THE LOAN
Father generally went to a lot of trouble at Christmas. It was admittedly particularly difficult at that time to get over the fact that we were unemployed. Other festivals you either celebrated or you didn’t; but Christmas was something you lived for, and when it finally came you held on to it; and as for the shop windows, they often couldn’t bring themselves to part from their chocolate Father Christmases even in January.
It was the dwarves and the Kasperles that did it for me particularly. If Father was there, I would look away; but that was more conspicuous than staring at them; and so gradually I started to look at the shops again.
Father was not insensitive to the shop window displays either, he just hid it better. Christmas, he said, was a festival of joy; the important thing now was not to be sad, even if one didn’t have any money.
“Most people,” Father said, “are just happy on the first and second days of Christmas, maybe again later at New Year. But that’s not enough; you have to start the being happy at least a month before. At New Year,” Father said, “you can feel free to be sad again; for it is never nice when a year simply goes, just like that. But now, before Christmas, being sad is inappropriate.”
Father himself always made a big effort not to be sad around this time of year; but for some reason he found it harder than I did; probably because he no longer had a father who could say to him what he always said to me. And things would definitely also have been much easier if Father had still had his job. He would even have worked as an assistant lab technician now; but they didn’t need any assistant lab technicians at the moment. The director had said that he could certainly stay in the museum, but for work he would have to wait until better times.
“And when will that be, do you think?” Father had asked.
“I don’t want to upset you,” the director had said.
Frieda had had better luck; she had been taken on as a kitchen help in a large pub on Alexanderplatz and had also got lodgings there straight away. It was quite pleasant for us not to be with her constantly; now we saw each other only at lunchtime and in the evening she was much nicer.
But on the whole we didn’t live badly. For Frieda kept us well supplied with food and if it was too cold at home, we went over to the museum; and when we had looked at all the exhibits, we would lean against the heating underneath the dinosaur skeleton, look out the window or start up a conversation with the museum attendant about breeding rabbits.
So actually it was entirely fitting that the year be brought to an end in peace and tranquility. That was, if Father hadn’t worried so much about a Christmas tree. It came up quite suddenly.
We had just collected Frieda from the pub and walked her home and lain down in bed, when Father slammed shut his book, Brehm’s Life of Animals, which he still used to read in the evening, and called over to me, “Are you asleep yet?”
“No,” I said, because it was too cold to sleep.
“It’s just occurred to me,” Father said, “we need a Christmas tree, don’t we?” He paused for a second and waited for my answer.
“Do you think so?” I said.
“Yes,” Father said, “and a proper, pretty one at that; not one of those wee ones that falls over as soon as you hang so much as a walnut on it.”
At the word walnut I sat up. Maybe we could also get some gingerbread biscuits to hang on it as well?
Father cleared his throat. “God—” he said, “why not; we’ll talk to Frieda.”
“Maybe Frieda knows someone who would give us a tree too,” I said.
Father doubted it. In any case: the kind of tree he had in mind no one would give away, it would be a treasure, a treat.
Would it be worth one mark, I wanted to know.
“One mark?!” Father snorted through his nose scornfully, “Two at least!”
“And where is this tree?”
“See,” Father said, “that’s just what I’m wondering.”
“But we can’t actually buy it though,” I said. “Two marks: Where could you possibly get that money?”
Father lifted the paraffin lamp and looked around the room. I knew he was wondering whether there was anything else he could take to the pawn shop; but everything had already gone, even the gramophone; I had cried so much when the fellow behind the grille had shuffled away with it.
Father put the lamp back down and cleared his throat. “Go to sleep now; I’ll have a think about the situation.”
The next few days we simply hung around the Christmas tree stalls. Tree after tree grew legs and walked off; but we still didn’t have one.
“Could we not—?” I asked on the fifth day, once we were leaning against the heating in the museum underneath the dinosaur skeleton again.
“Could we what?” Father asked sharply.
“I mean, should we not just try to get a normal tree?”
“Are you mad?!” Father was indignant. “Maybe one of those cabbage stalks that you don’t know afterward if it’s supposed to be a sweeping brush or a toothbrush? Out of the question.”
But it was no good; Christmas was getting closer and closer. At first the forests of Christmas trees in the streets were still well stocked; but gradually they developed clearings, and one afternoon we watched as the fattest Christmas tree seller on Alexanderplatz, Strapping- Jimmy, sold his last little tree, a real matchstick of a tree, for three marks fifty, spat on the money, jumped on his bike and cycled off.
Now we did begin to feel sad. Not very sad; but at any rate it was enough for Frieda to furrow her brows even more than she usually did and ask us what was up.
We had got used to keeping our troubles to ourselves, but not this time; and Father told her.
Frieda listened carefully. “That’s it?”
We nodded.
“You’re funny,” Frieda said. “Why don’t you just go to the Grunewald forest and steal one?”
I have seen Father outraged many times, but never as outraged as he was this evening.
He went pale as chalk. “Are you serious?” he asked hoarsely.
Frieda was very surprised. “Of course,” she said, “that’s what everyone does.”
“Everyone!” Father echoed, “everyone!” He stood up stiffly and took my hand. “You’ll permit me,” he said, “to take the boy home first before I give you the answer that deserves.”
He never gave her the answer. Frieda was sensible; she played along with Father’s prudery and the next day she apologized.
But it didn’t make any difference; we still didn’t have a tree, never mind the stately tree Father had in mind.
But then—it was December 23 and we had just taken up our usual position under the dinosaur skeleton—inspiration struck Father.
“Do you have a spade?” he asked the museum attendant, who had nodded off next to us on his folding chair.
“What?!” he yelled with a start, “Do I have a what?!”
“A spade, man,” Father said impatiently, “do you have a spade?”
Yes, he had one.
I looked up at Father uncertainly. However he looked reasonably normal; only his gaze seemed a touch more unsteady than usual.
“Good,” he said then, “we’ll come back to your place tonight and you can lend it to us.”
It was later that night before I discovered what he had planned.
“Come on,” Father said and shook me, “get up.”
Still drowsy I crawled over the bars of the bed. “What on earth is going on?”
“Now listen,” Father said and stood in front of me, “stealing a tree, that’s bad; but borrowing one, that’s okay.”
“Borrowing?” I asked, blinking.
“Yes,” Father said. “We’re going to go to Friedrichshain park and dig up a blue spruce. We’ll put it in the bath in some water at home, celebrate Christmas with it tomorrow and then afterward we’ll plant it back in the same place. Well?” He gave me a piercing stare.
“A fantastic idea,” I said.
Humming and whistling we set off, Father with the spade on his back, me with a sack under my arm. Every now and then Father would stop whistling and we sang in two-part harmony, “Deck the Halls” and “The First Noel the Angel Did Say.” As always with such carols, Father had tears in his eyes and I too was in a very solemn mood.
Then Friedrichshain park appeared before us and we fell silent.
The blue spruce that Father had his eye on stood in the middle of a round flower bed of roses covered in straw. It was a good meter and a half tall and a model of regular growth.
As the earth was frozen only just under the surface it didn’t take long at all before Father had exposed the roots. Then we carefully tipped the tree over, put it roots first into the sack, Father hung his jacket over the end sticking out, we shoveled the earth back into the hole, spread straw over the top, Father loaded the tree onto his shoulder and we went home. Here we filled the big tin bath with water and put the tree in.
When I woke the next morning Father and Frieda were already busy decorating the tree. It had been fastened to the ceiling with string and Frieda had cut a selection of stars out of tinfoil which she was hanging on its branches; they looked very pretty. I also saw some gingerbread men hanging there. I didn’t want to spoil their fun; so I pretended I was still asleep. While I did, I thought about how I could repay them for their kindness. Eventually it occurred to me: Father had borrowed a Christmas tree, why shouldn’t I also manage to get a loan of our pawned gramophone for the holidays? I acted like I had just woken up, admired the tree in seemly fashion and then I got dressed and went out.
The pawnbroker was a horrible person, even the first time we were there and Father had given him his coat. I would have happily given him something else too; but now it was necessary to be friendly to him.
I also made a great effort. I told him a story of two grandmothers and “especially at Christmas” and “enjoying the old days one more time” and so on, and suddenly the pawnbroker struck out and clouted me one and said quite calmly, “I don’t care how much you fib otherwise; but at Christmas you tell the truth, got it?” Then he shuffled into the next room and brought out the gramophone. “But woe betide you if you break anything! And only for three days! And only because it’s you.”
I made a bow, so low that I nearly bumped my head against my kneecap; then I took the turntable under one arm, the horn under the other and ran back home.
First I hid both bits in the wash-kitchen. I did have to let Frieda in on the secret, for she had the records; but Frieda kept mum.
Frieda’s boss, the landlord of the pub, had invited us for lunch. There was impeccable noodle soup followed by mashed potato and giblets. We ate until we were unrecognizable; afterward in order to save coal we went to the museum and the dinosaur skeleton for a while; and in the afternoon Frieda came and collected us.
At home we lit a fire. Then Frieda brought out a huge bowl full of the leftovers of the giblets, three bottles of red wine and a square meter of Bienenstich cake. Father put his volume of Brehm’s Life of Animals on the table for me, and the moment he wasn’t looking I ran down to the wash kitchen and brought up the gramophone and told Father to face the other way.
He did as he was told; Frieda spread out the records and put the lights on, and I fixed the horn and wound the gramophone.
“Can I turn around yet?” Father asked; when Frieda had switched the light off he could stand it no longer.
“Wait a second,” I said, “this damn horn—I can’t get it to stay put!” Frieda coughed.
“What horn do you mean?” Father asked.
But then it started. It was “O Come Little Children;” it crackled a bit and the record obviously had a scratch, but that didn’t matter. Frieda and I sang along and then Father turned around. First he swallowed and rubbed his nose, but then he cleared his throat and sang along too. When the record was finished we shook hands and I told Father how I’d managed to get the gramophone. He was thrilled. “Well!” he kept on saying to Frieda and nodded at me as he did so, “well!”
It turned into a very lovely Christmas evening. First we sang and played all the records through; then we played them again without singing; then Frieda sang along with all of the records on her own; then she sang with Father again, and then we ate and finished the wine and after that we made some music; then we walked Frieda home and we went to bed too.
The next morning the tree stayed standing in all its finery. I was allowed to lie in bed and Father played gramophone music all night and whistled the harmony.
Then, the following night, we took the tree out of the bath, put it in the sack, still decorated with tinfoil stars, and took it back to Friedrichshain park. Here we planted it back in the round rose bed. Then we stamped the earth firm and went home. In the morning I took the gramophone away too.
We visited the tree frequently; the roots grew back again. The tinfoil stars hung in its branches for quite a while, some even until spring.
I went to see the tree again a few months ago. It’s now a good two stories high and has the circumference of a medium-sized factory chimney. It seems strange to think that we once invited it into our one-room apartment.
1958