THE FAMILY

JOSEF HEARS HOW MISBEHAVED THE CHILDREN ARE, SINCE THAT’S ALL THEY seem to talk about, nothing but trouble for the parents and teachers of the world. “Josef, don’t you hear?” Yes, he hears, and the voices run around and have long, dirty spider legs, and indeed bad things can sometimes happen. “Pay attention, Josef! Didn’t you hear what I said?” He always hears it. “Now be quiet!” The nagging continues, but no child wants to behave. “If only you would understand! It’s for your own good!” Then Aunt Gusti gets mad, but that does no good, and the children get dirty, and everything gets dirty, and yet they continue to talk back, a result of disobedience, the same old song with Josef, as Aunt Gusti yells, “Don’t you talk back to me!” Don’t do that, she says, don’t be so smart, and don’t tell lies, that’s the worst of all. “You’ll get a long nose if you tell lies!” That’s what Josef has to listen to, nor can any child be left alone, and Josef reacts badly because he is so angry. On the way home from school he is bad and gets into scrapes with ruffians, which is unfortunate, but then how can he be expected to sit up straight and be ready to learn in school. “Yes, he is a gifted child,” Fräulein Reimann says, but terribly scatterbrained and inattentive. Children pick up bad habits from others, but there’s no excuse for that, and so the aunt watches him like a hawk, but it does no good, not even at home. There the father is always so high-strung at meals, and the father must be spared any disturbance, yet Josef wriggles in his chair and the mother says, “Can’t you sit still for a single moment?” But Josef can’t do that. He holds his knife wrong and his fork, and that makes the mother unhappy, because she has shown him so often, but he has no manners whatsoever at the table as he screws up his face and wrinkles his nose. The mushrooms are so delicious, as well as the carrots, even though the war is on, but the father doesn’t like mushrooms, either, and the grandmother says, “One shouldn’t make faces in front of children!” When she was young, everything was much more strict, you certainly weren’t allowed to leave anything on your plate, and yet Josef is not allowed to say “I don’t want any more!” because a child is in no position to do that, and yet he does, and there’s nothing to be done about it.

Then Josef is among his toys and someone says, “Only street urchins drag their toys around like that!” All of them are ruined because he bangs around with them and he takes everything out of the chest. “This room is a complete mess!” Anna is not there to follow Josef around and pick up after him just because he’s so lazy, and one can preach a thousand times about how much money the toys cost, the father having to work so hard for it, he doesn’t just go out and steal it. Yet it never does any good, and then the parents are unhappy, but Josef is also unhappy, and he told Aunt Betti so, but she just laughed, saying that healthy children are always cheerful, and Josef is healthy, so he can’t be unhappy. He should just come along, for he hasn’t been out for a walk all day, but he doesn’t want to go for a walk. “I don’t want to, because I’m tired!” The aunt gets angry and says, “You always have an excuse! Now come along! Otherwise there will be trouble!” And so there’s nothing he can do, Josef has to follow along, and yet outside in the park it feels better. There he runs around on his own, and Bubi and Ludwig and the other children are also there, but the grown-ups shout, “No horseplay!” But eventually they have to leave, even when it’s finally nice out, as Josef pleads, “Please, just a while longer!” No, otherwise Father will be angry, the gruel will get cold, so come along and let’s go, and then Josef is home and has to wash his hands after the mother yells at him to do so, after which comes supper, followed by the washing up, all of it done in a frightful hurry. Then Aunt Gusti observes, “It’s about time for the children to finally be in bed!” But even though Josef gets into bed he doesn’t want to, he wants a story. It’s horrible when he’s so alone, alone the entire night—oh, it’s just awful, what he really needs is for the mother to hold his hand and give him a kiss. But then she leaves, and everything is dark and scary, Josef can’t get to sleep for the longest time, and yet once again morning is there and Josef is woken up, and he’s so tired that he doesn’t want to get up, but the mother nonetheless yells, “Quick! Quick!” And once again it’s a new day, and once again comes the yelling, but they do so only because of how much they love him, they really mean well, Aunt Gusti often says so. And then he’s off on his way to school, as he remembers what Fräulein Reimann taught last year in first grade, the first song they had learned, five tones that ran up the scale and five that ran down: “Clean, bright, and polite / Suits all children right.”

That’s the way it always sounds to Josef, he hears that, and all the children in the park and in the school hear it as well, and perhaps spinning such yarns does indeed make for better children, something that worked for model children in years past. Supposedly they still exist, but it must be rare indeed, the aunts now and then pointing out a child to Josef who is much better behaved than he is. But they are only examples that don’t really exist, and Josef believes in them a little only because he always hears about them, and therefore they must be true. Even Josef wants to be better, but he can see that it’s not going to happen the way that he wants, and he has to keep pressing himself, though it does no good. He is surrounded by everything, he is always in the middle of it all, and everything stares at him, the grownups and everything else. But it doesn’t help that he likes to be on his own, that’s not allowed, even if he’s allowed to go to school on his own and doesn’t have to be picked up, that’s not the same thing, or if he’s allowed to play on his own, that’s also not the same, because no one ever seriously believes that he can be completely free and on his own. It’s obvious to him that he’s not at all allowed to do what he wants, for someone is always watching and the day is totally arranged for him, and there’s nothing Josef can do about it. He sees this for himself whenever he yells, “But I want to!,” because soon that’s the end of it, and someone says, “A child must obey!” Therefore Josef can’t want anything himself, because if he misbehaves he’ll be punished and get no reward. But being rewarded doesn’t please him, and he ends up feeling sorry for having broken whatever reward is given him, having done so deliberately because he is so angry that his heart nearly bursts. Yet he doesn’t let his anger show, which is why it hurts so, and then the toy is broken, and unhappiness returns because of what he has done, and he often thinks how bad he really is, though he is indeed unhappy and remembers how Aunt Betti said, “Children are often such a bother these days.” And Josef always hears so much of what the grown-ups say, and it must surely be clever, for grown-ups know, they know everything, but a child is always in the wrong and in the way of grown-ups, except when he is also big. Then the child earns money and no longer brings home report cards, the parents waiting for the day when report cards no longer matter. The grown-ups, they have it easy and are not anxious, it’s the children who are anxious, for there’s only so much that can be done for them, the little chicks, who indeed are always anxious, but are all right, for they run to mother hen, though Josef can’t hide under her feathers, but rather in the feathers of the bed, where he feels afraid, for that’s where he’s alone. But when he goes to the grown-ups because he feels so alone and wants to ask them something the first thing they say is “Ask more politely!” Then he says, “How do the fish do it? How can fish breathe in water through their gills?” And Aunt Betti says, “You’re such a question box. Look it up in your natural-history book!”—“But what about the carp at Frau Robitschek’s? She took a hammer and hit the carp on the head. The carp slipped out and landed on the ground. And he was still alive. Even though he wasn’t in the water.”

Aunt Betti gets upset over such stupid talk, but even if she knows exactly what the answer is she never says so, saying only that she collected picture-postcards as a child, like so many other children back then, and Josef should do the same. Aunt Betti often says, “If you had a lot of cards you’d be a rich man, Josef. When you grow up, you could open up a panorama. All of us will come and watch your program.” Josef is deeply curious why his aunt has never opened up a panorama, for she always keeps her collection in thick albums, gladly showing them, though she never gives any photographs away, and no longer collects them. They are only memories of a golden childhood, she says, with which she was blessed, and as long as one is good paradise can be found on earth. “Maybe I should have opened a panorama, but then Uncle Paul came along and I married him. So nothing came of it, my child.” She has to help his uncle, she says, and hold down the home front, for Uncle Paul has been away at war for so long, though brave women hold everything together, while bad children destroy it all, the grown-ups having to repair it, and there’s a lot of complaining, for they end up not accomplishing much. “Your father has such skillful hands, golden hands, my child!” So says Aunt Gusti, who so admires the father, he being the finest man there is. “He is so nice to Grandmother. He’s a lovely son.” He scares Josef, who doesn’t have golden hands, meaning that perhaps he’s a bad child, his hands so often being black and his mother yelling “Dirty bird!” when she’s unhappy, at which Josef has to wash his hands. But the mother is seldom satisfied and takes to him herself with the nail brush, scrubbing until his fingers turn red, though none of it does any good, because Josef is dirty again before she knows it.

The father’s veins always stick out so. Whenever you look at his hands they appear blue and lavender, these veins, and there’s no gold in them, but they are the father’s hands, which earn for the family their daily bread. It’s all so hard. He has to slave away and put up with so much in his business, because the customers are always complaining about the goods, nothing is cheap enough, and it all must be the very best, everything served up in a jiffy, each having to be the first, though it takes forever for everyone to place an order, customers remaining the cross he has to bear. There’s also too much competition, none of whom can be trusted and all of them wanting to do the father in, the goods becoming ever more expensive, thus making it hard to get hold of them, he having to petition for them, the mother not wanting Josef to become a businessman, since it means nothing but trouble and results in only a bit of salt on dry bread. Every occupation today has it hard, because no one is satisfied, and each yanks the last morsel from the mouth of the other.

Perhaps one day better times will come which Josef will live to see. The children have to be brought up properly in preparation for them, for they must also engage in life’s battle, which is so hard, or so Aunt Gusti always thinks. She is a language teacher and has many students with whom she is also always angry when they don’t show up on time, which simply won’t do, for she doesn’t want to have to make up for lost time, there’s no way to, and what’s the point as soon as another child knocks when the hour is up and there’s nothing she can do despite her best intentions. And she has to be notified in a timely fashion when a child is sick, otherwise she’s sorry, she cannot make up the lesson, she is much too busy. Josef should also take English with Aunt Gusti, but she doesn’t want to teach him because he’s such an unruly child, and she doesn’t want to be constantly bickering with the father and the mother. “Perhaps when he is older and can pay better attention.” The mother is unhappy about it, but the father says, “I, too, never learned any language, and I still make an honest living.” Then the mother is quiet, because she knows that the father will get angry if anyone says anything to him, and he has enough worries already. Otherwise Aunt Gusti is very fond of Josef. He is often there when she gives lessons, sitting at a little table, in front of him a book or a toy with which he can play only at Aunt Gusti’s, she having bought it special so that he has something there, and then she gives him some other goody, such as gooseberries or hazelnuts or cookies, though he shouldn’t leave any crumbs. Then Joseph is on his own, but he also hears how his aunt teaches, how beautifully she explains everything—“fazur” is “father,” she says, “mazur” is “mother”—while most of the children are older than Josef, though they don’t pay attention all that well. Thus the aunt is often angry, scolding and yelling at them, though the children are never fresh to her, she simply wouldn’t stand for it, and Josef should see how she handles them. Yet the worst is when the students don’t have their assignments, or when they are lazy, for then his aunt is really mad and says with disgust, “You should be ashamed that your father is paying so much money for you. It makes no difference to me, but I’m not pleased, for though I am sure that you wouldn’t want to be called a thief, what you’re doing is probably worse than stealing.” Then the aunt asks what the words are in English, and it also makes her a bit upset when the children know only half of them. But sometimes when Josef knows the answer and the child does not he wants to say what it is, and he in fact says it, but Aunt Gusti doesn’t like that, it’s not right for Josef to speak up. “One shouldn’t speak if one is not spoken to!” He had often thought a great deal about that, because people always talk when they want to, but not at first, if they are asked something.

Children used to exist because they pleased their parents, but it has not been that way for a long time, because they are such a burden, and Josef doesn’t know why, in fact, children exist at all, nor does he want to have any, for he doesn’t even want to be a child, he wants to be a grown-up, because then everything is better, which is why people like Aunt Betti shouldn’t envy children, because grown-ups don’t have to be afraid, they can do whatever they want. But Josef is afraid, he’s afraid of animals, most of all of dogs, and he prefers to walk on the opposite side of the street, because dogs are mean. Josef is also afraid of thunderstorms and is amazed that grown-ups can stay so calm when it thunders, his mother even saying, “You silly, if you’re afraid of lightning that’s okay, because it can strike you. But thunder can’t harm anyone.” The mother says that Aunt Betti is also a little afraid, but she doesn’t want to show it, and that’s good, for you should never show that you are afraid if you are going to become a fine young man. But Josef is afraid nevertheless. He’s afraid of water that is deeper than up to his knees, he’s afraid of fire and won’t have anything to do with matches, and the grandmother says, “At least Josef won’t burn the house down.” More than anything, he is afraid of the night, the worst punishment being to lock him in the darkened bathroom, and it’s awful to have to lie at night in the darkened bedroom, not even the slightest bit of light coming through the door’s opaque glass pane, that being when all the terrible ghosts appear, and the ghosts make menacing threats and climb down into the room from the tiled stove, which has a beaked nib, and then the ghosts slowly cross the bureau and ever closer to the crib, lying down on the blanket and pressing upon it, and there’s peace as they approach his head and crouch down on the pillow next to Josef, though he can’t shoo them away, for they have no names. He also can’t tell anyone about them, for everyone says there’s no such thing as ghosts, though it’s good when at night his mother plays the piano, because the ghosts can’t do anything then.

It’s always best when someone is there, but at school there are too many, three kids on each bench, and whoever sits in the middle, like Josef, can’t get out unless a neighbor makes room. Josef sits way up front, because his vision is so bad, and in front of him is Fräulein Reimann, for when she teaches she likes to stand in front of the first row, her hand resting on the back of the bench. All the children like her, she is so nice, and she likes to lead them in songs, the children taking up the “Songbook of the Fatherland” in its red binding, the teacher announcing the page number so that the children can open to it, all of them standing up and singing as one in chorus. Fräulein Reimann also has a violin, which she likes to play, yet she is also unsatisfied and calls out a name. “You’re droning along, you’re not singing! You have to sing out, open your mouth just wide enough to fit two fingers in. But the fingers should be one next to the other!” And she shows how wide the mouth should be. They all stick their fingers into their mouths and she praises the children who do it right. Josef also likes to sing along, though he doesn’t like the exam, for then there is no chorus and you have to sing on your own, and the violin is of no help, it lies on the lectern, the teacher liking to have only the bow in her hands.

At recess, all the children have to head to the courtyard, except when it rains, the mother having said that Josef should take his cap in order not to catch cold, but he doesn’t like the cap, for on it there’s a name written, VIRIBUS UNITIS, which he doesn’t understand, though the mother said that it’s a ship that belongs to the emperor in Vienna. Everything belongs to the emperor, but the cap belongs to Josef, even if he doesn’t like it, which is why he was not unhappy when Hugo Treml ripped off its band and tore it badly. However, when Josef got home the mother was beside herself. “Your beautiful cap! The good emperor would be so upset.” Nonetheless, Josef was not upset, and there are other clothes that he doesn’t like, such as a white sailor suit that annoys him, yet the mother is especially fond of it, saying that it looks so cute on Josef, though he hates the tie more than anything, the bow is hideous. It’s a shame that a boy should have to wear such a suit, the bib under the shirt, which is attached to the underwear, is terrible with all those buttons, for they take forever, the mother saying, “You’re dawdling again! One needs the patience of heaven with you! The coffee will be completely cold, and you need to be off to school already!” And the tall laced boots take a lot of effort, the mother not helping at all, or allowing Anna to help, but when Anna checks to see if the laces have been properly done up the mother says with agitation, “Anna, I’m asking you again! Please don’t indulge him. A child must learn to fend for himself.”

Because the mother wants Josef to do everything on his own, the mornings take forever. The cold milk coffee has such a grotesque skin on top of it that Josef is disgusted and pulls it off with two fingers, even though the mother has forbidden it, saying that you should only shove it to the side with a spoon if you aren’t going to just swallow it, but never touch your food with your fingers. What the mother really wants is for Josef to drink his milk, but he can’t stand it, he is unreasonable and simply doesn’t see how good it is for him, how it would make him much less anxious, the doctor having said that Josef needs to drink a lot of milk, because he is always pale and anemic. The doctor had then wanted to prick his finger in order to examine his blood to see how anemic he is, but he let loose such a scream that the doctor had to stop, the result being that everyone now says that Josef is a sniveler. But he can’t stand the sight of blood, Frau Robitschek’s carp also bloody, the poor fish unable to cry out but only flip itself off the table as she beat it with a hammer.

Because it involves so much blood, Josef has no idea why the mother wants him to become a doctor, and when children fall they scream, are bloody and covered with dirt, someone saying, “You got what you deserved, you rascals!” But the father says he doesn’t care what Josef will become, only that he make a decent and honorable living, while Aunt Betti says, “One has no idea what children will be when they grow up.” But Aunt Gusti says, “Nothing can be made of lazy and unremarkable children. So who says that Josef has to study. Working with your hands has its rewards.” Then the mother is unhappy when everyone says such things, and she says, “He should study no matter what. I’m hoping that he’ll be a doctor. It’s the best profession, because you help others.” But Josef doesn’t know how you help others if you cause them pain, and wherever there is blood there is no help involved, only a lot of pain. Only cough medicine is okay, it tastes good and is so gooey when you take a big spoonful, as Josef holds it for a long while in his mouth and swishes it around, the way he does when he brushes his teeth, normally the mother wanting him to spit it out, though not so with the cough medicine, which he needs to just swallow.

Josef likes to be sick, but not too sick, though being a little sick is pleasant, because then the mother sits with him and doesn’t punish him but tells wonderful stories and puts a cold compress on his throat. She takes a wet hand towel and a dry hand towel, securing the outer wrapping with a safety pin. Then a thermometer is placed under Josef’s arm, which he likes to press, and slowly a silver thread begins to climb up it, ten minutes having passed before the mother takes the thermometer and looks and says, “Your temperature is still up. You have to stay in bed.” The mother is almost a doctor, which saddens her, for she was not allowed to study medicine, though she knows a lot about it and has a thick book that she also shows to Josef, there being many pictures in it that he likes to look at, the book titled The Housewife as Doctor. Josef then asks why you call a doctor when you’re sick, since everything is in the book, and the mother explains, “A proper doctor has more experience. He sees many patients every day.”

For coughs and sniffles and sore throats the mother doesn’t call the doctor, since she already knows what to do, but when it’s something else the doctor comes, his lovely voice dark and deep, with his marvelous beard, as he comes to the bed and says, “Now, what have we gotten mixed up in this time? We’ll soon find out.” Then the shirt must come off, the doctor examining him and telling him to “breathe deep” and “hold your breath,” demonstrating just how to do it, then he places his big warm ear against Josef’s back while tapping with his fingers here and there, after which he looks into the child’s throat as he says “Ah,” always “Ah,” the doctor also saying “Ah” along with him. It’s just like in school when they sing “ah” or “la,” though Fräulein Reimann had also taught them beautiful and strange words that they sang up and sang down, doremifasolatido and dotilasofamiredo, because she said that was the way to do it. The doctor never does that, he only has Josef say “Ah” as he presses on his tongue with a wooden stick or the handle of a spoon, which is unpleasant, the doctor feeling around the throat, as well, to see if the glands are swollen, and then he scribbles something on a notepad, which says what has to be picked up at the pharmacy, telling the mother what she should do, and whether he will come again tomorrow or later. Now and then the mother takes Josef to the doctor, who has a waiting room with several chairs and two tables, on which there are magazines with pictures, though the mother doesn’t look at them or allow Josef to, because she believes they are filthy, most people not being careful enough, making it easy to pick up germs. Many people are waiting, but sometimes the doctor opens the door and calls out, “Next, please!” He then sticks his head in the waiting room and looks around at each of them until the person whose turn it is rises and goes in.

Sometimes Josef also goes to the dentist, where he sits on a strange chair, like the one at the barbershop, and has to open his mouth as the dentist looks inside with his mirror, sometimes saying “Good,” and sometimes saying that a tooth needs to be filled, which is bad. Josef doesn’t know why Aunt Gusti always says, “The dentist has such soft hands. His touch is wonderful. One hardly feels a thing.” Josef doesn’t believe her, because the dentist sticks a drill inside his mouth which makes such a noise, the only funny thing being how he has to work the pedal with his feet like on a spinning wheel, as he sits there and pushes with his feet, the dentist standing, his mother having shown him in a book how it’s like pedaling a bicycle. But the dentist’s spinning wheel is noisy and rattles and scrapes like a thunderstorm inside the mouth, though eventually he stops and soon it feels better after he places a thick silver drop of quicksilver, just like in a thermometer, on the tooth. Once, Josef broke a thermometer, a shiny little ball of quicksilver showing up in his bed, the mother beside herself as she said that quicksilver is very poisonous, and that you shouldn’t put it into your mouth. Since the thermometer was broken, Josef had to get out of bed and move to the couch, as the little balls of quicksilver were gathered up, and he said, “Won’t the dentist be pleased when we bring him the quicksilver.” At first this made the mother angry, but then she laughed and said that it couldn’t be used, even though the dentist used it for the tooth and then said, “Nothing to eat for two hours!”

The best is the eye doctor, where you sit for a long time in the waiting room, because everyone is in with the doctor for a long time, and there are many more waiting. This is why the mother always brings along something to read, as well as some needlework, though Josef is impatient and beats time with his legs, which his mother doesn’t like at all. But finally they are called, and then it’s wonderful as the doctor takes Josef into a dark chamber, no one else allowed to come along, not even the mother, as the doctor sits him on a stool just like at home in front of the piano, though here the doctor sits on the other side of a machine that he turns this way and that as he covers one of Josef’s eyes and Josef looks in one direction and sees a red light and a green light. Then the doctor sits even closer to Josef in the darkness and holds a tiny glittering light that is like a star and which Josef has to look up at, but which then goes out as the doctor places a heavy set of glasses on him that have no lenses, then opens a chest with lots of lenses, as he takes out one and drops it into the frame, one after another, turning the lenses around in the frames. Josef is given an “E” made of metal and has to show where the same “E” appears on a board, one after another, and in rows above and below, right and left, the “E” getting ever smaller until it is so small that it can no longer be seen. When the doctor has finally found the best lenses, he is satisfied and says to the mother that the eyes are better, after which he marks down the prescription and says, “Well, then, let’s see him in another six months!” Meanwhile everyone thinks the doctor is too expensive, the father saying, “I’d like to be able to pick people’s pockets like that!” Once Aunt Gusti got angry at that and said, “Sight is our most precious gift. Better deaf than blind.”

Josef doesn’t want to become a doctor, but he pretends that he is Uncle Doctor with Bubi. That’s his best friend, who is a brash kid with a little sister named Kitti. Whenever the house is being cleaned from top to bottom Josef spends almost the entire day with Bubi, though when the painter is there he stays overnight, Bubi also coming to him when something is going on at his house, though Josef prefers to go to Bubi’s because his mother is not as strict. There is also a young aunt there named Tata, who tells wonderful stories and is very pretty, and Bubi’s father always tells jokes, for he is much more at ease than Josef’s father. Josef plays with Bubi for hours at a time, the two of them making up their own games that no one would understand, while before they know it Kitti is hauled out of her little chair because they need it for their game, since it works well for playing doctor, one of them sitting on it, the other acting as a dentist who takes care of teeth, the sewing machine serving as the operating table after Tata has loosened the belt so that the machine doesn’t get broken as the patient is placed on the iron grate that serves as a pedal but now is where the operation is carried out. The mother never allows such a thing to happen at home, but one can do it at Bubi’s, even though he tends to boss others around a lot, yet Josef doesn’t mind, for though normally he wouldn’t put up with it, he does take it from Bubi because he’s so fond of him.

Josef also has another friend named Ludwig, whom he also really likes, though he isn’t as rambunctious and playful, which is why they play different games. Ludwig is terribly shy and serious, but he seems to know everything, and he has many toys and loads of books, and he loves plants and little animals and stones, which he collects while always keeping a lookout for something new. He shows Josef how to press flowers, the best way to catch flies, and Josef never feels disgusted by the earthworms that he holds softly in his hands and carries around, capturing caterpillars as well, though he knows there are some that should not be picked up, having long hairs like stinging nettles, Ludwig finding a leaf on which to carry them home. Yet he’s not afraid of stinging nettles, for Ludwig says that you just have to take them firmly in hand and then they won’t sting, while you can sting others with them if you just tickle someone’s leg with a leaf.

Bubi can’t stand Ludwig, and they always get into a fight in the park, Josef upset, because he wants to be good friends with both, Bubi once having said to Josef in front of Ludwig, “I can’t stand Ludwig. It’s up to you, Josef. It’s either Ludwig or me.” This makes Josef very unhappy, Bubi should either get along with Ludwig or let Josef stay friends with him, but Bubi will have none of it and says, “Either Ludwig or me, you can’t have both!” This makes Josef incredibly upset and he nearly cries, but he holds it back and says that he wants to be Bubi’s friend. But Bubi is really mean and wants Josef to help beat up Ludwig, at which Bubi tackles Ludwig, who, though strong and agile, is quite small, nor does it matter that he’s so small, and even though Josef helps by blocking Ludwig’s way, he also sticks out a leg and trips Bubi, so that Ludwig scrambles loose and darts away and is gone. Bubi, meanwhile, can’t catch him and is too late. The next day the mother goes to Ludwig’s mother, though Josef says that he won’t go with her. “Why?” asks the mother, but he won’t give any reason, though the mother is like iron and will stand for no secrets. Josef has to say why, and then he has to go to Ludwig’s, both mothers talking for a long while before the two boys reconcile and everything is all right once again. But the mother is not entirely satisfied, and she also talks to Bubi’s mother, such that Bubi and Ludwig must make up, though they don’t really do so and don’t want to, Bubi looking away whenever he sees Ludwig.

Once Bubi was really bad and didn’t want to do what his mother said and screamed, “I’ll shoot myself if you keep bothering me!” Then he picked up a cork gun from among his toys and pointed it toward himself as his mother went pale and yelled, “Bubi, you can’t die! My poor child, Bubi! Bubi!” But Bubi is stubborn and just looks away as his mother comforts him, which pleases Josef a great deal, and he thinks that he’d like to try the same rather than always just making someone angry. So when Josef once again doesn’t want to wash his hands and the mother scolds him as always, he says to her, “I’m tired of you always getting angry with me. I don’t want to live anymore, I’m going to poison myself!” At this the mother quietly walks away and returns with a spoon, then opens the little medicine cabinet full of many bottles, jars, tins, and little boxes, after which she grabs a bottle and slowly removes its cork and pours something from it into the spoon that looks like water and has no color, and then steps toward Josef, who at first is curious and looks on, but now is afraid as she calmly says, “Take the spoon, my child. This will poison you and then you’ll be dead.” And so she holds the spoon up to his mouth, which he doesn’t open, and he realizes that he doesn’t really want to die, but nonetheless he grows terribly afraid and thinks how lucky Bubi is that his mother was so afraid, while Josef’s mother will just let him die quietly because she doesn’t love him at all. “I’m not taking the spoon! I don’t want to!”—“You said you wanted to poison yourself. This is poison, my child. You won’t have to be bothered by your mother anymore.”—“I’m not taking that spoon!” And then he begins to weep horribly and cannot stop, and he never thinks about poisoning himself again.

Josef wants to live and grow tall, and he’s astounded at how easy it would be to die from just a spoonful of medicine, which is terrible, not even the mother being sad once you are dead. But Frau Diamant is deeply sad and still wears black and always has tears in her eyes when she sees Josef and his schoolmates. She had a son named Georg, who was in Josef’s class, and Georg had always been such a quiet boy whom everyone liked. But one day he didn’t come to school again, and then Fräulein Reimann sadly said a couple of days later, “Children, stand up. I have some bad news. Georg Diamant has died from brain fever. We will observe a moment of silence in order to think about him and his poor parents.” And after a minute the teacher said, “Now sit. Tell your parents that you’d like to contribute a little something. Bring it in with you so that the class can lay a beautiful wreath on Georg’s grave.” Josef told his parents, and the mother was deeply upset and said right way, “The poor, poor parents! What a terrible blow!” But Aunt Betti said, “One can’t watch over children closely enough. They are such a worry. All it takes is a little bite from some bug and there’s nothing you or I can do to prevent the child dying.” Then Josef asked, “Will I also die?”—“We all have to die someday, child. But before that we should all live to be old. When a child dies, it’s the worst thing that can happen to a parent, and terribly hard.” Josef wants to ask more questions, but he doesn’t really know what about, and then he can only think how sad it must be to be dead and no longer there. The next morning his father gives him a silver coin for the wreath, all the children in the class bringing in a contribution as the teacher writes down the exact amount she receives from each and, once satisfied, says, “It will be a beautiful wreath. Tomorrow is the burial, and I will attend for all of you and give my condolences to the inconsolable parents on behalf of the entire class. Today, though, you should all pray a great deal for the soul of poor Georg, so that he gets to heaven and becomes a little angel.”

Josef often dreams, losing himself in his dreams during the day as well, not knowing if he’s asleep or if he’s dreaming. He holds on tight to his mother when he leaves the house with her, sensing how warm it is next to her, when suddenly he senses nothing and feels as if he didn’t exist. Perhaps that’s what it’s like, being dead, as if looking down at himself, entirely separate and other, and he feels sorry for this Josef, who is always walking around hanging on to someone, this Josef down there below him. A different Josef has to always do as he’s told, go to school, wash his hands, a Josef who is always afraid and isn’t brave like Bubi, who sits atop a real horse that slowly goes around in a circle as it pulls the carousel, Josef trusting the artificial horses of the carousel, those that are dead, while Bubi rides proudly on a living horse. The Josef above pities the Josef below, but the one above is not really there, he is nothing and thinks nothing, though he is alive and is much more magnificent than the real Josef and better than him and all the children in the class.

In class there is a poor refugee from Galicia named Chaim Eiberheit, whom all the kids dislike, Eiberheit being completely poor, though there’s no reason for him to be so filthy, or so say all the mothers, as well as Fräulein Reimann, though he does live in the worst house in the neighborhood, a building where many poor people live whom no one wants anything to do with, Hugo Treml saying of the house, “It’s full with broken windows.” But the teacher says, “No, Treml, you mean ‘full of,’ not ‘full with,’ nor is ‘full of’ even right in this instance.” Meanwhile Eiberheit sits on the last bench alone, because no child can stand to sit next to him, not because he’s a refugee but because his mother never cleaned him up and he has dirty ears, once having had a genuine case of lice in his hair, even though it never bothered Eiberheit. One time Frau Eiberheit came to school, waiting until recess, when Fräulein Reimann was still in the classroom, to whom Frau Eiberheit handed a large slice of bread covered with lard, which she just wanted to pass on to Chaim, though the teacher was anxious to speak with her. “It’s good that you’re here, Frau Eiberheit. But you must know this is not allowed.” Indeed, Frau Eiberheit begs her pardon, she doesn’t want to be a bother, but the boy had simply forgotten his lunch and he shouldn’t go hungry, and Frau Eiberheit makes a move to go, but the teacher yells, “Frau Eiberheit, listen to me! You must …” Frau Eiberheit doesn’t let her get out another word, even though all she wants to say is that Frau Eiberheit has to bathe Chaim and comb his hair, but Frau Eiberheit has already left the classroom, and the teacher can only shrug her shoulders. And yet Eiberheit remains as filthy as ever, nor does it matter to him, for he’s happy to sit alone on the last bench, making faces and laughing whenever anyone turns around to him, which the teacher has forbidden them to do. “No turning around. That’s rude. How many times must I tell you?” But Eiberheit says to her, “Pieposberger and Flamminger are also refugees, and yet they never get into trouble. Why don’t you make an example of them?”

At home the mother says, “It’s this terrible war that does this to everyone. It would be good if it would just be over with. Then we could get a letter again from Aunt Valli in America.” The mother often talks about this aunt who many years ago left for America, where she lives quite happily, especially because the war zone is so far away, and war is simply horrible. Bubi’s father didn’t have to enlist, but Ludwig’s father had to, and also Hugo Treml’s and the fathers of many other children who are now in Russia or on the Isonzo and seldom come home when they have leave, several others also having been wounded, and some still held as prisoners of war. Meanwhile the children don’t know where their fathers are, and the mothers say nothing, which is awful for the poor women, as Aunt Gusti says the children will too easily become like wild animals because the mothers have no help and have to worry about everything for themselves. Uncle Paul also enlisted and has been wounded at Vilna, Aunt Betti sighing deeply and saying, “The fact that the people don’t want to sue for peace is a cross to bear!” As for little Ernst, whose hair is as long as a little girl’s and looks as beautiful as a doll his mother adores in a storefront window, his father fell in Serbia at the very start of the war, three years ago, though his mother still goes around in black and says to everyone, “I live only for Ernst, he’s the apple of my eye.” Indeed, Ernst continues to look just like an apple, fresh and pure, himself not allowed to play with the other children in the park, though Bubi’s mother once said to Josef’s mother, “That’s too much. It’s not good for the child.” Josef’s father, meanwhile, had been enlisted for a brief time, then he was discharged because he is somewhat frail. He once had a problem with his lungs and his eyes are weak, the eye doctor saying, “It’s a hereditary condition, which Josef got from his father.” But the father suffers a great deal during the war, because he must work twice as hard in the store, and he can find no help to hire, which is why he’s so late getting home, which makes the mother angry, but when he has to go into the store on Sunday morning she can’t say anything, for he says, “There’s no other way to do what has to be done. Times are tough, Mella. Be reasonable!”

The mother also contributes a lot to the war effort, serving as a volunteer nurse and often working at the new high school that has been converted into a military hospital. The mother is good at massage, the wounded like her, and they often come to visit once they are better, many of them poor men who have lost an arm or a foot, often still covered in large bandages. Sometimes the mother takes Josef along to the hospital, the huge gymnasium having been turned into an orthopedic ward, where the mother usually does therapy with the wounded and helps them exercise, sometimes a little party happening in the ward as well, such as on the emperor’s birthday or when there is a visit by the proconsul’s wife, who is so nice, everyone running after her and calling her “Countess.” The mother takes a white overcoat with a red cross on it, as well as another pin that says VOLUNTEER NURSE, the mother also wearing a white bonnet that is as stiff and bright as the father’s collars. The mother does what she can, because it is her duty to the fatherland to do something for the war effort when she herself cannot fight, and the emperor is fighting for what is right. That’s what the children learn in school, the principal exhorting them to buy war bonds, though Josef’s father doesn’t want to, and when Josef asks if he can he is told, “That’s for rich people. I have to work hard in order that you grow up hale and hardy.” Josef asks, “But is what you do also for the emperor?”—“For the emperor, and for you as well.” Then the father explains how he is fulfilling his responsibilities by tutoring the war blind to make grocery bags, the war blind making wonderful bags out of paper leather, which they then sell in order to support themselves. The mother has also bought some of them, as have other women, including Bubi’s mother and Ludwig’s mother, though Aunt Gusti says that you can buy better ones in the store and for less, but you should still buy them from the war blind, since they are so poor, and you can never cherish your sight enough, Josef having the good fortune to wear glasses, whereas the blind live in an eternal night.

Sitting under the stairs with his eyes closed, Josef thinks that he knows what it’s like to have your eyes shot out. That’s why it’s good that the father demonstrates how to cut paper leather, how one weaves it and glues it in order to make a bag. Everywhere, people help with the war effort, such as in school, where they gather lint twice a week, which Josef likes to do. They are given bright rags, which they unravel with their fingers, taking a little piece and with two fingers pulling out thread after thread until a little pile lies on the desk, after which it’s all gathered up in a big bag, which the custodian takes away as the teacher says, “The lint is used for pillows and blankets for our wounded heroes in the hospital, since proper feathers are in such short supply.” Lint is also gathered at home, Anna happy to help out, after which it’s taken away, though Bubi doesn’t like to and says, “Gathering lint is stupid, that’s girls’ work.” But Tata says, “Bubi, you have no heart. Just imagine if you were wounded and had to lie on some awful straw mattress without ever having a pillow or a proper blanket.” Nonetheless, Bubi still says it’s for girls or little boys, it being ridiculous when he has to do it, at which Tata says, “Fine, Bubi, we can switch jobs. You can knit pulse warmers for the poor soldiers, and I’ll gather lint.” To this Bubi says nothing and leaves the room, Josef following him, the two of them ending up outside on the balcony, where Bubi has a large pickle jar full of tadpoles that someone gave him, and he takes one tadpole after another and lets it fall and smash on the street below, but only when no one is coming along who might be hit, for he’s very careful, since one time when he threw down a pot that nearly killed someone a terrible ruckus followed, Bubi’s mother having to calm down the strange man because he was so upset that he threatened to call the police, after which Bubi got a spanking and was sent to his room for the entire afternoon, where he screamed loudly and cried that he would never do it again. For a long while afterward, he was not allowed on the balcony alone, having done worse things than Josef ever had, though when Josef points that out, his mother says, “You shouldn’t just focus on the bad side of Bubi, especially when there are so many good things about him.”

Meanwhile Josef has a nanny, the mother unable to watch over him as much because of all the time she must spend at the hospital, and because Aunt Betti can barely get by on her war relief she has to help Josef’s father in the store and thus has less time for Josef, though this makes it easier for the father to run around, busy as he is, everyone having to work hard, which causes a lot of stress. It’s become so hard to get essentials that Anna has to stand in long lines, and Aunt Gusti, too, which one cannot expect of the mother, since she’s on her feet the entire day, though the father has connections and brings home flour or potatoes, all of which is incredibly expensive and just burns through their money.

The nanny’s name is Jedlitschka, and she’s thin and scrawny, the grandmother saying, “She doesn’t even have enough strength to properly knead dough.” The nanny’s neckline reveals how much the bones in her chest stick out. Bubi doesn’t like this, and says, “If that were my nanny I would simply throw her out.” When Josef tells this to the mother, she replies, “You are an ungrateful child. Bubi and Kitti have Tata. They don’t need a nanny. Their mother can shop. Why do I have to explain it all to you? Things are one way for them and another way for us.” Josef likes the nanny very much, because she lets him do what he wants and he doesn’t have to watch out what he does in the park, for she hardly keeps an eye on him as she talks with others or darns stockings, and whenever the weather is bad she plays fleas or fish with Josef at home. Fleas involves colorful buttons divided into six different colors so that six can play, though everyone plays alone, each person taking three different colors totaling eighteen buttons in all. There is also a large button that you use to flip the smaller buttons, the game requiring that you shoot your button accurately enough to land it on the other player’s button, which you then take away, while whoever ends up with some buttons left is the winner. The game of fish is different. On the table you place a box made of cardboard that has four sides and is painted with fish, and you throw a bunch of paper fish into it, though old shoes, drowned cats, and other things are also thrown in to annoy the fisherman, while written on each fish is how much it weighs, with a little metal ring attached. The players get a pole, which is a wooden bar with a thread attached that is the line, from which hangs a magnet, which is the hook, whereupon each player dips his line into the pond, only one being allowed to do so at a time. Swishing around in the water, but without looking within, whoever is lucky pulls out a fish or several fish, though the unfortunate get nothing or a shoe or something else, the players continuing until the pond is empty, while whoever has caught the heaviest fish wins.

Fräulein Jedlitschka is very good at it, she has a lot of patience, but the grandmother is not pleased and says to the mother, “Mella, in my day it was different. Then the nanny would do some knitting or sewing while the child played on his own, and she just kept an eye on him.” The mother replies, “Mama, please, let me worry about it. If you have something to say to me, please don’t say it in front of Josef!” Then Josef responds, “The nanny plays really well. She doesn’t just let me win at fishing, because she likes to win herself.” Then the mother and the grandmother are angry with each other, the mother looking hard at the grandmother and sending Josef away and into the kitchen. Outside is Anna, who speaks warmly of her previous position, where she had spent eight years, the people there having been very good to her, there being no son to take care of, but rather a little girl named Angela, who is already grown, Anna still having a picture of her when she was very little, with two thick braids. She didn’t have short hair like Kitti, who always cried when someone pulled her hair. “I’m gonna tell Tata! Bubi, you’re so mean!” But Angela had been so well behaved, Anna always says, even to the mother, and she still gets letters from her, as well as colorful postcards at Christmas and Easter that are even more beautiful than those in Aunt Betti’s collection, the mother saying, “Nothing is so precious as gratitude. See, Josef, you should take after Angela.” But then Anna says, “Josef is also a sweet child, madam. God willing, he will also be a fine man.”

The father also has a garden plot, because there is always less and less to eat. It’s a large garden located on the edge of the city next to a brickworks, the father hacking away at the earth, though it takes too much out of him, and so he takes along Wenzel, a helper from the store, who also stays there the whole day through, the father also bringing along Josef and Bubi. The two of them have a large bed to themselves. There they grow pumpkins and radishes, potatoes and kohlrabi, lettuce and tomatoes, as well as poppies and strawberries and pretty flowers, though just a few, both of them liking to be out in the garden, because they like Wenzel, who is nice and lets them do what pleases them. They water the beds with a little watering can, then they yank out weeds, then Wenzel brings them coffee and something to eat, though they don’t have to wash their hands.

Lots of people come to the garden on Sundays, Aunt Gusti saying, “There’s hardly anywhere to go anymore. It’s a blessing to be in God’s nature and breathe a bit of fresh air. Josef, your father is so handy. We have him to thank for such splendor.” Only the mother rarely comes, because she has to work, after which she’s tired and needs rest, and she’s happy to be home alone, though everyone else is there, sometimes Bubi’s family as well, Wenzel, too, even though he doesn’t have to be on Sundays, but he’s gotten so used to being there that he wants to, yet Aunt Gusti says, “He only comes because he gets something from it as well, but your father takes good care of his people.” Aunt Betti adds, “Wenzel also does most of the work, he deserves at least a couple of potatoes.” This upsets Aunt Gusti, who says, “You never think of the family’s interests, Betti. You’re so strange.” And when Bubi’s father hears this he says, “Now let’s not fight on such a beautiful Sunday. We should just enjoy the lovely sun instead. Who knows what next year will bring?” Then the grandmother says, “I agree completely. One never knows what will happen. Times change. In 1866, war was everywhere, and yet it wasn’t as bad as it is today. Back then the Prussians invaded, yet there were far fewer dead than now, when the battlefields are much farther off.” Bubi’s father replies, “Yes, yes, that was quite a little war back then. Yet everything came out all right.” But Aunt Gusti adds, “No, there’s no way it was that pleasant. War is war.” But Bubi’s father counters, “We mustn’t fight. What I once heard in Vienna is true. Whenever we’ve had enough of peace, then it’s war, and that’s a horror.”

Then the quarreling is over, and Bubi’s mother and Tata propose, “Now let’s go and see how the cauliflower is doing.” They head off, and the usual crowd lies down on extra blankets that were brought along, Bubi and Josef running around, though the father follows after the two women and shows them the beds, how everything is growing, how many potatoes can be planted, after which he cuts a couple of heads of cabbage and cauliflower for Bubi’s mother, then pulls a pair of carrots out of the earth because they are so healthy, yet Josef doesn’t eat them, except when raw, while Bubi wants nothing to do with spinach, because he thinks it’s as disgusting as chicken shit, no one can eat it, though he does like carrots, his mother cooking them like nobody else, and if Josef doesn’t want any it’s only because no one knows how to cook at his house. But Josef says that’s not true, Anna is a very good cook, she worked for Angela’s parents for eight years and cooked everything there, and everyone liked it so much that they still wrote her letters, but nonetheless carrots are really awful, they can only be eaten raw, and for that they need to be fresh and tender and young, otherwise they turn your stomach, Josef’s father not liking them at all. Then Bubi gets mad and continues complaining about spinach, wanting to rip it all out of the ground and throw it away, but Josef says, “Throwing stuff away is a sin. You should make use of everything. During war nothing should be thrown away, for the poor people are glad to have whatever they can get. That’s what my Aunt Gusti told me.”—“Okay, don’t throw it away, just give it to the chickens or the geese, but the carrots I eat myself.” Josef and Bubi argue loudly, and when Aunt Gusti notices she comes over and yells, “You two should be ashamed, arguing about food when there’s a war on! Our brave recruits in the field would be thrilled to have fresh vegetables to eat for lunch. They often have to be satisfied with just a tiny bite of goulash out of a can.”

Then Bubi becomes quite serious and says that he will become an officer, for then you have a servant and a horse and can order soldiers around. Bubi also has a lot of toys befitting an officer, such as tin soldiers, a helmet, a sword and sword belt, and a warship to play with in the bath. Josef has none of this, because his mother wants to spare children from the war as much as possible, they grow wild enough as it is, and if you raise them in the shadow of the war nothing good can come of it. But Josef doesn’t care if he has war toys or not, though he likes to play with Bubi’s weapons, and when Bubi is the general Josef is the adjutant and Kitti is the princess who needs to be saved, and so Kitti has to stay in the bedroom as Bubi and Josef initially storm the dining room, where there are trenches and barbed wire, the large table serving as a fortress that they carefully creep around, and even though there is no enemy to be found hiding out there, Bubi whispers, “Stinking foreigners,” and very slowly crawls on his belly to the bedroom door, opening it just a bit at first, then ripping it wide open, though the enemy doesn’t notice the heroes as Kitti lies on the sofa before the courageous warriors and screams, “Help! Help!” Then the heroes attack with mighty war cries, the sofa a dungeon where the unfortunate princess languishes. Quickly she is freed, and she is so thankful that she decorates her rescuers with laurels made of paper, but before they know it Tata is before them and says, “You can’t keep playing war forever. Too much hellish noise! Who can stand it?”

Fräulein Jedlitschka can stand only quiet games, for everything else gets on her nerves, frightening her and making her skittish, so that Aunt Gusti says, “The nanny is very good, but she’s too squeamish. A child needs to romp around, so he doesn’t turn into a dormouse.” But Aunt Gusti herself is afraid of thunderstorms because they crackle so. She just doesn’t show it, for one has to control oneself and serve as a good example for the young ones growing up, and she wants to break Josef of the habit of indulging himself in so many silly fears. It’s especially ridiculous in regard to dogs, especially when Josef wanders off on his own, and yet ends up afraid of every dog he encounters, even if it’s muzzled and on a leash, his aunt saying, “A dog is man’s best friend, remaining at his side no matter the danger. There’s no reason to be afraid, dogs don’t like it when you are. That’s when they’ll bite you.” But Josef doesn’t believe his aunt, because dogs have evil eyes, they bark so loudly, and their howls cause fear, at which Aunt Gusti laughs, for it’s all in his imagination. One day she goes for a walk with Josef, and on the street there’s a little wagon with a dog harnessed to it, a large brown mutt, and the aunt goes up to him because she wants to demonstrate how good-natured he is, she rubbing his neck and saying to the animal, “You beastie, you, you precious, sweet beastie, isn’t that so? You wouldn’t hurt anyone, would you?” Then she looks at Josef and prods him, saying, “Don’t you see how obedient he is? He loves to be petted. Try it!” He tries to get his courage up, he wants to try to pet it and stretches his hand toward the mutt, but the dog growls and snaps at him. “That’s only because you’re afraid. He senses it, and that’s why he snaps.”—“I didn’t tell the dog I was afraid. He also wouldn’t know if I’m lying, for I didn’t say anything that would cause my nose to grow long.” Then the aunt is upset and she says, “You are an incorrigible child. It’s a nasty dog, but almost all dogs are good.”

Otherwise Josef is interested in animals and has a natural-history book with many pictures, which he loves more than many of his other books, his mother having given it to him so that he wouldn’t always be asking about the carp and the earthworms or whatever. Bubi, however, isn’t really interested in animals, because they are dumb, only the horse being clever and the elephant, though it’s a shame there are so few elephants here, but Tata says it’s only because such large animals have to eat such incredible amounts, and it’s nearly impossible to fill them up, and everything is so precarious, so many poor people who can hardly buy enough for themselves. The grandmother adds that there have always been poor people, her blessed father having to worry about nine children, all of them having grown up to be people of good standing, though they are now gone, but at least they never had to see how terrible the world has become. Hard work and honor used to mean something, but now there are war speculators everywhere who hoard everything and then sell it on the black market and get rich, while others keep on the straight and narrow and yet pay the price, not being long for this life.

That’s why the mother likes Frau Machleidt, a dear widow with two boys, Egon and Helmut, who lives in a single room with a kitchen that is dark and in which you can’t even turn around. But Aunt Betti says that it’s a model of cleanliness and tidiness, everything laid out in perfect order, such that one can appreciate the saying “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” Aunt Betti loves this saying so much that she has often embroidered it and given it to the mother and to Aunt Gusti, as well as to many others, it also adorning the wall of Frau Machleidt’s kitchen. There one can just barely read it when there’s enough light, there also being a towel that is embroidered with red letters, the script lovelier than either the father or Fräulein Reimann can do, as it says:

To cover up the broom

Use me in any room.

And behind it there really are brooms, right in the middle of the kitchen, though properly concealed, while Anna always sticks the brooms in the closet, because the mother says that brooms don’t belong in the kitchen, where everything should be clean and bright, especially the oilcloth, white and ready for washing, there being no need for soap. And there are lovely porcelain canisters in the kitchen, the mother very fond of them, though Anna says that they create dust, while the contents are printed on each, be it rice, cornmeal, breadcrumbs, flour, coffee, beans, even though there is nothing in them, the canisters there only for decoration, while small amounts of spices are indeed inside them, and there’s salt in the salt shaker. The nicest thing in the kitchen was the mortar, all shiny and glowing, Anna grinding away with the white pestle for an hour, filling little packets, the mortar spick and span and bright as gold, though now it is gone, anything made of copper or brass having been confiscated and taken away, the same being true of the entire building. All the fixtures in the hallway, as well as the red furnace in the bathroom, have been taken away for the benefit of the emperor and the war, because brass is needed for the cannons, and everything the soldiers need has to be there for them. As a result the family has to give up many things, now a mortar made of iron standing in the kitchen, all black and unable to be polished to a sheen, as the mother looks at it sadly, though Fräulein Reimann says that is their duty to the fatherland, and after the war is over and won everything will be right again.

Frau Machleidt comes for a day or two each month to do the sewing, and she also goes to Ludwig’s mother and others, so that she has enough work in general, sewing shirts and underwear and repairing most anything, since one has to scrimp these days, and one rarely buys new clothes. Frau Machleidt doesn’t go to Bubi’s house, for Tata sews everything there, making clothes for Kitti and for Bubi’s mother and herself that Frau Machleidt doesn’t know how to make, though the latter sews faster than Tata, everyone ending up happy with the situation, for Frau Machleidt doesn’t take breaks, Anna placing the midmorning snack and coffee on the sewing machine, where Frau Machleidt eats with one hand and sews with the other. Josef likes to go in and watch her, for Frau Machleidt likes to talk with him and explains how the sewing machine works, a thread running down from above and up from below in order to hold everything togther nice and tight.

Josef always wants to see what it looks like when the machine turns, because he likes to see the thread wind onto the shuttle since it’s so wonderful to see, and Frau Machleidt does just that. Her life had once been happier, when her husband, who was as good as Josef’s own father, was alive, everyone liking Herr Machleidt, but when Helmut was one his father became very sick, and several doctors were consulted, each of them shaking his head and saying, Dear Frau Machleidt, you must prepare yourself for the worst, though she continued to hope, because her husband had been so strong, and she loved him very much, and prayed to God above to make Herr Machleidt healthy again, but it did no good, as the sickness got worse and worse, and the doctors could do no more. Then Herr Machleidt died peacefully in his sleep, and she was alone with the children amid dire need, thus Josef should be thankful because he still had his dear parents, or so said Frau Machleidt, for you have only one set of parents, otherwise there are only stepparents, though Frau Machleidt never wanted to marry again, not wanting a stepfather for the children, because she didn’t think it was good for them, at which Aunt Gusti grew annoyed and said, “Even complete strangers are sometimes better than your own parents. Frau Machleidt is unreasonable, and not everyone has such good parents as you do, Josef.” Frau Machleidt didn’t take it well when Josef told her what Aunt Gusti had said. “Child, that is mean of you. You shouldn’t just spit out anything that you hear.” Josef doesn’t know why he shouldn’t do that, because the mother always says that you shouldn’t keep secrets, especially a child, nor does Josef want others to do so, because he wants to know everything.

Bubi and Ludwig have lots of secrets and often tell them to Josef, saying that he can’t tell them to anyone else, though he doesn’t agree, which is why he never swears to, refusing to commit to either his most earnest or even most casual word of honor, though he does say, “If you don’t want to tell me, then I don’t have to know.” Then they tell him everything anyway, after which Bubi says, “If you tell anyone, you’re a no-good creep, and I’ll be mad at you.” Josef doesn’t want that and therefore he says nothing, even though he hasn’t promised anything, and it wouldn’t be a sin if he did say something, but he betrays nothing. Josef believes that real secrets are only those you keep to yourself, and they are only what you believe and would say to no one, because you wouldn’t know what to say if you did, and such secrets will exist until you know everything, but even then you’ll know how everything is and how it is not, and you’ll be able to say just how it is so, but when you’re young you still have to search for the truth and ask questions, and, when no one wants to tell you, you have to ask again and again until you have learned everything and know it all.

The mother knows almost everything, but Josef is uncertain whether the father does, because the father has so much to do, and when you are allowed to talk to him he is so tired that you can’t ask him any kind of hard question, as he says, “Child, that’s what books are for, or ask someone at school.” Aunt Gusti knows a great deal, since she is a teacher, but she doesn’t know enough, because she says, “You never stop learning. You have to keep applying yourself in order to learn from more gifted people.” Aunt Betti doesn’t believe that and says, “I don’t need to know everything. Everyone knows enough for himself. That’s enough for me.” The grandmother knows a lot, for she remembers the father when he was little and much more that happened before then, but she doesn’t like that Josef asks so many questions. “You’ll soon see. We do the best we can for you.” Fräulein Reimann also knows a good deal, but she has too little time and has to explain everything to the entire class, and because many of them don’t understand she has to repeat herself ten times, and yet still the children don’t know anything, thus making the teacher mad when she has to give them bad grades. Anna doesn’t know much, but she says, “I don’t need to know a lot. Whoever works doesn’t have to have a lot in his head. But Angela was such a clever child that she astounded people with how gifted she was as a little girl.”

Bubi always says that all girls are dumb, only Kitti is smart and will marry a prince who will carry her off in his carriage, but she’s still a little girl, younger than Angela was, and she knows very little, though Tata is very proud of her, since Kitti can already count to ten, as Tata says, “What a little scamp! No one even taught her. She learned it all by herself.” But Kitti certainly didn’t learn it all by herself, for it was Bubi who showed her again and again, showing her on the adding machine in order to teach Kitti, for she couldn’t do it on her own. Bubi also thinks that Tata is not too smart, otherwise she wouldn’t work so much, though whoever is clever is paid a lot, like his father, who is a director, everyone having to call him Herr Director, though he’s not the same as the director of a school. Bubi thinks that if he doesn’t become a general he’ll be a director, though general is much better, at which Bubi asks Josef what he wants to be. Josef, however, doesn’t want to say that he’d really like to be a streetcar conductor, that it’s the best job, because you ride through the city all day and see so many people, as he’s embarrassed and worried that Bubi will laugh at him, so he says that he doesn’t know.

Fräulein Jedlitschka knows hardly anything, and everyone agrees that she’s so dumb that she can only play games and nothing more, for she is so bad at darning socks that the grandmother says she has to redo them herself, because the Fräulein mends the holes with thread in such a way that they all rip open again and are worse yet. Now the girl has to go away because she has taken something, and there’s nothing worse than taking things without asking permission, though Josef doesn’t know what the girl has taken, and Anna has not told him. “That’s none of my business. That’s your mother’s business. I’ve never taken anything. I worked for eight years for Angela’s parents.” On Sunday the family sits together and talks about the nanny, and the mother says, “There’s a saying in English that one should never take as much as a needle. Josef, there’s nothing worse in the world than to take something that doesn’t belong to you.” The father then says, “The child doesn’t understand at all, Mella. We shouldn’t involve him in this business. Josef, run along and play.” The mother replies, “You’re right, Papa.” And then the grandmother, “Get rid of her, I say, get rid of her! No one wants to be looking over your shoulder all the time.” But Aunt Betti says, “That will cause bad blood. You should give the nanny a letter tomorrow morning in which you suggest that she should look for a new position, since, unfortunately, you have to dispense with her services.” Yet Aunt Gusti says, “Excessive kindness is also wrong. You just have to say to her without insulting her, ‘We’re sorry, Fräulein Jedlitschka, but we’ve decided to let you go at the end of the month. Please make the necessary arrangements.’ ” The father, however, disagrees. “I like a clean slate. I will give the nanny her last pay tomorrow and say that she doesn’t need to come back.” And then everyone says, “That’s much too good a deal. You’d have to say so yourself, Oskar!” The grandmother then says, “If you’re going to pay her what she has coming, then she should work for it as well. Everything needs to come to a good end, and then nothing more will come of it.” The mother agrees, and no one else is against it, all of them agreed, all of them saying that there will not be another nanny, for they are done with nannies.

Now Fräulein Jedlitschka has to play somewhere else, with another child, so Josef wants to make sure to hide his toys so that she doesn’t take any away with her, but in reality he is sad, though he’s also glad, because Bubi can’t stand her and says a proper young man doesn’t need any such thing, he’d rather have a butler to wait on him. But butlers don’t exist anymore, because there are no more men available for work, and even in the streetcar there are now female conductors who wear uniforms exactly like male conductors, and have a proper badge and wear a gray jacket like men, though they don’t wear pants, the grandmother saying, “It’s a scandal that they run around like that. In my day one would never have let a woman be gawked at on the street.” But Aunt Gusti says it’s great for the women, there’s no reason for them to be ashamed, and the mother also thinks that the women are just fine. She bemoans the fact of how proper her parents were, otherwise she would have studied medicine, and then Georg Diamant and Herr Machleidt would still be alive, and the mother would be of much greater use in the hospital, for she would then be an orthopedic doctor, but her good father had only allowed her to study to be a good nurse and a certified gymnastics teacher and masseuse, because those were female occupations, though Aunt Betti says, “A proper woman belongs at home. It’s scandalous that women must do everything these days, for the man is the breadwinner of the family. A real woman belongs at the stove. The war is to blame. My Paul would never have allowed during normal times that I should slave away in a store, and do it all on my own, though I do it because Oskar means so much to me.” Aunt Gusti then adds, “I have no problem with women entering any profession and not just remaining done-up dolls who don’t know how to do anything. You can trudge through life like Frau Machleidt, but how much better it would go for her if someone had taught her how to properly cut cloth. Then she wouldn’t have to go from house to house looking for any work she can find.… She could have her own dress salon.” Aunt Betti replies, “You wouldn’t talk so if you had married!” This really upsets Aunt Gusti, and the mother thinks it’s all terrible talk and doesn’t understand why Aunt Betti has to hurt Aunt Gusti so, but the father has had enough and laughs and says something in partial Czech, which no one understands: “zum Pukken prasken.”

Then everyone plays tarot, including the father, the grandmother, and the aunts, but not the mother, she doesn’t like cards that much, and the father also says that she plays so badly that she can’t tell the king from the queen. Josef would indeed like to play as well, but that’s not allowed when everyone is there, they want to play themselves, and so they say that tarot is not a game for children, who have only two card games they can play, Black Peter and Quartet. Josef doesn’t have any Black Peter cards, and whenever Bubi and other children come over they play Black Peter with tarot cards, which means he uses The Fool for Black Peter, but he has only three quartets—a flower quartet, a composer’s quartet, and then one that is really beautiful, which is called The Age of Greatness. On it are the emperors of Austria and Germany, as well as the king of Bulgaria and the sultan, this quartet being called The State Leaders of the Middle Countries, though there are also enemy leaders, namely the czar of Russia, the kings of England and Italy, and the president of France, in addition to all the heroes, lots of archdukes and princes, field marshals and generals, admirals, U-boat commanders and fighter pilots, all the friendly ones adorned with flags and oak leaves, while all the enemies have loads of weapons, Bubi liking the quartet so much that his mother gave him one as well for his birthday, which pleased him no end.

Fräulein Jedlitschka is now gone, and she didn’t take anything of Josef’s, but instead everything went smoothly as through thick tears she said goodbye to the mother, whom she said she would never forget, she was so grateful, it was the nicest time of her entire life, the mother also deeply moved as they shook hands for the longest time. “Thank you so much. I wish you much future happiness, and I hope you have a wonderful life.” Then the girl kissed the mother’s hand and was gone, even though she never looked at Josef again. But the mother doesn’t like having her hand kissed and never allows Anna to do so, though Anna wants to very much, especially whenever she receives a nice gift, for the mother always says, “A genuine grown-up doesn’t do that and doesn’t need for it to be done. One should express one’s gratitude through simple respect.”

Now that Fräulein Jedlitschka is gone, Josef is alone more often, but he likes to be alone, for that gives him the chance to read many books, and the mother lets him take some from the bookshelves, though not just any and always just one at a time. Josef is now at Aunt Gusti’s more frequently than before, since she suggested that she could help the mother more with taking care of him. The mother is so stressed of late, since she is often at the hospital for the entire day, there being ever more wounded soldiers who need a massage. Which means that Anna has to do everything at home, with only the grandmother to help her out now and then, though everyone is happy with Anna, she’s a wonderful cook, and the mother has only to tell her what needs to be done and she does it as well as can be done in the midst of this war. Bubi’s father is also now enlisted, a first lieutenant, though he doesn’t, thank God, have to go to the battlefield itself, since he has a stiff leg, so instead he trains recruits on the exercise fields, Bubi only sorry that he can’t be there, though his mother says, “Don’t think, Bubi, that it’s any great thrill trudging along with a bunch of farmer boys who don’t know what right or left is!” However, Bubi demonstrates how well he can march, since he is the best at gymnastics in his class, and he understands all the commands and barks out orders loud enough to make the panes rattle in the windows.

The father’s store is now closed, because he doesn’t have enough goods to sell and it’s not worth opening each day just for repairs, and since one makes so little off them they’re nothing but a bother. Now the father spends a lot more time at the garden plot with Wenzel, who has built a wooden shack there, though most mornings the father goes to work with the war blind. He shows them how they can earn their daily bread, though of late it’s been difficult to do even this, as paper leather cannot be found, for despite the father’s running from one official to the next, he still comes back empty-handed. Meanwhile Ludwig’s father is at last home, having been granted a long leave, and Ludwig’s mother hopes that he never has to go back to the field, for he’s so miserable, even though his wounds are light, just a bit of shrapnel, though they had ulcerated badly, someone calling them boils, for they hadn’t been treated right. The mother says that it’s a shame, as she scoffs at every diagnosis, knowing how unsanitary the field hospitals are, and how bad things happen to the wounded there that need not happen at all, some getting gangrene, for whom almost all hope is lost, thus causing many brave soldiers to die. But luckily Ludwig’s father has no gangrene, only boils that cause a lot of pain. Josef knows just what it feels like, for he once had boils and had trouble sitting, and the doctor said that they were caused by undigested cornmeal, after which all kinds of things were mixed in with it and Josef had to eat rusk biscuits, as well as being prescribed extra milk, but since he didn’t like to drink it the mother told Anna to make it into pudding, which he liked very much.

Breaks from school are frequent now, even if they are not vacations, mainly because so many children are sick that half the class is missing. At other times there’s no school for other reasons, such as if there is no coal and the furnace cannot be lit, or there are fewer and fewer class hours, as well as another school being set up in Josef’s school as several classrooms are turned over to the many wounded, since fewer and fewer students come to school. But Ludwig’s father is not in any school, he’s fine at home, even if he spends a lot of time lying down, and he just has a leave since it was only boils, though that is not the only thing that exists in the field hospital. Dysentery has also broken out, and it is a very bad sickness that weakens men entirely, such that they can hardly sleep or keep any food down, many of them dying. Everyone says that Ludwig’s father is very lucky, for though he’s a bit weak, he’s getting stronger and is sitting up in bed and in an armchair, but no one is allowed to visit him and Josef doesn’t go to see him, only the father having visited once with the mother after he said, “At least we should make an appearance in case they need anything that I can get for them.” Then they visited and took along some real coffee and a little cocoa. Ludwig’s mother was so happy that she sent Josef a lovely book the next day, Ludwig bringing it to him.

Josef is very fond of Ludwig of late, and Ludwig comes over a lot in order that his father has more quiet for himself, which means that Josef sees less of Bubi, who doesn’t want to come over when Ludwig is there, it being awful that time when Bubi came by once and at the door asked Anna, “Is Ludwig in there?” Anna had replied, “Come on in, Bubi, Ludwig is already with Josef inside.” Then Bubi made a terrible face and slammed the door so hard that Anna almost fainted, later telling the mother that she wasn’t going to take that from some little squirt, she simply won’t let him in the next time he comes around, and that will be easy to do, as there’s a peephole in the door, just like at the panorama, though only one, Wenzel always being the one to install things in the apartment, and in this case he had made a little cover out of leather for the peephole which you had to push to the side when you wanted to look through and see who was outside, the parents having reminded Anna to be very careful and make sure the chain was engaged and that Anna should let in no one she didn’t know, even if he said he was collecting on behalf of the wounded or for the emperor and held some kind of list in his hand, and also if he said he was from the Red Cross, not to mention never a complete stranger, for there were so many bad people running around and taking advantage of people’s good intentions, and you hear terrible reports of attacks and of people being beaten because they were not careful enough. Josef should never open the door or even come to it, even if someone rings twice, for untrustworthy people also know how to make such a sign, and no one knows who is really standing on the steps outside. Anna has also become cautious, and she says that her life is much too precious to hand over to such a scoundrel, so she trusts no one as long as this war persists. But there’s no reason for Anna not to allow Bubi in, says the mother, and she will speak with his mother in order to make sure that such rudeness doesn’t happen again, and that Bubi apologizes to Anna for his misbehavior. To that Anna had said that she wasn’t nobility, so no one had to apologize to her, but Bubi just had to not be so fresh in the future and she would let him in. Indeed, Ludwig was pleased that Bubi had been so fresh, but only because he hadn’t been allowed in. “Bubi can be so snotty,” Ludwig says. “He thinks that he’s better than all the other kids because his father is now a first lieutenant. But he hides out by the goulash cannons, where there is no shrapnel. Bubi just marches around and won’t talk to anyone, nor does anyone want anything to do with him. He struts like a peacock.” But Josef is still very fond of Bubi, who yesterday gave him half a pomegranate, it being the first time he’d ever tasted one, at which Ludwig said, “If he had given me ten pomegranates, I would have tossed them right back. He can have them all to himself.”

One time the father says that things are bad, he doesn’t believe any longer that the emperor can win the war. “It’s all rotten through and through.” Josef then asks what will happen if the emperor loses the war. “I don’t know, son. But I’d advise you not to say a word to anyone about what I said. Otherwise they could lock you up for treason, as well as your mother and me.” But no one at school says anything, they only collect more money for the war, and since victory is at hand and our glorious troops will soon return home in triumph we will want to welcome them in a grand fashion. The newspapers that arrive each morning also say everything is going well, all the articles talking about the victories that our brave troops have accomplished once again. Aunt Betti is thrilled that the war will soon come to an end, for then Uncle Paul will come home, as long as he is not taken prisoner at the last moment, which would of course be terrible, though she firmly believes that nothing will happen, because he writes so confidently that the outlook is good. Aunt Gusti has also taken on an extra responsibility assumed by all women of the fatherland, namely to visit the war widows, as she tries to comfort them by observing how miserable it is everywhere and how it would really be best for the war to finally be over, saying, “Better a bad end than no end at all!” Every day she runs around, and when she has no lessons she has a list of addresses to visit, and she does what she can for the widows, learning in the process how bad things really are everywhere.

At school Hugo Treml says that his father has been awarded the Signum Laudis, which is a great honor for the entire family, Josef’s mother having said so as well, for which they have a small party and drink rose-hip wine that the mother made herself, Josef also getting a small glass, the wine itself so sweet and sparkling as they toast the uncle and the emperor, convinced that victory is near, everyone proud of the uncle, Fräulein Reimann saying, “Your uncle is really something, Treml. You and all the children should follow his example. But even if you don’t have a Signum Laudis you can still be a good man and still aspire to be something. In these terrible times the children should above all be thankful and cause their parents no worry. Everyone has to use their last bit of strength and each do what he can!” Only Eiberheit laughs in response from the last bench, which makes the teacher very mad as she replies, “You should be ashamed to laugh so! If everyone was as lazy as you and did nothing, we’d have no men at all who could be decorated with the Signum Laudis. If we didn’t have such heroes, your homeland would not still be free and we’d have the Russians here. And yet they’ve been cast out, and you can go back home with Pieposberger and Flamminger, who have already left.” Eiberheit, however, is not ashamed, though he doesn’t say another word and is completely quiet as the class looks around at him, while the next day he doesn’t come back to school, nor does he ever again, the teacher announcing one time, “Eiberheit has gone away with his mother and all his siblings without saying where to. That’s the way the Poles do it. But we don’t have to regret his departure.” Fräulein Reimann also says that the situation is serious enough that, even though Treml’s uncle had been decorated, people were going to have to store up for winter in order to make it through, each needing to help the other, the children needing to pitch in as well and not just play with their toys, for they need to be serious, because the times are so serious.

Josef now has terrible stomachaches that come on quite suddenly, at which he lies down on the sofa and holds his stomach, no one able to help him, though Anna is nice and brings him a warm compress, which she has carefully rolled up in a brown rag, so that Josef always has a compress on his stomach, though it continues to hurt. Aunt Gusti can’t believe that a stomach can hurt that much, for stomachaches are more of an annoyance than anything, but Josef doesn’t get the kind of upset stomachs that Aunt Gusti gets, his hurt lower down, the pain coming in sharp bursts, causing him to feel quite hot, and it’s no better if he closes his eyes, but he doesn’t want to keep them open, so he closes them anyway. Once a week Aunt Gusti has a migraine, for which she takes some powder that then causes her to barf, though the mother can’t stand that word and has forbidden Josef to use it, because she says it is foul and is used only by crass, vile people, even though Aunt Gusti has herself used it, and she’s not vile, only the migraines are vile. When they occur Aunt Gusti can no longer visit the war widows, but she can give lessons from her sofa, where she lies with a damp cloth that she continually freshens and places on her forehead, next to her on the floor a bucket of water into which she dips the cloth every half hour, wringing it out and laying it on her brow once again, the cool water helping a bit, though the aunt’s face remains entirely green and she looks like an old woman, her hair disheveled because she has so much hair and she has squashed it so while lying there, wearing a shabby yellow nightgown that’s seen better days, spots and stains all over it, the father not at all pleased with how the aunt lets herself go, though the mother says, “Don’t be so heartless, Oskar. One can’t help pitying Gusti. She has a heart of gold. Which is why you just have to forgive her for not being as fussy about her appearance when she has a migraine.” But the father replies, “She’s always a slob, not just when she has a migraine.” The mother doesn’t like it at all when the father talks about his sister that way, though Aunt Betti also believes that Aunt Gusti doesn’t take good enough care and often spills something on herself, or she always eats sour pickles, which don’t sit well with her, and even though they remind her of this a hundred times over, she won’t hear anything of it, there being no help for those who won’t listen.

When Aunt Gusti is so bad off, the grandmother comes and cooks for her and helps out in the house, but even when the aunt is so ill she still gives lessons, though some children dread coming to her and want to get away as soon as they can, migraines being a terrible sickness, the aunt continuing to take medicine that helps only a little. Josef doesn’t understand how doctors are worth anything, for they can’t do anything to help most illnesses, and maybe Tata is right when she says, “Nature has its own healing ways.” Josef asks the mother why there are doctors at all if they know so little about how to heal sickness, and if perhaps a book like The Housewife as Doctor isn’t enough in itself, since everything is inside it, though the mother explains that medicine is actually the greatest science and art one can practice, there is not a more wonderful profession anywhere, for nowhere else can you help so many people, and without doctors things would be much worse, advances are continually being made. For example, when the mother was as old as Josef is now there was hardly any way of filling teeth, so they just had to be ripped out, which hurts a lot, and isn’t it wonderful how today you can be X-rayed if you break a foot, which was once not possible, the bones often not healing properly as a result. “Many illnesses that cannot yet be healed today will perhaps be able to be healed when you grow up and are a doctor yourself.”

But it will be a while before Josef has to decide about becoming a doctor, though this week his birthday will be on Thursday, and since there is school that afternoon the party is held off until Saturday, and for the most part is organized by Aunt Betti. Yet first thing on Thursday a birthday table is laid out with a proper birthday cake on it, a bean cake, which Anna says tastes almost like an almond cake, this one homemade and filled with real marmalade, which the father says tastes like soap, while on top of the cake is written “For Josef,” Anna having written it with sugar, eight burning candles encircling it, since Josef is now eight, he only tasting a little bit of the cake in order that it doesn’t give him a stomachache, though he gets lots of fancy presents, the aunts and the grandmother having sent over their gifts, both toys and practical things, some books, and lots of sweet things to eat. Josef is happy, and it’s good that he doesn’t have school until the afternoon, for that allows him to play with all his presents, after which he can tell the others in the class what he got, how good his parents are, he announcing to Fräulein Reinmann, “Today’s my birthday!” The teacher laughs and says, “How wonderful. Happy birthday, and I hope that you always bring your loving parents great joy!”

All the relatives come to the children’s birthday party, except the grandmother, because she says, “I can’t stand so much ruckus. But to make up for it we’ll go to the panorama.” All the others arrive, and Aunt Betti is particularly excited, for she has arranged it all with Anna so that it will all come off well, for these days it’s very hard to have a birthday party. They all have on their best clothes, Anna having put together a white frock with some lace the mother lent her.

Aunt Gusti wants to play something on the piano and the mother wants to sing along, but first Josef has to recite a poem that Aunt Betti has written herself, which is about a special pond full of presents, each child needing to fish one out, as the poem explains:

Give it a try, and here’s a plan:

Reel in the best thing that you can.

Aunt Betti is proud of having written the poem, the father saying, as always when she writes a special birthday poem, that she has a poetic streak in her. For his grandmother’s birthday Josef has to memorize a poem, upon which he goes to her, dressed in his best suit, holding a flower in his right hand, the grandmother completely surprised as she sits at a table covered with a white cloth. The grandmother looks Josef in the eye, and as the mother gives him a sign to begin, he recites the poem, after which he gives her the bouquet, the grandmother’s face flooding with happiness as she kisses him and gives him a little something in appreciation.

But Josef must recite the poem about the magic pond because little gifts have been prepared for everyone, though they could be nicer than they actually are. Nonetheless, all the gifts are wrapped and a large loop is attached to each little packet, a fishing pole devised from a cane that is much larger than the one that Fräulein Jedlitschka used, and on the pole there is a line that doesn’t have a magnet attached to it but rather a hook that is then used to hook the loops of the little packets when anyone fishes for them, the packets piled up in a corner of the dining room, which serves as the magic pond. Anna reminisces how Angela also used to have birthday parties, and she was so pretty and all dressed up, but those were better times, the children drinking real hot chocolate with whipped cream on top, which hasn’t been available for years, since there is hardly any real milk, the father complaining that they are always thinning it with more water, such that it can’t even develop a proper skin. Meanwhile the doorbell rings, again and again, more and more children arriving who are brought along by someone, though only the children can stay, the grown-ups heading off and asking when they should pick them up, as they remind the children to behave and always say thank you, and not to cause trouble no matter what, so that they’ll be invited back again.

Anna and the mother are outside in the foyer, the chain no longer on, since so many keep arriving and the children able to be heard as they come up the steps, as Anna opens the door before they even ring, and the children are led into the living room, all of them dressed up in their good clothes. Bubi and Kitti are there, as well as Ludwig, and though they act as if they don’t know each other, they don’t make a fuss, many other children also there whom Josef has played with in the park, a number of them having a younger brother or sister who is very small and hardly talks at all, Ernst with the long hair also there, and classmates such as Hugo Treml, though there are also other children Josef doesn’t know at all, or just barely, they being not from his school or from the park but belonging to friends of his aunts. These children are very well-mannered and don’t speak to anyone unless a grown-up asks them something, Paul Wetzler being such a child, who belongs to a friend of Aunt Gusti’s, though Josef had visited him once and still recalled the birthday party they had put on, the Wetzlers being very rich. They had a real magician, who stood on a table and did many tricks with a watch and with cards and with a diabolo and with balls and with handkerchiefs and with eggs, though they weren’t real eggs but white stones, the magician also pulling gifts for the children out of his hat, then calling up each child and, strangely enough, presenting him with a gift, the smaller children afraid of the magician, though he said that he wouldn’t hurt them and no one should be afraid.

Once the children are all gathered together in the living room, the mother says that she hopes they will all get along and have a fine time today, because Josef turned eight the day before yesterday, and everyone hopes that he’ll be a fine young man. The children listen quietly as the mother speaks, though they don’t pay attention much, many looking around and making funny faces. Then Aunt Gusti tells everyone to pay attention, because she is going to play something on the piano by Robert Schumann, who was a great composer who wrote lots of beautiful music, and because he loved children so he had written music for them, even though he wrote other music that was not especially for children, because it was too difficult and was instead just about children, though that which he had written for children is delightful, and from which the aunt would like to play, as she proceeds to present three pieces, one of which is called “The Merry Peasant.” A little girl about the same age as Kitti, but much dumber, immediately begins to cry and says that she wants to go home, Aunt Betti going to her and telling her that she has to be quiet so that others can hear the music, saying that she must behave, because afterward there will be many good things to eat and lots of surprises, after which she is quiet and only sniffles. Then Aunt Gusti is soon done at the piano, and as she finishes, all of the children cheer and clap, pleasing the aunt deeply, after which she says that she was happy to play, especially as it brought pleasure to others. And then the mother begins to sing, Aunt Gusti accompanying her as they do a number of lovely songs, such as “The Mill Wheel Turns” and “Do You Know How Many Stars There Are?” Josef loves these songs, and the children are pleased as well, all of them singing with soft, sweet voices, though the grown-ups like to sing, too, there being once a month a pleasant musical evening put on by the soldiers at the hospital, Josef having been allowed to go the last time, when a man in a tuxedo had played a piano and his mother had sung and everyone applauded loudly, while those who could not clap because they were missing a hand had loudly called out “Bravo! Bravo!” and the mother had to sing another song and yet another, as she grew more and more pleased and smiled, until finally she said so sweetly that she could do no more, for there was lots more to come on the program, though she hoped she would have the chance to sing again if it pleased others for her to do so.

The mother had sung only three songs for the children, ending with “Sweetheart Mine,” after which it was time, Aunt Betti anxious to move things along, Anna having already quietly opened the door four times to place two pitchers on the table, which today is set and doesn’t have any dish towels on it, but rather a real tablecloth, the pitchers sitting there full of cocoa, as well as a proper cake made of flour, which no one has anymore, as well as cookies and gingerbread stars, all of the children surprised as Aunt Betti exclaims, “So, children, you’ve listened so sweetly. But you don’t have to keep listening forever. Now it’s time to talk and eat!” Everyone helps out and leads the children to the long table, and for the smallest who are too little there are chairs with high pillows so that the little tots sit no lower than the bigger kids and they can all reach across the table with their hands. As they all sit there in front of their plates and stare at the cups full of cocoa, and as the mother and Aunt Gusti place cake on the plates and hand out sweets, the children look pleased and happy just to see the way the steam rises from the cups, the mother laughing with delight and saying, “All right, help yourselves and enjoy!” Then they all eat and drink, and soon there are stains on the white tablecloth, but no one scolds them, the grown-ups not even sitting down, as today they are the servants and the children are the masters, the adults serving them, though the father looks exhausted and sits in a corner, the mother bringing him a cup of cocoa that he holds in his hand, now and then taking a sip, though he eats nothing, nor do the other grown-ups, since they are too busy and Aunt Betti’s face is bloodred.

Finally the children have eaten everything, Anna starts clearing the table, the others helping, and then the table is shoved aside so that there is more space in the living room, all of the chairs placed in a row, as they begin to play games, though someone announces that two children have to go out, which they do, after which the musical chairs continues, but then one chair is knocked over so hard that it breaks, which will give Wenzel something to fix, as Aunt Betti says, “Children, that’s too wild! This won’t do! We need to play some games that are a little less lively!” And then Bubi says that he and Kitti have a big surprise, which he had said nothing about because Tata had said that he shouldn’t, but that now Kitti would like to dance and Bubi would accompany her on the harmonica, to which the mother says, “How wonderful of you both to play something for our party! Go ahead and begin!” And so Bubi begins to blow on his harmonica as loud as he can, though he’s not that loud, since a harmonica is not as loud as an accordion, as Kitti begins to dance around so strangely, lowering her skirt and raising first one leg and then the other like a chicken in the yard, and then she lowers the skirt again and spreads her hands wide, the mother and the aunts saying how charming she is, some of the other children pleased as well, the father laughing, though some of the children don’t pay attention and just sit there biting their fingernails. Josef doesn’t like the dance and such dumb blowing on the harmonica, for he never thought of Bubi as being so childish, especially since he wanted to be a general, and Ludwig comes over to Josef and says, “This dancing is stupid. Now you see what an idiot Bubi is.” Josef half believes so himself, but he won’t admit it to Ludwig, who has upset him by saying that, so Josef doesn’t say a word. But finally the dance is over, almost everyone delighted and amazed by Kitti as they praise her, saying oh, how graceful, what a surprise, and Aunt Betti kisses Kitti on the forehead, though Bubi says that Tata had known that it would be precious, which is why she had sewn this dress special from an old nightgown with lace in order that one be able to dance well within it, to which Kitti adds, “I danced real nice! I danced real nice! I danced real nice!” Then the mother says, “If I understand correctly, my dear, you danced very well!”

Then the doorbell rings again and Anna comes in saying that Frau Wetzler’s nanny is there and Paul must head home already, as Aunt Betti says, “Yes indeed, it’s getting late, but the nanny should wait a minute. We’re almost through here.” And then the aunt says that it’s time for the biggest surprise of all, one that will certainly please everybody, with something the children will never forget. Then Josef recites the poem that Aunt Betti has written, as she also opens the door to the next room, right at the conclusion of the final line, “Reel in the best thing that you can!,” while Josef makes an inviting gesture with his hand, pointing to the door, just as he and Aunt Betti had rehearsed in order that it look really elegant, it having taken a long time to get right. Then everyone goes into the next room, each child getting a turn with the pole as he is blindfolded and has to fish for a packet, while outside the bell rings more and more often, the foyer grows full, as well as the entire apartment, more and more people arriving, all of the children needing to head home, such that they give up on the blindfold in order to wrap up the magic pond more quickly, though it still takes too long, and the father says, “Whoever doesn’t have a present yet should just grab one, though please, one at a time!” Then all the children do indeed have a present, though there are some left over, since there had been so many, and more children had been invited than had come. Now the last guests finally leave, but the foyer is still full of people looking for the children’s coats, until everything is sorted out and the last step down the stairs is heard.

And once all the guests have left, how tired everyone is, the entire apartment a shambles, the place hardly recognizable, several things having been broken, not just the chair that Wenzel will have to fix but also two glasses that Wenzel can do nothing with. Then the aunts also say goodbye, Aunt Gusti telling the mother, “Mella, you need to finally get that piano tuned.” Then there is only the mother and the father, Anna off in the kitchen, washing lots of silverware, though the mother soon joins her, saying that she’ll help, as she thanks Anna for being such a dear, for there couldn’t have been any party without her. Anna says that she was happy to do it, she also had fun, but back when things were better, when Anna lived with Angela, one could hire an extra maid to help out, something that will happen only when there is finally peace once again, though Anna cannot believe that life will ever be as good as it was before the war. The father is simply dead tired and says, “If the only trouble is that one can’t have a children’s birthday party, then as far as I’m concerned the war can go on forever. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.” Josef is also very tired, but he looks to see what presents are left in the magic pond, since now they are his, then he sits down in the rocking chair, slowly rocking back and forth for a while, it feeling like when he rides along in a streetcar or on a train, and he rides along until his eyes close and he falls asleep.