Chocolate Cake With Hitler Read Free Page A

remember the soft dip of her shoulder where my head fitted just right and feeling that everything was going to be perfect from then on. I didn’t realise that when we actually moved in the whole house would be freshly painted and done up and all the beauty and mystery would be decorated away.
    Luckily the garden took longer for them to sort out. It was enormous and had been what Mummycalled “neglected”. There were thick bushes and low branches and secret places where only children could fit. In the end they got a man called Carl with fierce, blue eyes and a mower and a scythe and he pretty well ruined everything, but for a while it hid whole other worlds to play in.
    That first visit, after the rain stopped, the long grass was still drenched, and we walked right down to the edge of the lake, my socks and shoes soaked through. There was a girl in the garden next door, swinging on a swing, gum-booted feet in the sky. She waved, but Mummy told us not to wave back. She said that, unfortunately , the one problem with the house was that the neighbours were unsuitable. She said Papa would sort it out.
    I hated Carl the cutter but I loved Mr. Bruegger who looked after the ponies. Papa bought two ponies – Loki and Freya, both piebald – and a pony trap. Mr. Bruegger would take us out in the trap for rides around the island, and afterwards he would let us feed the ponies. Mr. Bruegger taught us how to ride and how to whistle and how to touch stinging nettles without getting stung and he used to tell us stories about the horses he had looked after during the war. I loved the ponies. I loved their warm breath and soft noses and the smell of hay in their stable. It was only later that we got Rosamund for me to ride.
    In those early days, before the war, we used to haveto go sailing on Baldur , Papa’s yacht. There was always a cold breeze on the lake and we had to wear damp, heavy life jackets. I always got told off for being in the wrong place: “Mind the boom!”
    Papa had a friend called Lida who was a film star. Sometimes Papa and I used to watch her films but Mummy didn’t like them and Hilde and Helmut were too young. Lida was very beautiful. Well, Mummy didn’t think so, but I did. She had lovely wavy hair and her face was somehow tight and bright and always smiling. Lida loved going out in Papa’s yacht and Mummy would always make me and Hilde go too to keep her company because she thought Lida would get bored with only Papa to talk to. I don’t think it was true because Papa and Lida would always go off for one more sail after they dropped us back home.

    It was the first summer at Swan Island that I met Reggie.
    We were always sent out to play in the garden after breakfast and sometimes I would go off on my own to see if I could catch a glimpse of the girl next door. The fence running round the edge of the garden had collapsed so it was hard to tell where our garden stopped and the neighbour’s began. This was before Carl put up the new fence with barbed wire. One day I was sitting, hidden, or so I thought, in the bushes, watching herdoing handstands, when she suddenly sprang through to our side, and flung herself down beside me.
    “Let me introduce myself. I am Regine Goldschmidt. Queen of the Goldschmidts. Who, pray, are you?”
    “My name’s Helga.” I didn’t know what to say next because Mummy had banned us from talking to the neighbours, so I spoke very quietly as a compromise between the “Don’t talk to the neighbours” and the “Speak when you’re spoken to” rules.
    “I’m afraid I’m not allowed to talk to you,” I said in a whisper.
    “How ridiculous! It’s probably because we’re Jewish. But you needn’t worry – it’s not catching!”
    “Are you allowed to talk to us?”
    “I’m allowed to do whatever I want. I haven’t got a mother.” She twisted a long strand of dark hair around her finger.
    “Have you got a papa?”
    “Oh yes. And a brother and a sister, but they are