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

that is. Regardless it was so wonderful to be in the forest again after such a long absence. I did not know that it would be my last time.

The bombing had not damaged the forest yet and Old Greybark was as magnificent as always. Lindens make an excellent contribution to the goldenness of October as their foliage is an exceptionally deep yellow that verges on orange and is thus, in the correct light, truly golden. I sat under Old Greybark and looked west to the Pleisse. It was late in the afternoon as I had waited most of the day to get up the courage to defy Mama’s orders, but this meant that the sun was at the ideal angle to light the forest like one hundred thousand shards of stained glass, all variants of yellow and gold, but no less the beautiful for their relative uniformity. I loved staring directly at the leaf-filtered sun, with my eyes squinted. Around me the birds were busy as they always were in the autumn. Less squabbling, more business. The wren — or possibly a wren but I had convinced myself that I always saw the same specific individual — was zipping about as well. He came very close to me at times on his inscrutable missions. I fervently hoped that he would land on my hand if I held it out very still, which I did for as long as I could stand to, but he did not. He did stop one time on a low branch, about a metre away, and look directly at me for a long while, dipping his tail from time to time. I tried to imagine what he was thinking, or possibly trying to tell me, but I was not sure. My best guess was that he viewed me as a benign curiosity and was waiting to see what I would do, but I did nothing and eventually he darted off.

I loved these birds. I loved these trees.

Chapter Ten

December 4, 1943

This is the way the world ends. T.S. Eliot claimed that it ends with a whimper rather than a bang, but he was wrong. At least he was wrong about how the world ends when it is at war. And “bang” is wrong too. It is much closer to the truth than “whimper,” but it is still a completely inadequate understatement. But then there is no actual word in English or German for the sound. I remember it as the roar of the universe being wrenched apart and shredded. The roar of atoms being flung away from each other and all order being rendered into primordial chaos. An instantaneous violent return to the world before the world, like in the Hindu cycles of the universe’s creation and destruction. It was only by chance, no different than the rolling of a handful of dice and seeing only sixes, that my world did not end at that moment the way it was clearly intended to end. Sometimes the gods make a mistake.

At 3:39 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, December 4, 1943, 442 RAF bombers dropped 1,400 tons of explosive ordinance, including many firebombs, on the centre of Leipzig. They had managed to find a route that largely evaded the air defence systems and therefore caught the city by absolute surprise. The sirens went off only moments before the bombs began to explode all around us. We were still stumbling down the stairs to the cellar when the house shook and we all fell down on top of one another, covered in light plaster dust. Clara and Oskar were crying, and Mama looked like she was on the edge of panic. Johann, Theodor and I were too shocked to show any reaction yet. Papa had apparently run outside, which seemed insane, but that was not at the top of our minds at that moment.

Once in the cellar we crouched together in a far corner, as if increased distance from the steps somehow improved our safety. We crouched and we listened to that monstrous unnameable sound press in from all sides as we felt the house around us and the earth beneath us shake. This went on for far longer than any previous air raid, although exactly how long I cannot say. Then all of a sudden it stopped. The sirens still screamed and there were various other chaotic sounds, but the hellish explosions stopped. They stopped for one maybe two minutes and then there was a tremendous crack, like a whip being wielded by a titan, followed by the sound of a thousand wine glasses being shattered at once. Have you ever fantasized about what it would sound like to smash an entire cabinet of crystal? Perhaps take a stick to it or throw a ball at it? You know you will never ever actually do it — it is a terrifying fantasy — yet you wonder. Many little boys have this secret fantasy. This was the exact sound I had imagined, only amplified to a vast scale.

“What was that?” Theodor whispered.

Mama was quiet for a moment. “The windows, I think.”

She was right. The sirens continued for quite a while longer and we could still hear explosions, although more distant now, so we stayed in the cellar until Mama was absolutely confident the danger had passed. When we came upstairs, just as the sun was rising, we could see that every single window had been broken. Often not just broken but shattered into thousands of tiny fragments coating every surface, glinting like diamonds or ice crystals when the sun hit them. The house had twenty-five windows — I’d counted them — and each one was broken. There were also a few cracks in the walls and indeed some crystal wine glasses and china had been smashed as well.

Mama herded us into a corner of the living room that had been somewhat spared from the blast of glass and told us to wait there while she swept