Somewhere in Germany by Stefanie Zweig

Author:Stefanie Zweig [Zweig, Stefanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780299210137
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The somewhat overdue conversation between father and daughter took place two days later. Regina was embarrassed in a way that irritated her and became even more embarrassed when she realized that Walter felt the same way.

“I am not a rich man,” he said with a formality that he immediately recognized as being exaggerated and foolish, “but I have enough money to let you study. You can choose any field you want. What have you been thinking of?”

Baffled, Regina asked herself if her father really did not know that almost immediately after entering the Schiller School she had not wanted to study anymore and especially not at a German university. She felt oppressed by a feeling that she was duty-bound to be grateful for a favor and could not disappoint the benefactor for the simple reason that she could not feel anything when thinking about her future but the desire, which had become even stronger over the years, to be in an easily comprehensible world with people who thought the same way she did. She remembered just in time that it still might be possible to make her father happy with the answer that he most likely had been expecting from her for years. She smiled, full of regret when she realized that she had been negligent and had made her eyes blind and her mouth silent for such a long time.

“Law school,” she said with satisfaction.

“You can’t be serious, Regina. Only ugly girls go to law school. Real bluestockings who will never get married.”

“We would have one less problem, then,” Regina deliberated and intensely reflected whether she had perhaps not understood the point of some joke, “but I don’t insist on law. It was just an idea because I am interested in everything you tell me about your work. Actually,” she said, briefly chewing on her relief and encouraged to tell the truth, “I don’t really want to study at all. I am almost twenty-one and have been a financial burden for you long enough.”

“Don’t talk such nonsense. I told you I can afford to send my daughter to the university. Only I am not too excited about law school. And not only because you are a pretty girl. I found out what law means. You can work nowhere in that profession but in Germany. An attorney is a prisoner for life.”

Confused, Regina asked herself what kind of an effort it had been for her father to make this confession. She knew that she could not look at him so she stared fixedly at the picture of the town hall in Breslau the way she had done as a child when the words had not jumped fast enough from her head to her mouth. “You want me,” she said, and all of a sudden it became easy for her to allude to the agreement of their eternal pact, “to stay here. How about becoming a kindergarten teacher?” she suggested. “After all, I like children a lot.”

“Do you really still want

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