Free Interpreters by Sue Eckstein Page B

await our father, we began to think it might have been something else. It was only the three of us on the long, hot drive back to England.
    Shortly after we got home, we heard the familiar sound of Roland’s Austin outside the house. Max and I rushed down the corridor to open the door, ready to hurl ourselves into his arms as we always did.
    ‘Just go upstairs,’ my mother said, blocking our route to the door. ‘We’re out.’ We stood behind her listening to the incessant ringing of the bell.
    ‘But he knows we’re here. He heard us,’ I whispered, feeling both desperately sorry for Roland and terribly ashamed at being party to this deception. ‘He’ll think it’s really rude. Let him in! Please, Mum.’
    ‘Go upstairs.’
    ‘He wants to see us. He’s come over specially.’ By now I was no longer whispering.
    ‘It’s not you he’s come to see.’
    ‘Open the door. Please, Mum,’ Max begged, the corners of his mouth quivering.
    ‘Go upstairs!’
    So Max and I stood at her bedroom window, and watched through a crack in the net curtains as Roland Elliot drove out of the Close and out of our lives. We never heard our mother play the piano again.

V
    My father used to sit in his summer house at the end of the garden and listen to the foreign broadcasts on the wireless even though it was absolutely forbidden. Or probably because it was forbidden. He hated Hitler – thought he was a ridiculous little failed painter – said we’d lose this stupid war. For a long time, we were the only people I knew without a swastika in the house, and when we finally got a flag he insisted on buying the smallest one he could find. It was about this big. I always hoped that the SS man who lived at the end of our road would hear him listening to the wireless and come and get him taken away. My God! I’d have been so happy if that had happened. I came so close reporting my father – I got as far as dialling once – then put the phone down. I don’t know why I didn’t do it. I wish I had.
    I’m surprised .
    That I didn’t report him?
    No. About your father and Hitler. I’d have thought your father would have had Nazi leanings. That he would have been a Party member.
    Are you supposed to have opinions?
    We agreed there weren’t any rules. But sorry, carry on.
    No – you go on. Tell me what else you’re surprised about. I’d like to know. It’d make a nice change.
    No, go on. Please.
    My father didn’t care about Hitler’s policies. Or what was going on in Europe. My father didn’t like Hitler because he didn’t like anyone telling him what to do or how to live. Not for any other reason.
    I see.
    He was furious when he got a letter from some official or other saying he shouldn’t be buying things from Mr Finkelman’s hardware shop. He’d be damned if he’d let those Nazis tell him what he could and couldn’t do. If he wanted to buy a lawnmower from Mr Finkelman, he damn well would, and an English one at that. He was a great admirer of British engineering. Why are you smiling?
    Sorry. Carry on.
    He never let me go anywhere with my friends, or do anything nice, but then, when I joined the Bund Deutscher Mädel, suddenly he couldn’t stop me. You know what that is, I assume?
    Like the girls’ Hitler Youth?
    Something like that. I’d say, ‘Father, there is this camp I have to go to,’ or ‘that meeting I have to attend,’ or ‘that bomb site I have to help clear,’ and there was nothing he could do about it. I remember the most wonderful spring day, the sun was shining through the birch trees and the leaves were that lovely pale green, and we marched through the woods in our uniforms, Helga and me up front, leading the troupe, singing incredibly loudly. And the song was about spring, and trees, and God knows what else, and I didn’t think I’d ever felt so happy.
(LONG SILENCE)
    ‘But four young Oysters hurried up
    All eager for the treat;
    Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
    Their shoes