Lost Pages: Hunger

My grandmother never used a potato peeler.  It was too wasteful.  True German housewives used knives to get thinner peels.  I have never known hunger or war, so I work at my kitchen sink, thick chunks of potato peel dropping from my peeler.  In front of me, my window glows with reflected Minnesota snow, and my American husband chops peppers beside me.  In the corner, a huge refrigerator hums, its belly brimming with food.

Still, I see my grandmother’s potato peels spiraling from her knife.  There were transparent, so thin that her potatoes emerged bumpy, eyes intact.  A mountain of potato peels grew from her knife in her lifetime.  Like every other woman in her East German town, she peeled potatoes to boil every day and grated them for dumplings on Sunday.

Before my parents and I left Germany when I was thirteen, I visited her in Gera every year for at least a week.  I remember sitting on a creaky kitchen chair, swinging my legs, as my grandmother unwound potato peels into a chipped enamel bowl cradled in her lap.  It was summer, and it was morning.  The white net curtains brushed against the panes of the open casement window.  Outside, a delivery truck crashed through the potholes in the cobblestones.  A pot of salted water waited on the table.

Her hand released memory as she uncovered pale potato flesh.  She told me how, during the war, her stream of peels grew longer.  More potatoes, less meat.  Then potatoes were rationed: five pounds per person per week in ’42 down to four pounds by ’44.  In ’45, after the war was over, even potatoes were hard to find.  Her knife stopped for weeks.

She fed her three youngest children two slices of bread each day.  She sprinkled the bread with salt and pepper and told them to close their eyes and conjure up the taste of liverwurst.  Sometimes, she could get a few grams of yeast to spread on top.  Once Gina, who was eight, came home bearing a bouillon cube, a gift from her piano teacher who’d had a package from America.  She made soup for five.

My legs hung still.  I strained to imagine years without cake or sausage.  Grandmother turned toward me, peering over the tops of her bifocals, quiet for a moment.

Then she talked about my father.  When he returned in ’46, well-fed and strong, from his US POW camp, he was twenty-two.  She sent him out on his old bicycle - the tires were so worn that he had to patch them every ten kilometers - to Gauern where her cousins had a farm.  He could work at the farm for a day, harvesting hay or digging turnips, eat his fill at their table, and maybe earn a few potatoes to bring home.  When they didn’t have any to spare, he could steal potatoes in the village fields.  Once he got arrested, but another time he escaped with a whole sack.  They feasted then.  Potato soup, potato pancakes for days.

How could my father have stolen?  She shook her head and bent closer to her knife saying: We would do anything for food.  It was a terrible, terrible time.

Exposed! Effects of Publishing Memoir

Ever since Dreaming in German has been available, people come up to me at parties telling me: “I just finished your book, and now I feel like I know everything about you.” I’m never quite sure how to respond.  Usually I mumble something about not having thought that out so well.  They often grin and say, “Yes, it’s weird, because I know you, but you don’t know me so well.”  A side effect of publishing memoir that no one warned me about.  

While I was writing, I did agonize over my Dad’s reaction. Especially early on, when my first drafts were powered by my need to express the anger I still felt at him for seeming impervious ( and oblivious) to my pain.  When I finally finished the manuscript, I’d gained some perspective, but as I handed him a copy to read, I fretted.  I knew I was breaking a family rule. One so basic, no one ever had to say it out loud.  “Do not distress your father.”

I needn’t have worried.  He read the whole thing in a matter of two days on a visit to my house.  I watched out of the corner of my eye, interpreting every facial expression.  He did look tense for a few hours.  When he closed the book his comment was: “Wow, you struggled with this for a long time, but it came out all right in the end.”  Phew. I should have been able to predict that response.  My mother used to say: “Your father only sees what he wants to see.”  After I recovered from the relief, I was miffed.  All my encounters with loss reduced to “it came out all right?” Once again, I’d failed to pierce his defenses. Hmm.  Still, he was proud of me for writing a book.

My other concern was my mother’s family.  Would Tante Isolde ever hear of the book?  My cousins?  Shouldn’t be a problem. I wrote the book in English, was publishing it in the US.  I have hopes of translating it and releasing it in Germany - anybody know a translator? - but that will take time. By the time I finally navigated the self-publishing process, my cousin Matthias’ stepdaughter had come to the US to teach German, and was my facebook friend.  A fact that I didn’t fully register until after I published the book, she ordered a copy and Matthias sent me a picture of himself in front of the Christmas tree, holding it up.  I haven’t heard from him since, but he’s always been sporadic at keeping in touch.  

What surprised me even more than realizing I had exposed my intimate details to acquaintances and strangers,  were the email and facebook messages from fellow displaced Germans.  I never knew I was one among thousands.  There are facebook groups with names like “Germans transplanted to the USA” sharing their nostalgia.  One man whose story roughly parallels my own, suggested I add a recipe feature to my website and sent me some links to his favorite sources for German foods.  I suppose simple demographics could have predicted this development.  What I never would have predicted is how many other people tell me they identify with my displacement.  My dentist said he only moved from small town northern Minnesota to the “Cities” as we call Minneapolis/St. Paul around here. Yet, he said, he understood my impulse to be careful when negotiating the two cultures.  “I always think twice about what I say, because I don’t want to offend someone when I visit home.  I don’t want them to think I’m talking down to them.”

 I guess it proves one of the maxims of memoir writing.  The more specific you are in writing about your own experience, the more people will be able to find echoes in their lives. 

Lost Pages: New York, 1966

At the end of a shortened night the plane began its descent.  Thoughts of the future vanished along with my attempts to appear indifferent as I craned my neck to admire the famous skyline.  New York!  The largest city in the world.  I’d been to famous cities - Vienna, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam - but the very idea of New York carried a charge.  This city was the gateway to America.  Das Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten.  The land of unlimited possibilities. As the plane turned in its approach, skyscrapers swung into view.  I recognized the Empire State Building’s spike and knew that I was looking at the tallest building on earth. We would be staying for four days before flying on to Greenville, South Carolina. I couldn’t wait to explore Manhattan. 

Jet lag knocked me off center. My brain buzzed and my eyes burned. My father insisted that the secret to a quick adjustment was to force yourself to live by the local clock.  As soon as we had stowed our luggage, we stumbled through the city to ward off sleep.  I gaped at the rows of tall buildings lining the streets.   I felt like I’d wandered into a roofless cathedral. My neck stiffened from staring up, up.  When at last my neck tired, I lowered my gaze to encounter Rodin’s ‘Thinker,’ skaters twirling at Rockefeller Center, and, on Fifth Avenue, women in fur coats walking tiny dogs with bows above their eyes.   I’d seen all this before, sometimes in color, sometimes in black and white, on large screens and small.  What Hollywood had failed to convey was the noise and grit, the exhaust fumes and the littered gutters.  I was surprised.  The New York of my imagination was modern and clean, too young to show signs of wear.
Exploring this vertical city was in itself so novel, that I didn’t notice at first that my parents had switched roles.  It was my mother - guidebook in hand - who usually led our sightseeing trips to famous places.  The evening before, she would have read up, so she could point out landmarks and identify architectural detail.  She had dreamed of majoring in art history  - instead of textile chemistry as the East German government eventually decreed - and knew how to tell a Romanesque arch from a Gothic and judge the period of a prehistoric ruin by its columns and capitals.  On our last vacation to the Italian Lake District, she’d told me the Roman poet Catullus’ life story as we visited the remnants of his villa.  I’d gotten so interested, I’d forgotten to keep my embarrassed distance.  But in New York, her architectural references were useless, and besides, my father knew Manhattan.  She left her guidebook in her purse as we followed my father’s confident lead.

When we arrived at our first restaurant for dinner, I peered into the gloomy interior.     I’d never seen such a dimly lit room that wasn’t a theater or a cellar.  

“Why is it so dark?”  I asked my father. 

He shrugged.  “ I don’t know.  A lot of American restaurants are like that.  They seem to think it’s elegant.”

My mother wondered:” How can they see what they’re eating?” and started toward an empty table.

“Stop,” my father hissed. My mother froze.  “You have to wait for the hostess to seat you!”  My mother’s shoulders sagged.

 “Why can’t you pick your own table?” I asked.

“That’s just how it’s done,” my father said.   

 As we waited, I soaked up every strange detail.  There were no tablecloths.  The plates and silverware sat directly on wood grain Formica.  Ruby pressed glass goblets held dark red napkins.  Once at our table, we pulled them out and placed them in our laps, and a waitress filled the goblets with ice cubes and water.  My father had told me that Americans put ice in their drinks, but why were they giving us water?  All my life I’d been told not to drink tap water because I’d get sick.  “Smell it, “ my father whispered” it’s full of chlorine.”  That it was.  It smelled like the Krefeld public swimming pool.  I couldn’t overcome a lifetime of training.  I asked my father to order a Cola for me instead

He also ordered shrimp cocktail, salad, steak and a baked potato.  I was excited about the shrimp.  They were such a special, expensive treat.  When they arrived, I was puzzled.  The shrimp were huge.  I bit into one and felt my taste buds wilt.  Compared to the tiny North Sea shrimp we ate at home, they had no flavor.  My father so clearly enjoyed them that I gave them another chance.  They still tasted bland, but I liked the cocktail sauce.  My father said:” They’re just different.  You’ll like them once you get used to them.”

 Our steaks arrived, each one sizzling on a metal platter.   “One of these is as much meat as I normally buy for all of us for dinner! “ my mother exclaimed, as she picked up her fork and knife.    She wrinkled her forehead.  “ I don’t know if I can eat it all.”  

My father grinned.  He promised me that, since meat was so cheap here, we could have steaks every week.  That sounded great to me.  As I dug in with pleasure, my mother fretted.  If she ate the whole steak, she’d get a stomachache.  My father reassured her that Americans didn’t think anything of leaving some food on their plates.  “ And if they don’t want to waste it, they ask for a ‘doggy bag’ and take the rest home,” he explained.  We were both incredulous.  Take food home from a restaurant?  It sounded unspeakably rude and admirably practical at the same time.  Did they really feed it to the dog?   My father shrugged.  How could anyone know?  I’d been making good progress with my steak, but the foil-wrapped baked potato was another mystery.  My father showed us how to split the potato’s top, squeeze it open and scoop out the insides.  I love sour cream, and quickly realized that I could use the potato to indulge in lots of it by slathering each forkful.  

  After that first meal, I was sold on steak and baked potato.  I added the meal to my list of foreign favorites.  In Italy, I’d fallen in love with the custom of sprinkling grated Parmesan into my soups, and I relished the grilled lamb sausages they served in Yugoslavia, the huge selection of cheeses in Denmark and the potato croquettes sold in the streets in the Netherlands.  It hadn’t penetrated yet that I wouldn’t be going home to restaurants where I could count on the menu to feature Schnitzel and Gulaschsuppe. 

Glimpse of the Future

While I was in Clemson, I made a pilgrimage to see my friend Ellen in Six Mile.  What drove me there was curiosity.  Ellen has just undergone a life transition from successful artist ( her art quilts are in private and corporate collections everywhere) and married woman, to single and learning how to organize and run a non-profit devoted to the intersection or creativity, economy, and sustainability.  You can read more about her organization, the Rensing Center here.  

She has just moved into a new house, designed for one, as green and sustainable as possible.  I love it - every square inch holds beauty.  The dishes are all handmade. Some of the interior walls are recycled roof tin. Every detail is fresh and thoughtful.  Her porch looks out over a cow pasture.  She tells me that nearby Greenville is booming.  Free plays in the park, galleries and restaurants, a thriving farmer’s market.  

We roam the property, meeting the Rensing Center pig,  inspecting the guest houses that will host artists in residence, and finally stopping to see Ellen’s mom at her house. Her depression era survival skills (she is 93), are the inspiration for the center’s mission.  She was also a good friend of my mother’s.  I haven’t heard anyone talk about missing my mom for a while.  It brings her back to me from a fresh angle - I can hear her laugh, catch a glimpse of her dimple.  

I am surprised that Ellen has made a life here.  When she arrived in Clemson, a few years before I left, I couldn’t have imagined it.  She had a degree in costume design from Syracuse University, and had just returned with her husband from two years in Hamburg.  We bonded over Germany,  our love of fabric, and our liberal politics.  Now we talk about marketing, how to make a living selling art, how to navigate our shifts in life direction.  

When I  have to leave, we are not even close to finished with out conversation.  The last thing Ellen says to me as I back out of her driveway is: “Keep asking yourself what you care about. The rest will follow.”  I am grateful for the reminder.  I am asking myself every day.