Chapter 5 A Revelation
An appearance by Magda, the German State of Thuringia (an original character), some info about the last personification of Mecklenburg, and a flashback to nineteenth-century Prussia.
Maria seemed to reconcile herself to Lili's absence; Gilbert was able to get her up and into her daily routine. He took her out for walks and playtime in the park during the limited daytime hours. She followed him about, Willi tagging behind her, as he fixed simple dinners. When Lili skyped him that first night, Maria seemed initially confused as to who the high-voiced blond figure on the laptop screen really was, but when she realized it was Muti, she practically clawed apart the screen in her eagerness to pull Lili out of the box. Gilbert had to put her down and explain that Muti wasn't really trapped in the box, it was a picture of her, like the characters in the DVDs she watched. Fortunately, Maria seemed to understand that for the next evening, and she was able to wave and smile at Lili without destroying the laptop.
The child did well at the Tagesmutter's house; she enjoyed playing with the water and sand tables, and she ate and napped well. Gilbert liked the mortal, a middle-aged woman who had worked in a daycare center during his East German days. When he came to collect Maria, they sometimes ended up indulging in some Ostalgie until she seemed to awaken herself and say, "Of course, one always had to be careful about the Stasi," and the shades of past cruelties flitted across his heart.1
Winter came and they tried to spend as much time outdoors as possible; Gilbert felt caged in by the walls of the small two-bedroom apartment and the debris of toys and laundry. When he had tired of Neustrelitz's parks and the environs, they took the train to Berlin to visit Ludwig. Sometimes Northern Italy or another German state would also be visiting, and he enjoyed seeing Maria petted over by the other guests. The girl grew less shy around Ludwig and thought nothing about scrambling into his lap and patting his smoothed-back hair. Gilbert liked to watch his younger brother read to the child or pick out nursery tunes for her on the piano. And of course, Feliciano would get on the ground and pretend to wrestle with her. "Germany, your niece is killing me! Help!" He'd squeal as Maria climbed all over him.
When Ludwig dropped hints that Magda, the personification of Thuringia, really wanted to see Maria, Gilbert and Lili took the train down in late November to meet her in Erfurt for the Christmas market. The state lavished sweets and presents on the little girl, until both Lili and Gilbert felt uncomfortable. "You are really too kind, Magda," Lili said nervously as the rangy, weathered blonde bought Maria another wooden toy. Gilbert was already wondering how he was going to get rid of the three others she had purchased for her.
"Ach nein! I love to see little ones happy at this time of year!" Thuringia smiled proudly, showing off the impressive bridge Lili had given her when Gilbert had needed support for his bid to become Eastern Germany. "I had nothing but boys," she added wistfully, "so no pretty dresses, no dolls, no dollhouses…Ach, she must see the doll furnishings. Come, Spatzchen!"2 She pulled the child over to another booth, Lili and Gilbert following warily.
"I'm being invaded by toys," Gilbert grumbled. "I'm going to start calling my apartment 'Toytown.' Mein Gott, Lili, I'm turning into verdammt München!"3
Later at Thuringia's house, after Lili had brought Maria upstairs to put her to bed, Gilbert mused over a glass of spiced wine. He had built a pleasant fire for their hostess and now they were enjoying its warmth. Something bothered him.
"Magda," he finally said, staring into the leaping flames, "Tell me about what happened to Otto." He had heard only she really knew the fate of the last personification of Mecklenburg.
Magda's cheeriness shifted back to her customary pinched, nervous look. She sat down, rubbing her hands. As the fire's light cast shadows upon her face, she looked more like the worn down, shabby-genteel state Gilbert remembered from the nineteenth century.
"Otto never liked the twentieth century," she began. "He liked being the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, he liked hunting and fishing in the woods and lakes, and he liked spending summers at the seashore. He knew you thought very little of him, but as long as you kept Ludwig safe and strong, he didn't mind. The First World War and the Weimar Republic depressed him; everything he had loved and knew how to manage seemed to have disappeared."
"We all felt that way," Gilbert muttered. He knew he had suffered, and Ludwig had also, to an even greater extent. He didn't see why he was supposed to pity Otto for the same loss and confusion every other German state had experienced.
"Ja, but he just had a harder time adapting to events than we did. He wanted to go back to a time when there was order and everyone knew their place. He liked Hindenberg and thought he was the man." Thuringia leaned towards Gilbert and whispered, "He never liked Hitler." Gilbert was about to protest that he had gotten over the Austrian mortal's spell fairly quickly, but Magda's piercing green-yellow eyes glowed with unusual intensity. He knew she knew how long he had complied with the Nazi regime.
"He was relieved that you and Ludwig held him in so much contempt that you kept him out of the theaters of war. He was content to work on the iron ore trade and troop transit with Sweden.4 But when things started to worsen for us in 1943, and Berwald demanded the end of troop transits by September, Otto wrote to him. He knew that Norway was there, training his countrymen but claiming they were simply police. They arranged a secret meeting in Denmark, where Lukas cast a mortality spell over him. Then he returned to Mecklenburg to bide his time."
Gilbert had forgotten about his wine. Thuringia's voice had sent him back to the past; he could recall glimpses of the war, of fat Otto uncomfortable in his uniform that always looked like he had just come back in from a muddy hunt in the woods. He and Ludwig thought that he was harmless and affable enough not to annoy Berwald and to keep the iron ore and troops moving. He had never guessed that the old ox would actually be capable of keeping a secret, much less devising one.
"When 1945 arrived, most of us could see what was going to happen and we all had our ways of dealing with it. For some of our mortals, including some of our leaders, that meant suicide." Madga glanced at Gilbert. "Otto went to Zingst, got into a rowboat and pushed off into the Baltic Sea. Apparently, he then overturned or jumped out of the boat and was never seen alive again."
She and Gilbert studied the fire together. He had heard the mortal leaders' speeches, urging Germans to choose suicide over defeat; they had made it sound honorable and preferable to surviving under the Allies. He remembered seeing the bodies of German girls and women with bullet wounds through the temples or hanging from rafters during his retreat through East Prussia; at the time he had been convinced it had been the work of Ivan's mortals, but now he wondered how many had killed themselves to avoid rape or the shame of living with it.
"How do you know all this?" He had never thought Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Thuringia had much to do with each other.
"He left some personal effects and a letter with Sweden, with directions to give them to me. Berwald held onto them until reunification, when I came out of hiding." Magda stared at him and Gilbert averted his eyes. He knew she was referring to the directions he had received from his GDR bosses in 1952 to hunt down the surviving East German states to abolish them. After reunification, he had learned that each of them had found sanctuary in different places: Saxony had hidden in Poland, and Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt in Bavaria. He had felt outfoxed and incompetent, not an awesome feeling during the rollercoaster ride of 1990.
"Why you, Magda?"
She turned and poked at the fire, a little smile on her tanned face. "We got to know each other over the years: the Holy Roman Empire's court, the Confederations, the Empire, the Republic. We were usually on the edge of things, so we had a lot of free time to talk." Her smile stayed wistful, but her eyes grew cold. "We both knew what you thought of us."
Gilbert recalled how Thuringia had approached him at the Congress of Vienna when she had heard the news that he had found a little entity. She had worn her best dress, a turned and mended thing ten years out of date, and a bonnet trimmed with cheap ribbons and a dismal feather. She congratulated him on the new Confederation and offered to raise Ludwig along with her family of boys by Saxony: Saxe-Coburg, Saxe-Gotha, and he couldn't remember the rest. He had refused, politely at first, but she had wrung her hands and pleaded, "Mein Herr Preußen, a child needs to grow up with other children. I can guarantee him an excellent education, a ready family of playmates and future allies, a loving mother experienced in raising boys—"
"And how will you manage to do this, Magda, without help of some sort?" Gilbert had asked, as he had taken in her worn leather slippers and faded shawl.
She had had the grace to look down meekly. "If the boy is going to be the German Confederation, maybe a little allowance—not just from you, Mein Herr Preußen, you shouldn't bear the sole burden—but a little collection from all the states…?" She had looked up hopefully.
Gilbert had recalled how politely he had smirked before he had delivered the blow. "Nein, Magda, I have already asked the Kingdom of Hannover and the Rhineland to help raise the child. I suggest you apply to Saxony if you need additional funds." He had turned on his heel, but Magda had clutched his sleeve.
"Mein Herr, it's not the money!" He had glared down at her and into her desperate, hungry eyes. "I would raise the boy for the glory of it, as service to the vision of a united Germany! I have the ability to provide him with sound principles of faith, a love of nature, his own literature, loving brothers—"
"—whose worn-out cast-offs he'd wear, who'd fight him for the last crust of bread and bite of wurst?" Gilbert had sneered, shaking her hand off his new uniform. "This child is destined for more than tussling with Saxony's brats! The answer is Nein, Magda, and don't bother me again!" She had withdrawn, curtseying in shame, as he had stalked off, muttering about how some states lacked a sense of dignity.
He had been cruel to her, he realized now. She had wanted a child to love and be loved by, just like he had. But she had already had a litter of cubs, and he had had none. And now almost all of her boys had disappeared, subsumed by history and other larger, stronger states. No wonder she wanted to lavish toys, sweaters and marzipan on Maria.
"I'm sorry, Magda," he whispered, but she had already gotten up from her chair at Lili's approach and was quizzing her eagerly about the little girl's breakfast preferences. He kept staring at the fire, listening to the aged wood crack and sigh under the heat.
So now you know a little bit about how states can disappear. What do you think? It makes me happy to read your reviews! Coming up next: Maria's first Christmas.
1 Ostalgie: nostalgia for East Germany. Stasi: short for Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, the secret police of East Germany during the Communist period.
2 German: little sparrow
3 "Toytown" is a nickname for Münich, inspired by the city's cleanliness and livability. I found it on a blog by and for English-speaking expats living there.
4 Sweden was officially neutral during World War II, but did manage to continue its iron ore trade with Nazi Germany despite early Allied attempts at blockades. In 1940, after the Nazi occupation of Denmark and Norway, Nazi Germany made an agreement with Sweden to use its railways to ship medical supplies and orderlies (but they also included troops) to Norway. In 1943, as the tide of war turned against Nazi Germany, Allied forces were able to pressure Sweden to reduce its iron ore trade with Germany and to stop the transit of German troops. Sweden did take in both Danish and Norwegian Jews and other refugees, and did allow the training of Norwegian troops under the claim that they were only receiving police training.