Franziska

(For Gravaja Umbros)

I have a confession to make...

I didn't know my mother. She died a few days after I was born, thanks to complications in the birthing process. I didn't attend school, instead being tutored at home from a young age: my father, I believe, blamed my sister's schooling for "how she turned out."

Before I was old enough to be educated by tutors, it was my sister and her old nurse, Gertrude, who handled the primary parts of my education. Gertrude taught me very basic arithmetic and shapes, drawing and and dancing, while Klara - my sister, older by eleven or twelve years - taught me reading and writing, and was the primary reason I learned to speak fluently. It was down to Klara that I learned English alongside German from the very beginning; she believed it would give me more of a chance, broaden my horizons - she detested my father as much as he detested her, and she tried to lead me away from his determination to have me follow in his footsteps. She failed, of course, but nonetheless my lessons in languages continued. I was always more comfortable speaking my own language, but Klara made a point of mixing the two when she chatted to me, especially after my papa took in my little brother, Miles.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Perhaps everyone who knows me is aware of my favourite word when it comes to speaking English; I suppose you could say that it is one of my, as some would put it, character traits. Although articulate from a young age, I was not equally able to express myself in both of the tongues I had learned, unlike my sister. While I could make my feelings very clear in German - my sister once told me how, at three or four years old, I managed to make one of the servants burst into tears when I berated her - I had some difficulty doing the same in English. I envied my sister's perfect command of both languages, especially when Miles came along. He knew very little German when he arrived, much less than I did English, but he picked up on it quickly. He was much less comfortable in my language than I was in his, but my father rarely deigned to speak anything but German while we were at home for his sake, and neither would I. Klara, however, would happily chat away to him in English, drawing him out of the shell that he had been trapped in since his father's death. It irritated me. He irritated me.

It wasn't that I wasn't fluent. It wasn't even that I lacked words. I knew what words meant, I understood everything that Miles or Klara, or even my father ever said in English, but I couldn't repeat it properly. I don't know why. I could perform every function necessary with language in both English and in German - but I was never able to aptly describe my feelings in the former. Perhaps it is because my father never held with describing emotions in any language, preferring the cold, stoic approach, but whatever the reason, it was an impossibility to me.

The last thing I must remind you before I go on is that I worshipped my father. He was my parent, and I craved his affection, and wanted nothing more than to live up to his standards. It made me proud that I was the one he considered his favourite child, while my sister was left in the shadows. I was two years old when he started teaching me 'the way of things', and I unflinchingly believed every word he said, even while my sister, who I adored (quietly) in all other aspects, was saying the opposite. This is how I saw things as a child, right up until my early adult years before my brother and his interfering partner-in-crime changed all of that - but that is another story.

It was just after Miles had come to live with us. I was almost four. Klara and my father were still - just - on speaking terms; they were willing to eat in the same room and make a little conversation when it was called for. Miles had gone to bed early with a stomach-ache, and none of Papa's usual guests were present, so it was myself, my sister and Papa for dinner that night, for maybe the third (and last) time in my memory. I remember Klara, then sixteen, sitting in angry silence for the first half of the meal, the heat of her rage almost palpable. When she finally spoke, it was in English - something our small family never did when we were alone together, rare as it was - displaying her defiance straight off. "I was talking to Miles," she told my father. Their arguments, at the end, were nearly all about Miles - Miles, or me, or both.

"Oh yes?" he replied in German, not looking up from his soup. "How interesting."

Unperturbed by his reply, Klara continued, refusing to cater to his refusal to communicate with her properly, leading to a bizarre, multi-language conversation, she in English, he in German. "He was quite upset. Something about defence attorneys and how he only now saw the stupidity behind their actions."

"Clever boy."

"He was echoing you."

"As I said, clever boy."

"Do you not care how upset he was? How upset he is?"

Papa didn't even bother to answer, and with a scraping of her chair, Klara was on her feet. "Is he nothing to you?" she demanded, once again getting no answer. "Papa, his father was a defence attorney. It is wrong to treat him like this, to poison his mind like this!"

"His father was a fool," Papa snapped, switching to English, perhaps to make his point clearer; my sister had clearly hit a nerve.

"You are the fool, if you think you can turn the boy away from his father's memory!" Klara replied.

My father too stood, and they glared at each other from either end of the table. "And why not? You have turned from me, you foolish girl. Get out of my sight."

Klara stormed out of the room, and my father sat back down, not even looking at me. My brain processed the conversation as quickly as it could, and the pattern was recognised. I didn't fully understand, of course, so what I took from it was one word; one word which clearly had a powerful impact, one word which would allow me to express my feelings when I wasn't speaking my own language in a way I had never been able to before. And it became a habit, a staple of my vocabulary, sticking around for most of my life even as my grasp on both languages matured far past it.

But when I am in this strange country - strange, even now, when I come to America, even after all those years since my first visit, even after my long stays - it is my crutch. And that is the reason that I will call you a fool, because I am too foolish to let go of the habit of a foolish little girl.

...I don't know how else to go about things.