Winter of the World Read Free

was fourteen. She liked him. Sometimes Carla and Frieda imagined that they had each married the other’s brother, and were
next-door neighbours, and their children were best friends. It was just a game to Frieda, but secretly Carla was serious. Werner was handsome and grown-up and not a bit silly like Erik. In the
doll’s house in Carla’s bedroom, the mother and father sleeping side by side in the miniature double bed were called Carla and Werner, but no one knew that, not even Frieda.
    Frieda had another brother, Axel, who was seven; but he had been born with spina bifida, and had to have constant medical care. He lived in a special hospital on the outskirts of Berlin.
    Mother was preoccupied on the journey. ‘I hope this is going to be all right,’ she muttered, half to herself, as they got off the train.
    ‘Of course it will,’ Carla said. ‘I’ll have a lovely time with Frieda.’
    ‘I didn’t mean that. I’m talking about my paragraph about Hitler.’
    ‘Are we in danger? Was Father right?’
    ‘Your father is usually right.’
    ‘What will happen to us if we’ve annoyed the Nazis?’
    Mother stared at her strangely for a long moment, then said: ‘Dear God, what kind of a world did I bring you into?’ Then she went quiet.
    After a ten-minute walk they arrived at a grand villa in a big garden. The Francks were rich: Frieda’s father, Ludwig, owned a factory making radio sets. Two cars stood in the drive. The
large shiny black one belonged to Herr Franck. The engine rumbled, and a cloud of blue vapour rose from the tail pipe. The chauffeur, Ritter, with uniform trousers tucked into high boots, stood cap
in hand ready to open the door. He bowed and said: ‘Good morning, Frau von Ulrich.’
    The second car was a little green two-seater. A short man with a grey beard came out of the house carrying a leather case, and touched his hat to Mother as he got into the small car. ‘I
wonder what Dr Rothmann is doing here so early in the morning,’ Mother said anxiously.
    They soon found out. Frieda’s mother, Monika, came to the door; she was a tall woman with a mass of red hair. Anxiety showed on her pale face. Instead of welcoming them in, she stood
squarely in the doorway as if to bar their entrance. ‘Frieda has measles!’ she said.
    ‘I’m so sorry!’ said Mother. ‘How is she?’
    ‘Miserable. She has a fever and a cough. But Rothmann says she’ll be all right. However, she’s quarantined.’
    ‘Of course. Have you had it?’
    ‘Yes – when I was a girl.’
    ‘And Werner has, too – I remember he had a terrible rash all over. But what about your husband?’
    ‘Ludi had it as a boy.’
    Both women looked at Carla. She had never had measles. She realized this meant that she could not spend the day with Frieda.
    Carla was disappointed, but Mother was quite shaken. ‘This week’s magazine is our election issue – I
can’t
be absent.’ She looked distraught. All the
grown-ups were apprehensive about the general election to be held next Sunday. Mother and Father both feared the Nazis might do well enough to take full control of the government. ‘Plus my
oldest friend is visiting from London. I wonder whether Walter could be persuaded to take a day off to look after Carla?’
    Monika said: ‘Why don’t you telephone to him?’
    Not many people had phones in their homes, but the Francks did, and Carla and her mother stepped into the hall. The instrument stood on a spindly legged table near the door. Mother picked it up
and gave the number of Father’s office at the Reichstag, the parliament building. She got through to him and explained the situation. She listened for a minute, then looked angry. ‘My
magazine will urge a hundred thousand readers to campaign for the Social Democratic Party,’ she said. ‘Do you really have something more important than that to do today?’
    Carla could guess how this argument would end. Father loved her dearly, she knew, but in all her eleven