Chapter 12

Late November – early December 1963

The essay competition was still on my mind when I woke. On the bus, I started jotting down some ideas and that continued through the school day. If I were to enter the competition, I had to finish the essay in the next couple of days. I told Col I had some ideas for the essay I wanted to talk through with her after we had finished our homework. We sat, me with some physics and Col with her history. Glancing over, I saw a picture of a Roman soldier.

“What era of Rome are you studying?” I asked.

“We’re not studying Rome; we’re exploring empires and my history teacher wants us to think about them from the perspective of the conquered people.”

I nodded for her to go on.

“I decided that as we had read De Bello Gallico, I would study the Roman Empire here in Britain and its effect on the native peoples of Britain.”

“That should be interesting. Will you be able to find enough material in the school library?”

“I looked at lunchtime, but I couldn’t find anything useful. I’m going to the town library tomorrow afternoon.”

“We could meet there if you like. I could do my homework and work on the essay whilst you researched.”

Col smiled. “That would be nice. I think Lili will come with me as she wants to study the Russian empire, in particular its colonisation of Poland.”

“Oh. But that’s still going on, isn’t it?”

Col’s face stilled as she thought about that. “I suppose so, but Lili wants to cover several centuries, as far as I understand her.”

“I don’t know much about the history of central Europe,” I mused.

“Well, it’s important to Lili, so I expect we’ll learn a bit more from her.” Col smiled. Lili had proved quite a talker with people she trusted.

We settled back into our work. Thermal physics only required a quick read to refresh my knowledge, despite the appalling imperial units and conversion factors. I pulled out my notes for the essay. Hiding underneath my current ideas was the assumption that there was a shared cultural language across Europe; without it, there would be no understanding. It is a truism that we are alike beneath the skin, but within Europe, for all the different languages and subtleties of Weltanschauung between countries, our similarities exceeded our differences. Perhaps that explained why European wars had always been so bitter – they were almost civil wars.

We worked together for an hour before Col pushed back her chair and stretched. “That’s enough for today. Let’s get supper cooking.”

I chopped carrots, swedes and turnips and Col cubed some skirt beef and browned it. Then it got dusted in seasoned flour and into the pressure cooker with beef stock. We’d add the vegetables later. Col pulled three decent-sized potatoes out of the sack in the larder and washed them.

“Aren’t you going to peel them?” I asked.

“What can you do with unpeeled potatoes?” She arched an eyebrow.

“Baked potatoes. Yum.”

“Yes indeed, but with a German twist, as you’ll see,” Col said as she set a clockwork timer for forty minutes, turning the oven on to warm up for the potatoes. She took my hand and led me into the lounge room to the sofa. “Can you think of something we can do to keep us occupied for forty minutes?”

Did they run secret classes for girls where they teach them how to gaze at you from under their eyelashes?

I picked up our book from the side table. That earned me a frown and a slap on the arm.

“You had something else in mind, my essay perhaps?” I asked with a smile, returning the book to the table.

“Stop teasing and come here.” Col’s frown disappeared as she grabbed my arm and pulled us closer together.

After quite some time spent sharing kisses, Col turned round, sitting in my lap, and leaning back, her head on my shoulder, relaxing back into me with a sigh.

We sat in intimate silence for a few minutes.

“You know, we are going to break our promise to Mutti,” Col murmured.

Oh, my.

I shifted Col so she did not crush delicate parts of my anatomy. “I don’t think we should do that.”

Col stirred and twisted round. “You don’t want to have sex with me?” Astonishment and a touch of anger vied with an embarrassed blush.

“Shh.” I placed a finger against her lips. “That’s not what I said – and no, I don’t want to have sex with you.”

Col frowned and I sighed. Even though we now spoke each other’s languages well, communication between the sexes still had its problems. “I want to make love with you, not have sex with you.”

Col relaxed.

“But I don’t think we should break our promise to Mutti Frida. When the time comes, we should tell her we are moving in that direction.”

“What? You want to tell my mother that we’re going to have sex ... er ... make love?” Col scrambled to the other end of the sofa, a mixture of fear, anger, and accusation on her face. “She’d lock me in my room and never let you in the house – or me out of it.”

I leaned towards her and took her hand. “If we spoke to her, I don’t think she would do that.”

Col’s face reflected her disbelief.

I tried a different tack. “What would happen if we broke our promise?” I asked. “What would that do to your relationship with your mother?” Col became pensive. “What would it do to my relationship with her?” By now, Col was frowning. “And what would all that do to us?”

Col’s eyes narrowed in pain. She was about to speak, and then closed her mouth and thought some more. She was about to say something when the kitchen timer pinged.

“Rats.”

She got up and I followed her into the kitchen. She reduced the pressure in the pressure cooker and opened it. Rich, beefy smells wafted through the kitchen.

“All right then, put in the vegetables.” I did that and she returned the pressure cooker to the stove. Col cut a deep cross into each of the potatoes, arranged them on an oven tray and slid them into the hot oven, setting the timer for another forty minutes. She turned to me. “You think my mother would be less disturbed by us telling her we were going to be...” she blushed. “Um ... intimate than by finding out later?”

“It’s also about how we feel about her. I do not wish to lie to your mother, even by omission.”

Col sighed. “This is going to be more difficult than I thought.”

“Big decisions are always difficult.” I took her hand. “If they were easy, they wouldn’t be big decisions.” We sat side by side on the sofa.

“Our promise to Mutti Frida was not to do something stupid – which I think meant something that could end up with you pregnant.”

Col thought about that for a minute. “Yes, I suppose so.” Col’s voice had an edge of frustration.

“Well, there are things we can do that can’t end up with you getting pregnant.” Col stayed silent, her dark eyes wide pools, filled with unspoken questions. “When you’re ready to try something more, you can ask me.”

Col pondered what that meant, holding me at arm’s length. After a moment, she snuggled up to me and gave me a gentle kiss and then leaned back, releasing an explosive breath. “It’s so difficult for me. I can see the other girls get together and talk about boys ... and things. But I’m not part of that. And the boys only boast about what they say they’ve done.” Her hand smacked down on to the chair in frustration. “I don’t even know what I don’t know.”

“You can ask me,” I suggested. Her head turned and our eyes locked onto each other for several long seconds.

Col paused, contemplating our present and future – and my past, with all that implied. “I need to think about that.” Her voice was laced with uncertainty.

I squeezed her shoulder. “When you’re ready. I’m in no hurry, nor should you be.”

Col sighed and snuggled into me and we sat that way until Mutti Frida arrived home. She greeted us, putting a full shopping bag down beside the kitchen table. She sniffed the aromas permeating the kitchen. “Something smells good.”

“Well, you know what it is as you gave us the recipe and pointed out the ingredients yesterday.”

Mutti Frida smiled and we started setting the table. The German twist to baked potatoes was yoghurt with a mixture of herbs, rather than butter, which gave the potatoes a sharp. refreshing flavour.

“Of course, it should be Sauerrahm – sour cream, not yoghurt,” Mutti Frida sighed.

How difficult must it be to hide away from all the normal things in your life?

I suspected it was small things like having to substitute yoghurt for sour cream that accentuated this.

After tea, I laid out some ideas I had for the essay as we sat around the table. We also talked about the communist party in DDR and other Eastern Bloc countries. Mutti Frida was more nuanced than Col, suggesting that picking up the pieces of a shattered society after the war was difficult and some central control of the populace was necessary.

“Do you think your position is influenced by your being part of the ruling elite?” I asked, playing the devil’s advocate.

Mutti Frida’s head swivelled towards me. She was about to speak when she stopped herself and thought for a couple of seconds. “I suppose I was part of the ruling elite ... in a way. Of course, I had no power, but at first because of what had happened to me, who my parents were, and then because of my husband, I was around the leaders of the Party in Leipzig.” She nodded in acknowledgement. “That influenced my ideas.” She paused again, while sadness seeped into her face and her voice grew softer. “But the camps influenced me more. There we had no control and only one decision to make: to work together trying to survive or to die alone.”

I watched deep sorrow fill her eyes.

“And even when we worked together, many of us still died.”

Col’s hand crept across the table to hold her mother’s.

“I understand what you are saying,” Col said. “But that central control wasn’t needed in West Germany, was it? And they seem more successful than the East, from what I have read.”

“Perhaps...” Mutti Frida nodded, deep in thought. “Perhaps it depends on how you measure success.”

That night I lay in bed thinking about our discussion and what it could have meant. There were clear, some might say irreconcilable, differences between east and west, but could I justify the central argument of my essay? The central theme was the shared cultural language of Europe and the power of the various arts to speak to our emotions, increasing international understanding. With no Google to find quotations to support my thesis, I would need a copy of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations – a once well-used book known in my family as the ODQ. It had sat on a shelf in my house, although unopened for quite some years, thanks to Google.

I hurried to the bus stop after school and caught a number six that would take me into the Herne Bay town centre. When I arrived at the library, I joined Col and Lili at their table.

“Hello, Lili.” She looked up before returning to her notes.

“How is the Roman research going, Col?”

She leaned back, stretching in her chair. “There’s not much information about the society that existed before the Romans arrived.” She gazed into the distance. “Perhaps it’s because none of the Celts’ few writings survived. There’s more information about them in De Bello Gallico than any books here.” Col gestured at a couple of books on the table. “Anyway, it seems from what I’ve read so far that, in some ways, the Celtic people may have conquered themselves.”

“What?” That was paradoxical, but I saw Lili smile; it seemed they had already talked about this.

Col smiled, pleased to have surprised me. “What I’ve read suggests the Celts adopted the new Roman ways with little pressure from the Romans.”

“What about Boudicca and the other revolts?”

“Well, the entire military campaign in England only lasted about forty years out of the four hundred the Romans were here. And even during the military campaign, the rulers of the Celtic tribes seemed to adopt the Roman way; they set the tone for everyone else.”

I considered this for a moment. “Hmm, I think I see what you mean.” I turned to Lili. “How are you doing?”

“There’s almost nothing here about central European history. I’ve found a bit in the encyclopaedia but that’s all, so I’ll have to ask my parents if they can help me find some books.”

I left them to it and walked over to the library desk. Unfortunately, the younger librarian was on duty.

She recognised me as the boy wanting books in German. “Yes?”

I pushed down on the annoyance surging up from my young brain. “Do you have an Oxford Dictionary of Quotations here?”

“What?” She hadn’t even raised her head.

I stopped my eye roll before it started and repeated my question. My voice had a bit of an edge none-the-less.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “In the reference collection.” She waved a vague hand towards the library stacks.

I could stand here and argue with her for more detailed directions, which would gain me nothing, or I could explore the reference collection. I walked along the stacks, watching as the Dewy Decimal labels counted down towards zero and the reference section.

“Can I help you?” The older librarian appeared from within the stacks, leaving a trolley piled high with books.

“Thank you. I’m trying to find the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.”

“That’s down here. Follow me.” She started off and then stopped, turning back towards me. “You’re the boy that wanted books in German, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

She glanced towards the main desk. “I’m sorry that Mrs. Price was so unhelpful. She has never recovered from losing her husband to the Nazis in 1945. They’d only been married a few months...” Her voice trailed off.

Not knowing what to say, I said nothing. After a moment, the librarian turned and walked between two stacks. She ran her finger along a shelf, stopping to pull out a familiar, fat volume.

“Here you go,” she said, smiling. “Do you know how to use it?”

“Yes, thank you.”

She handed me the book, a raised eyebrow signalling some scepticism, and walked back to her trolley.

I took the ODQ back to the table where Col and Lili were working.

I plonked the book on the table, making Lili start. “What’s the book, Willi?”

“It’s a book of quotations. I’m trying to find material for an essay on art and culture’s benefit to society.”

Lili raised her eyebrows. “That sounds deep.”

Col glanced up from a map she was poring over. “It’s for an essay competition – in German.”

“Oh.” Lili glanced at me and returned to her project.

I searched for apposite quotes, noting down ones I thought useful. After a while, I had a dozen, including one by Goethe that I thought might be useful to place beneath the essay title. Nothing can be compared to the new life that the discovery of another country provides for a thoughtful person.

I would suggest that art and music, through our shared European culture, could help take us to another country – to Europe, a country we shared. It occurred to my old brain that this was paradoxical, given Britain’s exit from the European Community in 2020.

Col roused me. “Come on Willi, we must head home to get tea ready. I’ll see you in school tomorrow, Lili.”

“Okay, I’m not finding much here for my project.” Lili’s frustration showed in her voice. “Mama is asking around her friends to see if they have any Polish history books.” Her disappointment at the library was palpable. “I might need to change the topic of my project.”

“I hope your parents can turn up some books to help, Lili.”

On the way out, I returned the ODQ to the loans desk. The older librarian was there.

“That was useful?” She sounded sceptical.

I smiled. “Thank you, yes. I have a dozen quotations for my essay on European art and culture.” From her expression, she wasn’t sure what to make of me.

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