‘And he told us how he wanted to be on the side of the unemployed—that was people like us, like me and Willi. He would save us, he would get us jobs, he would make Germany proud and free again, and I was cheering with everyone else while the tears ran down my cheeks.
‘And that night I prayed that this great, good man would get all the votes so we could get out of need. No one else promised what he did. He was the only one who gave us hope. This good man…and everything that he promised, he has given us.’
It was only then that Heidi realised Frau Mundt was talking about Duffi.
Duffi was the Fuhrer. He was her father too.
No one said he was her father, of course. She never called him Vater. She called him Duffi and he hugged her whenever he visited, which wasn’t often, and he brought her dolls with long blonde hair that made her cry secretly at night, because they were beautiful and she was not.
If she looked like the dolls he would have let her call him Father.
‘But… but how did she know she was his daughter if he never said?’ objected Mark. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.’
Anna shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘She just did know. She lived there in his house—or the house he visited sometimes, anyway, when he wasn’t in Berlin—and he called her “my little girl”. “How is my little girl today? Has she been good for Fraulein Gelber?” Somehow she just
In the mornings she did her lessons with Fraulein Gelber and in the afternoons they walked.
Fraulein Gelber knew the name of every tree and every flower, and even the names of the grasses too.
‘That’s a cuckoo’s call!’ cried Fraulein Gelber, or, ‘Listen, there’s a thrush.’
Sometimes they took bread down to the carp in the pool by the bridge. One of the carp was big and black and gold. He was maybe two hundred years old said Fraulein Gelber as they threw the bread into the water for the fish. (The fish mostly ignored it, so Heidi wondered if they really liked bread at all.)
When Heidi found hedgehogs freezing that winter Fraulein Gelber let her keep them in a basket by the hearth of the stove and Heidi fed them on bread and milk.
‘They will probably die anyway,’ said Fraulein Gelber indulgently, but she let her look after them. The hedgehogs didn’t die, and in the spring Heidi let them go in the garden. She hoped that maybe they’d remember her and come back to her sometimes. It would be good to have friends, even if they were hedgehogs. But the hedgehogs scuttled away and Heidi didn’t see them again.
Heidi always wanted to walk faster than Fraulein Gelber did. Fraulein Gelber didn’t even have a limp, but she never walked quite fast enough.
There were so many things that Heidi would have liked to do. She would have liked to join the Bund Deutsche Madel, the girl’s association, like Frau Mundt’s eldest daughter, Lotte. Frau Mundt told her lots of stories about Lotte. Heidi would have liked to meet her, but of course she never could. Heidi never met anyone at all.
If she joined the BDM she would do sports (Heidi had to ask Frau Mundt what sports were, but they sounded fun), and folk dancing. They would all sing songs together and, sometimes, go to the movies together.
But Heidi was not allowed.
She would have liked to go to school, to play with other girls. But that was not permitted either.
But she was a lucky girl. Everybody told her she was lucky. She had such pretty things: all the pretty things a girl could want.
She had her lovely home and such good food and Fraulein Gelber to look after her, and she had Duffi, who loved her, just as he loved all his German children.
Heidi hoped that one day Duffi would tell her that of all his German children he loved her best.
An engine sounded in the distance. A rumble coming closer, closer. Mark peered out of the shelter. Surely it was too early for the bus.
It was only Johnny Talbot on his motorbike, roaring up to town. He raised his hand briefly at the kids as he passed the shelter, and Mark half raised his hand to wave.
Anna sat still with her hands in her pockets.
‘What?’ Mark broke off and tried to choose his words carefully. ‘How could she want someone like that to love her? Someone who did such horrible things.’
‘He was her father,’ said Anna simply.
‘But what about the concentration camps? What about all the Jews he killed and the war and how he invaded Poland and all that?’
‘She didn’t know,’ said Anna.
‘But she must have!’
Anna shook her head. ‘The concentration camps were secret. I mean what they did there was secret. They were just supposed to be work camps. That’s what it said in the papers. And Heidi didn’t even see the papers. No one showed them to her. Only sometimes, when her father made a speech, and Fraulein Gelber would cut out his photo for her to pin on the wall.
‘How would she know what was happening? She didn’t even go to school so she couldn’t listen to other people talk.’
‘But she was there—in Hitler’s house—in the middle of everything,’ objected Mark.
Anna nodded slowly. ‘She was in the middle of everything, but she knew less than anyone outside.’
Anna put her hands in her lap, and her face got its story-telling look again. ‘She knew there was war. People talked about the war. But no one said that it was Hitler’s fault. The people in the household worked for Hitler. They thought that he was wonderful and that’s what they told Heidi.
‘Hitler was the leader who was going to save Germany, who would bring about The Third Reich. Germany would reign over the world and all the shame of World War One would be wiped out. Why would Heidi think any differently?’
Mark shook his head. ‘But… but she must just have KNOWN. If she’d just started to think about it all…’
‘Would you know if your parents were doing something wrong?’ asked Anna softly.
‘Of course I would. But they wouldn’t do anything really wrong anyway.’
‘Are you sure?’ persisted Anna. Her eyes were bright. ‘All the things your mum and dad believe in—have you ever really wondered if they are right or wrong? Or do you just think they’re right because that’s what your mum and dad think, so it
‘Well, I…’ Mark stopped.
No, he’d never thought maybe Mum and Dad were wrong, really wrong, about something. Something big— not just like Mum always wanting to be early and Dad barracking for Carlton even though he could see that they were losers (that’s what Mum said at any rate).
But that was different. Mum and Dad weren’t evil.
‘It’s not the same,’ he said at last.
Anna shrugged.
Little Tracey drummed her feet impatiently, ‘Go on with the story,’ she insisted. ‘PLEASE, Anna.’
Anna glanced at Mark. ‘Okay,’ she said.
‘Sometimes, just sometimes, Heidi felt that maybe…maybe things weren’t always right.’
It was the day after her birthday party. Duffi couldn’t be there—Duffi came so rarely nowadays. He had all of Germany to look after, and the war. But she had had a cake, in spite of the war, though she’d heard one of the guards mutter how much butter it had used.
It seemed other people didn’t have butter or cakes like that any more.
‘So there were guards?’ asked Mark.
‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘There were always guards.’
Duffi sent a doll from Paris. It had dark hair like her own, so Heidi liked it better than her other dolls, but it still didn’t have a mark on its face and anyway she was much too old for dolls.
The doll was dressed in velvet and lace. The dress had proper buttons so she undid them and took the dress off, just to see what was underneath, then put it back on again and sat the doll on the shelf above her bed with all the others and went to find Fraulein Gelber. It was time for Heidi’s lessons. Fraulein Gelber had never been late before.
Fraulein Gelber was in the garden, sitting on the wrought-iron seat under the plum tree. She had a letter in
