The Parent Trap

by Erich Kästner

  Suddenly she feels a small, strange hand awkwardly stroking her hair! Lottie lies stiff as a poker with shock. Shock? Luise’s hand goes on shyly stroking.

  The moon looks through the big window of the dormitory, greatly surprised. It sees two little girls lying side by side, not daring to look at each other, but the one who was crying just now has put out her hand, and is very slowly feeling for the other girl’s stroking hand.

  Good, thinks the silvery old moon. That’s all right. Now I can set with my mind at rest. And so it did.

  Chapter Two

  The difference between an armistice and peace · The bathroom turns into a hairdresser’s salon · Lottie Times Two · Trude gets her face slapped · Mr Eipeldauer the photographer and the forester’s wife · My mummy, our mummy · Even Miss Ulrike has guessed something

  Would the armistice between the two girls last in the long run? Even though it had been concluded without any negotiations and arguments? I’d like to think so. But it’s a long way from an armistice, when people just stop fighting, to real peace. Even for children, wouldn’t you agree?

  They dared not look at each other when they woke up next morning; when they went to the bathroom in their long white nightdresses; when they got dressed, wardrobe beside wardrobe; when they sat at the breakfast table side by side, drinking milk; not even when they ran along the shore of the lake beside each other, singing songs, and later on danced and made garlands of flowers with the assistants. Just once their eyes quickly met, but then they looked away again in alarm.

  Now Miss Ulrike is sitting in the meadow, reading a wonderful novel all about love – there’s love on every page. Sometime she lowers the book into her lap and thinks dreamily about Mr Rademacher, who has a university degree in engineering and is a lodger at her aunt’s house. His first name is Rudolf. Oh, Rudolf!

  Meanwhile, Luise is playing ball with her friends. But her mind isn’t really on the game. She often looks round as if she were searching for someone and couldn’t find her.

  ‘When are you going to bite the new girl’s nose off, then?’ asks Trude.

  ‘Don’t be so silly!’ says Luise.

  Christine looks at her in surprise. ‘What’s all this? I thought you were furious with her?’

  ‘I can’t go biting the nose off everyone I’m furious with,’ explains Luise coolly. And she adds, ‘Anyway, I’m not furious with her at all.’

  ‘But you were furious with her yesterday!’ insists Steffie.

  ‘Furious as anything!’ adds Monika. ‘You kicked her shin under the table at supper so hard that she almost howled!’

  ‘So there,’ says Trude, with obvious satisfaction.

  Luise is all rubbed up the wrong way. ‘If you two don’t stop it this minute,’ she says angrily, ‘I’ll kick your shins!’ And with that she turns round and marches away.

  ‘She doesn’t know what she wants,’ says Christine, shrugging her shoulders.

  Lottie is sitting all by herself in the meadow with a wreath of flowers on her braids, busy making another wreath. A shadow falls on her pinafore. She looks up.

  Luise is standing in front of her, looking embarrassed and fidgety, and treading from one foot to the other.

  Lottie ventures to give her a small smile. So small you can hardly see it. In fact, you couldn’t see it except with a magnifying glass.

  Relieved, Luise smiles back.

  Lottie holds up the wreath she has just been making, and asks shyly, ‘Would you like this?’

  Luise gets down on her knees and says enthusiastically, ‘Oh, yes, but only if you’ll put it on my head for me!’

  Lottie presses the wreath down on her ringlets. Then she nods and says, ‘That’s lovely!’

  So now the two little girls who look the same are sitting in the meadow side by side, all on their own, saying nothing and smiling cautiously at each other.

  Then Luise takes a deep breath and asks, ‘Are you still cross with me?’

  Lottie shakes her head.

  Luise looks at the ground and manages to say, ‘It’s just that it was so sudden! The bus! And then you! Such a shock!’

  Lottie nods. ‘Such a shock,’ she repeats.

  Luise leans forward. ‘It’s really terribly funny, don’t you think?’

  Lottie looks into Luise’s cheerfully sparkling eyes, surprised. ‘Funny?’ Then she asks, quietly, ‘Do you have any brothers and sisters?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I don’t either,’ says Lottie.

  Both girls have slipped into the bathroom and are standing in front of a big mirror. Lottie is enthusiastically setting to work on Luise’s ringlets with a brush and comb.

  ‘Ouch!’ cries Luise, and, ‘Ow!’

  ‘Do for goodness’ sake keep still!’ says Lottie crossly, pretending to be a stern grown-up. ‘When your mummy’s braiding your hair you don’t screech like that!’

  ‘I don’t have any mummy,’ complains Luise. ‘That’s why – ouch! – that’s why I’m such a noisy child, my father says!’

  ‘Doesn’t he ever spank you, then?’ enquires Lottie with interest.

  ‘Not him! He loves me far too much!’

  ‘That has nothing to do with it,’ says Lottie very wisely.

  ‘And anyway, his head’s full of other things.’

  ‘He only needs to have one hand free!’ They laugh.

  Then Luise’s braids are plaited, and the children look eagerly in the mirror. Their faces are shining like Christmas trees. Two totally identical little girls look at the mirror! Two totally identical little girls look back out of the mirror!

  ‘We’re sisters!’ whispers Lottie, delighted.

  The gong goes for lunch.

  ‘This is going to be fun!’ cries Luise. ‘Come on!’ They run out of the bathroom, holding hands.

  The other children sat down some time ago. Only the stools where Luise and Lottie are to sit are still empty.

  Then the door opens, and Lottie comes in. She sits down without any hesitation on Luise’s stool.

  ‘Hey, that’s Luise’s place!’ Monika warns her. ‘Think of your shin!’

  The little girl just shrugs her shoulders and begins eating. The door opens again and – my goodness! – Lottie in person comes in again! Without turning a hair, she goes to the last empty place and sits down.

  The other girls at their table open their mouths and eyes wide in surprise. Now the children at the other tables are looking that way. They stand up, crowding round the two Lotties.

  The tension doesn’t relax until both girls begin laughing. Not a minute later the whole dining room is echoing with the laughter of all those children.

  Mrs Muthesius frowns. What in the world, she wonders, is all this racket? Getting to her feet, she marches into the middle of the noisy, happy crowd with a stern look of disapproval. But when she sees the two girls, both with their hair in braids, her disapproval dissolves like snow melting in the sunshine. Amused, she asks, ‘Now then, which of you two is Luise Palfy and which is Lottie Körner?’

  ‘We’re not telling!’ says one of the Lotties, winking, and setting off more roars of laughter.

  ‘Good heavens above!’ cried Mrs Muthesius in mock despair. ‘What can we do about that?’

  ‘Maybe,’ suggests the second Lottie, sounding pleased with herself, ‘maybe someone can work it out?’

  Steffie puts up her hand and waves it about in the air, like someone volunteering to recite a poem and very keen to do so. ‘I know what!’ she cries. ‘Trude is in the same class at school as Luise! Ask Trude to guess!’

  Trude hesitantly makes her way to the front of the crowd, looks hard from one Lottie to the other, and shakes her head, at a loss. But then a mischievous smile appears on her face. She pulls one braid of the Lottie sitting closest to her hard – and next moment a slap rings out.

  Rubbing her cheek, Trude cries happily, ‘That was Luise!’ That makes the general merriment louder than ever for now.

  Luise and Lottie have bee
n given permission to go into the village. They want pictures of themselves. Photographs to send home! How surprised everyone will be!

  The photographer, a gentleman called Mr Eipeldauer, does a good job once he has recovered from his first surprise. He takes six different pictures, and they will be ready in the form of postcards ten days from now.

  Once the girls have left, he says to his wife, ‘I tell you what, I think I’ll send a few glossy prints to an illustrated newspaper or a magazine. Magazines sometimes show an interest in this kind of thing!’

  Outside his studio, Luise undoes her ‘stupid braids’ again, because she feels uncomfortable with a hairstyle like a good little girl’s. Once she can toss her ringlets again, her high spirits come back. She invites Lottie to have a glass of lemonade with her. Lottie isn’t sure about that, but Luise says firmly, ‘You have to do as I say! My father sent me pocket money yesterday, so come on!’

  They walk out to the forester’s house, where the forester’s wife runs a little garden café, and they sit in the garden, drink lemonade and talk. There is so much to tell each other, so many questions to be answered when two little girls have only just made friends.

  Chickens run back and forth among the café tables, pecking up seeds and cackling. An old gun dog sniffs at the two guests and decides that he likes them.

  ‘Has your father been dead a long time?’ asks Luise.

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Lottie. ‘Mummy never talks about him – and I don’t like to ask questions.’

  Luise nods. ‘I don’t remember my mummy at all. There used to be a big picture of her on Daddy’s grand piano. Once he came in when I was looking at it, and next day it was gone. He probably locked it up in the drawer of his desk.’

  The chickens cackle. The gun dog dozes. A little girl without a father and a little girl without a mother drink lemonade together.

  ‘Are you nine too?’ asks Luise.

  ‘Yes.’ Lottie nods. ‘I’m going to be ten on October 14th.’

  Luise sits up ramrod straight. ‘On October 14th?’

  ‘On October 14th.’

  Luise leans forward and whispers, ‘So am I!’

  Lottie stiffens like a doll.

  A rooster crows behind the house. The gun dog snaps at a bumblebee buzzing in the air close to him. The forester’s wife can be heard singing through the open window.

  The two children look into each other’s eyes as if they were hypnotized. Lottie swallows with difficulty and asks, in a voice hoarse with tension, ‘And – where were you born?’

  Quietly and hesitantly, almost afraid, Luise replies, ‘In the town of Linz on the river Danube!’

  Lottie passes her tongue over her dry lips. ‘So was I.’

  It is perfectly still in the garden. Only the treetops move. Perhaps Fate, hovering over the garden just now, has touched them with its wings?

  Lottie says slowly, ‘I have a photo of … of my mother in my wardrobe here.’

  Luise jumps up. ‘Show me!’ She hauls the other girl off her chair and out of the café garden.

  ‘What’s all this?’ cries an indignant voice. ‘The manners of children these days!’ It’s the forester’s wife. ‘Drinking lemonade and running off without paying?’

  Luise gets a fright. With shaking fingers, she searches her little purse, presses a folded-up banknote into the woman’s hand, and runs back to Lottie.

  ‘You’ll be wanting your change!’ shouts the forester’s wife, but the children don’t hear her. They are running as if for their lives.

  ‘What in the world is up with those silly little geese?’ murmurs the forester’s wife. Then she goes into her house, with the oldgun dog trotting after her.

  Back at the summer camp, Lottie hastily searches her wardrobe. She takes out a photograph from under the pile of clean clothes, and holds it out to Luise, who is trembling all over.

  Shyly and anxiously, Luise looks at the picture. Then her expression clears. Her eyes positively devour the face of the woman in the photo.

  Lottie’s face is fixed, expectantly, on the face of the other girl. Luise, exhausted with sheer happiness, lowers the photograph and nods happily. Then she clutches it frantically to herself and whispers, ‘My mummy!’

  Lottie puts her arm round Luise’s neck. ‘Our mummy!’ Two little girls hug each other, holding close. They have just solved a mystery, but there are more puzzles and yet other mysteries waiting behind it.

  The sound of the gong booms through the house. Laughing, chattering children run downstairs. Luise is going to put the photograph back in Lottie’s wardrobe, but Lottie says, ‘Keep it. It’s a present for you.’

  Miss Ulrike is standing in front of the desk in Mrs Muthesius’s office, so agitated that she has bright red circular patches on both cheeks.

  ‘I can’t keep it to myself!’ she utters her confession. ‘I must confide in you! If only I knew what we ought to do!’

  ‘There, there,’ says Mrs Muthesius. ‘What’s upsetting you so much, my dear?’

  ‘There’s no such thing as astrological twins!’

  ‘Who?’ asks Mrs Muthesius, smiling. ‘You mean King Edward VII of England and the gentlemen’s tailor?’

  ‘No! I mean Luise Palfy and Lottie Körner! I’ve looked up their details in the register! They were both born in Linz, and both on the same day! It can’t be coincidence!’

  ‘More than likely it isn’t coincidence, my dear. I’ve already formed certain ideas of my own on the subject.’

  ‘Then you know?’ asks Miss Ulrike, gasping for air.

  ‘Of course! When I asked little Lottie about her details after her arrival, and I entered them in the register, I compared them with Luise’s date and place of birth. They were, you might say, very close. Weren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, yes. So now what do we do?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Nothing! And if you can’t keep your mouth shut, I shall cut off your ears, my dear.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘No buts! The children have no idea of it. They’ve just had their photographs taken, and they’re going to send the pictures home. If that disentangles this complicated story, well and good! But you and I will not play the part of Fate. Thank you for telling me your opinion, my dear. And now, please would you ask the cook to come and see me?’

  The expression on Miss Ulrike’s face was not particularly intelligent as she left the office – although if it had been particularly intelligent, that would have been something entirely new.

  Chapter Three

  Discovering new continents · Puzzle after puzzle · A first name divided into two · A serious photograph and a funny letter · Steffie’s parents are getting divorced · Can you divide children in half?

  Time flies. It knows no better.

  Have the two little girls fetched their photographs from Mr Eipeldauer in the village? Long ago! Has Miss Ulrike, who is curious to know, asked them whether they have sent the photos home? Long ago! Did Luise and Lottie nod their heads and say yes? Long ago!

  And all that time those very photographs, torn into tiny pieces, have been lying at the bottom of the bottle-green waters of Lake Bühl near the village of Seebühl. The children told Miss Ulrike a lie. They want to keep their secret to themselves! They want to keep it together and then, perhaps, reveal it together! And anyone who comes too close to that secret will be ruthlessly hoodwinked. There’s no alternative. Even Lottie doesn’t have a guilty conscience, and that’s saying a lot.

  Nowadays the two girls are inseparable. Trude, Steffie, Monika and Christine are sometimes cross with Luise and jealous of Lottie. What’s to be done about it? There’s nothing at all to be done about it! Where are those two girls now?

  They’re in the room with the wardrobes. Lottie takes two identical pinafores out of her wardrobe, gives her sister one of them, and says, as she puts the other one on herself and ties its strings, ‘Mummy bought these pinafores at Oberpollinger’s.’

&n
bsp; ‘Oh yes,’ says Luise, ‘that’s the department store in Neuhauser Strasse near … what’s the name of the gate?’

  ‘Karlstor.’

  ‘That’s right, near Karlstor.’

  They now know all about each other’s lives, school friends, neighbours, teachers and apartments. To Luise, everything to do with their mother is immensely important. And Lottie devours everything, absolutely everything that her sister knows about their father. They talk about nothing else, day after day. In the evenings they go on whispering for hours in bed. Each of them is discovering a whole new continent. Because it has suddenly turned out that what has made up each girl’s life so far was only half of her real world!

  And if, for once, they aren’t busy eagerly fitting those two halves together, so as to get a good view of the whole jigsaw puzzle, they are thinking about another subject and trying to work out another mystery: why don’t their parents live with each other any more?

  ‘Because of course they got married first,’ explains Luise for the umpteenth time. ‘Then they had two little girls. And because Mummy’s name is Luiselotte they had one baby christened Luise and the other baby was christened Lottie. That was a very nice idea! They must still have liked each other at that time, mustn’t they?’

  ‘Definitely,’ says Lottie. ‘But then they must have had a quarrel. And they left each other. And they divided us up, the same way as they’d divided up Mummy’s first name!’

  ‘They really should have asked whether it was all right to divide us up first!’

  ‘Well, we couldn’t talk yet at that time.’

  The two sisters smile helplessly. Then they link arms and go out into the garden.

  The post has arrived. Little girls are everywhere, sitting in the grass and on the wall and on the garden benches, reading their letters.