Somewhere Over England Read Online Free Page A

was English because, after all, she was Aryan. Yes, he was a kind man but was he still proud of his National Socialist membership? Did he still quote Herr Hitler’s every utterance as the Austrian toured the country electioneering? Heine was not sure whether he had spoken aloud, shouted aloud.
    ‘
Vorsicht, leise sprechen!
’ This time he knew that he spoke aloud but only in a whisper.
    Then he heard the back door opening, and turned but did not move, could not move as he saw Helen coming towards him, because he could not tell from her face what their future would be.

CHAPTER 2
    Helen waited in the car as Heine walked to the German customs office carrying their passports and the international carnet. They had driven at a leisurely pace for several days through Belgium and it had been the honeymoon they had not yet had time for because Heine had been inundated with work. Only nine months late. She smiled as she ran her hand along the walnut dashboard of the motor car Uncle had lent them for the trip. She had not known life could be like this, that such happiness existed; that there were such nights of love, such days as gentle as a stream in full sun.
    The wedding had been quiet. It had not taken place in Hemsham but in London, away from the neighbours. Her mother had not smiled even when Aunt Sarah and Uncle Harry had said how much they liked Heine.
    He looks a good steady sort, they had said, with a damn sight more breeding than most and it’s something to have a thriving career these days. Helen had seen her mother looking at Heine, her pale eyes hard, but it did not matter now, she had Heine and their future, so full, so good. It swept memories to one side.
    Now the birds sang from the branches of the trees, which were too far from her to give shade as she watched Heine talk to the German border officials. He had become quiet as they approached the customs post and she had watched as he gripped the wheel, his face becoming still, and she had heard him say through lips that barely moved, ‘So my darling, we enter the land of my countrymen, most of whom seem to have pebbles for eyes and cauliflowers for ears.’
    Helen turned now to look at the slender pole which hung between two posts and barred their entry to Germany. What was this country like? What were his parents like?
    She heard his uneven footsteps on the road and turned,watching as he walked back to the car, his limp rather less noticeable than it had been last year. She smiled because he was smiling, the tension gone from his face, his body. The hot June sun was burning in through the windscreen of the car but it did not matter for soon they would be moving again. And soon she would meet the woman who had sent letters greeting her into the family and bone china handled fruit knives as a wedding present which her mother had sniffed at and polished up on her apron. Heine would meet his father again, and last night beneath the light sheet she had said that he should be gentle, for, after all, it was only politics which divided the two men, not years of struggle. She had not understood his silence but he had promised, and said bless you for being nineteen.
    Heine eased himself behind the steering wheel and drove her past verges full of poppies, cornflowers, brown-eyed Susan and Queen Anne’s lace and entered villages down avenues bordered by orchards flushed with cherries, apples and pears. They swept through streets of black and white houses with window-boxes of petunias or geraniums. They stopped and ate sausage and bread in the car watching girls with coiled blonde hair throwing corn to geese, before easing themselves from their seats and walking to the village ponds, throwing their crusts to swans and brown ducks.
    They stayed overnight in a room with a balcony and the next day they drove alongside fields of tall rye which swayed in the breeze and darkened as the clouds swirled briefly between earth and sun. Over to the east of the road hay was being pitched