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

monks, indicates how profoundly tedious this newspaper was. But much as my children now read the sides of cereal boxes, I read it anyway. With respect to the weather, one article blathered on about the failures of capitalism, using as an example the unequal distribution of coal in Britain during their very cold winter. Here was another sharp irony as just earlier that morning, in part because of a lack of coal, Theodor and I had gone out into the forest to collect pine roots, which were particularly good fuel for our stove (although not as good as coal would have been). Incidentally we greatly improved the efficiency of this chore when we found an old four-wheeled wagon abandoned in some bushes. Theodor recognized it as the kind that had transported Panzerfausts during the war.

In December we had been forced to move yet again. This time it was because Herr Peschel, the landlord, had returned from POW camp and wanted the front apartment back for himself. He had rented it to Papa’s colleague during the war because he had another much nicer place to live, but this had been destroyed in the final days of the war when he was already a prisoner. Mama took note of the fact that he looked very well fed. Apparently he had been in an American camp where the conditions were much better than in Papa’s first camp and, moreover, rumour had it that he had somehow bargained for extra rations. Herr Peschel was definitely, as we would call it today, a wheeler-dealer.

In any case it was to the back apartment for the Schott family. This had no sun and a stove that was even worse than the one before. Fortunately, though, Herr Peschel’s astonishing abilities came to good use. He was able to secure a large new stove for us from a tavern that had mostly been destroyed, and he found some nice wooden flooring to cover the bare stone. We also watched in wonder as luxurious furnishings appeared in his place. Somehow in this grey, semi-apocalyptic wasteland of deprivation, this man was able to make material goods appear, as if conjured by a sorcerer’s spell. Surely there was a price, if not for him, then for someone, but we never learned what it was, and for us it was very much a case of not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth.

That old tavern stove is the centre of my most vivid visual memory from that desperate winter. It was made of black iron, but half of it was covered with bright green tiles, with an abstract pattern in smaller yellow tiles picked out on it. The tiled portion included a flat surface that was meant to keep food warm or to dry wet socks and the like on it. By this point we had some electrical power again, but it went out at five in the afternoon when, given that it was winter, it was pitch black outside. This struck me as silly. Would it not be better to have the power available in the evening instead of when it was still light? But Mama explained that the town’s generator could only be staffed during the day. So we would light a single candle and one of us would read aloud to the others. I can so clearly picture how Paul would be sat on the flat tiled part of the stove to keep him warm, while the rest of us huddled close in a semicircle around the reader, candlelight flickering on our faces. We would read everything from fairy tales to history to poetry to the classics.

Sometimes afterwards I would step outside and walk the few steps to the dark and empty market square so I could see the expanse of the night sky. On one particular moonless night, the sky was so luminous with stars that in the absence of earthbound light, starshine cast a shadow of my outstretched arm onto the snow. I was able to recall every constellation Mama had taught us during those blackout times in Leipzig, and I was pleased to easily find two new ones, Taurus and Gemini, that I had learned from a book. I ran back to tell Mama this and to ask her to come out and see, but she declined without giving a reason. Clara, Johann and Oskar came, however, and I enjoyed pointing these things out to them.

On other nights when we were allowed individual candles, I embarked on a project to memorize our Langenscheidt English-German dictionary. Russian was immediately useful here and now, but I was growing a dream in my mind of life somewhere where the skies were always star-filled and the forests vast and empty. These places were usually English speaking. Yes, Russia, ironically enough, also fit the criteria, but nobody moved there of their own free will. Russia had war and starvation, and another criterion was life somewhere where there could never be war or starvation. I would still be a forest ranger, but being one in the Yukon might be even better than being one in Germany. My siblings sometimes made remarks or jokes as I quietly mouthed, “Accomplish, durchführen. Accord, gewähren. Accordion, Akkordeon. Accost, ansprechen . . .” but I barely noticed, and I did not care in the slightest.

In this time another slightly longer letter arrived from Papa.

Dear Luise,

Is it so cold in Colditz too? It must be. I hope Peschel has kept the stove in good condition.

This week in our civics class Major McWhirter asked us to write an essay on the fall of the Roman republic. I noted that although the republic was flawed in many ways, the empire that followed, which superficially seemed glorious, led to far more suffering and inhuman crimes against common people. He was so impressed by what I wrote that he asked me to his office for tea and biscuits. This was a great honour and I was pleased