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

Mama pulled her eyes away from the castle, looked down at her feet, drew in a deep breath and then looked at me. “Yes, Ludwig. We will leave.”

Chapter Fifty-One

March 1949

Mama and I began preparations at once. We decided not to tell the other children until it was absolutely necessary so as to reduce the risk of accidental disclosure. We set the target at April 1. One month to plan the route and sell as much as possible as discretely as possible. Mama knew someone who could change Ostmark for western Deutschmark. The rate was ridiculous, but we knew that Ostmark were worthless anywhere outside the Soviet zone. Mama felt strongly that we needed to have as much cash with us as possible in case things did not go well with Papa. I was less concerned about this but conceded her point.

First to go was a lot of the beautiful old oak furniture. Some of it was old enough to be considered properly antique and some of it had been designed by my grandfather, Hugo Flintzer, in Weimar. For this we had to make use of Herr Peschel’s connections to an auctioneer in Leipzig who could be relied upon to obscure the provenance of his merchandise. This was a difficult decision because neither of us trusted Herr Peschel completely. I am not convinced that anyone in Colditz did. It was impossible to tell where his loyalties truly lay, and it seemed odd that an enterprising man like him continued to stay in the East, but we reasoned that he was doing well here and that this was in large measure because his loyalties were only to himself. As soon as it was no longer profitable to stay, he would go. Moreover, as our landlord and occasional visitor to our apartment, he was the one person we could not conceal our plans from for very long, so we had little choice but to trust him. He also had an unusually close relationship with the police, one that I assume involved well-chosen and well-timed gifts. This was obviously a double-edged sword and we were careful not to give him any reason to be upset with us and turn us in to his VoPo friends. In fact we took a leaf from his own book and offered him a very generous commission on the sales he facilitated. We considered this commission to be a well-chosen and well-timed gift.

Next was the cooking stove. Whereas at the brewery we had cooked and kept warm and heated water all with one stove, in this place we had that large heating stove that Herr Peschel had acquired from the tavern, as well as a smaller modern electric cooking stove, which was wonderful when there was electricity. The heating stove belonged to the landlord of course, but the cooking stove was ours and Mama was determined to sell it as she thought it would fetch a good price. To sell it quietly, she decided that the best plan was to place a small advertisement in the Leipzig newspaper. It was a valuable enough item (consumer appliances such as this were in short supply in the East) that she reasoned a big city buyer would be interested in even if they had to come out here to get it. All the better if they came from somewhere other than Colditz.

On the Saturday morning that the advertisement appeared there was a knock on the door, too early for anyone to have made it from Leipzig yet. Mama opened the door and I could see that a VoPo officer was standing there. He was tall and young and only vaguely familiar-looking.

“Good morning, madam. Are you Luise Schott?” He was reading from a small piece of paper that he had unfolded just then.

“Yes,” she responded cautiously.

“And you are selling a Heiliger electric enamel cooking stove, ‘used but well cared for and functions like new’?”

The blood drained from my face. The VoPo was reading from the newspaper advertisement. He had clipped it out. Oh no. Of course the police got all the regional newspapers. Selling an appliance was the number one sign that someone was preparing to move. Even if we claimed to be moving to a different part of the East, we did not have any of the necessary permits and paperwork for that. I sat there, paralyzed with fear. I should do something, but there was nothing I could do. Fortunately Mama remained icy calm.

“Yes, I am, officer. We don’t need the stove, but we do need the money.” She smiled at the officer and then added, “Are you interested in buying it?” She told me later that she meant this as a joke to try to lighten the mood and engender sympathy.

“Yes, yes I am, if the price is agreeable.” The VoPo smiled what looked like a nervous smile.

Oh, thank God. I almost slumped right over from the sudden release of tension. After the deal was concluded and the VoPo had gotten a friend to help him carry his stove, Mama sat down beside me and shook her head. “That was too close. He didn’t seem suspicious, but I hope he doesn’t tell Squish Eye. There are probably some rules about police officers buying things on what amounts to the grey market, especially while in uniform. These people have rules for everything. He probably will keep mum,” she said.

The third major category to deal with was in many ways the hardest: the books. As I have mentioned a few times, we had a marvellous collection, really the equivalent of a well-curated small-town library. While I knew that these would ultimately be replaceable when we had money again, it still hurt to see them go. Many of our volumes were particular and individual, with evidence of heavy use despite how carefully we looked after them. Some seemed to have personalities. We could no more truly replace them with