Lottie and Lisa by Erich Kästner (translated by Cyrus Brooks, illustrated by Walter Trier).
Title: Lottie and Lisa (aka Lisa and Lottie and The Parent Trap).
Author: Erich Kästner (translated by Cyrus Brooks, illustrated by Walter Trier).
Genre: Fiction, humour, YA, children's lit.
Country: Germany.
Language: German.
Publication Date: 1949.
Summary: Nine-year-old Lisa from Vienna-bold, with a head of curls-meets Munich's buttoned-up Lottie at summer camp. Soon, a newspaper clipping tells the tale: they're identical twins, Lisa living a colorful, big-city life with her father while Lottie keeps house with their gentle mother. Why have their parents separated? And how can they get to the bottom of the mystery? They decide to switch hairstyles, manners, and addresses-and that is where the adventure begins.
My rating: 8.5/10
My review:
♥ Do you happen to know Bohrlaken? I mean the village in the mountains - Bohrlaken on Lake Bohren? No? You don't? Odd - none of the people I ask seems to know Bohrlaken. Maybe Bohrlaken is one of those places known only to the people I don't ask. It wouldn't surprise me. Such things do happen.
Well, if you don't know Bohrlaken on Lake Bohren, then of course you don't know the holiday home at Bohrlaken on Lake Bohren either, the well-known holiday home for little girls. Pity. But never mind. Children's holiday homes are as alike as peas in a pod; if you know one you know them all. And if you happened to stroll past one you might think it was a giant beehive. Such a hum of shouts, laughs, giggles and whispers. These holiday homes 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 grey dwarf Homesickness sits by the beds in the dormitories, takes from his pocket his grey notebook and his grey pencil, and with a glum face counts up the tears around him, those shed and those ushed.
But next morning - hey presto! - he's vanished. Then the milk cups chink and the little tongues chatter for all they're worth. Then swarms of bathing-caps race again into the cool, bottle-green lake, splash, scream, yelp, crow, swim - or at least pretend to be swimming.
♥ Well, now they are all bathing in the lake, and the one that is playing the maddest pranks is, as usual, a little girl of nine with a head framed in curls and filled with bright ideas, whose name is Lisa, Lisa Palfy. From Vienna.
♥
Lisa and the new girl were the living spit of each other. It is true that one had long curls and the other tightly braided plaits - but that was really the sole difference between them!
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♥
"I wouldn't stand for it," said Trudie, a school-fellow from Vienna. "The cheek of it - coming here with your face!"
♥ And now she was lying here in a strange room, next to a bad-tempered girl who hated her because she happened to look like her. She sighed softly. And she was to get smile-wrinkles! Lottie began to sob quietly to herself.
Suddenly she felt a little strange hand awkwardly stroking her hair.
Lottie stiffened with fright. With fright? Lisa's hand went on shyly stroking her hair.
The moon looked in through the big dormitory window and was surprised at what it saw - Two little girls lying side by side, not daring to look at each other. And the one, who had just been crying, slowly putting out her hand and feeling for the other's hand as it stroked her hair.
"Well, well," thought the old silver moon. "Now I can go down with a clear conscience."
Which it did.
♥ Was it a real armistice between those two? Would it last? - Although it had been made without negotiation, without even a word? Yes, I think so. But it's a long way from an armistice to peace. Even among children. Or, is it?
♥
Now the two doubles were sitting side by side on the grass, all alone, finding nothing to say, but smiling warily at each other.
♥ "Doesn't he ever take a slipper to you?" enquired Lottie earnestly, as she began plaiting Lisa's hair.
"Not on your life. He's much too fond of me."
"That has nothing to do with it," observed Lottie very wisely.
♥ 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 plaits of the nearest Lottie and gave it a sharp trug. Next moment 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.)
♥ They sat down at a table in the garden, drank lemonade and talked. There is so much to say, so many questions to ask and answer, when two little girls have just made friends with each other.
♥ The hens clucked. The retriever dozed. A little girl who had no father was drinking lemonade with a little girl who had no mother.
♥ In the garden all was still. Only the tips of the trees were moving. Perhaps Fate, gliding at that moment across the garden, touched them with its wing-tips.
♥ Lottie put her arm round Lisa's neck. "Our Mummy!" Two little girls clung tightly to each other. Behind the mystery that had just been solved for them, fresh mysteries, new problems, were waiting.
♥ Miss Ulrica did now wear a particularly intelligent expression as she left the office. And, if she had, it would have been something quite unusual.
♥ Time passed. It knows no better.
♥
The two girls stuck together like burrs. Trudie, Steffie, Monica, Christine and the rest were sometimes cross with Lisa and jealous of Lottie. What good did it do? None at all. Where had they slipped off to now?
♥ And in bed at night they whispered together for hours. Each discovered a new and strange continent. What had been hitherto encompassed by their childhood's sky was, they suddenly realised, only half a world.
♥ "We couldn't do that," said Lottie timidly. "We're only children."
"Only!" exclaimed Lisa, and threw back her head.
♥
Lottie leaned out of the window. From a window of the other train Lisa waved to her. They smiled to give each other courage. Their hearts were thumping, their nerves growing tauter and tauter. If the engines had not begun to hiss and spit at that moment, who knows? - Perhaps those two little girls might still have -
But no! The time-table decided otherwise. The guards waved their flags. The trains began to move simultaneously. The children waved their hands.
Lottie was going as Lisa to Vienna.
Lisa was going as Lottie to Munich.
♥ The main station at Munich. Platform 16. The engine came to a halt and gasped for breath. Islands of reunion have formed in the sea of travellers. Little girls were hugging their beaming parents. Happy and excited with the flood of news, people forgot they were in the station and acted as though they were already at home.
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And then Dr. Strobel appeared with Peterkin. Peterkin was a dog.
♥ The little girl walked slowly to the window and thought with some uneasiness about life. They wouldn't let her mother work at home; and her father couldn't work at home. What a handful parents are!
♥ "I've been adding up the figures in your book," said Lottie in a low but firm voice.
"Fine goings on!" cried Rosa indignantly. "You do your sums in school. That's the place for sums."
"I shall always add up your books," declared Lottie gently, and hopped off the kitchen chair. "We learn in school but not for school, that's what my teacher says."
♥ Dear readers, old and young, male and female! I have regretfully come to the conclusion that it is about time I told you something of Lisa's and Lottie's parents, and especially of how they came to be living apart.
If, at this point, a grown-up person peeps over your shoulder and exclaims, "Oh, him! How, in heaven's name, can he write such things for children!" then please read the grown-up person the following:
"When Shirley Temple was no more than seven or eight she was already a film star, famous all over the world. And she earned for the film companies many millions of dollars. But when Shirley wished to go with her mother to a cinema and take a look at a Shirley Temple film, she was not admitted. She was still too young. It was forbidden. She could only make films. That was not forbidden. She was old enough for that."
If the grown-up person who peeps over your shoulder does not understand this example of Shirley Temple and its connection with Lisa's and Lottie's parents and their divorce, then give him my very kind regards, and tell him from me that there are large numbers of divorced parents in the world and large numbers of children who suffer in consequence. And there are also large numbers of other children who shudder because their parents are not divorced. But since children have to suffer from such things, it is far too nice-minded, indeed it is positively wrong - not to tell children about them in an understanding and understandable way.
♥ So now Conductor Palfy, who had been so concerned for his creative peace, was well out of it. Now he could be alone as much as he liked. He engaged a capable nurse in Rotenturm Street to look after the one twin that remained to him after the divorce. And, as he had so earnestly desired, not a soul bothered him.
And suddenly that did not suit him either.
..Whenever there was a concert in Munich at which a new work by Arnold Palfy was being played, Lisalotte Horn bought herself a ticket, and sat with bowed head in one of the cheap seats at the back, and thus learned from her ex-husband's music that he had not grown any happier. In spite of his success. And in spite of being alone.
♥ Work was waiting for her, and work does not like waiting.
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♥ Lisa clenched her fists with determination and got up to start again. As she did so, she growled to herself, "If I can't manage this -"
But that's the queer thing about cooking. Determination is all very well if you want to jump off a tower. But will-power is not enough when it comes to cooking beef and noodles.
♥ Lottie went stiff with fright. She was wrenched suddenly out of the dangerous magic of art. She found herself suddenly in the dangerous world of reality.
♥
Lottie fell asleep. She had a dream. The story of the poor father and mother, who sent Hänsel and Gretel into the forest because they had no food for them, became entangled with her own fears and unhappiness.
♥
Let us rather give unstinting recognition to Peterkin, Dr. Strobel's dog, which for some time had resumed its old habit of saying how-d'ye-do to the little girl at Conductor Palfy's table. It had resigned itself to the fact, although it was beyond its canine comprehension, that Lisa no longer smelt like Lisa. Human beings are capable of so many things - Why not of that too? Besides, she did not eat so many stuffed pancakes as before and seemed to have developed a healthy appetite for meat. When you consider that there are no bones in pancakes, while you can be fairly certain of finding them in chops, you can easily understand how Dr. Strobel's dog had overcome its initial reserve.
♥ So her teachers thought Lisa had changed, Lottie thought Rosa and Peterkin had changed, and her father thought the flat in Rotenturm Street had changed. What a lot of changes!
♥ "However many troubles a mother has to bear, her first duty is to guard her child, lest it be driven too soon out of the paradise of childhood."
♥ "I want my child," she said, "to be a child and not a stunted little grown-up! I would rather she was a happy, genuine little girl than have her forced at all costs to be your best pupil."
"But Lottie used to manage to combine both qualities," returned Miss Linnekogel, slightly piqued.
"Why she cannot do so any longer, I do not know. As a woman who has to earn her own living, I don't know enough in many ways about my daughter. The change must be connected in some way with the summer holidays. But I know one thing - she can no longer be what she used to be. And that is all that matters."
♥
♥ Tanned and happy they sat in the train. And the nice gentleman opposite obstinately refused to believe that the girl sitting next to Lisa was really her mother and had to earn her own living.
♥ But of late her father had not had much time for giving lessons. Perhaps that was because of his work on the children's opera? May be. Or was it? Well, little girls have a way of knowing when something is wrong. When fathers talk of children's operas and never speak of fashionable young ladies, their daughters know which way the wind is blowing.
♥ Irene Gerlach knew what she wanted. She wanted to marry Mr. Palfy. He was famous. She liked him. He liked her. So there were no insuperable difficulties in the way. It is true that he knew nothing as yet of his future happiness. But she would tactfully let him know in good time. And he would end up by imagining that the idea of marriage had come to him quite spontaneously.
♥ Mr. Palfy ran his fingers through his hair. Childish tears! Another distraction to cope with! And he was trying to compose a children's opera! It was enough to drive one to drink! He could hardly endure seeing a little thing like that with tears in her eyes. They hung on her long lashes like dewdrops on tiny blades of grass.
His hands struck a few notes. He bent his head and listened. He played the phrase again. He repeated it in another key. It was the minor variation of a jolly song he had written for his opera. He altered the rhythm. And he went on working.
What use are childish tears? An artist can get away with murder. He just takes his music paper and writes down a few notes. And presently he will lean back and rub his hands complacently because he has just composed a sweet, touching song in C minor. (Isn't there a giant about somewhere who will put the man across his knee occasionally?
♥ He looked thoughtfully after her. He knew how heavy trouble can weigh on a child's heart. He had been a child himself once and, unlike a good many people, had not forgotten it.
♥ The room was very still.
A fly buzzed loudly as it tried to butt its way through the windowpane into the fresh air outside. (Anyone could have told it that it was a pure waste of time and could only result in damage to its insect head. Flies are just stupid, but people - people are clever, aren't they?)
♥ Then there was a cry from the room. "Daddy!" It sounded as though someone were drowning.
"People don't drown in sitting-rooms," thought Mr. Palfy, and slipped out. He was in a great hurry. For of course he had to rehearse with Mr. Luser.
♥ A gong sounded. The interval was over. Life and the opera went on.
♥ He stroked the little, hot cheek. Lottie started in her feverish sleep and writhed away from him.
He looked round the room. Her school-satchel lay ready packed on the seat by the desk. And beside it lay Christel, her doll.
He got up stealthily, fetched Christel, put out the light and sat down by the bed again.
He sat in the dark, stroking the doll as though it were a child. A child that did not start away from the touch of his hand.
♥ If Mr. Bernau had put his head round the door at that moment, he would have seen a face overwhelmed with joy and pain; tears streaming down, tears that tire the heart, as though life itself were pouring from one's eyes.
♥ Mrs. Horn did her best to pull herself together. This was just the moment to keep one's head. What was to happen? What did she want to happen? She decided to speak to Lottie.
An ice-cold thought went through her. A thought that shook her like an invisible hand.
The girl she would speak to - was she Lottie?
♥ "Do you believe that my children would have been happier if my husband and I had gone on living together unhappily?"
Miss Linnekogel said thoughtfully, "I'm not reproaching you. You are still very young. You were hardly more than a child when you married. All your life you will be younger than I have ever been. What is right fro one may be wrong for another."
♥ "Lisa!" repeated her mother gently, and held out her arms.
"Mummy!"
The little girl hung on her mother's neck as though she were drowning. She sobbed passionately. Her mother fell on her knees and stroked the child with trembling hands. "My child, my darling child!"
They knelt there among the smashes plates. The pork chops were burning on the stove. There was a smell of charred meat. Water spat and hissed from the saucepans and dropped on the gas-jets.
The woman and the little girl were unaware of all that. They were - as is often said, though seldom truthfully - "in another world."
♥ He sighed.
And away in Munich a woman sighed also. Two grown-up people completely at a loss. Their hearts and tongues paralysed. And their brains too, it seemed.
Into that awkward and dangerous silence broke an eager childish voice. "Daddy! Daddy dear!" The words echoed across the distance. "This is Lisa! Hullo, Daddy! Shall we come to Vienna? Shall we come now?"
The saving word has been spoken. The icy constraint of the two grown-ups melted as at the touch of a spring breeze.
♥ Short as it was, the night seemed endless. But even endless-seeming nights end sometime.
♥ Mr. Palfy stole a sideways glance at the three of them, the mother with her children. His children, too, of course. And the young mother had been, years ago, his young wife. Submerged days, forgotten hours, rose up before him. A long, long time ago...
♥ Then he snuggled close against the vast trouser-leg of the doctor, who was just remarking to Mr. Palfy, "A mother's a kind of medicine you can't buy at the chemist's!"
♥ Night had spread its wings over the earth. In Vienna as everywhere else. There was no sound in the nursery. Lisa was sleeping. Lottie was sleeping too, sleeping herself back to health.
♥ Up until a few minutes ago Mrs. Horn and Mr. Palfy had been seated in the next room. They had discussed a great many things and had avoided discussing many more.
♥ For a time he played from his notes. A simple, severe canon in one of the modes of old church music. Then he began to modulate. From the Dorian to C minor, from C minor to E major. And slowly, quite slowly, a new melody budded out of the paraphrase. A tune so simple and winsome that it might have been sung by two little girls with pure, clear, childish voices; in a summer meadow, by a cool mountain lake that mirrored the blue heaven: the heaven that is high above our understanding, whence shines the sun, warming all creatures, without distinction of good, bad or indifferent.
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♥ It is proverbial that time heals wounds, but it also cures sickness.
♥
Or they took Peterkin for walks, while Dr. Strobel was busy with his patients. Peterkin had adjusted himself to the two-fold Lisa, first by doubling his capacity for loving little girls and then by halving it. He had to find a solution somehow.
♥ "Is that selfish of them?" asked the young woman eagerly.
"No, but wishes need not be selfish to be unattainable."
♥ Mr. Benno Preiss, the experienced registrar of the first district of Vienna, was performing a marriage which, in spite of all his experience, caused him occasional twinges of misgiving. The bride was the divorced wife of the bridegroom. The two terrifyingly similar ten-year-old girls were the daughters of the happy people. The one witness, an artist, Anton Gabel by name, was not wearing a tie. But, just to even things up, the other witness, a certain Dr. Strobel, had brought a dog. And the dog made such a commotion in the vestibule, where it ought to have been left, that it had to be brought in and allowed to rake part in the ceremony. A dog as witness at a wedding! Really, what were things coming to!
Lottie and Lisa sat reverently on their chairs and were as happy as princesses. And they were not only happy but proud, very proud indeed. For all this marvellous, unbelievable happiness had been brought about by them. What would have happened to their poor parents if it had not been for the children?
Well, then. And it had not been easy either to keep one's mouth shut and play the of rôle of fate. Adventures, tears, anxiety, deception, despair, illness - nothing had been spared them. Not a thing!
♥ "And what's to happen later on, when you are young women and someone wants to marry you?"
"Since we look the same," said Lottie thoughtfully, "we're sure to have the same man fall in love with us both."
"And we're sure both to fall in love with the same man," cried Lisa. "Then we shall both have to marry him. That's the best way. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I shall be his wife. And Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays it will be Lottie's turn."
"And if he doesn't happen to try you out at arithmetic," said Mr. Palfy laughing, "he'll never notice that he has two wives instead of one."
Mr. Kilian got up from his chair. "Poor fellow," he remarked pityingly.
Mrs. Palfy smiled. "But there'll be one good thing about it - he'll have a day off on Sundays!"
♥ He put his arm round her. "On the third floor left, all four of us will be happy together, and on the third floor right, I shall be happy alone. But only on the other side of the wall."
"So much happiness!" She nestled against him.
"Anyhow, more than we deserve," he said seriously. "But not more than we can bear."
"I should never have believed it possible."
"What?"
"That one can make up for lost happiness, like a lesson one has missed at school."
♥
"Since Daddy and Mummy are both back here with us, do you think Lisa and I may have some brothers and sisters?"
"Of course," declared Rosa confidently. "Do you want them?"
"I should say we do," answered Lisa emphatically.
"Boys or girls?" asked Rosa.
"Boys and girls," said Lottie.
But Lisa cried from the bottom of her heart, "And twins every time!"