Fifteen years in a childhood paradise

with it for a long time. Every now and again we nibbled from the gingerbread house and from the plate of delicious home-made sweets or biscuits. Then we tried to lick the 'snow' off the christmas tree. To our astonishment, it did not taste sweet but salty. Later, much later, we found out, that Father Christmas did not decorate the tree at all, but Mutter and Vater. After that initiation, we were allowed to do it, and we were very proud to play Father Christmas ourselves. To put the salt on the tree, we had to moisten it first with water and then rub it into the fir needles against the way they were growing. When it dried, it went hard and stayed on the tree. It really looked like snow, as the branches bent down with the weight of the salt, just like snow does too.

The second day of Christmas was a very special day for me. My parents told me that I was born on that day. That was my day, my birthday, and I was someone special on that day. It was hard to live with that for a whole day!

"Come, Dieter, and see what you have here for your birthday," Mutter called, and she rang a little hand bell.

To have some more presents so shortly after Christmas was perhaps a bit much, but there would always be a small birthday cake with candles, some small gifts from Vater and Mutter, and there was always a present from Tante Joni von Treskow, the owner of Strykowo. She was my Godmother. Mutter had decided from early on that it would not be fair for me to have all my birthday presents so close to Christmas. I should celebrate it rather on 26 June, when I was three and a half, or four and a half and so on. In this way I had two special days in the year. Looking back, it may perhaps have been a bit unfair to my siblings, but that did not enter my mind then.

"Let's play some special games with our 'birthday boy'," Mutter said. I jumped on a chair next to her, and when Günter, Vater and Klärchen had taken their seat, Mutter said: "Let the 'birthday boy' start throwing the dice."

I liked to play board games, as long as I was winning. Today, it was not my day. I didn't throw a six, and Günter and Vater were ahead of me. I began to cry: "I don't want to play any more."

"Come now, it's your turn," said Vater. "Don't be a spoil sport," I heard Günter saying. "But I don't want to play," and with that I gave the board a shove with my elbow, and all the counters fell over and got mixed up.

"Now look what you have done," said Vater angrily, and he was just about to send me out, when Mutter said: "Leave him, Alfred, it's his birthday today. Let's play blind man's buff instead."

We did for a while, but when I got caught and I had to be blindfolded, I yelled again: "I don't want to play this game."

It became obvious, that this 'privileged' status of a birthday boy didn't agree with me. I ended up screaming and kicking and was out of control.

59