Hampton Christopher - A German Life

A suggestion of a quite small domestic kitchen in Munich. A plain table covered with a gingham cloth and a simple wooden chair on which, nursing a bowl of coffee, sits Brunhilde Pomsel, a compact woman with heavy black-rimmed glasses, a lined, craggy face and a confident air. Shes 102, although theres nothing in her lively demeanour or obviously sharp intelligence to betray this fact.

As the lights come up, she acknowledges the audience, takes a sip of coffee and reflects for a moment.

Brunhilde Pomsel Ive forgotten such a lot. Most of it, really. Certain things stick of course, although Ive no idea why. I dont understand how it works. I read something and then I go across the room to check whats for dinner and completely forget what Ive just read. I think, wait a minute, Ive only just read that: I read it with my eyes wide open, I digested it and now its gone. And then, all of a sudden, things from long, long ago surge up into my mind. Things I can remember in the minutest detail.

She looks up at the audience.

So youll have to Anyway, lets see how we go.

Pause.

I can remember the outbreak of the First World War, thats probably as good a place to start as any. I was three, we were staying with my grandmother in the country and my father sent a telegram to say hed been called up, one of the very first batch. So we travelled back to Berlin and took a hansom cab, which was an unheard-of luxury, my mother, my baby brother and me, to the Potsdam station, to see him off. And I remember she bought pears, a bag of pears.

After that we didnt see much of my father, he was in Russia all through the war, although he must have come home on leave a few times, because by the end of the war there were five of us, I had four little brothers. When he came back we kept saying to each other whos this strange man in the flat? The first thing he did was he abolished the use of chamber-pots, so that if we had to get up in the middle of the night, we had to creep through the building in the dark, past all the witches and the evil spirits.

I suppose it was a happy childhood, whatever that means, God knows. They were always complaining about having no money, but we paid the rent and we never went hungry. My dad was a painter and decorator, so he was always in work, even during the inflation. He was very quiet, he never talked about his childhood, or the war, or anything very much. All the same, our whole world revolved around him. We were brought up very strictly, a clip round the ear or a thrashing with the carpet beater if you did anything wrong. And being the eldest and the only girl, everything was always my fault: you were there, why didnt you stop it happening? But all the same, it was fine, we were a normal German family. If youre crowded together in a small flat, love doesnt necessarily conquer all: no, the main thing is obedience plus a few fibs and a bit of shifting the blame on to other people.

I was good at primary school and the teacher said to my mother: shes bright, she needs to stay in school. My mother started trying to squeeze the money out of my dad, but then the teacher got the secondary school to give me a free place for a year and I moved up but then I wasnt quite so good any more, geography, maths, chemistry, I couldnt do any of those; and my reports started saying Brunhildes disruptive, Brunhilde never stops chattering in class and so on. And I was hopeless at games, I was a clumsy little thing, Id been wearing glasses since I was nine, I was terrified of ball-games and in the gym Id get stuck on the horizontal bar and theyd have to help me down. What I wanted was to be an opera singer, like my friend Ilses mother. I used to go round to help Ilse with her homework her parents were very rich, there was always coffee and cake and her mother was Italian, they had a beautiful piano and she used to sing arias for us,