d be spending your tenth birthday steaming about Lake Zurich as refugees from Hitler.”
“Is a refugee someone who’s had to leave their home?” asked Anna.
“Someone who seeks refuge in another country,” said Papa.
“I don’t think I’m quite used to being one yet,” said Anna.
“It’s an odd feeling,” said Papa. “You live in a country all your life. Then suddenly it is taken over by thugs and there you are, on your own in a strange place, with nothing.”
He looked so cheerful as he said this that Anna asked, “Don’t you mind?”
“In a way,” said Papa. “But I find it very interesting.”
The sun was sinking in the sky. Every so often it disappeared behind the top of a mountain, and then the lake darkened and everything on the boat became dull and flat. Then it reappeared in a gap between two peaks and the world turned rosy-gold again.
“I wonder where we’ll be on your eleventh birthday,” said Papa, “and on your twelfth.”
“Won’t we be here?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Papa. “If the Swiss won’t print anything I write for fear of upsetting the Nazis across the border we may as well live in another country altogether. Where would you like to go?”
“I don’t know,” said Anna.
“I think France would be very nice,” said Papa. He considered it for a while. “Do you know Paris at all?” he asked.
Until Anna became a refugee the only place she had ever gone to was the seaside, but she was used to Papa’s habit of becoming so interested in his own thoughts that he forgot whom he was talking to. She shook her head.
“It’s a beautiful city,” said Papa. “I’m sure you’d like it.”
“Would we go to a French school?”
“I expect so. And you’d learn to speak French. On the other hand,” said Papa, “we might live in England – that’s very beautiful too. But a bit damp.” He looked at Anna thoughtfully. “No,” he said, “I think we’ll try Paris first.”
The sun had now disappeared completely and it was dusk. It was hard to see the water as the boat sped through it, except for the foam which flashed white in what little light was left.
“Am I ten yet?” asked Anna. Papa looked at his watch.
“Ten years old exactly.” He hugged her. “Happy, happy birthday, and very many happy returns!”
And just as he said it the boat’s lights came on. There was only a sprinkling of white bulbs round the rails which left the deck almost as dark as before, but the cabin suddenly glowed yellow and at the back of the boat the ship’s lantern shone a brilliant purply-blue.
“Isn’t it lovely!” cried Anna and somehow, suddenly, she no longer minded about her birthday and her presents. It seemed rather fine and adventurous to be a refugee, to have no home and not to know where one was going to live. Perhaps at a pinch it might even count as a difficult childhood like the ones in Gunther’s book and she would end up by being famous.
As the boat steamed back to Zurich she snuggled up to Papa and they watched the blue light from the ship’s lantern trailing through the dark water behind them.
“I think I might quite like being a refugee,” said Anna.
The summer wore on and suddenly it was the end of term. On the last day there was a celebration at school with a speech by Herr Graupe, an exhibition of needlework by the girls, a gym display by the boys and much singing and yodelling by everyone. At the end of the afternoon each child was presented with a sausage and a hunk of bread, and they wandered home through the village chewing and laughing and making plans for the next day. The summer holidays had begun.
Max did not finish until a day or two later. At the High School in Zurich the term did not end with yodelling and sausages but with reports. Max brought home his usual quota of comments like, “Does not try” and “Shows no interest”, and he and Anna sat through the usual gloomy lunch while Mama and Papa read them. Mama was particularly disappointed because, while she had got used to Max not trying and showing no interest in Germany, she had somehow hoped it might be different in Switzerland – because Max was clever, only he did not work. But the only difference was that whereas in Germany Max had neglected his work to play football, in Switzerland he neglected it in order to fish, and the results were much the same.
It was amazing, thought Anna, how he went on with his fishing even though he never caught anything. Even the Zwirn children had begun to tease him about it. “Bathing worms again?” they would say as they passed him and he would scowl at them furiously, unable to shout an insult back for fear of disturbing some fish that might just be going to bite.
When Max was not fishing he and Anna and the three Zwirn children swam in the lake and played together or went for walks in the woods. Max got on well with Franz, and Anna had become quite fond of Vreneli. Trudi was only six, but she trailed along behind no matter what the others were doing. Sometimes they were joined by Roesli and once even by the red-haired boy who studiously ignored both Anna and Vreneli and only talked about football to Max.
Then one morning Anna and Max came down to find the Zwirn children playing with a boy and a girl they had never seen before. They were German, about their own ages, and were spending a holiday with their parents at the inn.
“Which part of Germany do you come from?” asked Max.
“Munich,” said the boy.
“We used to live in Berlin,” said Anna.
“Gosh,” said the boy, “Berlin must
