Kindergarten (2 page)

There was no human figure in the whole scene.

The thousands upon thousands of seats were empty, and the stage was deserted. It appeared as ruinous and abandoned as the ancient Greek theatres on which it was modelled, waiting for some call, some sacrifice, to fill all those seats with rapt and fascinated spectators, engrossed and involved in some great tragedy, to purge the emotions of pity and terror: Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter to help him win a battle, The Trojan Women,
The Bacchae
.

In such a drama, very few would speak. The leading actor would play several parts, surrounded by mute actors, and by the identically clad Chorus who moved in total unison. All deaths would take place off-stage, the slaughter of men, women, and children reported by a Messenger who would tell of what he had seen. Such drama was an act of worship, a reminder of the transience of man’s life, a clear recognition of man’s powerlessness in the face of mutability.

There would be the sound of a flute at sunrise, and through the central door on the raised platform a figure larger than life-size, wearing a huge tragic mask, raised up on high-soled boots, would enter and stand at the top of the flight of steps leading down into the circle. He would raise his head and look up at the tier upon tier of white faces surrounding him, rising higher and higher into the sky, before speaking the opening words of the tragedy which was to follow.

T
HE
BOY
who had written that postcard had the same surname as the two brothers in
Emil and the Detectives
, the boys Emil had met in Berlin. Corrie remembered the younger brother, who usually never said a word, and the moment when everyone looked at him in amazement because he spoke—“Fish is so good”—and he flushed deep red and hid behind his big brother.

T
HE
FIGURES
in the restaurant reappeared. They all wore heavy coats, as if it were a cold country.

Lilli continued looking at the television for a while, and then went towards the kitchen, her hand cupped around the gathered fir needles.

“‘Hansel and Gretel’?” he asked. He had told her thatthe cartoon was going to be on television, thinking it would interest her.

Lilli gave the suggestion her consideration, looking towards him.

She always looked with great intensity at whoever she was talking to, concentrating very seriously. He had seen her sitting and talking to Matthias, side by side, both unaware of their surroundings, looking very hard at each other, like two statesmen working together to solve an almost insurmountable world problem. Her eyes were a very bright blue, not faded, as you would expect in an old person: all the colours about her were rich and deep.

Slowly she shook her head.

“No. I think not.” She smiled, a little sadly. “No Hansel. No Gretel.” She spoke quietly. He turned to look at her face more closely, to recognise by her expression the quality of the emotion he had heard in her voice, but she had gone into the kitchen.

Her voice came back to him, louder. “The German Christmas will be ready at six o’clock.”

“The English cup of tea will be ready shortly.”

The news report ended, and the faces behind the flawless glass faded.

T
HE
CARTOON
which followed was not the story of “Hansel and Gretel” he knew, the little boy and girl in the painting on his bedroom wall, the story he was trying to put into music.

The first third of the story, a section he remembered vividly from when he was young (at his grandparents’ house in Dorset, on holiday, Lilli’s voice in his bedroom, the sound of the sea in the background), Hansel and Gretel’s realisation that their father and stepmother were taking them into the forest to be torn to pieces by wild animals, was completely omitted. The old woman in the gingerbread house was made a grotesque and hideous fiend, not an apparently normal old woman, helpful and kindly, the sort of person one could meet at any time; and it was not made clear that Hansel and Gretel were going to be cooked and eaten by the old woman.

Some things were too frightening for children to know about, and who would wish to frighten children?

He switched off the television, and went into the kitchen. Lilli had gone through into her own house.

The style of the cartoon had borne little relation to the style of Lilli’s illustrations for the story: the colours were garish, and the outlines crudely simplified. The precise detail and subtle colouring for which a Lilli Danielsohn water-colour was famous were entirely missing.

T
HE
LITTLE
boy and the girl, who was even younger, stood hand in hand at the edge of an immense dark forest, towering high above them, dressed in the fashion of the 1930s, the little girl with an elaborately woven shawl around her shoulders. They filled most of the picture, standing in the centre of the scene. The girl was looking in front of her, into the forest, and seemed frightened. The boy was looking over his shoulder, back the way he had come, looking straight into the face of anyone looking at the picture. The details were as intensely observed as in a Victorian genre painting, and the boy’s open, unguarded face could be studied in the detailed way that one could only give to a face in a painting or a photograph, or the face of someone who was loved, and who returned that love. He looked as though he were trying to memorise what was behind him. A few crumbs of bread were lying on the ground just behind him. On the outer side of the two children were the shadowy figures of adults, enclosing them, grasping their arms, and leading them away.

C
ORRIE
was Lilli Danielsohn’s grandson, the grandson of somebody famous, somebody who had been forgotten and was being remembered again.

There had been a revival of interest in Lilli’s work over the past year. There was an illustrated article in one of the Sunday newspaper colour magazines. A large-format colour paperback,
The Paintings of Lilli Danielsohn
, one of a series of art books, had been published some months earlier, and there were new editions of several of her books. Next year, another firm was producing Lilli Danielsohn greeting cards and posters, and there would be a Lilli Danielsohn calendar.

It was part of a fashion at this time, a nostalgic return to a rural past. In clothes, interior design, food, perfection seemed to be a re-creation of an idealised country cottage: tiny floral designs, simple colours, uncluttered interiors. There was a retreat from the present into the childhoods of another age, the illustrations from Victorian and Edwardian children’s books.

Safe inside the ordered silence, people seemed to believe that the world beyond the window-panes would be sun-filled cornfields, empty of all but birdsong.

“F
ITCHER’S
B
IRD
” was the first story from the Brothers Grimm to be illustrated by Lilli Danielsohn. The book was published in Berlin in 1929, the same year as
Emil and the Detectives
.

O
NCE there was a magician who could assume the appearance of an ordinary poor man. In this form he begged from door to door, and took away pretty girls. No one knew where he took them, or what happened to them. They were never seen again.

One day he knocked on the door of a man who had three pretty young daughters. He looked exactly like a poor old beggar, with a basket on his back, as if to carry away any food or other gifts given to him. He begged for just a tiny bite of food, and the eldest daughter, moved for pity, came out to give him a piece of bread. He touched her once, gently, and she was compelled to climb into his basket. At once he sped away like the wind, leaving no tracks, and took her into the heart of a dark pathless forest, where his house was hidden.

It was a lovely house, and he surrounded her with everything she desired. He said, “You will be happy with me for the rest of your days, my love, for I have given you everything you can ever wish for.”

Seven days later he said to her, “I must go on a journey, and leave you by yourself for a few days. Here are all the keys of the house. You may go anywhere in the house, and look at everything there is, but you must not go into one room, the room which is opened by this little key. If you go into this room, you will die, my love.”

He also gave her a white egg, and said, “You must also protect this egg very carefully for me. You must carry it around with you at all times, for grave misfortune would result if you were to lose it.”

He gave her the keys and the egg; and she promised to follow his instructions exactly. She watched him leave, and then began to explore the house, from room to room, from the cellars to the attic, looking closely at everything. The house was rich with silver and gold, and as she walked through the gleaming quiet rooms she thought that she had never seen such beauty.

Finally, she came to the forbidden door of the room she must not enter. She thought she would just walk past it, but she began to wonder what was behind that door. It was a door like any other door. She examined the little key carefully. It was a key like any other key. She put the key in the keyhole, turned it only a little, and the door was open.

What did she see inside that room?

An enormous bloody bowl stood in the middle of the room, piled with the dead bodies of human beings, hacked to pieces. Beside the bowl was a wooden chopping-block, and an axe which gleamed as brightly as the gold had done. She was so terrified that she let the egg fall from her hand into the blood-filled bowl. She quickly pulled it out, and tried to wipe the blood off with the corner of her dress, but the blood would not be removed. All day she washed and scrubbed, but the blood remained on the egg.

After seven days, the magician returned from his journey, and the first thing he did was to ask for the keys and the egg. She gave them to him, but she was trembling, and there were tears in her eyes. He saw immediately, by the bloodstains, that she had been in the forbidden room.

“You have been into the forbidden room against my will,” he said quietly. “Now you shall go back into it against your own will. Your life is over.” Calmly, he threw her to the floor, dragged her by her long hair, cut her head off on the wooden chopping-block, and hacked her body to pieces, so that her blood ran along the ground. Then he threw the pieces of her body into the bowl with all the others.

“Now I will go for the second daughter,” said the magician, and again he went to the house in the form of a poor old beggar, and begged for just a tiny bite of food. The second daughter, moved for pity, came out to give him a piece of bread, and he caught her as he had caught the first, by touching her once, gently, and then carrying her away.

The same thing happened to her as had happened to her

sister.

She was left with the keys and the egg, and opened the door of the forbidden room. She paid for it with her life when the magician returned.

The magician then went and brought the third daughter.

Seven days later he said to her, “I must go on a journey and leave you by yourself for a few days.” He gave her the keys and the egg, and gave her the same instructions as he had given her two sisters.

The third daughter was thoughtful and intelligent. When the magician had gone, she hid the egg away very carefully, and then began to explore the house. Finally, she opened the door of the forbidden room.

What did she see inside that room?

Both her beloved sisters lay heaped there in the bloody bowl, murdered, and hacked to pieces. Weeping, she began to gather the pieces of their bodies together, and lay them out in order on the floor: the head, the body, the arms, and the legs. When all the pieces were lying together, they began to move, and the bodies were made whole again. The two sisters opened their eyes, and were alive once more. Then all three kissed and embraced each other very lovingly.

After seven days, the magician returned from his journey, and the first thing he did was to ask for the keys and the egg. There was no trace of any bloodstains on the egg, and he said, “You have passed my test: You shall be my bride.”

He no longer had any power over her, and had to do whatever she told him.

“I shall be your bride,” she said, “but you must first take a gift of gold to my father and mother, and carry it yourself upon your back in your basket. I will remain here, and prepare our wedding-feast.”

She ran to her sisters, whom she had hidden away in a little secret chamber, and said, “The time has come when you can be saved. The magician himself will carry you home again, but as soon as you are home, send help to save me.”

She hid both her sisters in the basket, and covered them over with gold, so that they were quite hidden. She then called for the magician, and said to him, “Here is the gold you are to take to my father and mother. Carry the basket to them. I shall be looking after you through my little window, and I shall see if you stop on the way to sit and rest.”

The magician pulled the basket on to his back, and began to walk away with it through the forest, though it weighed him down so heavily that the sweat poured from him. After a time, he was so tired that he sat down, and wished to rest, but as soon as he did this, one of the sisters in the basket cried out, “I am looking through my little window, and I can see that you have stopped. You must go on again at once.”

He thought it was his bride who was talking to him, got to his feet, and began to walk on.

He had walked a little further, when he felt tired again, and sat down, but the other sister immediately cried out, “I am looking through my little window, and I can see that you have stopped. You must go on again at once.”

Every time he paused, or tried to sit down, the sisters cried this out, and he was compelled to move onwards. Finally, groaning and breathless, he arrived at the parents’ house, with the gold, and the two sisters.

In the house in the forest, the magician’s bride prepared the wedding-feast, and sent invitations to all the magician’s friends.

Then she took a skull with its grinning teeth, put rich jewellery around it, flowers in its eye-sockets, and decked it with a garland, and carried it upstairs to her little window, so that it looked as if it were looking out. Then she cut open the feather-bed, covered herself in honey, and rolled herself in the feathers until she looked like a strange and wonderful bird, and could not be recognised.