Free A Small Person Far Away by Judith Kerr Page B

“when we won the First World War,” to everyone’s confusion.
    “And her feeling for the arts,” cried Mr Hathaway. “Her love of the theatre – I suppose that must have been nurtured by your father. But her music was her very own. To me, she stands for a very special kind of flowering, a special European—” He suddenly ran out of words and said, “Anyway, we’re all very fond of her here,” with such genuine feeling that Anna decided he was really quite nice, in spite of his teeth and his foolishness.
    It was odd, she thought, but she had quite forgotten about Mama’s music. When she was small, the sound of the piano had seemed as much part of Mama as the way she looked. Every day while Papa wrote in his study, Mama had played and even composed. She’d been good, too, people said. But with the emigration, it had all stopped. If she had continued, would she have had something to hang on to in the present crisis instead of swallowing a bottleful of pills? And had she stopped because of the endless, crushing worries, or had the music never, really, been essential to her – only part of the romantic image she had of herself? There was no way of knowing.
    “We’ll miss her on Wednesday,” said Ken Hathaway, and it transpired that he was giving a party to which both Mama and Konrad had been invited. “Perhaps you would consider coming in her place?” He smiled hopefully over a forkful of schnitzel.
    “Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” said Anna.
    She was appalled at even thinking about Wednesday. Suppose Mama was still in a coma by then? Suppose she was worse? Then she saw Mr Hathaway’s face and realized how rude she must have sounded.
    “I mean,” she said, “it must depend on how my mother is.”
    “Let’s say I’ll bring her if her mother can spare her,” said Konrad, making everything normal again.
    She knew that he was doing it for Mama’s sake, to make life easier for her if she recovered, but it still worried her that he should be so good at covering up.
    “Was there something you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked Ken Hathaway, who at once launched into an account of a poetry reading he had arranged, at which he hoped as many people as possible would turn up.
    By Wednesday Mama may be dead, thought Anna.
    A small German boy at the next table was eating cherry cake, and his mother was nagging him not to swallow the stones.
    “What happens to people who swallow cherry stones?” he asked.
    “What happens to people when they die?” Anna had once asked Mama in German, long ago when she was still a German child.
    “Nobody knows,” Mama had said. “But perhaps when you grow up, you’ll be the first person to find out,” and after that she had been less frightened of death.
    She must have eaten without noticing, for suddenly Konrad was paying the bill.
    “Can I drive you anywhere?” he asked. “It’s still too early to go to the hospital. What would you like to do?”
    “I thought perhaps I’d just walk about.”
    “Walk about?”
    “Where we used to live. It’s the only bit I remember.”
    “Of course.”
    He dropped her off where she asked him, having first provided her with a street map, as well as detailed instructions for getting to the hospital and then back to her hotel.
    “I’ll ring you after six,” he said. “Look after yourself.”
    She waved and watched him drive off.
    It was not the first time she had been back to this part of Berlin. Two years before, she had walked here with Richard and Mama. She had pointed out to Richard all the places she remembered, and Mama had explained various changes which had happened since. They had chatted all the way – it had been a lovely day, she remembered – and she had been so happy that Richard and Mama were getting on so well that she had little time for any other emotions. Now, as she stood alone in the gusty wind, it felt quite different.
    Konrad had dropped her at the end of the street where she had lived as a child.