The Parent Trap

by Erich Kästner

  ‘Oh!’ There is a beaming smile on Lottie’s face. ‘Will I be able to see you from my seat?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘And will you sometimes look my way?’

  ‘Of course I will!’

  ‘And may I give you a tiny little wave when you look at me?’

  ‘I’ll even wave back, Luiserl!’

  Then the telephone rings. It is a woman’s voice at the other end. Lottie’s father replies without saying very much, but when he has put the receiver down he is in rather a hurry. He has to be alone for a few hours, he says, composing music. Because after all, he is not just Music Director at the Opera House, he is also a composer. And he can’t compose at home; dear me, no, he has a studio on the Ringstrasse for that. So …

  ‘See you tomorrow at lunchtime in the Imperial Hotel!’ he says.

  ‘And may I really wave to you at the opera, Daddy?’

  ‘Of course, dear. Why not?’

  A kiss is dropped on Lottie’s serious childish brow! Her father puts his hat on his head above his handsome face! And the door slams shut.

  The little girl goes slowly to the window, thinking about life and feeling worried. Her mother isn’t allowed to work at home. Her father can’t work at home.

  Parents really do give you a difficult time.

  But as she is a practical and determined little girl, not least because of the way her mother has brought her up, she very soon stops worrying, gets out her octavo-sized exercise book, and armed with all that Luise has told her she begins systematically exploring the lovely apartment in the Old Town of Vienna for herself.

  After this grand tour, she sits down at the kitchen table, an old habit of hers, and goes through the sums in the columns of expenses in the housekeeping book that she finds lying about.

  Two things strike her as she checks the arithmetic. First, Resi the housekeeper has made mistakes on almost every page. And second, she has always done it so that the sums work out to her own advantage.

  ‘So what’s all this, then?’ Resi is standing in the kitchen doorway.

  ‘I was going through the arithmetic in your book,’ say.s Lottie quietly but firmly.

  ‘Well, what a cheek!’ says Resi crossly. ‘Keep your arithmetic for school where it belongs!’

  ‘From now on I’m going to check the housekeeping sums,’ explains the little girl gently, hopping down from the kitchen chair. ‘We learn arithmetic at school, but not for school, that’s what our teacher said.’ And with those words she stalks out of the doorway.

  Greatly taken aback, Resi stares after her.

  Respected readers, both large and small, I think – indeed, I am afraid – that it is time I told you a little about the parents of Lottie and Luise, and particularly about how they came to be divorced. And if at this point a grown-up happens to look over your shoulder and exclaim, ‘How on earth can the man write about such things for children?’ then please be kind enough to read aloud the following remarks to that grown-up.

  ‘When Shirley Temple was a little girl of seven or eight, she was already a famous film star all over the world, and the film companies earned millions and millions of dollars from her films. But if Shirley and her mother wanted to go to the cinema to see a Shirley Temple film, she wasn’t allowed in. It was forbidden, because she was still too young. She could only make films; that was allowed. She was old enough for that.’

  And if the grown-up who is looking over your shoulder hasn’t seen the connection between Shirley Temple and the divorce of Luise and Lottie’s parents, then give that grown-up my regards and tell him, from me, that there were very many divorced parents in the world at the time, and very many children who were unhappy about it! And there were very many other children who were unhappy because their parents didn’t get divorced! But if you suspected that the children were unhappy in those circumstances, then it would be in one way too considerate and in another way a mistake not to talk to them about it, in an understanding and easily understood way!

  So, Music Director Ludwig Palfy is an artist, and as everyone knows artists are a strange form of life. He doesn’t wear a big, broad-brimmed hat or a flowing cravat, true; on the contrary, he is neatly and you might almost say elegantly well dressed.

  But as for his private life … well, that’s complicated. Dear me, yes, his private life is quite something! If he gets a musical idea, then he has to be alone now, at once, in order to write it down and put it into musical form. He may even get one of those ideas at a big party. ‘Where’s Palfy gone?’ the master of the house may ask. And someone or other will reply, ‘He’ll have had another of those ideas of his!’ Then the master of the house will smile a sour-sweet smile, but he is thinking: ‘What manners! People can’t go running off willy-nilly just because they get ideas!’ However, Music Director Palfy can.

  He kept leaving his own apartment when he was still married, back when he was young, in love, ambitious, happy and crazy all at the same time!

  And when there were baby twins in the apartment as well, howling day and night, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was going to give the premiere of his First Piano Concerto, he simply had his grand piano taken to a studio on the Ringstrasse of Vienna, a studio that he had rented in a mood of artistic desperation.

  Since he was getting a great many ideas at the time, so he didn’t see much of his young wife and the howling twins.

  Luiselotte Palfy, née Körner, hardly twenty years old, did not think that was very nice of him. And when it came to her hardly twenty-year-old ears that her husband was not just writing music in his studio, but also helping the operatic leading ladies who found him attractive to study their parts, she indignantly sued for divorce!

  So now the Music Director who set such store by his creative isolation was well out of it. Now he could be alone as much as he liked. After the divorce, he found a capable nanny to look after the twin who stayed with him in the apartment in Rotenturmstrasse. And no one cared a bit about him in his studio on the Ringstrasse, which was exactly what he had wanted!

  Yet all of a sudden he wasn’t happy with that, either. Really, artists! They just don’t know what they want. However, he was kept busy composing music and conducting operas, and he was more famous with every passing year. What was more, if he felt depressed, he could go back to his other apartment and play with his little daughter Luise.

  Whenever a concert in Munich performed a new work by Ludwig Palfy, Luiselotte Körner bought herself a ticket and then, with her head bent, sat in one of the cheapest seats at the very back, deducing from her former husband’s music that he was not a happy man. In spite of his success. And in spite of being alone.

  Chapter Six

  Where is Mrs Wagenthaler’s shop? · You never forget how to cook! · Lottie waves in the Opera House · It’s raining chocolates · The first night in Munich and the first night in Vienna · The strange dream in which Miss Gerlach is a witch · Parents can do as they like · Forget-Me-Not, Munich 18

  Mrs Luiselotte Körner just has time to take her daughter back to the tiny apartment in Max-Emanuel-Strasse. Then, very reluctantly and very fast, she has to go back to the office, where work is waiting for her. And work can’t wait.

  Luise – no, sorry, Lottie! – has taken a quick look round the apartment for the sake of her family research. After that she takes the door key, the purse and a net bag, and now she is out shopping. She goes to Mr Huber the master butcher on the corner of Prinz-Eugen-Strasse to buy half a pound of beef cut across the ribs, nicely marbled with fat, as well as a little kidney and a few bones. And now she is frantically searching for Mrs Wagenthaler’s shop to buy vegetables and herbs for soup, pasta and salt.

  Anni Habersetzer is not a little surprised to see her school friend Lottie Körner standing in the middle of the street leafing hectically through an octavo exercise book.

  ‘Doing homework in the street?’ she asks inquisitively. ‘But it’s still the holidays!’

  Luise stares at the oth
er girl, baffled. You feel so silly when someone speaks to you, and although you’ve never in your life seen her before you know that you’re supposed to know who she is. Finally she pulls herself together, and says, cheerfully, ‘Hi! Coming with me? I have to go to Mrs Wagenthaler’s and buy vegetables and herbs for soup.’ Then she takes the other girl’s arm – if only she knew this freckled child’s first name! – and lets herself be guided, although the freckled girl doesn’t notice that, to Mrs Wagenthaler’s shop.

  Of course Mrs Wagenthaler is glad to see Lottie Körner back from her holidays, and looking so rosy-cheeked! When the shopping has been done, the shopkeeper gives the girls a sweet each, and tells them to give Mrs Wagenthaler’s regards to Mrs Körner and Mrs Habersetzer.

  This is a weight off Luise’s mind. At last she knows that the freckled girl must be Anni Habersetzer! (In the octavo-sized exercise book it says: ‘Anni Habersetzer, I’ve been cross with her three times. She hits smaller children, specially Ilse Merck, who is the smallest in the class.’) Well, Luise thinks she can do something about that!

  So when they say goodbye at the door, Luise says, ‘Before I forget, Anni – I’ve been cross with you three times because of Ilse Merck and all that. I’m sure you know what I mean. Next time I won’t just be cross with you, I’ll …’ And she raises her hand in a way that makes her meaning clear and hurries away.

  We’ll see about that, thinks Anni furiously. We’ll see about that tomorrow! Has she gone round the bend in the holidays?

  Luise is cooking. She has put on one of Mummy’s aprons and is scurrying back and forth like a spinning top between the gas stove, where there are saucepans on the gas rings, and the table, where the cookery book lies open. She keeps lifting the lids of the pans. When water comes to the boil and runs over, hissing, she jumps. How much salt does she put in the water for the pasta? ‘Half a dessertspoon.’ How much celery salt? ‘A pinch.’ For heaven’s sake, how much is a pinch?

  And then: ‘Grate some nutmeg.’ Where’s the nutmeg? Where’s the nutmeg grater?

  The little girl rummages in drawers, climbs on chairs, looks in all the containers, stares at the clock on the wall, jumps off the chair, picks up a fork, lifts the lid of a pan, burns her fingers, squeals, sticks the fork into the beef – no, it isn’t cooked yet!

  Holding the fork, she stands there as if rooted to the ground. What was she looking for? Oh yes, the nutmeg and the nutmeg grater! Oh mercy, what’s that lying beside the cookery book? The vegetables and herbs! Help, she must clean and trim them and put them into the broth for the soup! Right, put down the fork, pick up a knife. Is the meat cooked yet? And where are the megnut and the megnut grater? Nonsense, she means the nutmeg. First you run the vegetables and herbs under the tap. Then you have to scrape the carrot. Ouch, but without cutting your fingers! And when the meat is tender you take it out of the pan. You need a sieve so that you can skim the liquid where the bones were simmering later. And Mummy will be back in half an hour! And twenty minutes before that you must put the pasta in boiling water. Oh, whatever does the kitchen look like? And the nutmeg! And the sieve! And the grater! And … and … and …

  Luise collapses on the kitchen chair. Oh, Lottie! It isn’t easy being your own sister! The Imperial Hotel … Dr Strobl … Peperl … Mr Franz … And Daddy … Daddy … Daddy …

  Time is ticking away.

  Mummy will be back in twenty-nine minutes’ time! In twenty-eight and a half minutes’ time! In twenty-eight minutes’ time! Luise clenches her fists with determination and starts cooking again. As she does so, she growls, ‘I’m not going to look silly!’

  However, cooking is a special skill. Determination may be enough to help you jump off a tall tower, but it takes more than strength of will to cook beef soup with pasta.

  And when Mrs Körner, tired after such a hectic day, comes home she is met not by a smiling little housewife, far from it, but by a totally exhausted little heap of misery, a slightly damaged, confused, crumpled Something whose mouth, twisted in a fit of weeping, says plaintively, ‘Please don’t be cross, Mummy, but I think I’ve forgotten how to cook!’

  ‘Why, Lottie, you don’t forget a thing like that!’ cries her mother in surprise. But there’s no time to wonder just what has happened. She has to dry Luise’s tears, taste the broth for the soup, put the cooked beef into it, get plates and cutlery out of the cupboard, and do all sorts of other things.

  When they are finally sitting under the lamp in the living room, spooning up beef soup with pasta, Mummy says consolingly, ‘It really tastes very good, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Does it?’ A timid smile steals over the little face. ‘Really?’

  Her mother nods, and smiles quietly back at her.

  Luise heaves a sigh of relief, and suddenly it tastes better, even to her, than anything she ate in her life! Never mind the Imperial Hotel and its pancakes!

  ‘I’ll do the cooking myself for the next few days,’ says her mother. ‘If you watch me, and notice what I’m doing, you’ll soon be cooking as well as you did before the holidays.’

  Luise nods eagerly. ‘Maybe even better!’ she says hopefully.

  After supper they wash the dishes together, and Luise tells her mother how nice it was at the summer camp. (But she doesn’t breathe a single word about the girl she met who looked exactly like her!)

  Meanwhile Lottie, wearing Luise’s best dress, is sitting close to the velvet-covered ledge at the front of a box in the Vienna State Opera House, looking down in fascination at the orchestra in the pit below, where Music Director Palfy is conducting the overture to Hansel and Gretel.

  How handsome Daddy looks in his evening dress! And the musicians are doing everything he wants them to do, even though some of them are quite elderly gentlemen! When he threatens them with his baton they play as loud as they can. And when he wants them to be quieter their music murmurs like an evening breeze. They must be terribly frightened of him! But he looked so cheerful just now when he waved to her up in the box!

  The door of the box opens.

  An elegant young lady comes in, her skirts rustling, sits down at the front of the box herself and smiles at the child looking up at her.

  Lottie shyly turns away, and looks back at Daddy to see him training the musicians.

  The young lady brings out opera glasses. And a box of chocolates. And a programme. And a powder compact. She doesn’t stop producing things until the velvet ledge at the front of the box looks like a shop display window.

  When the overture comes to an end, the audience applauds loudly. Music Director Palfy bows several times. And then, as he raises his conductor’s baton again, he looks up at the box.

  Lottie waves shyly back. Daddy smiles even more lovingly than just now.

  Then Lottie notices that she isn’t the only one waving to him – the lady beside her is waving as well!

  Is the lady waving to Daddy? Was Daddy perhaps smiling so affectionately to her? And not to his daughter after all? Yes, and why didn’t Luise tell her anything about this strange lady? Has Daddy known her for long? The child makes a mental note: write to Luise today. Ask if she knows anything. Take letter to the post office before school. Hand it in to be collected, addressed to Forget-Me-Not, Munich 18.

  Then the curtain goes up, and the story of Hansel and Gretel demands its proper share of attention. Lottie is so excited that she can hardly breathe. Down there, the children are being sent out into the forest by their parents, who want to get rid of them. But all the same they love the children! How can they be so cruel? Or aren’t they cruel at all? Is it just what they are doing that’s cruel? They are sad about it. So why do they do it?

  Lottie, as half of a pair of twins who have switched identities, is feeling more and more agitated. Although she doesn’t realize it, her conflicting feelings are less about the children and parents down on the stage of the theatre than about herself, her twin sister and their own parents. Ought their parents to have done what they did? Mummy certainly isn’t
a bad woman, and Daddy definitely isn’t a bad man either. It’s what they did – that was bad! The woodcutter and his wife in the fairy-tale opera were so poor that they couldn’t afford to buy bread to feed their children. But what about Daddy? Had he been as poor as all that?

  Later, when Hansel and Gretel arrive at the delicious gingerbread house, begin nibbling bits of it and are startled by the witch’s voice, Miss Irene Gerlach – that is the elegant lady’s name – leans over to the little girl, holds out her box of chocolates and whispers, ‘Would you like something to nibble too?’

  Lottie jumps, looks up, sees the woman’s face in front of her, and makes a wild gesture to fend her off. As she does so, unfortunately, she sweeps the box of chocolates off the ledge, and down in the stalls, as if on cue with the story of the opera, there is a brief shower of chocolates! Heads turn and look up. Muted laughter mingles with the music. Miss Gerlach smiles, half embarrassed, half annoyed.

  Lottie freezes rigid with shock. All of a sudden she has been snatched out of the dangerous magic of art – and all of a sudden she is in the dangerous domain of reality.

  ‘I’m terribly, terribly sorry,’ whispers Lottie.

  The lady gives her a forgiving smile. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter at all, Luiserl.’

  Is she a witch too? Only a more beautiful witch than the one on stage?

  Luise is lying in bed in Munich for the first time. Her mother, sitting on the edge of the bed, says, ‘There, Lottie dear, sleep well! And dream sweet dreams!’

  ‘If I’m not too tired for them,’ murmurs the child. ‘Are you coming to bed soon?’

  A larger bed stands against the opposite wall, and Mummy’s nightdress is lying on the turned-back bedclothes, ready for Mummy to slip into it.