3. Memories

Write something about Tolkien, said the chief editor of the newspaper I worked for from time to time. I could nearly see his ironic grin over the phone line. They have made these films out of his huge tomes, and the advertising circus they're doing is immense. The first film beats all records, and it is nominated for the Oscars more than a dozen times. Just try to explain to our readers what it's all about. You know all about it, don't you?

Yes, indeed. And now I was on my way to the library on a September day that glowed with colour. I knew the librarian, and she loved Tolkien's work as much as I did, perhaps even a little bit more. She had a lot of secondary literature and also some of the new publications I hadn't bought yet. My edition of "The Lord of the Rings" was twelve years old, the other books by him that I had were barely newer.

The library was located in an old half-timbered house; by each window were comfortable chairs and small tables to hold the books. I installed myself in a niche with the biography of Tolkien by Humphrey Carpenter I had taken from a shelf. The book opened to a page that had obviously been often read, the author's account of a very important time in Tolkien's life: the short, idyllic part of his childhood spent with his mother and brother in the bucolic village of Sarehole, near Birmingham. My eyes caught a single sentence: She fell into a diabetic coma and died hours later. The death of Mabel Tolkien had deeply unsettled her son, and the short happy time before her end had shaped him for the rest of his life.

I read the sentence again and again; suddenly my eyes burned and I felt my throat grow tight.

And from one moment to the next I was thirteen again, and I sat at a lovingly laid table, but one chair remained empty. We sat vis-à-vis, my father and I, but we didn't dare to face each other. One month ago my mother had lost her life in one of those senseless car accidents that no one can really explain afterwards. Why did that old woman have to rush out of her drive at exactly that moment, when my mother passed by with a full shopping basket? It seemed she had tried to brake, but caught the throttle instead, and she simply ran my mother down. She died instantly, and for my father, his whole world collapsed.

He became nearly totally silent. I needed someone to talk with me, to hold me in his arms and comfort me, but my father simply couldn't do it. At night I could hear him crying bitterly in the half-empty marriage bed, and the terrible vehemence of his sorrow frightened me. A resolute aunt took matters in her own hands; my father received an invitation to a medical congress and accepted it with relief, and I was put on a train and freighted to Northern Germany where my grandmother lived.

Only a few days before my mother died I had started reading Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". During the long weeks of pain and heartbreaking loneliness, I had barricaded myself behind this story. Should Tolkien's critics scoff about escapism... never before in my life had I been more in need of a way to escape. Frodo Baggins, the small, brave hobbit with his nearly impossible task, became my best friend. In the long nights when my father's anguished sobs penetrated the walls, and I hid under the covers with my book and flashlight, I made a kind of agreement with destiny: if my hero really managed to throw the Enemy's ring into Mount Doom, my father would finally notice me again. We would give each other the comfort we so urgently needed: absolutely sure!

While the express rattled northwards, I sat curled in the corner of my compartment and rushed through the third book. I read how Frodo returned to the Shire, after his task had been fulfilled... and how he went from there to the Grey Havens, exhausted and tired of life. And I can't go with you! Sam said in the book to his master. Don't you leave me, too! a desperate voice whispered in my heart.

Soon after dawn I reached the station, a small hick town far outside of Hamburg. I got off the train on unsteady legs and found my grandmother waiting for me, all alone. Her long, ice-grey hair was braided on top of her head like a crown; she wore an ankle-length black skirt and her favourite skyblue cardigan; my mum had knitted it for her last Christmas. She sat on a low wooden bench, and when she recognized me, she smiled her familiar, beloved smile and opened her arms to me.

"Hello, min lütte Deern," she said. "There you finally are."”

I dropped my suitcase and went to her; when I reached her side, my strength was literally spent. The next thing I knew, I was cowering in front of the bench, my head buried in her lap, crying as I had never cried before in all my life. I cried for my dead mother, and for my father who seemed to have died with her; I cried for myself, as she sat caressing my head and humming quietly under her breath.

And - strangely enough - I also cried for Frodo Baggins, who had grown so dear to my heart, sailing beyond the horizon of my inner eye, on board an elven ship whose white sails faded in the dawn.

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The memory that had overcome me in the library followed me the whole rest of the day. In the evening I had a little snack, then I sat down at my desk, opened my Laptop and tried a first layout of my article.

I didn't manage even a single sentence. Nearly half an hour I stared unseeing at the empty screen, remembering. My grandmother's thatch-roofed house, surrounded by a garden that hummed with bees, full of the many herbs she grew and dried there. She did a lively trade in home-made teas, supplying half the neighbourhood (the other half sometimes crossed to the other side of the street when she approached, and secretly crossed their fingers behind their backs). My grandmother didn't care, and more than one woman who refused to greet her in daylight came after nightfall to have her fortune told with the cards.

I learned that willow bark is used to bring down fever, and how to mix a thick, strong-smelling ointment of marigold and arnica. After some weeks I could distinguish between true and false chamomile and managed to create a proper tea from nasturtium and hypericum. And when I wasn't picking herbs with my grandmother, I lay in the meadow behind her house, chewing on a stem of garden sorrel and reading "The Lord of the Rings" for the second and third time.

I talked to my father on the phone a few times, very short conversations. After each call I buried myself deeper in my book, my refuge. Obviously fate had betrayed me: the ring had gone into the fire, but my father - back now from his medical congress and buried in the work of his busy surgery - still kept his distance. My grandmother, wisely, said little; only once she remarked: "Immer sutje, Deern. He needs his time." I looked at her, then took "The Two Towers" and went out to the meadow with my head down. I don't need time, I thought. I need him, and he is letting me down.

Four months later I went back to him; slowly, with difficulty, we became close again. I repeated the missed school year and graduated. My father, who was already ill at that time, would have liked to see me take over his surgery. I studied medicine for two years to please him, but when he died I dropped out. He had left me well provided-for, and I kept our house and started working as a freelance journalist.

Last of all he came. His men passed in. The mounted knights returned, and at their rear the banner of Dol Amroth, and the prince. And in his arms before him on his horse he bore the body of his kisman, Faramir son of Denethor, found upon the stricken fields.

I winced. The quotation from "The Return of the King" came so as clearly to my mind as if someone sat beside me and read it aloud. And again I remembered; how I lay on the meadow behind the house of my grandmother reading this scene and blinking away my tears.

"Faramir! Faramir!" men cried, weeping in the streets. But he did not answer, and they bore him away up the winding road to the Citadel and his father.

Exasperated, I switched off the laptop and drank the rest of the glass of wine I had poured ... something to fire my inspiration. Fresh air - maybe a walk would help.

I drew a hand-knitted pullover over my blouse and started for the local park. In the sleepy little town where I lived a woman could wander about even at night without danger, and that was just what I wanted to do. When I reached the park it was nearly midnight, and the street lamps reflected white and yellow in the water of the pond. The air was damp and cool.

I walked around the pond several times, but I was tired and I began to feel cold. Probably I'd write nothing more this evening anyway... I might as well go home and get into bed.

I turned around, took a few steps, and suddenly there was short grass under my feet instead of the white graveled path. A great dizziness came over me, so intense that I lost my balance. I had just seen a park bench in front of me and I tried to cling to it, but it had vanished. All at once I found myself on hands and knees, shaken by nausea. I choked and closed my eyes. It is hard to describe how I felt... it was as if I was ripped out of myself, falling through a long tunnel. And then, although I had not moved at all, I was thrown with full impact out of the tunnel into emptiness... and back into my body.

I trembled so violently that my teeth chattered; my very skeleton seemed to be vibrating. I still felt horribly sick, and I asked myself desperately how I would manage to get home in this condition. But the dizziness began to fade, and I was able to take stock of my surroundings.

The first thing that attracted my attention was how different the air smelled. The park had smelled unmistakeably green, because of the many trees and bushes, but the proximity of the street was still noticeable, even though there were not many cars at night. The fragrance in my nose now was strange and new, and astonishingly unspent. A strange way to put it, I know, but I cannot find a better way to express it.

I opened my eyes and sat up slowly, looking around.

As far as my eyes could see was a grassy landscape without houses or streets, vaulted by a dark grey sky. Far away on the horizon I could discern a blurry chain of mountains. And all this land was, literally, empty.

What, for heaven's sake --?”

I stood up and shook my head, turning slowly around, trying to get myself oriented. Behind me the grassy plain stretched unbroken to the horizon. The land seemed to be completely unsettled.

How did I get here? Was it a dream? How was that possible... I hadn't been sleeping in my bed! The last thing I knew, I had been standing in the local park, near the pond, ready to turn back and go home.

I wiped a hand over my face and at that moment I discovered I wasn't wearing the garments I had on when I left my house. Instead of the colourful knitted sleeve I had expected, I saw dark cloth and under it, a white shirt sleeve. I froze for a moment, then gazed in bewilderment down my body.

Jeans, pullover, and sneakers were gone. My feet were encased in soft leather boots, and I wore tight trousers of some woolen material. There was also a shirt, and over the shirt a tunic that covered my hips. Added to this, I was wrapped in a cape that fell to my knees. It had a hood that was drawn over my head, and when I felt for the closing, I found some kind of brooch or fibula to hold it under my chin. I tried to open it and pricked my finger.

"Ouch!"”

It hurt, but now I was sure this was no dream, for I did not wake up. I didn't find myself back in the park, nor in my bed.

Finally I managed to open the pin. I held the cloak under my chin with my free hand and examined the brooch.

It measured at least five centimeters across, rhombus-shaped, and looked like beaten silver, but it seemed too lightweight. Maybe tin. In the surface was engraved a tree with a richly reticulated crown, and above the crown a skillful hand had set seven tiny white crystal stones, like stars, into the metal.

A tree and seven stars.

At that moment I felt the ground under my feet tremble slightly. I turned to the east - at least I presumed it must be east, for there was no sun to guide me - and saw a group of riders, five or six men, coming at a fast trot. They were about fifty metres away, but in my confusion I simply hadn't noticed them until now. When I looked up, they stopped suddenly, and as I watched one of them pointed in my direction.

Fear closed my throat, but I stood where I was. Where could I hide, anyway?

The riders began moving again, fast, straight at me.

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min lütten Deern – my little girl
immer sutje, min Deern – slow down, my girl