Come the Hour Read Online Free Page B

Charlie said. ‘We didn’t talk about politics.’
    Tessa put her finger under her nose and put her hand in the air.
    ‘It isn’t funny, Tessa,’ Amy said. ‘They’ve just taken over Austria without a by-your-leave.’
    ‘Weren’t they Germans really?’ Charlie said. ‘They wanted to be taken over, didn’t they?’ There was a silence. ‘I’m only asking.’
    ‘They are doing terrible things to the Jews,’ Amy said. ‘There is no excuse for that.’
    ‘Why do you want to go, Charlie?’ Dan said quietly.
    Charlie met his father’s eyes directly. ‘Can you really believe everything that the papers say? I want to see for myself.’
    Dan saw something in Charlie’s face – a message that the boy, knowingly or unknowingly, was giving him. Perhaps, he thought, some kindof resolve. For the first time, fleetingly, he had the impression that the boy was no longer there, and he was looking at a man.
    Charlie tucked into his chicken. ‘I’d like to go’ he said.
    Amy frowned. ‘We’ll have to think about it.’ She glanced at Dan. ‘Dad and I will think about it.’
    After dinner Charlie joined his father in the garden. Dan lit his pipe and they sat together in the warm, pearly evening, the light soft and the air still.
    ‘Why must you go to Germany?’ Dan said. ‘If you want to travel a bit go somewhere else – France, perhaps. You could get home more easily from France.’
    ‘I just want to see Germany for myself,’ Charlie said. ‘And I’ve never been there. I want to see what’s going on.’
    ‘You can’t ignore what your mother said,’ Dan went on, ‘about Austria and the Jews. Any country that gets rid of men like Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud must have something seriously wrong with it.’
    ‘I don’t ignore it,’ Charlie said, ‘but I want to make up my own mind.’ After a few moments he said, ‘The Duke of Windsor went there.’
    Dan drew on his pipe. ‘That’s hardly a recommendation, and anyway, that was a year ago and things have changed. The sabres are rattling. You know your mother wouldn’t get a wink of sleep until you were home again.’
    ‘A week,’ Charlie said. ‘That’s all. You don’t think anything’s going to happen in the next week or two?’
    Dan shook his head. ‘No. I don’t think so. I very much hope not.’
    They sat in silence for a few moments.
    ‘You never talk about the war,’ Charlie said suddenly. ‘You and Mum. You never say what it was like.’
    Dan looked out across the garden. ‘We were doctors,’ he said. ‘We weren’t in the trenches.’
    ‘But you saw what it was like. I’ve only read the books and seen the pictures. I don’t know how people felt.’
    Dan took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at his son. Charlie drew in his breath. His father’s look of dark, raw pain and distress was unexpected.
    ‘Don’t look like that, Dad,’ he said. ‘It won’t happen to me.’
    Dan looked away. ‘You realize that if it ever did come to war with Germany you and Kurt would be on opposite sides – enemies?’
    ‘I’m not stupid, Dad.’
    ‘I just mean that it might be best not to get too friendly with him – under the circumstances.’
    ‘And that’s what I mean. Surely if more of us ordinary people talk to each other…? We’re not that different, are we?’
    Dan puffed on his pipe. The evening began to fade, the colours blurring and losing their brilliance. Strange, he thought, how colour is only light. He knocked out his pipe on the arm of the bench. ‘I don’t know any more. We’d best go in.’
     
    Later Amy lay in bed, restless, unable to sleep or read. ‘What shall we do?’ she said. ‘Shall we let him go? The whole thing might blow up at any moment.’
    ‘I don’t think it will,’ Dan said. ‘Not yet anyway. We’re certainly not ready for another war.’
    ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘What’s happening, Dan? The Germans have taken Austria, the Spanish are killing each other, the Japanese are bombing