suit. A little boy who couldn’t keep still, she says.
“The little girl smiled at me and slipped suddenly from her wicker chair in her smocked sundress with its little wing-like sleeves—I can see it all so clearly—and came running over to our table. She stood beside me and stared up at me as I ate my chocolate cake. I looked over at the child’s mother, who was trying to cope with the naughty boy. I asked if I could share my cake with her little girl. Frau Z., for it was she, the mother, smiled graciously, nodded her head in assent, and laughed a little at her daughter. Frau Z. is, I will admit, very lovely when she laughs, perhaps you know, her mouth very red and her teeth unusually white and even,” she says.
“How old were you?” the doctor asks.
“I was twelve years old—almost thirteen that summer, I think, and the little girl, Clara, must have been around three or four.
“After that we often met in the town where the Z.’s lived. Herr Z. had a shop there, which you probably know, and Frau Z. made hats. She is very gifted with her hands. She makes wonderful, extravagant hats with wide brims, feathers, and ribbons, and once even with a fake bluebird, although she, too, was often ill and had to go away one summer to a sanatorium. Mother bought several hats in their shop, for her and also for me. Together Father and Frau Z.—Pippina, she told me to call her—took the ‘grape cure,’ the curative grapes, which grow in the area, and sometimes they took the ‘whey cure’ in the summers, and the waters and the baths for all their ailments. Or we just met on the Wassermauer, the promenade, in the old town,” she tells him.
“Both Herr Z. and his wife were exceptionally kind to me,” she admits. “At first I wasn’t sure which one I liked better. At first, in my ignorance, I thought they were so kind because I was precocious and well read, so clever and amusing. They made me feel I was an especially gifted child. What an idiot I was!” she says bitterly. They both made her feel so pretty and bright. They invited her to quote the poetry she knew by heart and marveled at her memory. Or they asked her to play the piano, which she did gladly for them.
Much of the time, though, she had sat beside her father in the dark room when he had trouble with his eyes and recited poetry for
him
.
“Then Frau Z. began nursing Father, too—‘You go outside and play with the children. They would love that. They are so fond of you, and you are too young to have to sit for such long hours in a dark sickroom,’ she would say to me when Father was very sick and when Mother felt incapable of helping, and Father refused to have a nurse,” she says. “I thought her so kind and thoughtful! And I was so happy to play outside with her children. I’ve always loved both of them but particularly the little girl, who would follow me around like a shadow. I taught her how to say some things in French and play simple pieces on the piano.”
One summer they had all left Meran and gone on holiday together to a hotel on beautiful Lago di Garda in Italy. “Frau Z., Pippina, comes from northern Italy, perhaps you know, from the lake country,” she says. “And I think it was she who chose the luxurious hotel at the lake where we all spent that summer. I had not quite turned thirteen.”
She will never forget the place, she says: the laughter at the tables on the terrace; the sparkling white wine she was allowed to sip for the first time; the dark-haired, hard-working Italian waiters who huddled in a corner by the bar in the shadows, waiting for the first guests to arrive when the restaurant doors swung open in the evening. “They would watch me as I entered, staring as I walked across the terrace to our table, and making me blush to the roots of my hair.”
She remembers the large balcony off their room with its round wicker table and chairs, where Pippina had patiently taught her to play endless games of honeymoon bridge,
“The little girl smiled at me and slipped suddenly from her wicker chair in her smocked sundress with its little wing-like sleeves—I can see it all so clearly—and came running over to our table. She stood beside me and stared up at me as I ate my chocolate cake. I looked over at the child’s mother, who was trying to cope with the naughty boy. I asked if I could share my cake with her little girl. Frau Z., for it was she, the mother, smiled graciously, nodded her head in assent, and laughed a little at her daughter. Frau Z. is, I will admit, very lovely when she laughs, perhaps you know, her mouth very red and her teeth unusually white and even,” she says.
“How old were you?” the doctor asks.
“I was twelve years old—almost thirteen that summer, I think, and the little girl, Clara, must have been around three or four.
“After that we often met in the town where the Z.’s lived. Herr Z. had a shop there, which you probably know, and Frau Z. made hats. She is very gifted with her hands. She makes wonderful, extravagant hats with wide brims, feathers, and ribbons, and once even with a fake bluebird, although she, too, was often ill and had to go away one summer to a sanatorium. Mother bought several hats in their shop, for her and also for me. Together Father and Frau Z.—Pippina, she told me to call her—took the ‘grape cure,’ the curative grapes, which grow in the area, and sometimes they took the ‘whey cure’ in the summers, and the waters and the baths for all their ailments. Or we just met on the Wassermauer, the promenade, in the old town,” she tells him.
“Both Herr Z. and his wife were exceptionally kind to me,” she admits. “At first I wasn’t sure which one I liked better. At first, in my ignorance, I thought they were so kind because I was precocious and well read, so clever and amusing. They made me feel I was an especially gifted child. What an idiot I was!” she says bitterly. They both made her feel so pretty and bright. They invited her to quote the poetry she knew by heart and marveled at her memory. Or they asked her to play the piano, which she did gladly for them.
Much of the time, though, she had sat beside her father in the dark room when he had trouble with his eyes and recited poetry for
him
.
“Then Frau Z. began nursing Father, too—‘You go outside and play with the children. They would love that. They are so fond of you, and you are too young to have to sit for such long hours in a dark sickroom,’ she would say to me when Father was very sick and when Mother felt incapable of helping, and Father refused to have a nurse,” she says. “I thought her so kind and thoughtful! And I was so happy to play outside with her children. I’ve always loved both of them but particularly the little girl, who would follow me around like a shadow. I taught her how to say some things in French and play simple pieces on the piano.”
One summer they had all left Meran and gone on holiday together to a hotel on beautiful Lago di Garda in Italy. “Frau Z., Pippina, comes from northern Italy, perhaps you know, from the lake country,” she says. “And I think it was she who chose the luxurious hotel at the lake where we all spent that summer. I had not quite turned thirteen.”
She will never forget the place, she says: the laughter at the tables on the terrace; the sparkling white wine she was allowed to sip for the first time; the dark-haired, hard-working Italian waiters who huddled in a corner by the bar in the shadows, waiting for the first guests to arrive when the restaurant doors swung open in the evening. “They would watch me as I entered, staring as I walked across the terrace to our table, and making me blush to the roots of my hair.”
She remembers the large balcony off their room with its round wicker table and chairs, where Pippina had patiently taught her to play endless games of honeymoon bridge,
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