Читать книгу Lisa and Lottie - Erich Kastner - Страница 7

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Bohrlaken on Lake Bohren • Girls’ camps like beehives • Twenty new girls • Curls and braids • On biting off noses • A King of England’s twin • On the difficulty of getting smile-wrinkles

Do you happen to know Bohrlaken? I mean the village in the mountains—Bohrlaken on Lake Bohren? Odd—none of the people I ask seem to know Bohrlaken. Maybe Bohrlaken is one of those places known only to the people I don’t ask. Such things do happen.

Well, if you don’t know Bohrlaken on Lake Bohren, then of course you have never heard of the summer camp of Bohrlaken on Lake Bohren either. But never mind. Girls’ camps are as alike as peas in a pod; if you know one, you know them all. And if you happen to stroll past one, you may think it is a giant beehive. Such a hum of shouts, laughs, giggles, and whispers. These camps are beehives of happiness and high spirits. And however many there may be, there can never be enough of them.

Though sometimes of an evening, of course, the gray dwarf Homesickness sits by the beds in the dormitories, takes from his pocket his gray notebook and his gray pencil, and with a glum face counts up the tears around him, those shed and those unshed.

But next morning—presto!—he’s vanished. Then the milk glasses clink and the tongues chatter for all they’re worth. Then again swarms of bathing caps race into the cool, bottle-green lake, splash, scream, yelp, crow, swim—or at least pretend to be swimming.

That’s how it is at Bohrlaken on Lake Bohren, where the story begins which I am going to tell you. It’s a rather complicated story. And now and then you’ll have to pay careful attention if you are really going to get the hang of it. It’s quite straightforward at the beginning; it doesn’t begin to get complicated till later on.

Well, now they are all swimming in the lake, and the most active of all is, as usual, a girl of nine with a head framed in curls and filled with bright ideas, whose name is Lisa. Lisa Palfy. From Vienna.

A gong booms from the house—one, two, three! The children and the counselors who are still swimming clamber up the bank.

“That means all of you,” called Miss Ursula, “including Lisa.”

“I’m coming!” shouted Lisa. “I’m jet-propelled!”

Miss Ursula drove her cackling flock into the pen—oh, no,—into the house. At twelve sharp they had lunch. And then they waited, looking forward eagerly to the afternoon.

That afternoon twenty new girls were arriving. Twenty little girls from South Germany. Would they be a lot of old ladies of thirteen or fourteen? Would they bring some decent toys? With good luck one might bring a large rubber ball. Trudie’s had no air in it. Brigit had one, but she would not bring it out. She had shut it up in her locker. And locked it.

That afternoon Lisa, Trudie, Brigit, and the others stood around the big, wide-open, iron gates, waiting impatiently for the bus which would bring the new girls from the nearest railway station. If the train came in on time, they ought to be . . .

A car honked. “They’re coming!” The bus came speeding up the road, turned cautiously through the gates, and came to a stop. The driver got down and lifted the girls, one after the other, out of the bus. Then he unloaded the trunks, suitcases, dolls, baskets, paper bags, woolly dogs, parcels, umbrellas, thermos bottles, raincoats, knapsacks, blankets, books, specimen cases, and butterfly nets—a gaudy jumble of baggage.

Finally the twentieth little girl appeared at the door of the bus with her belongings. A grave, demure little girl. The driver held out his arms.

The little girl shook her head and, as she did so, her two braids flew out behind her head.

“No, thank you,” she said, firmly and politely, and climbed down, calm and sure, from the step. She looked around with a shy smile, and suddenly her eyes opened wide with surprise. She had caught sight of Lisa. Then Lisa’s eyes opened wide, too. Startled, she gazed into the new girl’s face.

The other girls and Miss Ursula stared from one to the other. The driver pushed back his cap, scratched his head, and forgot to close his mouth.

Lisa and the new girl were the image of each other. One had long curls and the other tight braids—but that was really the only difference between them.

Lisa turned and ran into the garden, as though pursued by lions and tigers.

“Lisa!” cried Miss Ursula. “Lisa!” Then she shrugged her shoulders and turned to shepherd the twenty new girls into the house. And the last to follow, surprised and uncertain, was the girl with the braids.

Mrs. Muther, the camp director, was seated in her office, discussing with the rugged old cook the menu for the next few days.

There was a knock. Miss Ursula came in and announced that the correct number of new girls had arrived safe and sound.

“Very good. Thank you.”

“There’s something else . . .”

“Yes?” The busy woman looked up quickly.

“It’s about Lisa Palfy,” began Miss Ursula doubtfully. “She’s waiting outside the door . .

“Bring the little monkey in.” Mrs. Muther could not help smiling. “What mischief has she been up to now?”

“Nothing this time,” said Miss Ursula. “It’s only . .

She opened the door cautiously and said, “Come in, both of you! Don’t be afraid!”

The two girls entered the room and stopped—a long way apart from each other.

“Bless my soul!” gasped the cook.

While Mrs. Muther stared speechless at the two children, Miss Ursula went on, “The new girl is called Lottie Horn and comes from Munich.”

“Are you related to each other?”

The two girls shook their heads.

“They have never set eyes on each other until today,” said Miss Ursula. “Strange, isn’t it?”

“Why is it strange?” asked the cook. “How could they have set eyes on each other when one comes from Munich and the other from Vienna?”

Mrs. Muther said in a friendly voice, “Two girls who look so alike are sure to be good friends. Don’t stand so far apart. Come, children! Shake hands with each other.”

“No!” cried Lisa and folded her arms behind her back. Mrs. Muther shrugged her shoulders, thought for a moment, and then said, “You can both go.”

Lisa ran to the door, yanked it open, and dashed out. Lottie dropped a curtsy and turned sedately to leave the room.

“Just a moment, Lottie,” said the director. She opened a big book. “I’ll enter your name at once. When and where you were born. And what are your parents’ names.”

“I’ve only got my Mommy,” said Lottie softly.

Mrs. Muther poised her pen. “First, date of birth?”

Lottie walked down the corridor, went up the stairs, opened a door, and entered the locker room. Her trunk was not yet unpacked. She began putting her dresses, slips, sweaters, and socks into the locker assigned to her. Through the open window came the distant sound of children’s laughter.

Lottie held in her hand the photograph of a young woman. She looked at it lovingly and then laid it carefully under her sweaters. When she came to close the locker, her eyes fell on a mirror on the inside of the door. She examined her face gravely and curiously, as though she were seeing it for the first time. Then, with a sudden impulse, she threw back her braids and arranged the hair on top of her head so that it looked more like Lisa Palfy’s.

Somewhere a door slammed. Lottie dropped her hands as though she had been caught doing something wrong.

Lisa was sitting on the garden wall with her friends; her brows were puckered in a frown.

“I wouldn’t stand for it,” said Trudie, a schoolmate from Vienna. “The nerve of her—coming here with your face!”

“Well, what can I do?” asked Lisa angrily.

“Scratch it for her,” suggested Monica.

“The best thing is to bite her nose off,” advised Christine. “Then you’ve got rid of the cause of the trouble in one stroke!” She swung her legs lightheartedly as she spoke.

“Messing up my vacation like this,” muttered Lisa bitterly.

“But she can’t help it,” remarked chubby-faced Steffie. “If somebody came and looked like me, I . . .”

Trudie laughed. “Surely you don’t think anybody would be such a dope as to go around looking like you!”

Steffie sulked. The others laughed. Even Lisa smiled a little.

Then the gong sounded.

“Feeding time for the wild animals!” cried Christine. And the girls jumped down from the wall.

Mrs. Muther remarked to Miss Ursula in the dining room, “We’ll take the bull by the horns and let our little doubles sit together.”

The children came streaming noisily into the hall. There was a scraping of chair legs. Waitresses carried steaming tureens to the tables, and filled the plates eagerly held out to them.

Miss Ursula came up behind Lisa and Trudie and tapped Trudie lightly on the shoulder. “You are to sit by Hilda Storm,” she said.

Trudie turned and started to say something. “But . . .”

“No objections, please.”

Trudie shrugged her shoulders, got up, pouted, and walked away.

Spoons clattered. The chair next to Lisa’s was empty. Everyone stared at it.

Then, as though at a word of command, all eyes turned to the door. Lottie had just come in.

“Here you are at last,” said Miss Ursula. “Come, I’ll show you your place.” She led the demure little girl in braids towards the table. Lisa did not look up; she went on furiously spooning her soup into her mouth. Lottie sat down obediently beside Lisa and took up her spoon, though she felt as though her throat were tied up with a piece of string.

The other girls, fascinated, watched the unusual pair from the corners of their eyes. A calf with two—or even three—heads could not have aroused more curiosity. Plump, chubby-faced Steffie was so thrilled that she forgot to shut her mouth.

Lisa could control herself no longer. And, what’s more, she didn’t want to. With all her strength she kicked out under the table at Lottie’s shin.

Lottie winced with pain, and pressed her lips firmly together.

At the grownups’ table Miss Gerda, one of the counselors, shook her head and said, “I can’t make it out—two absolute strangers and such a remarkable resemblance!”

Miss Ursula said thoughtfully, “Perhaps they’re astrological twins.”

“What on earth are they,” asked Miss Gerda, “astrological twins?”

“I’ve heard there are people who look absolutely alike without being even distantly related. They just happen to be born in the same fraction of the same second.”

“Oh!” murmured Miss Gerda.

Mrs. Muther nodded. “I remember reading of a tailor in London who looked exactly like King Edward VII. You couldn’t tell them apart. Especially as the tailor wore the same kind of pointed beard as the King. King Edward summoned him to Buckingham Palace and had a long talk with him.”

“And they had actually been born in the same second?”

“Yes. By chance they were able to verify it exactly.”

“And what happened after that?” asked Miss Gerda.

“At the King’s wish, the tailor shaved off his beard.”

While the others were laughing, Mrs. Muther looked thoughtfully across to the table where the two girls were sitting. “We’d better give Lottie Horn the bed next to Lisa Palfy,” she said. “They’ll have to get used to each other.”

It was night. All the children were asleep. Except two.

These two had turned their backs to each other and pretended to be fast asleep. But they were lying with eyes wide open, staring into the moonlit room.

Lisa looked crossly at the queer-shaped silver patch the moon had made on her bed. Suddenly she heard someone crying quietly, the sobs muffled in a pillow.

Lottie pressed her hands to her mouth. What was it her mother had said when she left . . . I’m so glad you’re going to spend a few weeks with all those happy children. You are too serious for your age, Lottie. Much too serious. I know it’s not your fault, but mine. It’s because of my work. I’m away from home too much. And when I do get home, I’m tired. And then you haven’t been playing like other children, but washing dishes, cooking, and setting the table. See that you come back home with a lot of smile-wrinkles, my little housekeeper! . . . And now she was lying here in a strange room, next to a bad-tempered girl who hated her because they happened to look alike. She sighed softly. And she was supposed to get smile-wrinkles! Lottie continued to sob softly to herself.

Suddenly her hair was awkwardly stroked by a strange little hand.

Lottie stiffened with fright. Lisa’s hand went on shyly stroking her hair.

The moon looked in through the big dormitory window and saw two little girls lying in their beds, side by side, not daring to look at each other. And the one who had just been crying was slowly putting out her hand and feeling for the other’s hand as it stroked her hair.