3. Where Is Mrs. Hirsch?
The days of September passed, one after the other, much the
same. Annemarie and Ellen walked to school together, and home
again, always now taking the longer way, avoiding the tall soldier
and his partner. Kirsti dawdled just behind them or scampered
ahead, never out of their sight.
The two mothers still had their "coffee" together in the
afternoons. They began to knit mittens as the days grew slightly
shorter and the first leaves began to fall from the trees, because
another winter was coming. Everyone remembered the last one.
There was no fuel now for the homes and apartments in
Copenhagen, and the winter nights were terribly cold.
Like the other families in their building, the Johansens had
opened the old chimney and installed a little stove to use for heat
when they could find coal to burn. Mama used it too, sometimes,
for cooking, because electricity was rationed now. At night they
used candles for light. Sometimes Ellen's father, a teacher,
complained in frustration because he couldn't see in the dim light to
correct his students' papers.
"Soon we will have to add another blanket to your bed," Mama
said one morning as she and Annemarie tidied the bedroom.
"Kirsti and I are lucky to have each other for warmth in the
"Kirsti and I are lucky to have each other for warmth in the
winter," Annemarie said. "Poor Ellen, to have no sisters."
"She will have to snuggle in with her mama and papa when it
gets cold," Mama said, smiling.
"I remember when Kirsti slept between you and Papa. She was
supposed to stay in her crib, but in the middle of the night she would
climb out and get in with you," Annemarie said, smoothing the
pillows on the bed. Then she hesitated and glanced at her mother,
fearful that she had said the wrong thing, the thing that would bring
the pained look to her mother's face. The days when little Kirsti
slept in Mama and Papa's room were the days when Lise and
Annemarie shared this bed.
But Mama was laughing quietly. "I remember, too," she said.
"Sometimes she wet the bed in the middle of the night!"
"I did not!" Kirsti said haughtily from the bedroom doorway. "I
never, ever did that!"
Mama, still laughing, knelt and kissed Kirsti on the cheek. "Time
to leave for school, girls," she said. She began to button Kirsti's
jacket. "Oh, dear," she said, suddenly. "Look. This button has
broken right in half. Annemarie, take Kirsti with you, after school,
to the little shop where Mrs. Hirsch sells thread and buttons. See if
you can buy just one, to match the others on her jacket. I'll give you
some kroner—it shouldn't cost very much."
But after school, when the girls stopped at the shop, which had
been there as long as Annemarie could remember, they found it
closed. There was a new padlock on the door, and a sign. But the
sign was in German. They couldn't read the words.
"I wonder if Mrs. Hirsch is sick," Annemarie said as they walked
away.
"I saw her Saturday," Ellen said. "She was with her husband and
their son. They all looked just fine. Or at least the parents looked
just fine—the son always looks like a horror." She giggled.
Annemarie made a face. The Hirsch family lived in the
neighborhood, so they had seen the boy, Samuel, often. He was a
tall teenager with thick glasses, stooped shoulders, and unruly hair.
He rode a bicycle to school, leaning forward and squinting,
wrinkling his nose to nudge his glasses into place. His bicycle had
wooden wheels, now that rubber tires weren't available, and it
creaked and clattered on the street.
"I think the Hirsches all went on a vacation to the seashore,"
Kirsti announced.
"And I suppose they took a big basket of pink-frosted cupcakes
with them," Annemarie said sarcastically to her sister.
"Yes, I suppose they did," Kirsti replied.
Annemarie and Ellen exchanged looks that meant: Kirsti is so
dumb. No one in Copenhagen had taken a vacation at the seashore
since the war began. There were no pink-frosted cupcakes; there
hadn't been for months.
Still, Annemarie thought, looking back at the shop before they
turned the corner, where was Mrs. Hirsch? The Hirsch family had
gone somewhere. Why else would they close the shop?
Mama was troubled when she heard the news. "Are you sure?"
she asked several times.
"We can find another button someplace," Annemarie reassured
her. "Or we can take one from the bottom of the jacket and move it
up. It won't show very much."
But it didn't seem to be the jacket that worried Mama. "Are you
sure the sign was in German?" she asked. "Maybe you didn't look
carefully."
"Mama, it had a swastika on it."
Her mother turned away with a distracted look. "Annemarie,
watch your sister for a few moments. And begin to peel the
potatoes for dinner. I'll be right back."
"Where are you going?" Annemarie asked as her mother started
for the door.
"I want to talk to Mrs. Rosen."
Puzzled, Annemarie watched her mother leave the apartment.
She went to the kitchen and opened the door to the cupboard
where the potatoes were kept. Every night, now, it seemed, they
had potatoes for dinner. And very little else.
Annemarie was almost asleep when there was a light knock on
the bedroom door. Candlelight appeared as the door opened, and
her mother stepped in.
"Are you asleep, Annemarie?"
"No. Why? Is something wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. But I'd like you to get up and come out to the
living room. Peter's here. Papa and I want to talk to you."
Annemarie jumped out of bed, and Kirsti grunted in her sleep.
Peter! She hadn't seen him in a long time. There was something
frightening about his being here at night. Copenhagen had a curfew,
and no citizens were allowed out after eight o'clock. It was very
dangerous, she knew, for Peter to visit at this time. But she was
delighted that he was here. Though his visits were always hurried—
they almost seemed secret, somehow, in a way she couldn't quite
put her finger on—still, it was a treat to see Peter. It brought back
memories of happier times. And her parents loved Peter, too. They
said he was like a son.
Barefoot, she ran to the living room and into Peter's arms. He
grinned, kissed her cheek, and ruffled her long hair.
"You've grown taller since I saw you last," he told her. "You're
all legs!"
Annemarie laughed. "I won the girls' footrace last Friday at
school," she told him proudly. "Where have you been? We've
missed you!"
"My work takes me all over," Peter explained. "Look, I brought
you something. One for Kirsti, too." He reached into his pocket and
handed her two seashells.
Annemarie put the smaller one on the table to save it for her
sister. She held the other in her hands, turning it in the light, looking
at the ridged, pearly surface. It was so like Peter, to bring just the
right gift.
"For your mama and papa, I brought something more practical.
Two bottles of beer!"
Mama and Papa smiled and raised their glasses. Papa took a sip
and wiped the foam from his upper lip. Then his face became more
serious.
"Annemarie," he said, "Peter tells us that the Germans have
issued orders closing many stores run by Jews."
"Jews?" Annemarie repeated, "Is Mrs. Hirsch Jewish? Is that
why the button shop is closed? Why have they done that?"
Peter leaned forward. "It is their way of tormenting. Tor some
reason, they want to torment Jewish people. It has happened in the
other countries. They have taken their time here—have let us relax a
little. But now it seems to be starting."
"But why the button shop? What harm is a button shop? Mrs.
Hirsch is such a nice lady. Even Samuel—he's a dope, but he would
never harm anyone. How could he—he can't even see, with his
thick glasses!"
Then Annemarie thought of something else. "If they can't sell
their buttons, how will they earn a living?"
"Friends will take care of them," Mama said gently. "That's what
friends do."
Annemarie nodded. Mama was right, of course. Friends and
neighbors would go to the home of the Hirsch family, would take
them fish and potatoes and bread and herbs for making tea. Maybe
Peter would even take them a beer. They would be comfortable
until their shop was allowed to open again.
Then, suddenly, she sat upright, her eyes wide. "Mama!" she
said. "Papa! The Rosens are Jewish, too!"
Her parents nodded, their faces serious and drawn. "I talked to
Sophy Rosen this afternoon, after you told me about the button
shop," Mama said. "She knows what is happening. But she doesn't
think that it will affect them."
Annemarie thought, and understood. She relaxed. "Mr. Rosen
doesn't have a shop. He's a teacher. They can't close a whole
school!" She looked at Peter with the question in her eyes. "Can
they?"
"I think the Rosens will be all right," he said. "But you keep an
eye on your friend Ellen. And stay away from the soldiers. Your
mother told me about what happened on Østerbrogade."
Annemarie shrugged. She had almost forgotten the incident. "It
was nothing. They were only bored and looking for someone to talk
to, I think."
She turned to her father. "Papa, do you remember what you
heard the boy say to the soldier? That all of Denmark would be the
king's bodyguard?"
Her father smiled. "I have never forgotten it," he said.
"Well," Annemarie said slowly, "now I think that all of Denmark
must be bodyguard for the Jews, as well."
"So we shall be," Papa replied.
Peter stood. "I must go," he said. "And you, Longlegs, it is way
past your bedtime now." He hugged Annemarie again.
Later, once more in her bed beside the warm cocoon of her
sister, Annemarie remembered how her father had said, three years
before, that he would die to protect the king. That her mother
would, too. And Annemarie, seven years old, had announced
proudly that she also would.
Now she was ten, with long legs and no more silly dreams of
pink-frosted cupcakes. And now she—and all the Danes—were to
be bodyguard for Ellen, and Ellen's parents, and all of Denmark's
Jews.
Would she die to protect them? Truly? Annemarie was honest
enough to admit, there in the darkness, to herself, that she wasn't
sure.
For a moment she felt frightened. But she pulled the blanket up
higher around her neck and relaxed. It was all imaginary, anyway—
not real. It was only in the fairy tales that people were called upon
to be so brave, to die for one another. Not in real-life Denmark.
Oh, there were the soldiers; that was true. And the courageous
Resistance leaders, who sometimes lost their lives; that was true,
too.
But ordinary people like the Rosens and the Johansens?
Annemarie admitted to herself, snuggling there in the quiet dark, that
Annemarie admitted to herself, snuggling there in the quiet dark, that
she was glad to be an ordinary person who would never be called
upon for courage.