Appeasement
I’m late downstairs for breakfast and find Charlotte has already mauled today’s Manchester Guardian, folding it clumsily to the small ads.
“Any luck finding a new nanny?” I call through to the kitchen, but I’m drowned out by the whistling kettle.
I’m about to turn the page when a stray phrase catches my eye. Wanted immediate: conversation with French Lady. Pay/Exchange. I rarely read the smalls, so perhaps such ambiguous wording is common, but it amuses me.
My levity’s quashed when I read the ad below, with its Viennese address. Seeking Philanthropist to take my Boy, 12. Well-trained, good-natured, Jewish-Austrian.
The newspaper often darkens my mornings these days, but I hadn’t expected to find a cry of distress in the small ads. The lights are dimming across Europe, darkness seeping through the cracks of the British everyday.
I shouldn’t read further, but can’t help trawling the page. I find six similar ads, sandwiched between offers of piano lessons and rooms to let. All written by parents offering their children to strangers, in language more suited to pedigree puppies: trained, polite, disciplined, helpful. The words Jewish, non-Aryan and Viennese pepper the descriptions, interchangeably. There are prayers, too. FERVENT PRAYERS.
The kettle’s whistle builds to a scream then subsides into a sigh.
“Did you say something?” I’m startled by Charlotte’s voice. She sets the teapot down, a tendril of steam drifting from its spout.
“Oh. Yes. Have you found a nanny?”
Her forehead creases. “No such luck.”
I proceed cautiously into my wife’s domestic territory, wary of landmines hidden in the soil. “What about one of these girls?” She looks bemused so I read an ad aloud. “Educated Viennese girl, non-Aryan. Cooking, child-caring, can manage small household. English refs.”
Charlotte busies herself pouring tea. “No, it wouldn’t work,” she says, as though it’s something she’s considered and abandoned with regret. “She won’t speak English and William’s nearly at talking age. We can’t have his first words being German. Besides, I don’t want a young girl, I’ll probably end up nannying her.”
I proceed gently. “But we could perhaps help these poor families.”
“These ads have appeared for months, Oliver.” Charlotte puts the teapot down, the crease in her brow now a trench. “Why the sudden interest? Even if we could get her over here, she’d run back to her own family once everyone’s stopped making such a fuss. The war has been averted.”
Ah. Chamberlain’s “peace with honour.” I have less faith in that cowardly compact than Charlotte and so many of my countrymen. But I mustn’t worry her, not without certain cause.
“Yes, you’re probably right,” I say, but Charlotte still looks fretful. Guilt prods me. “I have a thought. Why don’t we place our own ad seeking help? Won’t that make the search easier?”
“For an English girl? Really? But it costs a shilling per line.”
“Your peace of mind’s worth more than that, darling.” My wife’s frown surrenders to a smile. I set the newspaper aside and return it.
Jaime Gill is a queer, British-born writer happily exiled in Cambodia, where he works and volunteers for nonprofits. He reads, runs, boxes, travels, writes, occasionally socialises. His stories have appeared in Blue Earth Review, Trampset, f(r)iction, NFFR, Phoebe, Litro, and more, with stories due to appear in The Forge and Fractured. He has won multiple awards including a 2024 Bridport Prize and the 2025 Luminaire Prose Award. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions, he’s currently writing a novel, a script, and far too many short stories. More at www.jaimegill.com.
