Page 2 of Winter of the World (The Century 2)

"Don't be silly."

Ada handed Erik a plate of cheese and sliced sausage, and he began to shovel it in. Carla thought his manners were dreadful.

Father looked severe. "Who's been teaching you this nonsense, Erik?"

"Hermann Braun says that jazz isn't music, just Negroes making a noise." Hermann was Erik's best friend; his father was a member of the Nazi Party.

"Hermann should try to play it." Father looked at Mother, and his face softened. She smiled at him. He went on: "Your mother tried to teach me ragtime, many years ago, but I couldn't master the rhythm."

Mother laughed. "It was like trying to get a giraffe to rol

ler-skate."

The fight was over, Carla saw with relief. She began to feel better. She took some black bread and dipped it in milk.

But now Erik wanted an argument. "Negroes are an inferior race," he said defiantly.

"I doubt that," Father said patiently. "If a Negro boy were brought up in a nice house full of books and paintings, and sent to an expensive school with good teachers, he might turn out to be smarter than you."

"That's ridiculous!" Erik protested.

Mother put in: "Don't call your father ridiculous, you foolish boy." Her tone was mild: she had used up her anger on Father. Now she just sounded wearily disappointed. "You don't know what you're talking about, and neither does Hermann Braun."

Erik said: "But the Aryan race must be superior--we rule the world!"

"Your Nazi friends don't know any history," Father said. "The Ancient Egyptians built the pyramids when Germans were living in caves. Arabs ruled the world in the Middle Ages--the Muslims were doing algebra when German princes could not write their own names. It's nothing to do with race."

Carla frowned and said: "What is it to do with, then?"

Father looked at her fondly. "That's a very good question, and you're a bright girl to ask it." She glowed with pleasure at his praise. "Civilizations rise and fall--the Chinese, the Aztecs, the Romans--but no one really knows why."

"Eat up, everyone, and put your coats on," Mother said. "It's getting late."

Father pulled his watch out of his waistcoat pocket and looked at it with raised eyebrows. "It's not late."

"I've got to take Carla to the Francks' house," Mother said. "The girls' school is closed for a day--something about repairing the furnace--so Carla's going to spend today with Frieda."

Frieda Franck was Carla's best friend. Their mothers were best friends, too. In fact, when they were young, Frieda's mother, Monika, had been in love with Father--a hilarious fact that Frieda's grandmother had revealed one day after drinking too much Sekt.

Father said: "Why can't Ada look after Carla?"

"Ada has an appointment with the doctor."

"Ah."

Carla expected Father to ask what was wrong with Ada, but he nodded as if he already knew, and put his watch away. Carla wanted to ask, but something told her she should not. She made a mental note to ask Mother later. Then she immediately forgot about it.

Father left first, wearing a long black overcoat. Then Erik put on his cap--perching it as far back on his head as it would go without falling off, as was the fashion among his friends--and followed Father out of the door.

Carla and her mother helped Ada clear the table. Carla loved Ada almost as much as she loved her mother. When Carla was little, Ada had taken care of her full-time, until she was old enough to go to school, for Mother had always worked. Ada was not married yet. She was twenty-nine and homely-looking, though she had a lovely kind smile. Last summer she had had a romance with a policeman, Paul Huber, but it had not lasted.

Carla and her mother stood in front of the mirror in the hall and put on their hats. Mother took her time. She chose a dark blue felt, with a round crown and a narrow brim, the type all the women were wearing, but she tilted hers at a different angle, making it look chic. As Carla put on her knitted wool cap, she wondered whether she would ever have Mother's sense of style. Mother looked like a goddess of war, her long neck and chin and cheekbones carved out of white marble; beautiful, yes, but definitely not pretty. Carla had the same dark hair and green eyes, but looked more like a plump doll than a statue. Carla had once accidentally overheard her grandmother say to Mother: "Your ugly duckling will grow into a swan, you'll see." Carla was still waiting for it to happen.

When Mother was ready, they went out. Their home stood in a row of tall, gracious town houses in the Mitte district, the old center of the city, built for high-ranking ministers and army officers such as Carla's grandfather, who had worked at the nearby government buildings.

Carla and her mother rode a tram along Unter den Linden, then took the S train from Friedrich Strasse to the Zoo Station. The Francks lived in the southwestern suburb of Schoneberg.

Carla was hoping to see Frieda's brother Werner, who was fourteen. She liked him. Sometimes Carla and Frieda imagined they each married the other's brother, and were next-door neighbors, and their children were best friends. It was just a game to Frieda, but Carla was secretly serious. Werner was handsome and grown-up and not a bit silly like Erik. In the dollhouse 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.

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