by Renee Duke
“Did Bentley happen to say where they’re staying?” asked Mr. Marchand. “Just so we can all, like, avoid the general area.”
“I’m afraid it’s the same general area we’re in. He told me he’d tried to get rooms at Gasthaus Volkmar, but I guess they hadn’t had that cancellation when he phoned from England a couple of days ago.” Cousin Ophelia grimaced. “His grandparents stayed there on their honeymoon, so he thought he’d like to as well. I doubt it would have been to his taste, though. When he couldn’t get in there, he booked into a much fancier place a few streets away. I didn’t—I really didn’t—say anything about where you were staying but he already seemed to know. He said they’d try to drop by for a visit.”
“Oh?” said Mr. Marchand. “Well, we’re really busy so, with luck, we’ll be out.”
Chapter Three
Cousin Ophelia stayed with the others for a while, but did not accompany them to the smaller markets Priska had told Mrs. Marchand and Aunt Augusta about. The children liked the medieval market best. So did Uncle Gareth, which wasn’t surprising, since that was his area of expertise. By the time they finished making the rounds it was getting dark and the elder Zieglers were tiring.
“We are ready to call it a day,” Aunt Regina admitted, when Priska suggested they go home. “Unlike little Tata, we couldn’t take a nap in a push-chair. But the rest of you should go back to the Marienplatz to see the Christkindlmarkt by night.”
“We’re planning to,” said Mrs. Marchand. “We’re only going back to the guesthouse to unload our packages and warm up a bit.”
When they got back to the guesthouse, Herr Volkmar told Mr. Marchand some boxes had arrived for him.
“Those will be the kids’ outfits for tomorrow. I’ll check them over and bring them up to their rooms. Feel free to come help carry stuff, Horst. You, too, Gareth.”
The children had side-by-side rooms near the stairs. The one Paige and Alina shared was quite small, so the children and their mothers waited in the larger room assigned to the three boys.
Zach immediately went to his suitcase and pulled out an Advent calendar.
“We leave Frankfurt so early, I forget to do this,” he said, punching through one of the windows and extracting a train-shaped chocolate.
“I didn’t forget to do mine,” said Jack, pointing to the dresser, where his Advent calendar was propped up beside Dane’s.
“You wouldn’t,” Paige retorted.
“You did yours, too,” Jack reminded her.
“You bet I did. I’m not going to miss out on having a chocolate a day just because we’re not at home.”
Mrs. Marchand frowned. “Is that all Advent means to you? A chocolate a day?”
“No, but opening up numbered windows to obtain treats is a nice Christmas tradition. A tradition you started years ago by giving us Playmobil® Advent calendars with little toys inside.”
“We had those, also,” said Zach. “You have the Playmobil® in Canada, then?”
“Yeah,” said Dane. “Loadza Toyz® has a big selection. Lots of other neat stuff, too.”
“It is something you like? The Playmobil®?”
Dane nodded. “We’ve got quite a few sets. Paige doesn’t really play with hers now that she’s a sophisticated teenager, but I still do. And with Lego®. They’ve always been my favourite toys.”
“And mine,” said Jack. “Although, when I was little, I was also quite taken with the handmade toys Priska used to bring me back from her visits home. Ones like we saw in the Christmas market today.”
“Germany is famous for its toys,” said Aunt Emma. “Some places are especially known for them. Like Seiffen. The toy museum there is most excellent.”
“It certainly is,” said Mrs. Marchand. “Unfortunately, it’s too far away for us to pay it a visit this trip. It was one of the highlights of the last one, as was the Playmobil® Fun Park near Nuremberg. The latter provided everyone but me with the enjoyable memory of Mummy getting stuck in the pirate ship rigging pursuing Dane. This time our primary goal is to re-visit the Deutsches Museum here in Munich. They’re old enough to really appreciate it now. We’re also going to try for the Berta Hummel Museum in Massing. We’ve never been to that one, and Gus and I both collected Hummel figurines as children.”
“As did I. Such enchanting little people in their cute Bavarian outfits. They so perfectly capture the joy and simplicity of small children. Alina has some, too.”
“And me,” said Paige. “But nowhere near as many as Grantie Etta. I think she’s been collecting them since they first came out.”
“That was in nineteen-thirty-five, I believe,” said Aunt Emma. “They were introduced at the Spring Fair in Leipzig.”
A few minutes later, Uncle Horst came in with a large box. Mr. Marchand and Uncle Gareth followed with some clothes on hangers. Once the latter were laid out on the beds, the children saw they were typical of the kind of clothes boys and girls had worn in the nineteen-thirties. Shirts, vests, shorts, and black lace-up shoes for the boys, cotton dresses, cardigans, and black strapped shoes for the girls.
Aunt Augusta fingered Jack’s garments dubiously. Even though she’d known what they’d be like, she seemed to have some concerns.
“This shirt’s long-sleeved, but rather thin. Even with the woolen vest it won’t be that warm. And short trousers? Alan, it’s winter. It’s cold out. I don’t know that I want my son standing outdoors in arctic temperatures in short trousers. Pneumonia isn’t on his Christmas list.”
“I wore short trousers in winter as a boy,” said Uncle Gareth. “Knees nipped a bit, but I survived.”
“Germany’s colder than England.”
“It is,” Zach agreed. He grinned. “But Alina and I will be all right. We are playing German children, not English, so we get these.”
He pointed to two pairs of long, brown, over the knee, stockings called lange Strümpfe and the accompanying waist bands. The waist bands had clasps to which the Strümpfe could be attached so that the wearers’ legs were fully covered.
“Can’t we have those, too?” Jack asked.
Mr. Marchand shook his head. “Like Zach said, you’re playing English kids. Toddlers might have worn leggings and such in cold weather, but big guys like you were supposed to be tough. And you shouldn’t find it too bad, Jack. Dane’s shorts seem okay, but yours look a bit on the long side. I expect they’ll drop well over your knees.”
“Oh, but they mustn’t. That won’t look at all right,” said Jack, looking aghast.
“Sure it will. It wasn’t unusual for kids to wear them that way back in those days.”
“Not me. I don’t want to look sloppy.”
“You looked a lot worse when I had you dressed as a Victorian urchin.”
“Victorian urchins couldn’t help how they looked. They were poor. An English boy whose parents had enough money to take him on holiday to Germany wouldn’t have been poor. And he wouldn’t have worn ill-fitting trousers.”
Uncle Gareth chuckled. “He’s got a point, Alan. And I doubt he’ll give in. Sharp dresser, this one. Likes to look smart. Other than his hair, of course. Howled throughout his first haircut, and has never been keen on them. Which explains the current unruly mop. I did tell him it wasn’t really suitable for your pre-war project, a time when most boys wore their hair quite short.”
“Most boys, but not all boys. And my hair’s not unruly. I keep it combed. Besides, hair is one thing, clothes another. Short trousers should be short, and I shan’t wear them unless someone puts them up.”
Mrs. Marchand knew her nephew could be immovably obstinate at times. She also knew it made her sister almost physically sick to pick up a needle and thread.
“I’ll do it,” she said. “And you don’t have to worry about him being cold, Gus. Not too much, anyway. They’ll mostly be working in a studio. Even when they go on location they’ll be indoors, or only outside for the briefest of time. At least, that’s what Alan told me.”
“A
nd that is how it’ll be.” Mr. Marchand gave Aunt Augusta a doleful look. “Do you honestly think your sister would let me expose our kids to the elements either? You’ve no idea how many times she’s thwarted my plans with her mother-bear protectiveness.”
Paige and Dane exchanged amused looks. They knew their father to be even more protective than their mother.
“Besides, they’ll have nice, thick, era-appropriate coats and boots for the scenes at Neuschwanstein Castle,” Mr. Marchand went on. “That’s what in the big box.”
“Oh?” said Aunt Augusta. “Well, all right, then.”
“Let’s try this stuff on,” said Dane.
The girls took their outfits to their own room. When they had changed, they came out into the hallway to show them off to their parents. The boys did the same, with Zach the last to emerge.
“The Strümpfe were troublesome,” he said.
Uncle Horst laughed. “We should have had Opa here to help you. I expect he once wore them.” He then turned his attention to his daughter. “You look very nice, Alina. Such a change from what you usually wear.”
“Ich sehe in der Regel nicht nett aus?” Alina demanded, indignation causing her to revert to German to inquire if he thought she did not usually look nice.
“Ja, ja. You do. This is just…umm…olden days nice.”
“Good save, Horst.” Mr. Marchand regarded Paige with mock wistfulness. “Mine looks olden days nice, too. The very picture of a sweet, well-behaved, child who’s never heard of ‘Girl Power’ and would never dream of doing anything unladylike.”
Paige smiled sardonically. “And a picture’s all it is, Dad. I’ll be acting. Just acting.”
Mrs. Marchand was studying her son.
“There’s a bulge in your pocket, Dane. What have you got in there?”
“Oh, just something to while away the time between takes.”
“Show us,” Mr. Marchand ordered.
When Dane complied, Mr. Marchand looked at Mrs. Marchand in disbelief. “The harmonica? You let him bring that damned—uh, that harmonica?”
“I thought it was at home. I did see him pack it, but I surreptitiously unpacked it. Apparently, he packed it again.”
Dane feigned surprise. “I didn’t know you’d actually unpacked it, Mum. I thought you’d just taken it out while you were finding a place for something else and then forgot to put it back.”
His innocent demeanour did not fool his father.
“Yeah, right,” said Mr. Marchand. “Too bad no-one noticed it at the airport. Customs could have confiscated it as a dangerous weapon. Oh, well, it’s here now. Just try not to assault people’s ears with it too much.”
“Does that mean I can take it on set tomorrow?”
“As long as you play it a long ways from me.”
Dane clicked his tongue. “Tsk, tsk, Dad. Don’t you know parents are supposed to encourage their children?”
“I do. In things you have some aptitude for. Like track and field. You’re good at that. Science, too. You definitely shine there. Your Science Fair entries are top notch. Same with Paige. She’s a good dancer, and a really talented artist. I encourage your interest in those activities. I also take you skiing, and horseback riding, and cheer you on at soccer games and karate tournaments. But playing a harmonica is… is…”
“An exercise in futility?” Paige suggested.
“…something you just might not be suited to, son,” Mr. Marchand finished diplomatically. “I’m not saying there isn’t some instrument you could get a recognizable tune out of. I just don’t think it’s going to be this one.”
“And you thought it wouldn’t have made a good diversion,” Dane said to Jack later.
“I stand corrected,” Jack replied.
Even though Mrs. Marchand hemmed Jack’s shorts up as promised, another part of his costume caused a problem at the studio the next day.
“These things keep slipping down,” he complained, yanking at his knee socks.
“Mine don’t,” said Dane.
“Or mine,” said Paige. “You must wriggle around more than we do.”
“I do not. I wear knee socks at home sometimes. They stay up. There must be something wrong with these ones.”
“Too late to find replacements now,” said Mr. Marchand. “Just leave them like that. Tell yourself you’re portraying the type of kid who favours the casual look.”
Jack’s susceptibility to motion sickness might have gone away, but his tendency to be irritable first thing in the morning hadn’t. Having been made to get up early, he was in a bad mood anyway, and could not be persuaded to literally ‘let things slide’. He frequently bent to tug at his socks, and would have gone on doing so if a wardrobe person had not found some elastic, quickly stitched it into a pair of garters, and rolled the tops of the socks down over them so they weren’t visible.
Other than that, filming went well. In some scenes the children moved about on pre-war sets in the guise of visiting English children being shown the wonders of the Third Reich by enthusiastic German children. In others, Mr. Marchand wanted to show their reaction to some of the darker aspects of the new regime, such as the ruthless suppression of dissenters, the all-encompassing indoctrination of the nation’s young, and the steadily increasing obsession with racial purity.
Except for school plays, Zach and Alina had never acted before, but they did everything asked of them surprisingly well and enjoyed working with ‘old pros’ Paige, Dane, and Jack. Child labour laws demanded a certain amount of breaks however, and these were appreciated by all the young performers.
Dane used some to practice his harmonica.
“You really are awful on that, aren’t you?” was Jack’s only comment as he and the other children covered their ears.
Undaunted, Dane played on.
Zach and Alina’s parents also enjoyed being on the film set and took great pleasure in being used as extras in a crowd scene.
“Most interesting,” Uncle Horst said at the end of a long day’s shooting “And tomorrow we go to Schloss Neuschwanstein. That, too, will be good. We visit almost every time we come to Munich. You, too, have all been there before I believe.”
“We have,” said Mr. Marchand. “But never in winter. It’ll be a new experience.”
“How are we getting there?” Uncle Gareth inquired.
“I hired a bus and driver. A big bus. Big enough to accommodate cast and crew, cameras, props, assorted other equipment, and any and all of the family who might want to come along. Except,” he added with a smile, “Cousin Bev, who is—thanks to some people who are probably already regretting their rash invitation—busy.”
“Now, Alan,” said Mrs. Marchand. “Not everyone finds her quite as annoying as you do. Your Aunt Heloise even asked her for Christmas.”
“My Aunt Heloise is a nun. She has to practice Christian charity.”
Klaus and Priska had made other plans, but Aunt Regina and Uncle Ludi were happy to join the expedition the next day. Knowing it would be even colder up in the mountains than it was in Munich, everyone was dressed warmly. The children carried their thirties-era coats, hats, and footwear in large, old-fashioned canvas rucksacks, and wore their modern parkas over their other period clothing. The boys also had sweat pants on over their shorts, and the girls wore the same under their dresses. Though these would have to be removed when they were filming, all three mothers wanted them worn until then. Dane’s rucksack also had a coiled rope and a small pick axe attached to it, to give it an Alpine hiker look.
Part of the bus trip was spent on the autobahn, a highway on which vehicles were permitted to move much faster than in Canada or England.
“The autobahn was on yesterday’s Third Reich brag list,” Dane said as they sped along.
“But isn’t something they can take full credit for,” said Mr. Marchand. “It was touted as one of Hitler’s greatest achievements, but sections of it were in place long before the Nazis came to power. They just improved on it. Not
that that wasn’t a good thing. It was. So was having an affordable car for the masses so the masses could make use of the autobahn. Unfortunately, the masses couldn’t get their hands on any ‘Strength though Joy’ cars before the war came along and halted production.”
“‘Strength through joy’ cars?” Paige repeated dubiously.
“I thought they were Volkswagens,” said Dane. “‘People’s’ cars.”
“They were, after the war. Before it they were Kdf-Wagen, with the Kdf part coming from ‘Kraft durch Freude’, or ‘Strength though Joy’, which was a labour-based organization that provided working-class Germans with the same kind of recreational opportunities rich people had. After a while, however, its programmes just became something else the Nazis used to bring every aspect of life under state control.”
The bus pulled into a parking lot in the little Alpine village of Hohenschwangau just before eight o’clock. High above, sitting atop a snow-covered mountain surrounded by other snow-covered mountains, the beautiful fairy tale castle of Bavaria’s ill-fated King Ludwig the Second looked even more majestic than it did in summer.
“Do you remember coming here when you were little?” Aunt Augusta asked Jack after the bus had been unloaded and the children had donned their rucksacks.
“Of course,” Jack responded in a surprisingly pleasant tone. Being able to doze off on the bus had alleviated his usual morning grouchiness.
“I certainly remember carting you up the trail because you whinged so much about walking,” said Uncle Gareth.
“I was only three!”
“I was close to five when we came,” said Dane, “but I got carted, too, part of the way.”
