The Willow Wren by Philipp Schott (free ebook reader for iphone txt) 📕

I suppose, and zipped into a nearby burrow I had not noticed before. It nested in the ground! How curious!

I watched the burrow for a long while and when the wren did not come out again, I ran home to tell Mama what I had seen. Papa would have been at work or fulfilling his Party duties and Theodor was not that interested, but Mama had a keen eye for nature too.

“Mama, do you know what I saw in the forest by the Pleisse?”

“First wash your hands, Ludwig, and then you can tell me what you saw.” She smiled when she said this.

I did as I was told and then in a firehose torrent of words described the wren and his funny behaviour.

“Ah yes, the Fence King. I love him too.”

“Fence King?”

“If you wait until I am done with Johann, I will read you a story.” My little brother was being washed, very much against his will.

When she was done Mama sat with me on her lap in our drawing room and read the Grimm’s fairy tale about the Fence King to me. I had read it before myself but had not paid close attention. It was late afternoon and strong light came slanting in through the west windows. She smelled of soap and her skin was very soft. My brothers and sister might have been in the room too. I do not remember. I do remember the old brass clock on the mantel chiming just before she began to read.

The story opens with a meeting of all the birds where it is determined that they need a king. They then decide that the bird who flies the highest will be their king. The eagle flies the highest and is proclaimed king until a small voice from the smallest bird, a willow wren, squeaks that he had been even higher — by riding on the eagle’s back! The other birds are incensed and shout that the wren could not become king through deceit and cunning. They declare a new contest and state that the king should also be one who gets closest to the ground. The wren then zips into his mousehole and calls out, “See, I am still king!” The birds become even angrier and post an owl by the entrance of the mousehole to imprison the wren. During the night the wren suggests that the owl could rest from this boring job but still keep watch by closing first one eye and then switching to the other. Amazingly this works and the owl falls asleep, allowing the wren to slip out. Ever since that day the wren keeps to himself and avoids the other birds, but every now and again he hops up onto a log or a fence post and calls out, “I am king, I am king,” and then flies away before anyone can catch him. And this is why we call the willow wren the Fence King.

This became my favourite fairy tale, and it still is. I suspect the lesson the Grimms meant for us to learn involved the perils of arrogance, but that is not the lesson I learned.

Chapter Five

June 15, 1940

Church bells rang uninterrupted for fifteen minutes. It was not a Sunday or a religious holiday. It was an ordinary Saturday, so I was surprised. Although we were not a churchgoing family, I was familiar with the Christian calendar and knew when to expect the bells. I was not generally fond of loud noises, but church bells were an exception. Something special must be happening. Something good I hoped. Papa happened to be home, which was increasingly unusual, so I asked him if he knew what was going on. He was sitting in his favourite chair, reading his newspaper and looking especially pleased. Normally his facial expressions ranged from contemplative to stern, with smiles a welcome rarity.

“I’m glad you asked, Ludwig. It is a very important day for the German Reich! Please find your brothers and your sister. I would like to explain this to them too.” Johann was barely three, so I doubted he would be interested, but then I was not too sure about that as I no longer had any sense of the workings of the three-year-old mind. Given that it was a rainy Saturday everyone was easy to find, distributed in various rooms, playing or reading. Mama was in the kitchen and was not interested in joining us. She had not been explicitly invited, but this seemed an oversight, so I asked her, but she shook her head no and said that she knew the story already and did not need to hear it again.

Once the four of us were assembled in a rough semicircle at Papa’s feet, he began. “Children, today is a very important day. You have all heard those church bells. The Führer himself decreed that they ring for fifteen minutes from every church tower in the Reich today and that is because today our forces captured Paris.” He waited for a reaction, but none was forthcoming, so he went on. “We entered Paris without a shot being fired. The French have given up and the English are rapidly falling back to the sea. I’m sure that they now regret not taking the Führer up on his offer of peace. Their stubborn support of defeated Poland and their blindness to our common cause against the true threats to the Western world are their undoing. Germany can and will defend the world alone if need be.”

“With Italy!” Theodor piped up. “We learned this in school.”

“Yes, with Italy, I suppose.” A flicker of annoyance at the unscripted interruption passed over Papa’s face, but then he smiled again. “A special piece of music has been composed for this occasion. It is called ‘The March into Paris.’ We will go to the park this evening and listen to the band play it. Isn’t that a treat?”

With a subdued murmur we allowed that it was, each