Max in the House of Spies, page 2
Berg murmured, “Yah, God never really explained anything to us. Just . . . made us and sent us on our way.” He perked up. “But I’m pretty sure my purpose is to bother people. Bothering people is the only thing that brings a slight ray of sunshine to this landscape of never-ending darkness. For example, while you were sleeping, I tied that boy’s shoelaces together.” Berg started to snicker as he nodded toward a boy a few benches away who had somehow managed to sleep through the blasting of the ferry’s foghorn. His shoelaces were indeed tied together. “It is going to be very funny when he gets up and falls on his face, no?”
“Love it.” Stein chuckled.
Max sighed and stood.
“What are you doing?” demanded Berg.
Max went over to the sleeping boy and gently shook him. The boy woke with a start.
Max pointed to his shoelaces. “Careful.”
The boy sat up blearily and mumbled, “How did that happen?” He hurried to untie them without another word to Max.
“Hey, you’re no fun!” Berg complained.
“If you’re always this way,” Stein agreed, “this is going to be a very boring lifetime.”
Max said, “You mean you’re going to be on my shoulders for the rest of my life?” The boy fixing his laces apparently didn’t hear Max say this. Somehow. As if this conversation was happening on some different plane of reality.
“Don’t worry,” Berg reassured him. “I plan to return to Germany as soon as the Nazis leave. Which should happen pretty soon. Three hundred years? Five hundred years at the very most.”
“Yeah,” Stein agreed, “you humans can’t focus on anything for more than a few centuries. You’re like toddlers.”
The ferry collided with the dock and the doors opened. A wet gray sky framed the backs of eager, frightened children.
Max took in the scene. Seagulls called. A child wept. Berg hocked up some phlegm from deep in his throat.
Max murmured, “This is going to be terrible, isn’t it?”
“Oh, Maxy,” said Stein, “you have no idea.”
CHAPTER
Three
Max waited on the dock in the drizzling rain as the grown-ups got everything sorted. Most children were being taken to the train station, where they’d continue on to London. Others were being picked up by their foster families right here.
Max had been told he’d be living in London, so he figured he’d be going with the children to the station. But when he tried to follow the train group, a young woman with a clipboard hustled over and steered him toward the waiting families.
“Here it comes . . .” Stein said. “The big moment . . .” And then, in a radio-game-show voice, he said, “Who is Max’s new family?”
They’re not my new family, Max thought. I’m just staying in their house for a little while.
He scanned the people who were waiting. There were elderly couples, smiling kindly at all the children, waiting to see which one would go home with them. There was a big family, with four children of their own already—two of whom were chasing each other and shrieking. There was a young priest. Back home in Berlin, Max’s upstairs neighbor was a Lutheran pastor who was very calm and very kind. Living with the priest might not be too bad.
But then Max saw who was there for him. There was no room for confusion.
A man in a black cap and matching suit held a sign: MAX BRETZFELD.
The woman with the clipboard led Max over to him. She said, “Mr. Montagu, I presume?”
The man with the sign snapped, “Certainly not! I am Mr. Ken, the Montagus’ chauffeur.”
The woman with the clipboard looked very confused. “Mr. Montagu didn’t come himself?”
Mr. Ken frowned. “I can’t explain the behavior of the lordly class. And it’s not Mr. Montagu, it’s Lord Montagu, thank you very much. It’s not for me to question, nor you neither.” Mr. Ken pivoted. “Are you Master Max?”
Max swallowed and shrugged. He’d never been called “Master” anything.
“Right, then. Where are your bags?”
Max had a small duffel with him, containing everything he owned. He held it up.
Mr. Ken raised his eyebrows and said nothing.
After filling out some paperwork, Mr. Ken led Max to an enormous black car. The inside was nicer than Max’s family’s apartment.
The three hour drive began in total silence.
Well, it was total silence for Mr. Ken.
Stein and Berg wouldn’t shut up.
“I have never been to England,” said Berg.
“Me neither,” replied Stein.
“It looks as barren and worthless as Germany,” said Berg.
“You sweet-talker. I bet you say that about all the countries.”
Max stared out the window at the wet, gray, industrial Midlands of England. He couldn’t believe he was here.
He’d never left Germany.
He’d never traveled without his parents.
He’d never even spent a night away from them.
Now he was on his way to live with a lord? Did Lord Montagu live in a mansion? A castle? Did he have a family? Or would it just be Lord Montagu and Max alone in some spooky manor house?
Well, he wouldn’t be alone. “So,” Max said, “you’re really here, sitting on my shoulders?”
“What is real? What is here? What is your shoulders?” Berg wondered aloud.
Max ignored Berg. “Let’s test it.”
Stein furrowed his thick little brows. “You’re going to test whether we’re really here? How?”
Max said, “It’s simple. You tell me something that I could not possibly know. Then I’ll check if it’s true by asking Mr. Ken, or looking it up in a book at Lord Montagu’s castle . . . or manor, or whatever. If you can tell me something that is true that I could not possibly have known myself, that’ll prove that you’re not just figments of my imagination.”
Stein and Berg made faces like they were trying very hard to follow Max’s logic. Then Stein said, “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. You just thought of that? Just now?”
“Yes,” said Max. “Why?”
“Smart kid,” said Stein.
Berg said, “I still don’t get it.”
But Stein was ready to start the test: “All right, I got one.”
Max took a deep breath. He was either about to learn that he was going insane, or that there were more things in heaven and earth than were dreamt of in his science textbooks.
“Okay,” said Stein. “Ready?”
“Ready,” said Max.
“The last guy whose shoulder I lived on was car-obsessed. Talked about them all the time. You know much about cars, Maxy?”
“No,” said Max. “Pretty much nothing. My family doesn’t own a car.”
“Perfecto. So this guy worked at BMW. He was always talking about how their cars were way faster than English cars, even though the English ones had more horsepower. It turns out a Rolls-Royce has twice the horsepower of a BMW. Did you know that, Max?”
Max shook his head. “No. I had no idea.”
“Why are we talking about cars now?” Berg asked.
Stein said, “Max is going to ask Mr. Ken if I’m right—that Rolls-Royce cars have twice the horsepower of BMW cars. If they do, that proves we’re not just figments of Max’s imagination.”
“Wow,” said Berg. “High stakes for you, huh, Max?”
Max took a deep breath.
Would he have to reassess his mental stability? Or everything else?
“Excuse me, Mr. Ken?” Max said.
Mr. Ken kept his eyes on the road and grunted, “Gotta use the toilet, Master Max?”
Max blushed. “No sir.” His English was only so-so, so he thought carefully as he tried to construct his question: “Is this car faster than a BMW car, or slower?”
Mr. Ken’s face lit up. “You want to know whether this Rolls-Royce Phantom can outrace one of your puny German BMW roadsters? Well, let me tell you, young man. This English beauty has a hundred and sixty horsepower. Your little BMW has got eighty horsepower. Do you hear that? One sixty versus eighty! And yes, maybe the Phantom is more than twice the weight of the BMW, but that’s where English engineering comes in, isn’t it? Because . . .”
Mr. Ken kept talking, and Max could feel the car accelerating—as if Mr. Ken had something to prove. But the acceleration was not the cause of the sudden lurch in his stomach.
“A hundred and sixty is twice as much as eighty, isn’t it, Max?” said Stein.
Max couldn’t believe it.
It seemed that there were two immortal creatures on his shoulders.
For real.
Max interrupted Mr. Ken’s monologue about English car-making to ask if he could pull over.
Once the car came to a stop, Max thrust his door open and puked all over the side of the road.
CHAPTER
Four
Number 28 Kensington Court was not a manor, or a castle.
It was a stately brick town house on a street of stately brick town houses, just around the corner from Kensington Palace—which was where the royal family stayed when they wanted to be in the stylish part of London.
And Lord Montagu did not live alone. At the moment, Max stood in the luxurious foyer of 28 Kensington Court, on carpet as thick as his mattress in Berlin, surrounded by the curious faces of the Montagu family, peering at him with a mix of apprehension, anxiety, and hope.
He should have been glad—to be in such a beautiful place, surrounded by a warm, welcoming family. But all he could think of was his parents, in their small apartment, in a working-class neighborhood called Kreuzberg.
They were probably eating dinner right now. Without him.
An elegant woman extended her hand and said, “How do you do, Max? I am Mrs. Montagu.”
Max mustered up a sentence in his shaky English: “It is good to meet you, Mrs. Montagu.” She smiled.
Next she introduced her two boys, David, who was exactly Max’s age, and Anthony, who was a year younger but seemed far younger than that.
There were three men left to be introduced—and while they looked wildly different from one another, something about their eyes and their mouths made it clear they were brothers.
The oldest brother stepped forward first. He wore a perfectly tailored navy suit and introduced himself as Stuart Montagu. “Welcome to our home, Max.”
Max took a risk: “Thank you for inviting me to stay in your home, Lord Montagu.”
Everyone broke out laughing.
Max froze.
“Oh boy, now you’ve done it,” said Stein.
“What did he do?” Berg asked.
“No idea, but it’s done.”
His tall, lordly host smiled. “Mr. Montagu will do fine, Max.”
Next, the second brother introduced himself as Uncle Ewen. Ewen had a face as long as a battleship’s deck and he was almost entirely bald. He explained that he didn’t live at 28 Kensington Court, but he’d come over because he was very keen to meet Max. When he shook Max’s hand, he smiled with one side of his mouth, as if he knew a secret and he thought Max might know it, too.
Max whispered to Berg and Stein, “Why is he smiling at me like that?” The creatures just shrugged their little shoulders.
The last of the three brothers was Uncle Ivor, who was the physical opposite of Uncle Ewen. Instead of Ewen’s battleship face, Ivor’s was like a full moon, with two smaller full moons (his glasses) over his eyes, and black hair tousled atop his head like an ocean on a windy night. He grabbed Max’s hand between two plump palms and pumped it up and down like he was hoping to get water to pour out of Max’s mouth. “Glad to meet you, young Max! Glad to meet you! Do you play table tennis, by any chance?”
Max did not, nor did he find out, just then, why Uncle Ivor would ask him that. Because Uncle Ewen was already leading Max into a gilded parlor, to a very large gift, wrapped in yellow-striped paper that nearly matched the walls. The entire Montagu family gathered round.
“Now, I know it must be deucedly uncomfortable being in a new country, away from everyone and everything you know,” Uncle Ewen said to Max.
Is it that obvious? Max wondered. Apparently it was.
Ewen was explaining how he’d been in touch with the refugee group that got Max out of Germany through his official capacity working for the British government, and how he’d learned that Max liked radios.
This was incorrect.
Max did not like radios. Max loved radios.
Moments later, Max was tearing the yellow-striped wrapping paper off a radio set. He recognized it instantly as a Murphy model A46. It was large and expensive and beautiful.
“Uncle Ewen thought you might like to have it in your room,” Mrs. Montagu said gently.
Max looked at them all in disbelief. No one got to have their own wireless set, in their room. That would be like a child owning a car.
“Are you sure?” he said.
Uncle Ivor threw his head back and laughed. “Don’t be a fool, Max! Ask again and they might change their minds!”
“Can I show Max where his room is?” little Anthony asked. Mrs. Montagu said that was fine, as long as Anthony didn’t run. Anthony ran anyway.
Max followed Anthony up the curving staircase with the polished wooden banister to an enormous bedroom with a four-poster bed and a marble fireplace.
“I’ve only seen bedrooms like this in films,” Max murmured. Anthony smiled at him.
Uncle Ewen had carried the wireless set upstairs after them and now put it down on a small table near Max’s bed. Then he stepped back, the rest of the family waited by the door, and Max reverentially approached the rounded, polished wood of the radio. Max picked up the yellow cotton-covered power cord and plugged it into a wall socket. Slowly, the wireless hummed to life.
A syrupy woman’s voice rose from the gray grille cloth, singing: Land of hope and glory . . .
“Ugh!” Uncle Ivor exclaimed. “Vera Lynn! Turn the dial!”
Mr. Montagu objected: “Don’t insult England’s most beloved singer, Ivor! She was just voted ‘Sweetheart of the British Army’! It said so in the Times!”
Max was momentarily frozen by this fraternal disagreement—until he noticed Uncle Ewen turn his back to Mr. Montagu and roll his eyes. Max hid a grin and changed the station.
The wireless’s dial was marked not only with the numbers of radio frequencies, but also with the name of the city where the station assigned to that frequency was located. Vera Lynn was playing on the London Regional station.
Max turned the knob and a fuzzy broadcast in French buzzed through the speakers, coming all the way from Strasbourg, in eastern France.
Max turned the knob a bit more, and waited.
Static.
The dial said “Berlin.”
He turned the knob again. Wales came through clearly. Scotland did, too.
The Scots were also playing Vera Lynn. A different song. “God almighty, she’s a plague!” Ivor exclaimed.
But the rest of the Montagus were complimenting Ewen for picking such a marvelous wireless set.
And it was. On the stations broadcasting nearby, the sound was impeccable. Round and warm and loud as you please.
Almost as good as the one Max had built himself. Which was still back in Berlin. With his parents.
Max turned stiffly to Ewen Montagu. “Thank you for this kind gift. I am very pleased with it.”
Everyone smiled at him.
Except for Ewen. Ewen’s heavily lidded eyes studied Max carefully.
As if he thought, maybe, Max was hiding something.
Which Max was.
CHAPTER
Five
The family sat down for a late supper at the long dining room table under a branching chandelier.
The table was laid with fine silver and ornate china and cups that seemed to be made not of glass, but of crystal. Even the water glasses. All of which was strange enough for Max, having grown up eating from chipped porcelain and cracked cups at a small table in his family’s kitchen.
Max’s mother was probably cleaning those dishes now, while his father rested on the small sofa in the living room, his eyes closed. Max wondered if they missed him.
Suddenly, Max was pulled back to London by something more shocking than anything he had yet witnessed—more shocking than a mansion, or an English lord, or even Stein and Berg.
Mr. Montagu produced a book of matches from his inner jacket pocket and handed them to Mrs. Montagu. Mrs. Montagu lit two candles in silver candlesticks. And then she and Mr. Montagu and Ewen and Ivor and David and Anthony said:
“Baruch atah Adonai . . .”
Max felt suddenly lightheaded.
The Montagus were Jewish?
You would think that Max would have suddenly felt more comfortable, realizing that he was in a Jewish home, seeing the soft, familiar glow of the Shabbat candles. That he would have opened his mouth and sung the blessing, too . . .
But he didn’t. He felt worse.
“Come on!” Stein encouraged Max. “Sing along! You gotta know this one!”
But Max simply watched the Montagus hold their glasses aloft for the blessing over the wine (or grape juice, for the children). And when the challah was passed around, a shiny braided loaf much longer and more perfect than anything Max’s mother had ever baked, Max didn’t even take any. He just sat there, unmoving. Finally, David had to pass the challah over him to Anthony, as the Montagus stared at this sullen, ungrateful child who had plopped himself down in the middle of their lives.
“You’re being ridiculous, Max!” Berg scolded him. “Even I wouldn’t behave this badly.”
