Hey, hey! It is Epiphany!
In my childhood, this was another holiday. We got another present, often an orange, a blood orange which we had to share. The Russian people on the other side of the camp invited my mother to tea. I came along, although the rituals and formality made me queasy. Gerd, my brother, refused every time.
"They eat dogs," he said.
don't know where he got that information. I went with my mother because there was homemade chocolate and a little cookie filled with plum jam. The grandmother would read out loud from a book. I would sit on the floor near my mother's legs and look around the room. Dark, dark, dark, with hangings on the walls- one of them was the pelt of an animal . The dog they ate, maybe?
The visit was soon over. We shook hands with the grown-ups. I had to curtsey. The grandmother gave me another piece of chocolate, which I put into my apron pocket for Gerd.
" Watch out for that one, Elisabeth," said the old woman to my mother. "She observes everything."
I guess observing everything was not a good thing, but I just kept on paying attention. The family got their visas to emigrate to America the next year. Other refugees moved into their rooms, without pelts on the wall.