“That wasn’t kind, Hilde,” he began. “The poor man — he’ll have a sad Christmas.”
“Be quick, Uncle Theo. What do you want?”
“Tonight,” he said, “when we are eating our dinner, and the candles are lighted on the Christmas tree …”
“Yes?”
“Try not to cry. Let the girls enjoy themselves. Don’t think of sad things.” The girls are my mother and Aunt Charlotte.
“What else is there?” I said. I could have piled all our sad Christmases on the counter between us — the Christmas when I was thirteen and we were firebombed, and saved nothing except a knife and fork my mother had owned when she was little. She still uses them; “Traudi” is engraved on the handle of each. It worries my mother to find anything else next to her plate. It makes her feel as if no one considered her — as if she were devalued in her own home. I remember another Christmas and my father drinking wine with Uncle Theo; wine slowed him down, we had to finish his sentences for him. They say that when he left us he put an apple in his pocket. My Aunt Charlotte packed some of his things afterward and deposited them with a waiter he knew. The next Christmas, my Uncle Theo, the only man of the house now, drank by himself and began to caper like a little goat, round and round the tree. I looked at the table, beautifully spread with a starched cloth, and I saw four large knives and forks, as for four enormous persons. Aunt Charlotte had forgotten about my mother.
“Oh, my own little knife and fork, I can’t see them!” cried my mother, coming in at that moment, in blue lace down to her ankles.
“Oh, my own little arse,” said Uncle Theo, in my mother’s voice, still dancing.
He was just as surprised as we were. He stared all round to see who could have said such a thing. My mother locked herself in her room. My Aunt Charlotte tapped on the door and said, “We only want you to eat a little compote, dear Traudi.”
“Then you will have to bring it here,” said my mother. But after saying that, she would not open the door. We knew she would come out in time to watch The Nutcracker, and so we left the house, pretending we were about to pay our Christmas visits a day early. We sat in the railway station for a long time, as if we were waiting for someone. When we came back, we found she had put the short chain lock on the front door of the apartment, so that all the keys in the world wouldn’t let you in. Here we were, all three wearing hats, and hoping our neighbors would not peep out to see who was doing all the ringing. Finally someone did emerge — a grubby little boy. Behind him we could see a large party round a table, looking out and laughing at us, with their uneducated mouths wide open. We said courteously that our relative must have fallen asleep and, being slightly deaf, could not hear the doorbell.
“We knew there must be a deaf person in that apartment,” said someone at the table.
“There is no Christmas in India,” said Uncle Theo, becoming one of their party. “It has no meaning there.” I was glad to see that my aunt and I looked decent. “My sister-in-law once had a great emotional shock,” said Uncle Theo, accepting a glass. “Christmas is so sad.”
A gust of feeling blew round the table. Yes, Christmas is sad. Everyone has a reason for jumping out the window at Christmas and in the spring. Meanwhile I was calling our number, and I could hear our telephone ringing on the other side of the wall. The neighbors’ wallpaper is covered with finger marks, like my sister-in-law’s. “Why not send for the police?” someone said. My aunt looked as if she wanted to throw an apron over her face and cry, which was all she did when her own brother left. “Well, Uncle?” I said. Everyone looked at the man who had been to India. Before he could decide, the little boy who had opened the door said, “I can get round by the balconies.” Do you see how easy it is for these people to spy on us? They must have done it hundreds of times. All he had to do was straddle the partition between the two balconies, which he did, knocking down the flowerpots covered with squares of plastic for the winter. My aunt frowned at me, as if to say it didn’t matter. He cupped his hands round his eyes, peering through the panes of the double glass doors. Then he pounded with both fists, breathing hard, his cheeks as red as if they had been slapped. “The lady is just sitting on the floor watching television,” he said finally.
“Stone-deaf,” said Uncle Theo, keeping up the story.
“She is dead,” wailed my aunt. “My sister-in-law has had a stroke.”
“Break the panes,” I cried to the child. “Use a flowerpot. Be careful not to cut yourself.” I was thinking of blood on the parquet floor.
She was not dead, of course, but only sulking and waiting for The Nutcracker. She said she had fainted. We helped her to an armchair. It was difficult after that to turn the neighbors out, and even harder to return to our original status; they would stop us on the stairs and ask for news of “the poor sick lady.” A year was needed to retreat to “Good morning,” and back again to nothing but an inclination of the head. For although we put lighted candles in the windows on Christmas Eve as a reminder of German separation, it seems very different when masses of refugees move in next door, six to a room, and entirely without culture. It would be good to have everyone under one flag again, but the Saxons in Saxony, et cetera, please.
With all this behind me, the Christmas memories of my life, what could I say except, “What else is there?”
“Try not to think at all,” said Uncle Theo, grinning with nervousness and his anxious little bandit’s eyes darting everywhere. “Bandit” is perhaps too much; he never had a gram of civic feeling, let us say. “I have tickets to The Gypsy Baron,” he said. So that was what he had come to tell me!
“What do you mean, Uncle Theo?”
“For the four of us, the day after Christmas.”
“Out of the question,” I said.
“Now, why, Hilde? The girls like music.”
“Use your head, Uncle Theo. I can’t talk now.”
What did he mean, why? It was out of the question, that was all. First, the flu epidemic. People were coughing and sneezing without covering their faces.
“I wanted you to have two days to think it over,” said Uncle Theo. He gave me the impression that he was sliding, crawling. I don’t know why he is so afraid of me.
It seemed so evident: It is wrong to take them out to the theater, or anywhere in the cold. It disturbs their habits. They are perfectly happy with their television. They have their own warm little theater in our parlor. My mother is always allowed to choose the program, as you may imagine. She settles in with a bowl of walnuts on her lap. My aunt never sees the beginning of anything, because she walks round examining her plants. She sits down finally, and the others tell her the plot, when there is one. Uncle Theo drinks white wine and laughs at everything. One by one they fall asleep in their chairs. I wake them up and send them off to bed while the late news predicts the next day’s weather. Why drive them out in the cold to see an operetta? And then, how are we supposed to get there? The car has been put away for the winter, with the insurance suspended and the battery disconnected. Say that we get it out and in running order — where does Uncle Theo expect me to park? I suppose I might go earlier in the day, on foot, and pick out the streets near the theater where parking might be allowed. Or we could all go very early and sit in the car until the theater opens. But we would have to keep the engine running and the heater on, and we would be certain to have blinding headaches within the hour. We might walk, but these old persons get terribly warm in their overcoats, and then they perspire and catch chills and fever. I am surprised that the city is letting the play be produced at this time.