The Lebensraum in orange looks enormous, as big as FRANKreich bigger than ENGland all the way to Wien like a wolf turned eastwards with its open jaw on Poland in dark lilac and Bohemia no Czechoslovakia the SUDETENland also in pale pink between its chin and breast. But paler than the pink baby of was ENGland gehört. Dänemark gives it violet ears perked up quite high in wild anticipation. The orange breast of the wolf touches the frilly top of Italy’s purple boot which faces the other way however, kicking Sicily like a triangular football.
Two thirds of the way down the squarish green shape of FRANKreich not far from the frilly top of the purple boot lies Lyon, somewhere in which stands the big square black school where Mlle Levert professeur d’histoire talks of la grande différence entre l’Allemagne de Barbarossa et la faible fédération de 350 petits états après le Traité de Westphalie. Le pouvoir de l’empereur devint une ombre, même parmi les princes allemands. Il y avait eu en Europe une seule religion. Maintenant il y en avait trois. La France grandit de ces différences. Du moins, jusqu’au dix-neuvième siècle, quand l’Allemagne a renouvelé ses folles ambitions. But Mlle Levert looks cold and distant not so nice as young Madame Ribloux de l’Ecole Primaire who points to the map and says voici Lyon, à travers laquelle coulent deux rivières, le Rhône et la Saône. Et comme on dit toujours à Lyon, il y a aussi la troisième rivière, le Beaujolais.
— Où qu’elle coule, la troisième rivière maman?
— Où qu’elle coule? Où as-tu appris à parler le français comme ça?
— Où coule-t-elle?
— Quoi?
— La belle Jolaise.
— Mais tu radotes! Tu en as de ces idées. Tout à fait comme ton père, j’sais pas ce que j’vais faire avec toi.
— Maman.
— Oui?
— Tu m’aimes?
— Mais bien sûr ma poupée.
— Autant que moi j’t’aime?
— Plus.
— Moi j’t’aime grand comme le ciel.
— Eh bien moi aussi.
— Mais tu as dis plus.
— Hé bien oui, plus. Tiens, plus haut que le ciel, le ciel a ses hauteurs tu sais. Allons, reste tranquille ma chérie, fais tes devoirs.
— Et papa?
— Quoi papa?
— Tu crois qu’il m’aime?
— Ah ça ton père j’sais pas où il a fichu le camp.
Il a fichu le camp somewhere en Allemagne where I shall send you for a year with your tante Frieda later, quand tu auras quinze ans and you’ll have done more German at school by then. For my sins you have a German name and you might as well learn la langue boche it will come in useful when you grow up. I never believed in denying your heritage after all I married him and besides, as I said to my mother when she objected — which of course made me all the more determined — we must forgive and forget, it won’t happen again. If she hadn’t objected I wouldn’t have married him probably, oh yes I had others after me, a nice French boy Jules and then you’d have turned out quite different. Remind me not to object to any crétin you want to marry when you grow up it’ll only throw you into his arms. And besides, le salaud je l’aimais. Well, you’ll understand all these things when you grow up into a grande-personne ma chérie, et maintenant que tu as quinze ans, I’ve packed all your prettiest dresses into a great big trunk, and your German grammar, and some of your Comtesse de Ségur favourites so that you don’t forget your French.
— Oh maman il y a longtemps que je ne lis plus la Comtesse de Ségur pour qui me prends-tu?
— Ah? Trop tard, I put them at the bottom never mind you may like to re-read them. Your train leaves tomorrow at eight, change at Frankfort for Nuremberg, just cross the same platform you won’t have any luggage except a small suitcase and you won’t get lost will you and don’t talk to any strange men, or in fact to anyone at all tu entends? And you will go to Mass every Sunday in Nuremberg, your uncle has promised to drive you there after or before their own service in the village church, Calvinist of course or do I mean Lutheran? Protestant anyway. Your father didn’t — oh well, that doesn’t matter now. You will go won’t you, you know what the devil does to children who commit mortal sins. And you must remember to say three Je-vous-salue-Marie and one Notre-Père every morning, and again every night when you go to bed.
— Oui maman.
— And when you come back you’ll speak fluent German and sail through your bachot at seventeen if you keep up your French and Latin at school there which your tante Frieda assures me you will. Now don’t cry, I’ve done everything to bring you up properly and equip you so that you can earn your living well and not go through what I had to. Women have a hard time these days when left alone to cope. In the old days they had large families to go back to or convents or something but now they have to go out into the world unequipped and the world lines up against them. Allons ma chérie don’t cry I’ll write to you every week and you’ll write to me, everything you do and all the new things you’ll see, why, in no time at all you’ll get used to it, you’ll even enjoy it. Your father had a lot of charm you know and comes of a very good family whatever one may say about his people in general. But good Germans exist I assure you and you’ll make a lot of nice new friends at school, and in the village. And you know, you’ll live in a castle. With a moat and drawbridge.
The drawbridge never draws and grass grows in the moat around the plain square Schloss, more like a house than a castle, but with an inner courtyard into which the small Opel drives bumping over the drawbridge until it comes to a standstill. The Baron steely-haired and stern but not like a vraie grande-personne at all on account of dirty leather shorts thick green woollen socks a grey jacket with green tabs on the collar and the feathered felt hat tossed over the small suitcase on the back seat gets out walks round the car opens the door and clicks his big brown shoes with mock perhaps solemnity and Willkommen Liebchen ah, here comes your aunt, gaunt, skeletal down the stone stairs that spiral like the sandy hair scraped back to a high coil and cold grey eyes. Willkommen Liebchen du sprichst ein bisschen deutsch nicht wahr? Gut. Wir müssen von Anfang an nur deutsch sprechen, weil obwohl wir natürlich französisch und englisch können du sollst hier doch deutsch lernen nicht wahr? Meet your cousin Helmut you will get on well together I know. My daughter and her husband and baby live on the ground floor you will meet them later. How pale you look. Come in.
How pale he looks, der Baron, dead on his bed surrounded with wreaths and tributes, brought back in state from the Sudetenland by train and then from Nürnberg on a gun-carriage drawn by four motorbikes in escort having burst a blood-vessel while addressing a meeting but why Tante Frieda? Why?
— Schweinehunde! Kommunisten! Sozialdemokraten! Homosexuelle Juden! Here my child you behold a hero, the first hero and victim in a long line to come no doubt. Das Wehrkreiskommando has given him full military honours as an ex-tank captain in the Great War and hero of the hour. You will understand these things later my child, but remember now, your uncle did his duty only his duty as a Party Member. Nothing more. And all for those filthy Bohemians — no, I must not give way. O mein lieber Helmut. You will attend the funeral at my side, Liebchen, as the only representative of his poor brother your father, who went off to Russia in a mad weak moment, always so foolish and headstrong your father. In a black dirndl over your white blouse, I’ll get Emma to make one up for you quickly, she has your measurements hasn’t she or have you filled out since she made this blue one? Yes it does look a bit tight. Run up to her room and tell her. O mein lieber Helmut.