DANCE ON THE VOLCANO: A Teenage Girl in Nazi Germany by Zerner Renata

Author:Zerner, Renata [Zerner, Renata]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Biography & Autobiography: Personal Memoirs Biography & Autobiography: Historical History: Europe > General
ISBN: 9781609108014
Publisher: BookLocker.com, Inc.
Published: 2010-02-23T16:00:00+00:00

Now, three years later in Bad Wildungen, I was faced with having to tell Erika a lie. I did not know her well enough to trust her with the truth, and so I stretched it. “An aunt in Berlin gave it to me. A confirmation present.” I unpinned the watch and showed her how it worked. “A lovely present,” Erika said.

We did not talk about the war. We reminisced about our life before we met. I told her of my best friend Mercedes Leichner who lived in a Victorian villa in Dahlem, a plush suburb of Berlin. Leichner make-up was well known and perhaps it sounded all too impressive to Erika that I had a friendship with a girl of a somewhat prominent family, but Mercedes was really and truly my best friend since I was ten. I talked about my visits to her home, where we played in the huge park with its greenhouse, its fountain and its little pond. Every day the chauffeur drove her and her sister to school in the family’s black Mercedes limousine. And they had a governess.

The next day when we were walking home from school Erika said, “We lived in a villa with a large garden. I’ll show you how large. Starting from this street corner…” and she walked along the street for nearly a block, “till about here. That’s how long it was.”

“That’s big, “I said.

“And there was a greenhouse,” she added.

I was impressed, but when I told my mother, she only laughed.

”Don’t be naïve, Renata,” she said, “I’ve talked to her parents many times. Her father is an insurance agent and they lived in a small house in the suburbs of Kassel. Nothing like the mansion she told you about. She just talks big. Her parents are nice people, down to earth.”

I was stunned. “But why? Was it because I told her about Mercedes in Berlin?”

“You did? Well, that might explain it,” my mother said, “Perhaps she feels insecure and wanted to impress you, so that you like her better. It looks like that.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “I would like her anyway. It’s not important to me, except it was so nice there at Leichners.”

“But you know by now, some of the people who have lost everything and come to a place where no one knows them…well, they often tell big tales. How wealthy they were, how much finery they lost. It’s not necessarily true.”

I was hurt that Erika lied to me. I should never have told her about Mercedes, I thought. Now it looks as if I wanted to show off. How stupid I had been to believe her! Mother was right, I am naïve.

My mood picked up again when I realized that it was really Erika who was stupid. She was not a clever liar. Of course she would be found out! Erika lost her glamour for me. We remained friends, but not for long…only until summer, until Peter arrived.

***

Mrs. Block knocked on the door and called, “Your husband is on the phone.

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