Posted by BDM Historian

Continuation of the youth book "Sybille and Her Soldier" by Wolfgang Federau, published in 1940. Click here to start with Chapter One.

Chapter Two
Geraniums in the air raid shelter and the old Romans

Since the first months of the war, Sybille had undergone a kind of change, the causes of which she did not quite understand. Until then, she had been, overall, a girl just like all of her school friends, who was sometimes lazy and sometimes industrious, sometimes erratic when it came to doing her duties and tasks, but overall very likable, with many friends, and always up to something. The war, however, had grabbed the attention of even the most carefree and shallow of people, it had left nobody entirely untouched, and one knew of the seriousness of these times, or at least guessed them, and one knew about the size and difficulty of the decisions to be made. That meant, of course, that one became more serious, more pensive.

But for Sybille, war time had its own face. She somehow felt removed from the experiences of others. After all, every one of her best friends - Inge and Ursula, Hanni and Rita - they all had someone who was very close to them at the front. An older brother for one, a father for the other. Ursel, for example - her father had been part of the Poland campaign, then marched into Denmark with his batallion, and had finally ended up somewhere in the far north of Norway. And Ursel had told her, not very long ago, how they had celebrated his birthday, her and her mother - it had been a strange but memorable celebration; not sad, because there was no reason to be sad - he was still alive and well, and he would've liked to see them. But in some way more solemn and nicer than this day had ever been in the so-called time of peace. Each child had purchased or made a little item for the father, and now everything had been assembled on the birthday table. They had coffee with poppy cakes, Ursel's father's favorite, which was not quite as good as in peacetime and which was missing some of the usual ingredients due to rationing, but still tasted amazing. Yes, the strange thing was that it had tasted better than its predecessors in peacetime. Then they had packed all the small presents; had to make several field post packets so they did not exceed the weight restrictions, and then Ursel's mother had sat down on the piano and played father's favorite piece, and everyone sang.

"And suddenly," Ursel had said, "It was just like father was there, just like he was in among us and like at any time he'd put his hand on my head, as he likes to do when he's proud of me. Well, and maybe you're going to laugh at me and think I'm crazy, but it really was like that: our daddy who's hundreds, or thousands, or more miles away - I don't know how far Drontheim is from here, I always only got a D in geography with Miss Klaassen! Very far, anyway, and I suddenly had the feeling we'd never been as close than at that moment."

None of the girls had laughed or made a stupid comment, they all had started to feel quite strange, especially when Ursel turned around so they wouldn't see that her eyes were starting to tear up. But as far as she, Sybille, went, she was actually quite jealous of Ursel's experience.

That, and a lot of other things, were going through Sybille's head now. And about a girl from her class who'd come to school with swollen red eyes and a chalk-white face one morning, in a black-and-white striped, dark dress. After first period, she'd been sent back home by the teacher, and the rumor had quickly spread that her brother Axel, a pilot, had been killed in action. Everyone had known him and really hated him, because he'd always been very stuck up and treated them badly if they happened to meet - as if they were little children, stupid little brats and not young ladies who should be treated accordingly. But now he was dead, and all that was forgotten. What was remembered was that picture of a young, dapper Lieutenant with a fresh, tanned face, whom they would never again see walking in the streets of his hometown, who was now buried in foreign soil, the bloody forehead covered by the laurel wreath of the victor. That was how Sybille and the others imagined it, anyway, and when the sister of the casualty came back to school the next day, they all tried their best to bring her a little bit of joy. She was grateful and even smiled a bit, and everyone naturally left her alone during breaks between lessons at first, to give her room and to watch her from shyly, like a person who was carrying a heavy burden.

Sybille didn't have anyone "out there" who was this close to her. Her father had been dead for a long time, and her brother Peter was nothing more than "a little boy with a big mouth", as she called him when he'd really gotten under her skin and she was seriously annoyed with him.

But now everything started to look differently. Now she could join the conversation. She didn't have to talk about a second or third cousin anymore, standing on guard duty out there in a soldier's uniform. Pah - a cousin didn't interest anyone, especially not with a cousin you barely knew and had only seen once, maybe twice.

Now everything had changed for the better. Sybille had a letter, a real field post letter, and she would certainly get many others. She let her friend Hanni take the envelope, but jealously made sure she got it back. And Carola, the fat, short Carola, the one who kept managing to get fatter and fatter every month even with the rationing that affected everyone, she even got to listen to the first sentence of the letter - just the first sentence, but that was already quite an honor. Everything happened under a veil of secrecy, of course, but Sybille did not get annoyed or upset when she found out that soon half her class knew about the letter. On the contrary - it made her feel more important when someone now told her, "My father things that he can probably come home on leave for a couple of days," or "My brother was promoted to private first class last week", then Sybille could interject with definite casualness: "My soldier wrote in his last letter..."

The soldier Ludwig Zelter, whom she'd never met, had become her very personal property. He was her soldier, he belonged to her like the others' fathers or brothers belonged to them. And she didn't feel the least bit guilty when she talked about "his most recent letter". Of course, she'd only gotten one letter from her soldier, but until she got another, this one was the "most recent" letter, even if the others assumed by the term that she had been receiving letters for a long time - after all, good God, it wasn't Sybille's fault if someone thought that!

She wanted to write back immediately, tonight, too. Even though he'd written that all the soldiers on the West Wall had learned the art of waiting over the winter, he would likely be very excited, Sybille thought, if he wasn't forced to wait for a long time when it came to his mail, too.

But she didn't quite manage to turn her intent into an actual action, though. First she dawdled about after dinner, did this and that, and lots of unimportant things, and when she finally sat in front of the desk and looked onto the white sheet of paper and started pensively chewing on her fountain pen - after all, a long letter from her soldier required a well thought-out and equally long reply - the alarm went off. And with the alarm, you had to run to the basement. Already in the hallway she could hear the sound of the flak and somewhere, very far away, the barking of a machine gun.

"The Tommies gave us an extra-long break this time," Sybille said matter-of-factly as they hasted down the stairs.

"But they're making up for it by getting here early," said Peter. "They want to catch up to what they've been missing. Good thing we didn't move yet, at least we won't have to move twice now."

But strangely enough - no matter how fast the three hurried (they prided themselves on getting down to the air raid shelter quickly and efficiently) - it was always the same: the elderly, spindly Miss Schuemmel was already down there, the first one. To the other residents, she was very much like the hedgehog from the fairy tale, who was racing the hare. No matter how fast they ran to the basement - even Peter with his young legs who jumped the last few steps or, to his mother's horror since everything was so dark with the black out lighting, slid down the banister - any time they got to the basement, Miss Schuemmel was already there and yelled quite triumphantly like the wife of the hedgehog: "I'm already here."

This was one of those miracles nobody could find a clear explanation for. Miss Schuemmel happened to live at the very top, in the fourth story of the building, where she had a tiny attic apartment; she was somewhere between 60 and 70 years old and ordinarily not at all fast on her feet. And she even had a lot to do on her way down: she always came down with a gigantic aluminum cook pot, which she was wearing on her head like a steel helmet - "because of the shrapnel", she proudly explained to Sybille who had been pressing her for the meaning of the pot - and she never forgot to bring her bank account book, which she pressed to herself like it was the most important thing in the world. She never forgot the little flower pot with a tiny, sicky geranium, which she always placed on the table in front of herself and stared at as if she'd been hypnotized. This geranium would never be just left behind in her apartment, that was out of the question. "This little pot," she said importantly, "That can save all our lives." She held up a little magazine, a little almanac with the important title "A Thousand Tips", and she had read in it that the leaves of a geranium will turn yellow if there is any poison gas around, and therefore, she relied on her flower pot. "You might as well bring an African hemp or cyclamen, or any other kind of flower," grumpy old Doctor Eisele, who lived below her, had told her. "They'd do just the same. No plant is immune to poison gas, you don't need a geranium." He was an engineer and chemist and worked in an important factory, so he had to know. But Miss Schuemmel had only looked at him condescendingly and contemptuously through her overly large spectacles who made her look rather owl-like, and had stuck to her geranium ...

So Miss Schuemmel was there, as always, with her cooking pot and her flower pot - it was the kind of miracle you didn't wonder about. There was just no explanation - well, there had to be an explanation, but only the building super and the air raid warden knew, but both of them had quite a good time keeping the secret and being amused at everyone else's puzzlement. This Miss Schuemmel, after all, served the great purpose of being a wonderful role model for everyone else by always making it down there so quickly. But that she actually went down into the basement every evening right after dinner, without any good reason, and then didn't leave until two or three o'clock in the morning, well nobody needed to know that....

This unexpected "disturbance of the peace by night", as Peter called the English bombers, had taken Sybille's opportunity to do as much as start her letter. But to make up for it, she sat down directly after school the next day, and this time, her pen just flew across the paper. After all, she had enough subject matter to write about. First, she had to thank her soldier for the wonderful long letter, and then she could tell him about last night, and about Miss Schuemmel, and so on. "When she was sitting across from me, on the other side of the table,"Sybille wrote, "I had to think about you. And I;m sure that you don't look quite as ridiculous underneath your steel helmet, dear Ludwig, like this Miss Schuemmel underneath her cook pot. No, that's something entirely different - the soldiers with their steel helmets all look like medieval heroes, and of course they are heroes, and it would be quite nice if you always, even after the war, could continue to wear your steel helmets. But in the long term, that's probably very uncomfortable and nobody can really ask that of you, right? How you actually look is something I would like to know. As far as I'm concerned, I'm including a picture for you - I'm interested to hear what you think about it. I still have long braids, but I don't like them at all, because the boys always tug on them when we're playing, and so many people act all thrilled and always say, "What nice braids that girl has!" I don't like that at all, and I've been bothering my mom to let me cut my hair. But she doesn't want me to quite yet, and so I'll have to wait. Well, it's no big deal, I'll talk her into it eventually. Besides, it's an older picture of me, it's from January and now it's almost May. I look a lot different by now. Do you have a picture of yourself? I'd like one!"

Sybille re-read what she had written. No, the letter wasn't quite long enough yet - her soldier, there in the West, probably had plenty of time to read, so he would most likely be happy if the letter was longer, and she decided it would be best to write about school. Something always happened at school, and maybe he would like to read about that.

"In Latin," Sybille continued, "In Latin I got an F today. The first F I've ever gotten, you have to believe. But I wasn't at all sad about it, really. I don't like Latin and it's an elective at my school, and I only took it because my mom wanted me to. I don't know why. It's a horrible language, and not good for anything. The old Romans who spoke it are all dead now, and the Romans now aren't Romans at all, but Italians, and that's a completely different language. Italian, that would probably be more fun for me, because if I ever got the chance to talk to the children of our allies - that would be great. And anyway, Italian probably doesn't have as many exceptions as Latin grammar which I will never, never, never understand. We have Latin class with a Professor Mueller, who is a very old gentleman who was called back to teaching because of the teacher shortage. Mother said, even my dear deceased dad had Latin class with Professor Mueller, and that's exactly what he looks like. He is very strange, and we have been giving him quite a hard time. One of them, I'll have to tell you about. You know, our classroom is on the ground floor, and outside, along the wall, there's a wide ledge on which you can comfortably stand. And one time, we all arranged to climb out of the windows and stand on the ledge, and bend down so we couldn't be seen from the classroom. Then the Professor came in, and when he saw that his classroom was empty, he made a really funny face - he looked really confused, and immediately ran back out. We had expected this, and climbed right back into the room through the window and sat down real quiet and proper at our desks. Then, a short time later, the Professor came back along with the headmaster, and when he saw as all sitting there, he made an even funnier face. He turned really red and embarrassed. And the headmaster didn't know what to do, but of course he had to ask us, and he asked Ella Holz, "What is going on here?" Ella Holz is the best student in class, she's very ambitious. But you shouldn't think that we don't have any esprit-de-corps when it's important, nobody excludes herself, and nobody tells on the others. Not even the Holz would do that - nobody would ever even look at her again if she did. So she stood up and she said: "I don't know, headmaster - the professor walked into the room a couple of minutes ago, and we were all sitting down just like this, and he looked at us real wild as if he couldn't see us at all, and ran outside."

"Good. Sit down," the headmaster said. And then he left, but when he was at the door he whispered to the professor, and some of the class claim they heard him say that it would be best of the professor went to see a proper doctor, after all, he was already quite old and maybe he wasn't quite up to the tasks and challenges he had volunteered for. What do you think about that? Isn't that really funny?"

Phew ... now it had turned out to be a very long letter. And it was about time to close. But just as Sybille had added her best wishes and signed her name underneath it all, she remembered something else.

"PS," she added, "You know, Ludwig, I have to add something. I don't want you to judge us wrongly. In all honestly, we didn't really feel comfortable with this trick at all. At first, we thought it was very funny. But then we saw the professor's face and how upset he looked, and we felt sorry for him. Of course, he probably guessed what was going on, but he didn't say anything, and that was really decent of him, wasn't it? We won't ever forget that. But apart from that: Latin is a horrible language - but that's not really the professor's fault. Again, yours; Sybille."