Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex (10 page)

F
OR A LONG TIME
, Paula had been trying to work out a way to see the inside of an aeroplane. Her father had recently got a job at an airport near Berlin, and Paula and her mother had moved there to be with him.

One fine day, when things were fairly quiet at the airport, she summoned every ounce of courage she had and climbed into the first plane she happened to see. She inspected every nook and cranny, taking her own sweet
time, before finally pausing in fascination outside the cockpit. She was just about to reach for the doorknob when, to her indescribable horror, she heard voices outside. She quickly crawled under one of the benches and waited tremblingly to see what was going to happen next.

The voices came closer and closer, and a moment later she saw two men step into the plane. They walked back and forth, nearly bumping into the bench under which she was crouched. Then the two men sat down on one of the benches behind her and started speaking in such a strange dialect that Paula couldn't understand a word. After about fifteen minutes, they stood up and one of them left the plane. The other one shut himself in the cockpit, only to come out again dressed as a pilot. Then the second man came back, followed by six other men, and they all climbed aboard. Paula, still shaking, listened as the engine was switched on and the propellers began to turn.

D
ESPITE HER DARING
, Paula was often cowardly and afraid, though sometimes she could be unexpectedly brave, so that no one was able to predict which of these two opposites was going to come to the fore. This time she was extraordinarily brave, because, after they had flown for a while, she suddenly crawled out from under the bench and, to the infinite astonishment of the crew,
introduced herself and told them how she got there. The crew discussed what they should do with Paula and decided that they had no choice but to keep her with them. They told her that they were on their way to Russia to bomb the enemy lines.

Sighing, she lay down on a bench and went to sleep. Bang-bang, boom-boom… Paula sat up immediately and stared wide-eyed at the crew. No one had time to deal with her, though, because the Russians were shooting fast and furiously at the enemy aircraft. Suddenly…Paula screamed, the benches shook and the windows rattled as a couple of shells slammed into the plane and sent it into a nosedive, so that they were forced to make an emergency landing.

As soon as the plane hit the ground, some Russians raced over and put handcuffs on the entire crew. You can imagine the looks on their faces when they suddenly saw a little thirteen-year-old girl standing before them. Neither the Russians nor the Germans understood a word of each other's language, so a young Russian took Paula's hand and walked with her behind the crew all the way to the prison camp. The camp's commander burst into laughter when he saw Paula standing calmly before him. But since he didn't want to take the little girl prisoner, he decided to make inquiries behind the lines the following day and see if he could find a simple family who would care for her until after the war.

O
NE RAINY DAY
, after she had spent about a week in the commander's office, Paula was bundled, just as she was, into a big car that was taking wounded soldiers to the hospital. The car bumped and bounced over the cobblestones for a full five hours, while outside a curtain of rain blocked her view. An occasional cottage dotted the desolate landscape, but they all seemed to be deserted. At the beginning of their trip, they could still hear the steady roar of the distant cannons, but the sound gradually got weaker and weaker until it finally died away completely.

Suddenly there was more traffic on the road. They passed several cars, then stopped in front of a white house with red crosses painted all over it. The wounded were taken out of the car and carried inside, where friendly nurses were waiting to receive them.

After all the men had been unloaded, the driver drove on without a word. A whole hour went by before he stopped again. Through the trees Paula saw a fairly large farmhouse. The driver gestured in the direction of the house, and Paula understood that she was supposed to get out.

She stood on the road, waiting for the driver, but before she knew what had happened, the car had driven off, leaving her alone on the empty road. ‘What strange people the Russians are,' Paula thought. ‘Here I am, left to my fate in a foreign country. If the tables were turned, no German would act this way!' (Don't forget that Paula was German.) She suddenly remembered, however, that
the driver had pointed to the house. So she crossed the road, opened the gate and found herself in a sort of fenced-in pasture. In front of the house she spied a woman doing the washing and a little girl hanging sheets on the line.

Holding out her hand, she walked over to the woman and murmured, ‘Paula Muller.' The woman looked up, shook Paula's hand, after first wiping her own on her soaking-wet apron, and said,
‘Ustichyaraya kolovnya
'. Paula assumed that this was the woman's name, though it simply meant ‘Welcome'.

M
RS
K
ANTAVOSKA
(as the woman was actually called) lived on the farm with her husband and three children. In addition, they had a farm-hand and two hired girls. Three days before, she had received word that a
thirteen-year
-old girl would probably be arriving within the next few days. If they took her in, they wouldn't be obliged to have anyone else billeted in their house. Mrs Kantavoska had readily agreed, and she now assumed that this was the girl.

The Kantavoskas had difficulty explaining things to Paula. However much she tried, Paula simply couldn't understand what they expected her to do. During the first two weeks, she could barely choke down the food, but since hunger makes even the oddest things taste good, she eventually got used to it, and after a while she rolled up 
her sleeves and, by imitating the others, was able to do the washing and mending.

So Paula's life went on, and after six months she could understand quite a bit of Russian. By the time another six months had gone by, she could understand almost everything and occasionally joined in the conversation, though it wasn't easy. The Kantavoskas didn't see Paula's bad side, since she was much too clever to pull any of her shenanigans here, and there was no point in making her life in Russia miserable as well. She did her work, and since she wasn't as clumsy as she had pretended to be at home, she gradually became part of the family.

A
FTER TWO YEARS
with the Kantavoskas, Paula was asked if she wanted to learn how to read and write in Russian. She eagerly accepted the offer, and from then on she and a girl from the neighbourhood went to reading and writing lessons three times a week. She made rapid progress, and after about twelve weeks she was able to read Russian. Both Paula and the other girl were also given permission to learn how to dance. Before long, you could find her every evening in a dance hall, dancing polkas and mazurkas for a few pennies a night. She gave half her earnings to Mother Kantavoska and slipped the other half into her own pocket, since she had long been meaning to find a way to leave the country.

Meanwhile, the war had come to an end, though in all that time she had not heard a word from her parents.

S
HE WAS NOW
nearly sixteen, poorly educated and aware of the fact that, by Western standards, she was quite ignorant. So she threw herself into her dancing, and before long she had saved enough money to buy a train ticket from Minsk (for that was the area she was in) to Warsaw. ‘If I can just get to Warsaw,' she thought, ‘the Red Cross is bound to send me the rest of the way.'

No sooner said than done. One morning, when she was supposedly going to her lesson, she tied her accumulated possessions into a bundle and slipped away. As she had expected, the walk from the Kantavoskas' farm to Minsk was far from easy. She got a ride in a wagon for a few hours, but that still left several hours on foot.

She arrived in Minsk at dusk, totally exhausted. She went directly to the station and asked about trains to Warsaw, but to her dismay, she was told that the first train wasn't due to leave until noon the next day. She pleaded with them to let her speak to the stationmaster, and when he appeared, she begged him for permission to sleep in the station that night. This was allowed, and she was so tired that she fell asleep at once. She awoke at dawn, stiff from head to toe, wondering where she was, but it all came back to her much too quickly when her stomach began to growl. That was something Paula had not
anticipated. There was a nice girl at the station buffet, and after hearing Paula's open-hearted tale, she kindly gave her, at no charge, a real Russian bread roll. She spent the morning chatting with the waitress and boarded the train to Warsaw at noon, greatly cheered and in the highest of hopes.

W
HEN SHE ARRIVED
in Warsaw, she asked the stationmaster for directions, then walked straight to the house of the Red Cross nurses. She stayed there longer than she'd expected, since none of the nurses knew what to do with her. They didn't have any addresses or lists of missing persons, and as Paula didn't have a penny to her name, they couldn't put her on a train. Nor could they let her starve to death. However, after a while the nurses decided, thank goodness, to pay for her trip to Berlin out of their own pockets, since Paula had told them that once she was in Berlin she'd be able to find her way to her parents' house.

The nurses bade her an affectionate farewell and once again Paula boarded the train. At the next station a nice young man entered her compartment and soon struck up a conversation with the gutsy-looking girl. For the rest of the trip, Paula was to be found in the company of the handsome young soldier, and when they arrived in Berlin, the two of them arranged to meet again soon.

Paula set off at a brisk pace and before long she had reached her parents' house, which turned out to be empty
and deserted. It had never occurred to her that her parents might have moved. What was she to do? Once more she found the Red Cross and told them her story in her halting German, and once more she was taken in and cared for, though her stay was limited to a maximum of fourteen days.

All she found out about her parents was that her mother had left Berlin to look for work elsewhere and that her father had been drafted in the last year of the war and was now lying wounded in a hospital somewhere.

She went straight out to look for some kind of housework, and when she found a position, she hurried over to see Erich, the handsome young man. With his help, she was hired for three nights a week in a cabaret. And so her Russian dancing came in useful again.

P
AULA HAD BEEN
working for some time when the cabaret announced one evening that in two weeks' time it was going to hold a big dance show, exclusively for the convalescent soldiers who had recently been discharged from various hospitals. On this special night, Paula was to have a big part in the performance. There were lots of rehearsals, and when she got home late at night, she was so tired that she could barely drag herself out of bed at seven o'clock the next morning. Her one and only source of comfort in this period was Erich. Their friendship had grown so much that Paula no longer knew how she could
ever manage without him. When the big night finally arrived, Paula had stage fright for the first time in her life. Dancing for a roomful of men was decidedly unnerving. Still, all she could do was try, and with the thought of the extra money she'd earn, she was able to keep going.

The evening went well, and afterwards Paula joined Erich in the foyer. All of a sudden she froze, because not far from her, talking to another soldier, was her father. With a cry of joy, she rushed over and threw herself in his arms. Her father, who had aged quite a lot, looked amazed, since he hadn't recognized his daughter, either on or off stage. She actually had to introduce herself!

A
WEEK LATER
Paula could be seen entering the railway station in Frankfurt arm-in-arm with her father. They were welcomed by her deeply moved mother, who after all that time had almost given up hoping for her daughter's return.

After she'd told her mother the whole story, her father jokingly asked her if she'd like to hop on a plane so that she could fly back to Russia!

Bear in mind that this story takes place during the 1914–1918 war, when the Germans won the Russian campaign.

Wednesday, 22 December 1943

K
ATRIEN WAS SITTING
on a boulder that lay in the sun in front of the farm. She was thinking, thinking very hard. Katrien was one of those quiet girls who become […]
*
in later years, because they’re always thinking.

What the little girl in the pinafore was thinking about only she could say, because she never told her thoughts to anyone. She was much too quiet and withdrawn for that.

She didn’t have a single girlfriend and probably wouldn’t find it easy to make one. Her mother thought she was a strange child, and unfortunately Katrien could sense her disapproval. Her father, the farmer, was far too busy to concern himself with his only daughter. So Katrien was always by herself. She didn’t mind being on her own; she thought it was normal and was happy to let it go at that.

On this hot summer day, however, she looked out over the cornfields and sighed deeply. What fun it would be to be able to play with the girls over there. Look at them running and laughing and having a good time!

The girls started coming closer and closer… Do you suppose they were coming over to where she was sitting? Oh, how awful, they were laughing at her. She could clearly hear them calling her name, the nickname she hated so much, the one she heard them whispering behind her back: Katrien the Lazy Bean. Oh, she felt so miserable. If only she could run into the house, but then they’d laugh at her even more.

Poor little girl. This can’t be the first time you’ve felt so lonely, or envied girls who are even poorer than you.

‘Katrien, Katrien, come in, it’s time to eat.’ She sighed one last time and got up slowly to obey her mother’s call.

‘Oh, she’s got her happy face on again! Our little girl is just as cheerful as can be!’ her mother exclaimed as Katrien shuffled into the room even slower and sadder than usual.

‘Can’t you even answer?’ the woman snapped. She wasn’t aware of how unfriendly her voice sounded, but her daughter wasn’t at all like the cheerful, lively girl she longed to have.

‘Yes, Mother.’ Her reply was nearly inaudible.

‘You’re a fine one to talk. You’ve been gone all morning and haven’t done a single bit of work. Where have you been?’

‘Outside.’

There seemed to be a giant lump in Katrien’s throat, but her mother, misinterpreting the child’s bashfulness and now justifiably curious about what her daughter had been up to all morning, asked her again: ‘I want to know where you’ve been, and I expect a clear answer this time. Is that
understood? You’re such a lazy little thing and I hate laziness!’

Upon hearing the word that reminded her of her detested nickname, Katrien lost control of herself and burst into tears.

‘Now what’s the matter? You’re such a scaredy-cat. Can’t you tell me where you’ve been, or is that such a big secret?’

The poor child was crying so hard she couldn’t answer.

Suddenly she stood up, knocking over her chair, and, sobbing, raced out of the room and up to the attic, where she slumped down on a pile of gunny sacks in the corner and quietly cried her eyes out.

Her mother shrugged and cleared the table. She wasn’t surprised at her daughter’s behaviour. This wasn’t the first time she’d seen her in one of these ‘crazy’ moods. It was best to leave the child alone. After all, you couldn’t get a word out of her when she was like this, and she was liable to burst into tears at the drop of a hat. What kind of behaviour was that for a twelve-year-old farmer’s daughter?

Upstairs in the attic, Katrien had calmed down and was thinking again. In a moment she’d go back down and tell her mother that she’d simply been sitting on the boulder, and offer to finish all her jobs this afternoon. Then her mother would see that she didn’t mind working hard, and if she asked her why she’d been sitting on her behind all morning, she’d tell her that she needed to have a good think. This evening, when she went to the village to deliver the eggs, she’d buy her mother a new thimble, a
nice shiny silver thimble. She had just enough money. Then Mother would see that she wasn’t a Lazy Bean after all.

Her train of thought came to a brief halt. Oh dear, how was she ever going to get rid of that dreadful nickname? Wait, she had an idea. With the money that was bound to be left over after she bought the thimble, she could buy a big bag of sweets – the red, sticky kind the other farm children were so fond of – and tomorrow she would give them to the teacher, who could pass them out to all the girls. Then they’d be sure to like her and ask her to play with them, and then they’d see that she was good at games too, and never again would she be called anything but Katrien.

Still feeling a bit hesitant, she stood up and tiptoed down the stairs. In the hallway, she ran into her mother, who said, ‘Got over your little tantrum, have you?’ so that she no longer felt up to telling her where she’d been. Instead, she hurried past so she could get the windows washed before it was dark.

Just before sunset Katrien left at a fast pace with a basket of eggs on her arm. After half an hour, she reached her first customer, already waiting in the doorway with a porcelain bowl in her hand.

‘I’ll take a dozen eggs, dear,’ the woman said kindly. Katrien counted them out, said good-bye and went on her way; three-quarters of an hour later the basket was empty and Katrien was entering a little shop that sold all kinds of goods. With a pretty thimble and a bag of sweets tucked in her basket, she began the return journey. She
was halfway home when she saw two of the girls who had laughed at her this morning coming towards her. Bravely overcoming the desire to hide, she continued down the road, though her heart was pounding wildly.

‘Hey, there’s Lazy Bean. That crazy Lazy Bean.’

Katrien’s heart sank. In desperation, knowing she had to do something, she took the bag of sweets out of her basket and held it out to the girls. One of them snatched the bag and ran away. The other one raced after her, stopping only to stick out her tongue before disappearing around a bend in the road.

Helpless, heartbroken and lonely, Katrien sank into the grass at the side of the road and wept – wept until she had no more tears. Darkness had already set in by the time she picked up the overturned basket and headed home. From somewhere in the grass came the gleam of a silver thimble…

Friday, 11 February 1944