The Morning Gift

‘I don’t want to pry,’ she said, after asking rather oddly if they would be undisturbed. ‘But well, I really like her, you know, and people sometimes say things, but I know Ruth is as good as they make them. And her going off like that to have it on her own . . . well, it’s like her. Not wanting to bother anyone. But I want her to know that whatever she’s done I know she’s a good girl and I’d like you to give this to her. Afterwards. Not before, because that’s bad luck, but when it’s all over. I knitted it myself.’

She laid the parcel on the table, and Leonie, who was having trouble with her breathing, stretched out her hand. ‘May I see?’ she said.

Mrs Burtt removed the wrapping paper. Pride shone for a moment on her face. ‘Took me hours, that did. It’s a brute of a pattern. It’s those scallops, see? But it’s come out nice, hasn’t it? I kept it white to be on the safe side, but she can put a blue ribbon through it or a pink when it’s all over.’

Leonie was still having difficulty with the business of drawing air into her lungs. ‘Thank you – she will be so pleased. It is the most beautiful jacket. I will see that she has it . . . and tell her . . . what you have said.’

Mrs Burtt nodded. ‘I don’t want to know any more now,’ she said. ‘It’s not my business. Just to know she’s all right and the baby’s safe.’

Leonie, swallowing the unbearable hurt her daughter had done her, said: ‘Did she tell you . . . herself . . . about the baby?’

Mrs Burtt shook her head ‘Bless you, no. She’s no blabber. But I was one of four daughters and I’ve three girls of my own. I guessed soon enough. There’s ways of being sick that’s a bug in the tummy and there’s ways that isn’t. And she got so tired. I came out with it and I think it was a relief she could talk to someone.’

‘And . . . where she was going . . . her plans? Did she tell you about that?’

‘No. And I didn’t ask her. I knew it wasn’t Heini that was the father, so there wasn’t any more for me to say.’

Leonie lifted her head. ‘How did you know?’ she asked.

‘Well, you could see she didn’t love ’im, couldn’t you? Tried too hard all the time . . . And if it wasn’t him, I wasn’t going to go nosing around.’

‘I didn’t see . . . as well as you,’ said Leonie out of her deep despair.

Mrs Burtt’s work-roughened hand rested for a moment on her own. ‘You was so close, the two of you,’ she said. ‘You loved her so much. It’s a real killer, love is, if you want to see.’

Left alone, Leonie sat as still as a statue, holding the exquisite, tiny garment in her hands. Ruth had not trusted her. She had confided in a lady who washed dishes and not in her. She had gone off alone.

Professor Berger, returning home, found her still in a state of shock.

‘What has happened, Leonie? What have you got there?’

‘It’s a baby’s jacket.’ She traced the scallops on the collar, the lacy frill, with blind fingers. ‘Mrs Burtt brought it for Ruth.’

She watched as her husband’s face changed; saw the incredulity, the dismay . . . then the tightness of anger.

‘My God, that scoundrel, Heini. I’ll force him to marry her,’ he said furiously.

‘Oh, Kurt, it isn’t Heini’s child. If it was she’d have gone with him.’

This was worse. His beloved, protected daughter a fallen woman, the bearer of an unknown child. Pitying him as he paced the room, Leonie had no energy to retrieve him from his conventional hell of moral outrage. What is it I have not understood? she thought. What is it that is missing here? And if I was right all along, how could it have come to this?

The doorbell rang, shrill and insistent. Neither of the Bergers moved.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked the Professor – and the sudden helplessness of this proud man did touch her.

‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,’ she began.

A second ring . . . and now Fräulein Lutzenholler’s door could be heard opening, and her indignant footsteps as she made her way downstairs. The easing of laws against refugees at the onset of hostilities meant she was allowed to practise her profession and, incredible as it seemed, people came to her room and paid to have her listen. Answering the doorbell would annoy this exalted person very much.

She returned, as displeased as Leonie had anticipated, and with her was a red-faced man in some kind of uniform.

‘It’s the rodent officer,’ said Fräulein Lutzenholler – and as Leonie stared blankly at this man she had awaited with hope and passion for month after month: ‘He has come about the mice.’

‘Oh, yes . . . thank you . . .’ Leonie rose, tried to collect herself.

‘Please go where you will. They are everywhere. The kitchen is bad . . . and the back bedroom.’

‘That’s all right, ma’am. I’ll just get on with it. Looks like a sizable infestation you have here – I may have to take up some boards.’

He left the room and they could hear him moving about, tapping the walls, opening cupboards.