Perceptions

Karl was the first love of my life. He was slender and about 5ft 10ins in height with a “short-back-and-sides” haircut that fell into a natural, blonde wave over his right temple. His hands were long with thin fingers — artistic hands — and his gaunt, pale face wore a gentle, serious expression that belied the warm, smile in his blue eyes as he looked across at me.

We sat in the small walled garden on the patch of lawn. The cherry tree that dad had planted to mark my birth had shed its pink confetti and now screened us with coarse serrated leaves from the neighbours whose house backed on to ours. The apples on the four cordons along the wall to the left of us were about walnut size and the branches formed a trellis that again offered partial privacy. Behind us was the windowless end wall of the scullery. The garden was only open to public gaze along the right hand border and we could look along the “backs” of at least four houses until a wooden fence shut off our view. Each garden was about 20 ft long and 17 ft wide.

I was wearing my red-and-white gingham dress, with the peter-pan collar and short puff sleeves. Buttoned down the front to the waist and with a bow tied in the small of my back, the dress had arrived in the latest parcel of clothing to be sent to us from the Christian Science Mother Church in Boston, Massachusetts. Rummaging through the garments to see if there was one that fitted, with the adults cooing in awe over the quality of the materials, was always a thrill. Each item was spotlessly clean and had been lovingly pressed before being dispatched to help the poorer Christian Scientists living in the Great Britain. I had thin, gangly legs and the hem was well above my knees, but I was happy in my gingham.

The deckchairs we sat in had been brought out of winter storage on this bright day in early summer. As treasured possessions they had been mended many times but, even so, the yellow and red broadly striped canvas was faded and varnish was peeling from the wooden frame. Karl’s chair was set lower and at a more obtuse angle than mine and we faced each other across a board game laid out on a low table. From time to time he reclined with his face tilted towards the lukewarm sun, looking weary but content, whilst I perched on the hard slat at the front of my deckchair, leaning forward as I shook the die or struggled to decide upon my next move. My feet clad in short, white socks inside black patent shoes with a buttoned ankle strap, swung a few inches above the ground.

Our favourite games were “Ludo” and “Snakes and Ladders”. “eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf”, Karl muttered, shifting his position, as I tapped my red counter up the rungs of a ladder. “eins, (eyns) zwei, (tsvigh) drei, (dry) vier, (feer) fünf” (fuenf), I repeated slowly and carefully. He smiled approvingly. He had already taught me the days of the week and the German words for mother, father and auntie. I enjoyed the lessons and because Karl lavished praise upon my efforts I was keen to learn. As usual, I won the “Snakes and Ladders”. I suspect that Karl must have let me win but at the time I thought I’d done it all myself.

Karl was coming to visit more regularly now. When he was first allowed out — three or four years after the war ended - it had been only once or twice a year, but the rules had gradually been relaxed, so that now we saw him almost every Bank Holiday, including Christmas. He always brought a token gift: a necklace or bangle woven from the coloured ends of electrical wire, or perhaps a tea-pot stand made from off cuts of wood. In a time of austerity, to be given jewellery was enough to turn any young girls’ head!

In the house, dad was reading a newspaper with the wireless on in the background. Auntie and Mum laboured in terse competitiveness turning what was left of the week’s rations into a simple meal to share with our guest. As non-allotment, town dwellers, the family was totally dependent upon ration books, although the man at the Co-op occasionally slipped in a tin of condensed milk, or other luxury into mum’s cloth shopping bag, “For the little maid!”

Dinner, as always, was at midday, and we ate a slice of brisket with plain boiled potatoes and soggy cabbage to which soda had been added to preserve the greenness. As usual, I did not like my dinner, but today I ate without fuss. For pudding there was a heavy wedge of caraway seed cake, made with lard, dried egg and very little sugar. When the meal was finished, Karl congratulated the women upon their cooking and thanked us with great sincerity for our hospitality. An hour or so after dinner dad and Karl set off for the long walk back to the camp and I scampered up the road with the outside leaves of the cabbage to put in the “pig bin” which was wired onto a lamp-post. I met my friends, Frances Millman, Gill Goundry and Mary Watts on similar errands and spent a few moments swapping news with them. I couldn’t tarry long, or my family ask, “What have you been up to?”

The next time I saw Karl it was full summer, probably August Bank Holiday. He was looking a little better and it was such a lovely day that dad decided to take a risk and take Karl into the countryside. Karl joked that he’d only seen Britain from the air when he’d been brought over from America where he was first interred. He’d like to see what the Country really looked like, from the ground. The two men were alike in build, so dad lent Karl a white shirt and a pair of casual trousers and after he’d changed into them we waited on the main road for the single-decker bus to come along.

Dad bought the tickets from the conductress — “the clippy” - and the five of us sat on the long, back seat. All was going well until we were clear of the city, then dad pointed out the wild flowers and the birds and Karl forgot his vow of silence. His English was excellent — he was a university graduate — but his accent was unmistakably Teutonic. The conductress came scurrying down the bus like a virago. “Germans are not allowed to travel by bus. Get off. Get off immediately!” She pressed the bell violently, unimpressed by dad’s mild retort that “The war is over!” and the vehicle screeched to a halt. The few passengers stared at us as we gathered our things and sheepishly alighted. We stood for a moment, dazed, watching the bus grow smaller as it disappeared into the distance. This was serious. It would be a long walk home. But first, we would have our picnic. We climbed the nearest five-barred gate and sat behind the hedge and soberly placed the food and drink on a tablecloth. The joy had gone out of the excursion. To add insult to injury, we had taken our first mouthfuls when a herd of bullocks careered up the hill from the bottom of the field and headed straight towards us. Mum was terrified. We scooped up everything and bolted back over the gate. In desperation, because it was much too far to walk, we caught the next bus home, but before we boarded dad checked that the driver and conductress were different from the ones we’d met on our outward journey. During the white-knuckle ride, Karl, gazing resolutely out of the window, kept absolutely quiet and we got away with it.

Karl’s next visit was on Christmas Day. To keep me from being “under the feet” of my mother and aunt who were busy preparing the food, dad said that I could walk with him when he went to fetch Karl. It was a long way, he warned, but I didn’t mind. In fact I was delighted. I liked being alone with my father and I was used to walking - there were no cars and we seldom used public transport - and I was excited about seeing Karl again. I always had fun when Karl was in the house.

It was about three and a half miles and the sky was overcast but the pavements were dry. We started out early in the morning from Pigsty Hill, down the Gloucester Road to The Arches and then down Cheltenham Road through Stokes Croft to the Haymarket. From there we crossed the City Centre and walked on towards Ashton Gate — the home of Bristol City Football Club. Veering to the right, just passed the stadium, was a low-lying flood where the Nissan huts of the Prisoner-of-War camp had been erected. As we drew nearer, dad told me all that he knew about the camp, which did not amount to much, for what went on in the camp was largely veiled in secrecy. But like an uncle, who made deliveries to the camp, dad was appalled at the mire in which human beings had been incarcerated, for in wet weather, the mud rendered lorries immobile and the men moved like spectres through a dank, swampy mist. Dad told me that he felt it was time to forgive. “The war is over. It’s time to make peace.” That’s why he’d volunteered to be a host.

When we reached the incline that lead down into the camp, dad hesitated, obviously unsure of what to do. Then he looked at me and said, “I can’t take you any further. Children aren’t allowed in the camp. You’ll have to wait here. I’ll be as quick as I can.” It seemed a long wait, but I felt proud that dad had trusted me to be sensible. I had been brought up to be obedient and so I did exactly as I had been told. As time passed I felt cold — I had not noticed the chill whilst I had been walking - but I remained glued to the spot. After about twenty minutes I spied dad and Karl. They trudged up the slope, side by side, with a quiet, demure dignity. Then we walked the three-and-a-half miles home. It was a walk that dad would repeat in both directions that evening when he returned Karl to the camp.

Over Christmas dinner Karl told us, with obvious pleasure that the rumour was circulating in the camp that it might not be too long before he was repatriated. He could hardly wait to be reunited with his parents who lived near Munich but he was cautious about believing the gossip, because when he had been brought to England from America he had been told that he was “going home”. Perhaps even better since it was indisputable, he had received a letter from his fiancé. She had remained faithful to him all those years and he planned to marry her just as soon as he could. After dinner we opened our presents. As it was Christmas, and because it might be his last visit to us before repatriation, Karl had brought us something rather special, a hexagonal needlework box. My father immediately realised that it must have taken hours to construct from tiny scraps of wood found lying around the camp. It was lined with a dark pink, patterned, silky fabric, probably a curtain remnant. Nearly sixty years later, it houses odds and ends on my bedside cabinet.

It was indeed Karl’s last visit but that Spring, about the time that he was returned to Germany, the Watts’ family, who lived down the road, moved back into their own house which had been bombed in the war and had subsequently been rebuilt. Before they went Mary gave a party for her friends. We played “Blind Man’s Buff” and “Musical Chairs” but then we began to squabble over the rightful winner of “Pass the Parcel”. It was the first time that I became aware of the hostility that Karl’s visits had aroused in some of our neighbours. In the heat of the moment, Mary’s elder brother shouted at me that my family had fraternised with the enemy. He said that Karl had used us and hadn’t cared about us at all. “The only good German’s a dead one!” he yelled with hatred in his voice. I ran home crying.

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