Read Online Chocolate Cake With Hitler by Emma Craigie - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Emma Craigie
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squeaked when you walked on it. Papa and Mummy gave us new toboggans for Christmas – really good ones, big enough for grown-ups to go on. Papa came with us. He was the fastest, but he got really angry when he fell off. We had to make sure we didn’t laugh.
Mummy doesn’t like tobogganing, but she came with us for a sleigh ride in the forest. We covered ourselves in fur rugs. When it snows the forest around Castle Lanke becomes a fairyland. The tall dark trees, draped in their snow shawls, stoop like old witches. After a bit the whiteness begins to hurt your eyes. Back home we had hot chocolate by the fire and Papa told us stories about when he was little.
“My earliest memories are of nightmares, of lying feverish in bed, one minute thinking that the walls were moving in to crush me, the next minute feeling myself stuck in sinking mud, unable to free my feet. I remember the room. Heavy green curtains that turned to trees in my dreams. Strangling ferns and fronds on the wallpaper. I must have been about four. I had a bone disease. My right foot developed a terrible cramp,a searing pain. I can remember lying in bed and concentrating my very hardest to move my toes. It was impossible. Whenever I smell almond oil I feel myself back on that bed, staring at the ceiling, as my mother rubbed and pummelled my leg.
“And then there were the doctors’ appointments. So much sitting and waiting on hard seats below high windows you could never see out of. All I wanted to do was run about like other children. I remember we even made the journey to Bonn, to the University Medical School. My mother told me that we were going to see the clevyouerest doctors in the world. I had to lie on a bed with my trousers off surrounded by a dozen young men who took turns at lifting and pinching my foot to see what I could feel. But could they help me? Not a bit. They came up with this clumpy contraption that was meant to hold my foot straight and help me to walk. Ha. That went down well at school. The Little Cripple looked just the part with his orthopaedic appliance.
“My mother, of course, like any good Catholic woman, looked to God as well as to doctors in her search for a cure. Every day after school, while the other boys ran off to play football, the Little Cripple was met at the school gates by his mother, who took his hand and walked him down to St. Mary’s church. We would kneel together in this cold dark cavern for up to an hour. I knelt in silence, hiding my face in my hands, as my mother, over and over again, beseeched ‘Our Lady,to pray for us to the Lord our God’.
“‘What have I done to deserve this punishment, oh Lord? Please forgive me my sins and the sins of my son. Have mercy, Lord, and remove this evil from us. Dear Jesus, healer of the sick, restore your servant to health. We beg for forgiveness. Have mercy, Lord.’
“I remember one particular day. It was summer, a beautiful day, the kind of day I most resented spending in the gloomy church. As we went out into the street we met a large lady called Mrs. Backer who ran the Sunday school.
“‘Good afternoon, Mrs. Goebbels. Praying to the good Lord in your affliction again? If anyone deserves forgiveness it is you, Mrs. Goebbels. No one could question your devotion. Still the Lord moves in mysterious ways. Who are we to understand the trials and punishments he sends us?’
“‘Indeed, Mrs. Backer,’ my mother replied. ‘Prayer is a great comfort to me. But you know Josef’s foot was hurt in a simple accident. It was not sent as an affliction . He caught his foot in the slats of a bench when I was lifting him. A silly accident, but not a punishment, Mrs. Backer – a human error, not a divine intervention .’
“‘Indeed, Mrs. Goebbels. I didn’t mean to imply…’
“As we hurried home I asked my mother to tell me the story of the slatted bench. I had never heard this before. My mother shushed me until we wereinside and then she explained.
“‘There
Mummy doesn’t like tobogganing, but she came with us for a sleigh ride in the forest. We covered ourselves in fur rugs. When it snows the forest around Castle Lanke becomes a fairyland. The tall dark trees, draped in their snow shawls, stoop like old witches. After a bit the whiteness begins to hurt your eyes. Back home we had hot chocolate by the fire and Papa told us stories about when he was little.
“My earliest memories are of nightmares, of lying feverish in bed, one minute thinking that the walls were moving in to crush me, the next minute feeling myself stuck in sinking mud, unable to free my feet. I remember the room. Heavy green curtains that turned to trees in my dreams. Strangling ferns and fronds on the wallpaper. I must have been about four. I had a bone disease. My right foot developed a terrible cramp,a searing pain. I can remember lying in bed and concentrating my very hardest to move my toes. It was impossible. Whenever I smell almond oil I feel myself back on that bed, staring at the ceiling, as my mother rubbed and pummelled my leg.
“And then there were the doctors’ appointments. So much sitting and waiting on hard seats below high windows you could never see out of. All I wanted to do was run about like other children. I remember we even made the journey to Bonn, to the University Medical School. My mother told me that we were going to see the clevyouerest doctors in the world. I had to lie on a bed with my trousers off surrounded by a dozen young men who took turns at lifting and pinching my foot to see what I could feel. But could they help me? Not a bit. They came up with this clumpy contraption that was meant to hold my foot straight and help me to walk. Ha. That went down well at school. The Little Cripple looked just the part with his orthopaedic appliance.
“My mother, of course, like any good Catholic woman, looked to God as well as to doctors in her search for a cure. Every day after school, while the other boys ran off to play football, the Little Cripple was met at the school gates by his mother, who took his hand and walked him down to St. Mary’s church. We would kneel together in this cold dark cavern for up to an hour. I knelt in silence, hiding my face in my hands, as my mother, over and over again, beseeched ‘Our Lady,to pray for us to the Lord our God’.
“‘What have I done to deserve this punishment, oh Lord? Please forgive me my sins and the sins of my son. Have mercy, Lord, and remove this evil from us. Dear Jesus, healer of the sick, restore your servant to health. We beg for forgiveness. Have mercy, Lord.’
“I remember one particular day. It was summer, a beautiful day, the kind of day I most resented spending in the gloomy church. As we went out into the street we met a large lady called Mrs. Backer who ran the Sunday school.
“‘Good afternoon, Mrs. Goebbels. Praying to the good Lord in your affliction again? If anyone deserves forgiveness it is you, Mrs. Goebbels. No one could question your devotion. Still the Lord moves in mysterious ways. Who are we to understand the trials and punishments he sends us?’
“‘Indeed, Mrs. Backer,’ my mother replied. ‘Prayer is a great comfort to me. But you know Josef’s foot was hurt in a simple accident. It was not sent as an affliction . He caught his foot in the slats of a bench when I was lifting him. A silly accident, but not a punishment, Mrs. Backer – a human error, not a divine intervention .’
“‘Indeed, Mrs. Goebbels. I didn’t mean to imply…’
“As we hurried home I asked my mother to tell me the story of the slatted bench. I had never heard this before. My mother shushed me until we wereinside and then she explained.
“‘There
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