Читать книгу Lisa and Lottie - Erich Kastner - Страница 8

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The difference between an armistice and peace • Two Lotties • Trudie gets slapped • Appeldauer the photographer • My Mommy, our Mommy • Even Miss Ursula suspects

Lisa and Lottie did not dare look at each other next morning when they woke up, or when they ran in their long white nightgowns to the washroom, or when they dressed at neighboring lockers, or when, on neighboring chairs, they drank their breakfast milk; not even when they ran side by side along the lake shore and, later, played singing and dancing games with the counselors and made daisy chains. Only once did their eyes meet in a fleeting glance, and then, frightened, they looked quickly away again.

Now Miss Ursula was sitting in a meadow, reading a wonderful novel which had something about love on every page. Now and then she lowered the book, and her mind went far away as she thought of Mr. Rudolf Rademacher, the engineer who roomed at her aunt’s house.

Meanwhile, Lisa was playing ball with her friends. But her thoughts were not on the game. Often she looked around as though searching for someone who was not there.

Trudie asked, “When are you going to bite the new girl’s nose off?”

“Don’t be such an idiot!” snapped Lisa.

Christine looked at her in surprise. “Well! I thought you were mad at her!”

“I can’t bite off everybody’s nose when I’m mad at them,” retorted Lisa coldly. And she added, “Besides, I’m not mad at her.”

“But you were yesterday,” insisted Steffie.

“And how!” said Monica. “At supper you gave her such a kick under the table that she nearly yelled.”

“You see?” said Trudie with evident satisfaction.

Lisa bristled. “If you don’t shut up at once,” she cried fiercely, “you’ll get a kick on the shins!” And with that she turned and ran off.

“She doesn’t know what she wants,” remarked Christine, shrugging her shoulders.

Lottie was sitting alone in the meadow. On top of her head was a little daisy-chain crown, and she was busily making another. Suddenly a shadow fell in front of her. She looked up.

Lisa was there, hopping from one foot to the other, uncertain and embarrassed.

Lottie risked a little smile. Hardly big enough to see, except with a magnifying glass.

Lisa smiled back, relieved.

Lottie held up the daisy chain she had just completed, and asked shyly, “Would you like it?”

Lisa dropped down beside her immediately. “Yes, but only if you put it on for me.”

Lottie placed the flowers on Lisa’s curls. Then she nodded. “Lovely,” she said.

Now the doubles were sitting side by side on the grass, all alone, finding nothing to say, but smiling warily at each other.

Then Lisa took a deep breath and asked, “Are you still angry with me?”

Lottie shook her head.

Lisa looked at the ground. “It was so sudden,” she said. “The bus! And then you! It was such a shock!”

Lottie nodded. “Such a shock,” she repeated.

Lisa leaned forward. “But it’s really fun when you get used to it, isn’t it?”

Surprised, Lottie looked into her bright, merry eyes. “Fun?” Then she asked softly, “Have you any brothers and sisters?”

“No.”

“Neither have I,” said Lottie.

“I have an idea,” said Lisa. “Come on.”

The two girls slipped away to the washroom and stood in front of a large mirror. Lottie tugged with a brush and comb at Lisa’s curls.

Lisa cried, “Oh!” and “Ouch!”

“Will you keep quiet?” scolded Lottie, with pretended severity. “Do you always yell like that when your Mommy combs your hair?”

“I haven’t got a Mommy,” muttered Lisa. “That’s why—Ouch!—that’s why I’m such a tomboy, Daddy says.”

“Doesn’t he ever take a slipper to you?” inquired Lottie earnestly, as she began braiding Lisa’s hair.

“Never! He’s much too fond of me.”

“That has nothing to do with it,” observed Lottie, very wisely.

“And besides, he’s got too many other things to do,” Lisa added.

“It only takes one hand,” Lottie retorted. Both girls laughed.

Then Lisa’s braids were finished, and the two girls looked with eager eyes into the mirror. Their faces shone like Christmas trees. Two absolutely identical girls looked into the mirror. Two absolutely identical girls looked back out of it.

“Like two sisters!” whispered Lottie.

The midday gong sounded.

“This is going to be fun!” cried Lisa. “Come on!” As they ran out of the washroom, they were holding hands.

The other girls had taken their places long ago. Only Lisa’s and Lottie’s chairs were still unoccupied.

Then the door opened and Lottie appeared. Without hesitating she sat down in Lisa’s place.

“Look out,” warned Monica. “That’s Lisa’s place. Remember your shins.”

Lottie shrugged and began to eat.

The door opened again and—bless my soul!—Lottie, Lottie in the flesh, came in a second time! Without looking around she went to the last unoccupied seat and sat down.

The other girls at the table opened their eyes and mouths.

Those from the neighboring tables stared across and then jumped up from their seats and crowded around the two Lotties.

The tension did not relax until the two girls burst out laughing. Then the room suddenly echoed with many-voiced laughter.

Mrs. Muther frowned sternly. “What’s all that noise about?” She rose and marched like an angry queen right into the thick of it. But when she saw both girls with braids, her wrath melted like snow in the sun. She was quite amused as she asked, “Now which of you is Lisa Palfy and which is Lottie Horn?”

“We’re not going to tell you,” said one Lottie, with a twinkle, and the treble laughter burst out again.

“Well, for goodness sake!” cried Mrs. Muther in comical despair. “What are we to do about it?”

“Perhaps,” suggested the second Lottie cheerfully, “perhaps somebody can find out after all.”

Steffie waved her hand in the air just as though she were back in school and knew the answer to a question. “I know!” she cried. “Trudie’s in the same grade as Lisa at school. Trudie can tell us!”

Trudie pushed her way doubtfully into the foreground, looked carefully from one Lottie to the other, and shook her head helplessly. But then a roguish smile crossed her face. She took hold of one of the braids of the nearest Lottie and gave it a sharp tug. In a flash came the noise of a hearty slap.

Holding her cheek, Trudie shouted triumphantly, “That was Lisa!” At which the general hilarity broke out louder than ever.

Right after lunch Lisa and Lottie were given permission to go down to the village. Their “doubleness” was to be fixed for all time by a camera, so that they could send home some pictures. What a surprise for their parents!

After recovering from his first astonishment, the photographer, a certain Mr. Appeldauer, worked with great efficiency. He took six separate photographs. The prints were to be ready in ten days.

When the two girls had gone, he said to his wife, “You know what I think I’ll do? I’ll send a few glossy prints to some of the big picture papers and magazines. They’re often interested in things like that.”

Safely outside, Lisa was undoing her “silly” braids, for that sober hair style imposed a certain strain upon her. When she could shake her curls freely, she really felt she was herself again. She invited Lottie to have a glass of lemonade. Lottie objected. Lisa said emphatically, “You must! The day before yesterday Daddy sent me some more pocket money. Come on!”

So they walked out to the house of the forester, who kept a little restaurant. They sat down at a table in the garden, drank lemonade, and talked. There were so many questions to ask.

The hens ran to and fro, pecking and clucking, between the tables. An old retriever came up to sniff the two children and found no objection to their remaining.

“Has your father been dead long?” asked Lisa.

“I don’t know,” said Lottie. “Mommy never mentions him.”

Lisa nodded. “I can’t remember my mother at all. There used to be a big photograph of her on Daddy’s piano. But once he came in and caught me looking at it, and the next day it was gone. I think he locked it up in his desk.”

The hens clucked. The retriever dozed. A little girl who had no father was drinking lemonade with a little girl who had no mother.

“You’re nine too, aren’t you?” asked Lisa.

“Yes,” Lottie nodded. “I’ll be ten on the fourteenth of October.”

Lisa sat up as straight as a poker. “On the fourteenth of October?”

“On the fourteenth of October.”

Lisa leaned forward and whispered, “So will I!”

Lottie went as stiff as an icicle.

A cock crowed beyond the house. The retriever snapped at a bee that was buzzing around him. Through the open kitchen window they could hear the forester’s wife singing.

The two girls looked into each other’s eyes as though hypnotized. Lottie swallowed hard and asked, hoarse with excitement, “And where were you born?”

Lisa answered in a low, hesitant voice, as though she were afraid. “At Linz on the Danube.”

Lottie moistened her dry lips with her tongue. “So was I!”

In the garden all was still. Only the tips of the trees were moving.

Lottie said slowly, “I have a picture of—of my Mommy in my locker.”

Lisa jumped up. “Show it to me!” She dragged Lottie from her chair and out of the garden.

“Wait!” shouted an angry voice. “What’s the idea!” It was the forester’s wife. “Drinking lemonade and going off without paying!”

With trembling fingers Lisa rummaged in her purse, pressed a coin into the woman’s hand, and ran back to Lottie.

“What about the change?” shouted the woman. But the two children did not hear. They were running as fast as they could.

“Now where are those young monkeys off to?” muttered the forester’s wife. She went back into the house, and the old retriever trotted after her.

Back at the camp, Lottie hurriedly searched her locker. She dug the photograph out from under a pile of clothes and held it out to Lisa, who was jumping with eagerness.

Lisa took one shy, frightened glance at the picture. Then her face brightened, and her eyes stayed firmly fixed on the face of the woman in the picture.

Lottie watched Lisa expectantly.

Exhausted with sheer happiness, Lisa lowered the photograph and nodded blissfully. Then she hugged it passionately, and whispered, “My Mommy! It’s the same picture!”

Lottie put her arms around Lisa’s neck. ‘‘Our Mommy!” Two little girls clung tightly to each other.

The gong boomed through the house. Children ran laughing and shouting down the stairs. Lisa started to put the photograph back in the locker, but Lottie said, “You can keep it.”

Miss Ursula was standing before the desk in Mrs. Muther’s office. She was so excited that on both her cheeks were round spots, red as apples.

“I can’t keep it to myself!” she blurted out. “I must confide in you. If only I knew what we ought to do!”

“Come, come,” said Mrs. Muther. “What have you got on your mind, my dear?”

“They are not astrological twins.”

“Who aren’t?” asked Mrs. Muther with a smile. “King Edward and the tailor?”

“No! Lisa Palfy and Lottie Horn! I’ve checked back in our registration book. They were both born on the same day of the same year at Linz. It simply cannot be a coincidence.”

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence either, my dear. In fact, I have some ideas of my own on the subject.”

“So you know?” asked Miss Ursula, panting for breath.

“Of course. When little Lottie arrived, I got her date and place of birth and entered them in the book. Then I compared them with Lisa’s. That was the obvious thing to do, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, yes. But what do we do now?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing! If you don’t keep quiet about it, I’ll—I don’t know what I’ll do to you!”

“But—”

“There’s no ‘but.’ The two children suspect nothing. They have just been photographed together, and they’ll send the pictures home. If that helps to unravel the knot, well and good. But as for you and me, we’ll not interfere. Thank you for your sympathetic understanding, my dear. And now, please, will you ask the cook to come in and see me?”