p align="justify"The great wall that had so scared Lela enclosed the whole city. Below this wall were moats, and then came thick walls again and moats again. A wide river was used as a natural protection for this giant fortress. Inside the walls were casemates, rooms with ammunition and cannons, and rooms to house many soldiers. It was very dark in there. Only narrow embrasures gave tiny streaks of light. It smelt musty and damp. The town—that was locked so tightly—could not expand. Space was expensive. The streets were narrow and the houses high and narrow. Massive, tubular chimneys rose from many fireplaces. Bent, straight and winding. The smoke coming from them was yellowish and cast a sooty blanket on roofs, windowsills and streets. As if pressed by the narrow houses and forced to be upwards, a Gothic cathedral rose from the middle of the sea of stone. The church tower jutted out into the blue. Meinhardis had been looking for a house. All were dark, narrow, all windows looked onto walls. And Käte had said, "I have to see a bit of sky." There were no gardens at all in Mühlberg. But one day he discovered a pair of tall trees directly on the main street, opposite the cathedral. A large closed entrance gate interrupted a hostile staring wall. Next to it a smaller gate with a bell handle to pull. It had "concierge" on it./p
p align="justify"It turned out that this was a private palace built before the war of 1870–71, whose construction was interrupted by the war. But a long wing and part of the middle house were present. In the middle was a wide courtyard, and on the undeveloped side of the wall there was space left for few tall trees. A legendary old lady lived on the upper floor of the long wing and would not see or receive the officer of the enemy army, let alone ever rent the lower floor to him./p
p align="justify"Meinhardis used a trick. He took off his uniform and paid the old French woman a visit in civilian clothes. Merrily, he grabbed the mustache by hand and twirled a little. His eyes laughed at this campaign against the enemy he was intended to conquer with his excellent French, his charm, and his rather high rent. The stiff old lady was also really taken by surprise. She had never thought that a "Prussian" could be so polite, say such kind things, have such refined manners. But then it was as if she didn't get over her defeat still. She moved away to France, left the lower floor to the Meinhardis family, and hers—the upper floor—remained empty./p
p align="justify"She left behind only "le concierge" Monsieur Girod. He occupied a pentagonal little pavilion in the courtyard, leaning against the wall, between the large driveway and the small entrance. Monsieur Girod was not a handsome man. He had a goatee, a kepi with a visor, Bushy eyebrows and a piercing look. He almost always had an old broom in hand, and Lela thought he looked like the husband of the witch in Hansel and Gretel. If he spoke at all, he ranted. His French curses were incomprehensible to Lela. But she didn't fear him any less because of that. And there was immediate reason to curse. Monsieur Girod, Meinhardis wished, supposed only close the entrance gate overnight and keep it open during the day. He had found a stable in the back of the house, and the horses had to go in there. But Monsieur Girod was sixty years old. The gate had not been opened since the Prussians took Mühlberg. The locks were rusty. They couldn't be oiled. The Prussian officer and his soldier on the high horses were supposed to stand quietly in the street and wait outside the closed gate, if it suited Monsieur Girod./p
p align="justify"Monsieur Girod waged war. With his broomstick in hand, all alone in the small pavilion in front of the empty house, he continued his war against the invasion of Prussian cavalry./p
p align="justify"Lela had a room all to herself. Two high windows faced the street. The windowsills were made of white marble streaked with grey veins. Her bed was in an alcove. On one side of this alcove, a door led through a short passage to a second door in the corridor. On the other side, one went into a wall wardrobe. A door just like the one to the hallway, and one stood in a narrow corridor with hooks attached to the walls. The narrow corridor even led around the corner to the right where absolute darkness reigned now. No exit was from there./p
p align="justify"The whole house was full of such secret wardrobes and corners. One thought one was walking through a door and stood in front of a row of boards prepared to store dishes or laundry. One opened a concealed door and expected a wardrobe, a bending passageway led far to the other side into a glass-covered courtyard. The living rooms were arranged in a row. When one entered the first door, one immediately saw through seven rooms, like in old castles. The first room is richly decorated with stucco. Golden angels with high wings in the rounded corners. Manuela's standing on tiptoes and looking into the mirror above the marble mantelpiece of the high fireplace. The bronze chandelier with candles is burning above her, and Manuela's seeing a hundred chandeliers and a hundred Manuelas and twenty times a hundred burning candles; because on the other side there is fireplace again and again high mirror with a golden frame. Manuela cannot believe that one is supposed to be "at home" here. Sighing, she takes her French grammar from under her arm, lies down in front of the wood fire, opens the book and starring into the glowing heat./p
p align="justify"Lela saw little of Berti during this time. She was also fully occupied with herself and her own experiences. After having only had private lessons in Dünheim so far, she now went to school with all the other children. It was a town school, and many of the little girls here in the borderlands were French. They looked differently from the children she had known so far. But that was precisely what Manuela found strange and interesting, and their names also sounded so strange and so beautiful. Sitting diagonally in front of her was Jeanne Arnos. She had loose bright-red hair, and she always wore a big white shiny atlas bow in her hair. Next to her sat Andréa with short hair that stood on end unruly. She had a very thin neck and very slender hands on which she wore bracelets and rings. Amélie, on the other hand, looked like a messy, dirty boy. Her black hair hung straggly over her face, hiding her huge grey eyes. But Lela almost liked her best. Lela wanted to ask her something, but she didn't dare. Lela felt obliged to be very kind to the little French girls. After all, the French had been defeated by the Germans. It must have been a terrible feeling to have been defeated. Whether they all were very sad? Berti, whom she asked for his opinion, said assuredly, "No, they are much too cheeky for that. And besides, it's been so long . . ." But of course—he continued to inform her—here can be war again any day, as here was in the '70th. Then all women and girls would have to leave the city in twenty-four hours. Only the men would be allowed to stay./p
p align="justify"Lela, her eyes wide, asking,/p
p align="justify""To where?"/p
p align="justify""Oh, it doesn't matter! Only you can't stay here. Because here will be shooting. Each of you will get a box, like the soldiers have, and you can put everything you need."/p
p align="justify"Lela, anxiously,/p
p align="justify""The Sweeties also?"/p
p align="justify""I don't think so," Berti replies energetically. "Useful things only, of course."/p
p align="justify"The next day at school, "mobilisation" was really rehearsed./p
p align="justify"Everybody had to get up at the sound of a bell on the playground. The teacher counted: one, then one packed their books. Two, then one got up from their seat. Three, one put on the coat. Four, standing two and two in front of the classroom door. One didn't have to run home, but to walk in measured steps with double speed. There one had to pack one's box./p
p align="justify"The thought of the box, and whether everything she loved would go into it, didn't get out of Lela's head. Everything that could not be taken would probably be taken by the French. And such soldier's box was so small. And Mum wanted to have all the underwear and stockings in it, and school books and clothes and shoes. At the table, Lela asked, just to hear whether she still had time for a final decision,/p
p align="justify""Dad, are the French coming soon?"/p
p align="justify"Dad laughed loudly. Mum said she shouldn't ask such stupid questions; there was no thought about it. But Dad defended her,/p
p align="justify""She's quite right, it can happen, but war," he said, "is not as bad as you think. I've been through this already. That was quite nice."/p
p align="justify""Dad, did you really kill a Frenchman, stabbing him like that?"/p
p align="justify""Yes, I did, but one has to when there's a war. The 'red trousers' killed Uncle Helmuth too."/p
p align="justify"Yes, they did. His sash hung above the sofa in Dad's room. A silver belt with a tassel, and dry, brown blood stuck to it. And his helmet hung there too, and his sword. Lela hardly dared to ask any more "stupid" questions. But there was one thing she could not imagine, what would happen to Amélie, to Andréa and Jeanne if the French shoot? Would they also have to leave, and to where? Or would they be killed on the spot by the Germans? "Nonsense," said Berti. "No German fights against women and children."/p
p align="justify"But in any case, Manuela wanted to be doubly kind to Amélie, Andréa and Jeanne. She invited them all over, which Meinhardis didn't quite like. But this time Mum defended Lela. Her daughter was allowed to invite whomever she wanted. On the contrary, Mum was nice to all her friends, who at first were a little anxious about the caps, sabers, riding whipsand officers' coats hanging in the cloakroom./p
p align="justify"Amélie, in particular, had to come very often. She was also the one who helped Lela build her fairy tale. Because Lela wanted to have a fairy tale, a real one. Not one from books with not a picture to look at; she wanted to create her own fairytale. There were a lot of little dolls in Lela's toy box, and Amélie knew how to get all kinds of wonderful fabric scraps for their fancy dresses. Fabrics that Lela had never seen before: white and silver brocades, crepe-de-chine ribbons with roses and garlands, veils and lace, light green gauze for mermaids, thick red velvet for a king's train, white silk for a fairy, tulle for elves, tiny remnants of fur, little green and turquoise blue feathers, even little stars for diadems./p
p align="justify"Everything was from clothes that Amélie's Mum wore. Lela wanted to see Amélie's mother only once, but Amélie never spoke of her, and Lela did not dare to say a word. With a hot face she sat there dressing up her dolls. Little tables and armchairs, some of which had been poor Ali's work, were fetched, and a fairytale palace was built in the completely dark part of the wardrobe, so that everything remained quite mysterious. A round table, a royal banquet was supposed to represent whole thing. The table arrangement was not easy. There were too few princes and too many elves, and then, after all, it was simply very dark./p
p align="justify"Amélie knew how to help. The next school day she brought Lela a small rose red and wonderfully fragrant round roll made of a noodle-thick wax thread. "It smells Catholic," Lela thought. From this, the two children cut small candles and lined them up on the table of the fairytale king. The candles burned and crackled softly; it was solemn and beautiful. Certainly, much, much more beautiful than in the Catholic church, and brocade and silk shone in its flickering light, and the red velvet of the king's coat glowed deeply. Even after Amelie had gone home, Lela sat devoutly in the closed wardrobe and regarded all the brilliance when Sofie—the plump maid with red arms and a snub nose—alerted by the smell of candles, tore open the cupboard door./p
p align="justify"Good God, how she screamed. And then, pressing the trembling and screaming Lela against the wall, she rushed towards the round table, blew out the candles and shrieked, "You'll set the house on fire, you naughty child! I'll tell the madam now, then you'll certainly see!"/p
p align="justify"One by one she pulled out the dolls./p
p align="justify""And they are all in rags; should a proper Christian think such a thing possible! They're sitting there half-naked; aren't you ashamed? But you had a guilty conscience, crawled into the sinful darkness, so that no one would see you, and there you do it . . ."/p
p align="justify"Lela watched her. She didn't shed a tear. Oh, Mother would have understood, but Mother was not at home. Mother was invited./p
p align="justify"Silently, Lela let herself be put to bed. She couldn't eat a bite; otherwise, there was nothing noticeable about her. Only when it was dark in the room and she thought of the emptiness and desolate mess behind the wardrobe door, the spasm slowly dissolved, and she began to cry. Very quietly, without swallowing, without a sound, tear after tear rolled onto the pillow. But suddenly Mother's sweet-smelling hand was on her hair, and arms took her up, and she was allowed to press her head against Mother's bosom and kiss Mother's soft face by her distorted little mouth. It was so good to cry like that, and she had to cry more and more; because it was so good, and actually, being able to cry was more beautiful than all the fairytale dolls in the wardrobe./p
p align="justify"It turned out that this was a private palace built before the war of 1870–71, whose construction was interrupted by the war. But a long wing and part of the middle house were present. In the middle was a wide courtyard, and on the undeveloped side of the wall there was space left for few tall trees. A legendary old lady lived on the upper floor of the long wing and would not see or receive the officer of the enemy army, let alone ever rent the lower floor to him./p
p align="justify"Meinhardis used a trick. He took off his uniform and paid the old French woman a visit in civilian clothes. Merrily, he grabbed the mustache by hand and twirled a little. His eyes laughed at this campaign against the enemy he was intended to conquer with his excellent French, his charm, and his rather high rent. The stiff old lady was also really taken by surprise. She had never thought that a "Prussian" could be so polite, say such kind things, have such refined manners. But then it was as if she didn't get over her defeat still. She moved away to France, left the lower floor to the Meinhardis family, and hers—the upper floor—remained empty./p
p align="justify"She left behind only "le concierge" Monsieur Girod. He occupied a pentagonal little pavilion in the courtyard, leaning against the wall, between the large driveway and the small entrance. Monsieur Girod was not a handsome man. He had a goatee, a kepi with a visor, Bushy eyebrows and a piercing look. He almost always had an old broom in hand, and Lela thought he looked like the husband of the witch in Hansel and Gretel. If he spoke at all, he ranted. His French curses were incomprehensible to Lela. But she didn't fear him any less because of that. And there was immediate reason to curse. Monsieur Girod, Meinhardis wished, supposed only close the entrance gate overnight and keep it open during the day. He had found a stable in the back of the house, and the horses had to go in there. But Monsieur Girod was sixty years old. The gate had not been opened since the Prussians took Mühlberg. The locks were rusty. They couldn't be oiled. The Prussian officer and his soldier on the high horses were supposed to stand quietly in the street and wait outside the closed gate, if it suited Monsieur Girod./p
p align="justify"Monsieur Girod waged war. With his broomstick in hand, all alone in the small pavilion in front of the empty house, he continued his war against the invasion of Prussian cavalry./p
p align="justify"Lela had a room all to herself. Two high windows faced the street. The windowsills were made of white marble streaked with grey veins. Her bed was in an alcove. On one side of this alcove, a door led through a short passage to a second door in the corridor. On the other side, one went into a wall wardrobe. A door just like the one to the hallway, and one stood in a narrow corridor with hooks attached to the walls. The narrow corridor even led around the corner to the right where absolute darkness reigned now. No exit was from there./p
p align="justify"The whole house was full of such secret wardrobes and corners. One thought one was walking through a door and stood in front of a row of boards prepared to store dishes or laundry. One opened a concealed door and expected a wardrobe, a bending passageway led far to the other side into a glass-covered courtyard. The living rooms were arranged in a row. When one entered the first door, one immediately saw through seven rooms, like in old castles. The first room is richly decorated with stucco. Golden angels with high wings in the rounded corners. Manuela's standing on tiptoes and looking into the mirror above the marble mantelpiece of the high fireplace. The bronze chandelier with candles is burning above her, and Manuela's seeing a hundred chandeliers and a hundred Manuelas and twenty times a hundred burning candles; because on the other side there is fireplace again and again high mirror with a golden frame. Manuela cannot believe that one is supposed to be "at home" here. Sighing, she takes her French grammar from under her arm, lies down in front of the wood fire, opens the book and starring into the glowing heat./p
p align="justify"Lela saw little of Berti during this time. She was also fully occupied with herself and her own experiences. After having only had private lessons in Dünheim so far, she now went to school with all the other children. It was a town school, and many of the little girls here in the borderlands were French. They looked differently from the children she had known so far. But that was precisely what Manuela found strange and interesting, and their names also sounded so strange and so beautiful. Sitting diagonally in front of her was Jeanne Arnos. She had loose bright-red hair, and she always wore a big white shiny atlas bow in her hair. Next to her sat Andréa with short hair that stood on end unruly. She had a very thin neck and very slender hands on which she wore bracelets and rings. Amélie, on the other hand, looked like a messy, dirty boy. Her black hair hung straggly over her face, hiding her huge grey eyes. But Lela almost liked her best. Lela wanted to ask her something, but she didn't dare. Lela felt obliged to be very kind to the little French girls. After all, the French had been defeated by the Germans. It must have been a terrible feeling to have been defeated. Whether they all were very sad? Berti, whom she asked for his opinion, said assuredly, "No, they are much too cheeky for that. And besides, it's been so long . . ." But of course—he continued to inform her—here can be war again any day, as here was in the '70th. Then all women and girls would have to leave the city in twenty-four hours. Only the men would be allowed to stay./p
p align="justify"Lela, her eyes wide, asking,/p
p align="justify""To where?"/p
p align="justify""Oh, it doesn't matter! Only you can't stay here. Because here will be shooting. Each of you will get a box, like the soldiers have, and you can put everything you need."/p
p align="justify"Lela, anxiously,/p
p align="justify""The Sweeties also?"/p
p align="justify""I don't think so," Berti replies energetically. "Useful things only, of course."/p
p align="justify"The next day at school, "mobilisation" was really rehearsed./p
p align="justify"Everybody had to get up at the sound of a bell on the playground. The teacher counted: one, then one packed their books. Two, then one got up from their seat. Three, one put on the coat. Four, standing two and two in front of the classroom door. One didn't have to run home, but to walk in measured steps with double speed. There one had to pack one's box./p
p align="justify"The thought of the box, and whether everything she loved would go into it, didn't get out of Lela's head. Everything that could not be taken would probably be taken by the French. And such soldier's box was so small. And Mum wanted to have all the underwear and stockings in it, and school books and clothes and shoes. At the table, Lela asked, just to hear whether she still had time for a final decision,/p
p align="justify""Dad, are the French coming soon?"/p
p align="justify"Dad laughed loudly. Mum said she shouldn't ask such stupid questions; there was no thought about it. But Dad defended her,/p
p align="justify""She's quite right, it can happen, but war," he said, "is not as bad as you think. I've been through this already. That was quite nice."/p
p align="justify""Dad, did you really kill a Frenchman, stabbing him like that?"/p
p align="justify""Yes, I did, but one has to when there's a war. The 'red trousers' killed Uncle Helmuth too."/p
p align="justify"Yes, they did. His sash hung above the sofa in Dad's room. A silver belt with a tassel, and dry, brown blood stuck to it. And his helmet hung there too, and his sword. Lela hardly dared to ask any more "stupid" questions. But there was one thing she could not imagine, what would happen to Amélie, to Andréa and Jeanne if the French shoot? Would they also have to leave, and to where? Or would they be killed on the spot by the Germans? "Nonsense," said Berti. "No German fights against women and children."/p
p align="justify"But in any case, Manuela wanted to be doubly kind to Amélie, Andréa and Jeanne. She invited them all over, which Meinhardis didn't quite like. But this time Mum defended Lela. Her daughter was allowed to invite whomever she wanted. On the contrary, Mum was nice to all her friends, who at first were a little anxious about the caps, sabers, riding whipsand officers' coats hanging in the cloakroom./p
p align="justify"Amélie, in particular, had to come very often. She was also the one who helped Lela build her fairy tale. Because Lela wanted to have a fairy tale, a real one. Not one from books with not a picture to look at; she wanted to create her own fairytale. There were a lot of little dolls in Lela's toy box, and Amélie knew how to get all kinds of wonderful fabric scraps for their fancy dresses. Fabrics that Lela had never seen before: white and silver brocades, crepe-de-chine ribbons with roses and garlands, veils and lace, light green gauze for mermaids, thick red velvet for a king's train, white silk for a fairy, tulle for elves, tiny remnants of fur, little green and turquoise blue feathers, even little stars for diadems./p
p align="justify"Everything was from clothes that Amélie's Mum wore. Lela wanted to see Amélie's mother only once, but Amélie never spoke of her, and Lela did not dare to say a word. With a hot face she sat there dressing up her dolls. Little tables and armchairs, some of which had been poor Ali's work, were fetched, and a fairytale palace was built in the completely dark part of the wardrobe, so that everything remained quite mysterious. A round table, a royal banquet was supposed to represent whole thing. The table arrangement was not easy. There were too few princes and too many elves, and then, after all, it was simply very dark./p
p align="justify"Amélie knew how to help. The next school day she brought Lela a small rose red and wonderfully fragrant round roll made of a noodle-thick wax thread. "It smells Catholic," Lela thought. From this, the two children cut small candles and lined them up on the table of the fairytale king. The candles burned and crackled softly; it was solemn and beautiful. Certainly, much, much more beautiful than in the Catholic church, and brocade and silk shone in its flickering light, and the red velvet of the king's coat glowed deeply. Even after Amelie had gone home, Lela sat devoutly in the closed wardrobe and regarded all the brilliance when Sofie—the plump maid with red arms and a snub nose—alerted by the smell of candles, tore open the cupboard door./p
p align="justify"Good God, how she screamed. And then, pressing the trembling and screaming Lela against the wall, she rushed towards the round table, blew out the candles and shrieked, "You'll set the house on fire, you naughty child! I'll tell the madam now, then you'll certainly see!"/p
p align="justify"One by one she pulled out the dolls./p
p align="justify""And they are all in rags; should a proper Christian think such a thing possible! They're sitting there half-naked; aren't you ashamed? But you had a guilty conscience, crawled into the sinful darkness, so that no one would see you, and there you do it . . ."/p
p align="justify"Lela watched her. She didn't shed a tear. Oh, Mother would have understood, but Mother was not at home. Mother was invited./p
p align="justify"Silently, Lela let herself be put to bed. She couldn't eat a bite; otherwise, there was nothing noticeable about her. Only when it was dark in the room and she thought of the emptiness and desolate mess behind the wardrobe door, the spasm slowly dissolved, and she began to cry. Very quietly, without swallowing, without a sound, tear after tear rolled onto the pillow. But suddenly Mother's sweet-smelling hand was on her hair, and arms took her up, and she was allowed to press her head against Mother's bosom and kiss Mother's soft face by her distorted little mouth. It was so good to cry like that, and she had to cry more and more; because it was so good, and actually, being able to cry was more beautiful than all the fairytale dolls in the wardrobe./p