Heiligabend Lullaby
Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht,
Alles schläft; einsam wacht...
I never could sleep on Christmas Eve. When Mama and Papa settled down in America after the war, they started saving the big celebration for Christmas Day because that's the way it was done when Papa was a child. Mama didn't mind. So on Christmas Eve, the best things were still to come. The scents of the goose and the apple stuffing and the gingerbread and the stollen drifted into my room, even with the door closed. Mama closed the door because she said that the Christkind would bring my presents only after I was asleep, and it would be easier to fall asleep if the room was quieter. I think she got that idea about being asleep from the American Santa Claus, though. That's how it was. With Mama being German and Papa being American, things kind of got mixed together. Whoever brought the presents on whatever day they came, the excitement was the same.
So I never could sleep on Christmas Eve. Instead, I would slip out of my room, very carefully and quietly, and try to hide behind the Christmas tree. I wanted to be there to see the Christkind or Santa Claus or whoever was coming when he brought the presents. I hid behind the thickest of the branches to watch for the gift bringer.
Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht,
Gottes Sohn, o wie lacht...
The only man I ever saw, though, was Papa. He always found me. I should have known he'd look for me there after the first time I tried it, but somehow I never thought of that. He'd stand in front of the tree and say in his officer's voice, "Liesel, don't make me go behind this tree and get you out!" When Papa used his officer's voice, you did what he said, and fast. Besides, he'd say it in German, which is a particularly good language for scolding. He didn't just use it for scolding, though. We spoke German at home all the time and spoke English when we were outside our home. I can't remember a time when I didn't speak both German and English. German was Mama's native language, and Papa spoke it like a native. He'd been a spy during the war and sometimes pretended to be a German, even a German army officer, so he had to speak it that well. Mama once said that not only Papa's life, but also a lot of other people's lives, depended on his ability to speak German. She didn't say why, though, and I didn't ask. Mama and Papa didn't like to talk about the war.
So I'd crawl out from behind the tree as fast as I could without knocking any of the decorations off and run right into Papa's shiny black shoes. He'd bend down and pick me up, and he'd be smiling. "So you can't sleep, liebchen? I know what to do about that." Then he'd carry me to the big rocking chair and put me on his lap so that we were facing the tree. He'd make kind of a cradle around me with his arms, and I'd lie back against him with my head on his shoulder. I felt so safe with his arms around me. He'd start rocking the chair, gently.
Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht,
Die der Welt Heil gebracht...
Mama would come into the room, look at us, and smile. She'd be wearing an apron because she'd usually still be putting some finishing touches on the special foods for Christmas Day. She'd have her long blond hair in a braid hanging down her back to keep it out of the way, but on Christmas Day the braid would be wound around her head like a crown. She always put my hair in two braids. She'd tell me while she was braiding my hair that she used to wear her hair like that herself. My hair isn't a pretty light blond like Mama's; it's black like Papa's. Once I told Mama that I wished my hair were blond like hers. She smiled and said that I should be proud to look like my Papa, black hair and all.
Mama would turn out the light, and the room would be lit only by the colored lights on the tree. I'd look at them shining in all different colors. Some of the decorations would catch the light, too, and the whole tree would glow. When Mama was little, her family had thin glass decorations to hang on their tree. They looked like pinecones and bells and stars and even faces. Mama's favorite one looked like a swan. They must have been shiny enough to be pretty even without lights. Mama's family put candles on the tree, but they didn't light them until the big celebration on Christmas Eve. Then her parents would watch the candles very carefully and make sure none of the children got near them. I never knew Mama's parents. Even if they still had been alive, they would have been living in Germany, and it wasn't easy to go there after the war. I'd shut my eyes halfway to make the colors of the lights streak around them. I'd think about Mama's swan and wish I could have seen it. Looking at the tree lights and thinking about how Christmas must have been when Mama was little would get me feeling a little sleepy. I'd relax in Papa's arms, and then, softly, in a deep voice, he would start to sing.
Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht,
Wo sich heut alle Macht...
Papa knew all the verses of Stille Nacht, even the ones that no one sang in church. I'm not sure where he learned them. Mama said she hadn't taught them to him, so maybe Uncle Hans or Uncle Willi did. Probably Uncle Hans. He liked to sing and he'd had five children to sing to. They would call us on Christmas Day, Uncle Hans and Uncle Willi. Uncle Willi wasn't married, so he'd go to see Uncle Hans and his family at Christmastime. They knew that our big celebration was held American style, so they knew the day on which to call. Uncle Hans and Uncle Willi would call first. We'd get their call in the morning, when it was already afternoon in Germany. We'd get other calls, too, from Uncle Louis in France and Uncle Peter in England. It was already afternoon for them, too. Uncle Andy, Uncle Jim, and Uncle Rick would call later. They were in America, in places where it was earlier than it was in Maryland. Sometimes Papa would make the calls instead. When he did, he always called Uncle Hans's house on Christmas Eve because that's when they would be celebrating. It would still be nightime here when he called Germany because he wanted to talk to them in the German morning so he wouldn't disturb their celebration. Mama said that was silly, they wouldn't mind taking Papa's call even if they were eating their dinner.
Even though no one wanted to tell me about it, I knew that Papa and my pretend uncles must have done some pretty important things together during the war. Why else would they keep visiting and calling each other at Christmas? I wondered if they had all been spies together. Being a spy was important, but it was dangerous, too. Maybe that's why they kept calling and visiting, because they were happy that they had gotten through the danger together and wanted to keep remembering their blessings. I didn't know exactly which ones of them might have been spies. I was pretty sure that Uncle Peter and Uncle Jim were, because they spoke German as well as Papa did. When they called, they would wish me Fröhliche Weihnachten, and I would want to talk to them some more in German. Papa would tell me to get off the phone, though, because these calls were expensive. Maybe the others who weren't German also could speak it like Papa, but they never spoke it to me. I always wondered about Uncle Hans and Uncle Willi, though. Because they were German, they'd have to have changed sides to have been spies with everybody else. Maybe they had. The only things I really knew were that they had all been stationed together, that Uncle Hans really liked Uncle Louis's cooking, and that Mama had been Uncle Willi's secretary. That's how she met Papa. One day when the war was almost over, Papa went to Mama's office and told her, when she came to work the next day, to bring just one suitcase with her but to pack it like she was leaving Germany forever. Sometimes Mama would tease him and say that was how he proposed to her.
Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht,
Lange schon uns bedacht...
I would close my eyes to listen to Papa sing. I could listen better that way. Sometimes I would think about the people coming over to dinner the next day, other people who worked at the Pentagon and their families. Once I asked Papa what a pentagon was, and he said it was a shape with five sides. I asked him why they called his office building a shape with five sides, and he said he'd show me sometime. He did, too. He took me up in his airplane and flew just close enough so that I could see it from the air. It really did have five sides. I always wondered why they made it that way. Before going to bed on Christmas Eve, I'd get ready for the Pentagon people to come the next day. I'd put away any of my toys that I didn't want to share, so everything that their kids could see would be things they could play with. I wouldn't have to think about that any more by the time Papa carried me to the chair. I could just listen to his singing and feel the gentle rocking.
I was always glad that Papa held me and sang to me on Christmas Eve instead of just making me go back to bed. Hearing him sing was even better than a bedtime story. One Christmas, something about a bedtime story happened that I didn't understand. One of the Pentagon people had given me a storybook as a present. Papa was looking through it that night to find a story to read to me. He was turning the pages when suddenly he got a strange look on his face, really tense, and he flipped over the pages very quickly. I wanted to see what made him do that, so I turned the pages back. I saw the beginning of the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I asked Papa why he had turned past that story so fast. He smiled with his mouth but not with his eyes, and he just said that he'd heard that story a few times too many. I don't remember what story he finally did read to me, and I never saw that book again.
Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht,
Hirten erst kundgemacht...
I never heard Papa sing the last verse of Stille Nacht in the rocking chair on Heiligabend, because I'd be asleep by the time he got to it. The next thing I'd know, I'd be in bed, and all the lights in the house would be out. I was usually too sleepy to get up to see what time it was, or if the Christkind, or Santa Claus, or whoever, had visited our tree. There would be lots of visitors when the sun came up, and it was kind of nice just to lie there and let the song play in my mind, even the parts that I hadn't heard Papa sing that night. Especially if it was snowing. I liked to watch the snow fall outside my window. I knew what they said about Santa Claus and the North Pole, but I wondered if the Christkind had ever seen it snow. After he was born, that is.
Christ der Retter ist da!
Christ der Retter ist da!