Only once in every year did I ardently wish to have brothers and sisters – on Christmas Eve. For all I would have cared they could have packed up and flown away again on Christmas Day after the roast goose and dumplings, the red cabbage and the celery salad. I would gladly have given up my own helping of goose and eaten giblets instead if only I did not have to be alone on the evening of the twenty-fourth of December. They could have had half my presents. And what truly glorious presents they were!
Why did I not wish to be alone and not to be an only child on this, the most beautiful evening of a child’s year? Because I was afraid. I dreaded the presentation of the gifts. I dreaded it, and I dared not show that I did. It is not surprising if you do not understand this right away. I have been pondering for a long time past whether I should speak of it or not. But since I am going to speak of it, I had better explain it to you.
Their love of me made my parents jealous of each other. They tried to hide it, and they often succeeded. But on the most beautiful day of the year they did not succeed. At all other times they were so careful to get on well together for my sake, but on Christmas Eve they simply could not manage it. It was beyond their power. I knew all about it, but for the sake of all three of us I had to behave as if I did not know it.
For weeks beforehand my father had sat down in the cellar half the night making, for instance, a wonderful toy stable for me. He had carved and nailed, glued and painted, done miniature writing, cut and sewn miniature harness, plaited through the horses’ manes with ribbons, filled the mangers with hay and, down there by the smoky paraffin lamp, had thought again and again of something else to add – another joint, another band or clasp, another hook, another broom for the stable, another box for the oats, until at last, grinning contentedly, he was able to say to himself, ‘It takes me to do a job like that!’
Another time he made a dray complete with beer barrels, a drop ladder, wheels with hub-covers and iron rims – a solid vehicle with wheel axles, and interchangeable shafts according to whether I wished to yoke one horse to it or two; with leather cushions for letting the beer barrels down on and whips and brakes at the driver’s seat. And this toy, too, was a faultless masterpiece, a work of art.
These were gifts at the sight of which even little princes would have clapped their hands with joy. But my father would not have given them to princes.
For weeks on end my mother spent half the day roaming through the town searching the shops. Every year she bought so many gifts that her hiding-place, the chest of drawers, bulged.
She bought roller-skates, building-bricks, coloured pencils, tubes of paints, painting-books, dumb-bells and clubs for the gym class, a football for playing in the yard, ice-skates, musical tops, hiking-boots, a Norwegian sledge, a little box of precision instruments on blue velvet, a little printing-press with a set of compositor’s letters and, under the guidance of Paul Schurig and the Teachers’ Guild of Saxony, a great many good children’s books. And of course quantities of handkerchiefs, stockings, gym shorts, knitted caps, woollen gloves, sweaters, sailor blouses, swimsuits, shirts and similar useful things.
It was a rivalry in their love for me and it was a bitter one. It was a drama with three characters, and the last act took place every year on Christmas Eve. A little boy played the principal part. Whether the piece turned out a tragedy or a comedy depended on his talent in improvisation. Even now when I think of it, my heart is in my mouth.
[ . . . ]
I stood at the kitchen window and looked at the windows opposite. Here and there they were already lighting the Christmas candles. The snow on the street shone in the light of the street-lamps. I could hear Christmas carols. The fire was crackling in the heating-stove, yet I was freezing cold. The kitchen smelt of raisin buns, vanilla sugar and candied peel, yet I felt utterly miserable. But at any moment now I should have to smile, though I felt much more like crying.
And then I heard my mother call, ‘Now you can come!’ I grabbed the prettily wrapped presents for the two of them and went into the passage. The door of the best room stood open. The Christmas tree was lit up. Father and Mother had taken up their positions to right and left of the table, each beside their own gifts as if the room and the festival had been divided in half. ‘Oh, how beautiful!’ I exclaimed, meaning both halves. I still kept near the door so that my efforts to smile happily would be taken as referring unmistakably to both. Papa, with the cigar gone out in his mouth, beamed at the brightly varnished stable. Mamma looked triumphantly down at the mountain of gifts on her right. We all three smiled in an effort to smile down our triple uneasiness. But I could not go on standing at the door.
I walked hesitantly up to the glorious but, alas, divided table, and with every step my feeling of responsibility, my fear and my determination to get over the next quarter of an hour successfully grew stronger. Ah, if I could only be alone, alone with the presents and with the heavenly feeling of being doubly loaded with gifts – gifts from a united love! How lucky I should have been, and what a happy child! But I had to play my role so that the Christmas drama should end happily. I was a diplomat, more grown-up than my parents, and it was up to me to see that our solemn Three-Power Conference under the Christmas tree should pass off without discord. Already at five or six, and still more so later on, I was the master of ceremonies of Christmas Eve, and I performed the heavy task with considerable aptitude, but with a trembling heart.
I stood at the table and expressed my joy in a shuttle movement. I showed joy towards the right, to the delight of my mother. Then I showed joy towards the left of the table, over the toy stable, in a general way. Then I showed joy to the right again, this time over the toboggan; and then to the left once more, taking particular notice of the leather harness. And once more to the right, and once more to the left
[ . . . ]
Next door in the Grüttners’ flat they were singing ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’. My father took out of his pocket a purse he had made down in the cellar and held it out to my mother, saying, ‘I had almost forgotten this.’ She pointed to her half of the table, on which were socks, long woollen underpants and a tie for him. Sometimes we were already eating our sausage and potato salad before they realized that they had forgotten to give each other their gifts. And Mother would say, ‘It’s time enough after supper.’
Afterwards we went over to Uncle Franz’s, where we had coffee and raisin buns. Dora showed me her presents. Aunt Lina complained a little about her varicose veins. Uncle picked up a box of Havana cigars, held them under my father’s nose and said, ‘Here, Emil. Smoke a decent cigar for a change!’ And Papa answered, slightly offended, ‘I have some myself, thank you.’ Then Uncle Franz said, a trifle crossly, ‘Go on – take one! You don’t get ’em like that every day.’ And my father said, ‘Very well, if I may.’
The housekeeper Frieda, a faithful soul, brought buns, ginger cakes and Rhenish wine, or steaming punch if the day were extra cold, and sat down with us at the table. Dora and I tried to play Christmas carols on the piano, and the ‘Petersburg Sleigh Ride’ and the ‘Skaters’ Waltz’. And Uncle Franz began to talk about the rabbit-trading days to annoy Mother. He mimicked the sister telling tales on her brothers. My mother defended herself as best she could, but there was no defence possible against Uncle Franz. ‘You were a tell-tale-tit!’ he roared, and cried boisterously to my father, ‘Your wife was too grand for us by half, even as a child, Emil!’ My father smiled quietly over his spectacles, took a sip of wine and wiped his moustache, wholeheartedly enjoying the fact that my mother, for once, did not have the last word. That was the best Christmas present he could have. Her cheeks were flushed from the wine. ‘You were low, deceitful, lazy rascals!’ she cried furiously. Uncle Franz was delighted that he had succeeded so well in annoying her. ‘Well, maybe we were, Duchess,’ he replied, ‘but we have made good all the same.’ And he laughed so uproariously that the balls on the Christmas tree trembled and jingled.
Extract from When I Was a Little Boy, Chapter 11, ‘A Child’s Troubles’
© The Estate of Erich Kästner, 1957
Lovely extract. Thank you. As an only child,I completely “get it “. Richard