Simone Arnold-Liebster - Facing the Lion

It didn’t help because I knew how terrible it is to die unprepared.

How awful, how terrible if my parents would die during the night! Every night I would sneak into their bedroom and put my finger under their noses to find out if they were breathing. Only then could I go to sleep!

One Sunday, as usual, the three of us went for our afternoon walk. It brought us near a tavern with a garden. I remembered being there when I was about three years old. I had danced on a tabletop and the customers had applauded. Dad recalled my performance, too, and he said sternly, “Remember this place? Let it be said, I do not want you to become a show girl!”

Really! It wasn’t necessary for him to remind me. I was now a serious girl—nearly seven years old! I know about sickness, death, purgatory, hell, and God sending all kinds of situations to test us. My parents tried to cheer me up, but my innocent childhood free of sorrow was gone. My religious education at school taught me how painful life on this earth can be and what effort one has to go through to become a saint. That had become my chief concern.

One year of intense religious instruction had propelled me into a state of permanent fear, fear of God—the Father who was so severe, so exacting. I really had no desire to dance—how could I?

Sitting on a little footstool, I was holding class for Claudine, trying to teach her the pronunciation of the German alphabet. Mother was waxing the shared wooden stairs outside our apartment; it was her turn to clean them. She was always unhappy because our neighbor only used water to wash them down, while Mum believed in shiny wooden steps. I heard her talking to someone in the hallway; suddenly she came in to get something and went back out.

“I’ll read them,” I heard Mum say. “I believe our God is sleeping and doesn’t see what is going on. I wonder what you have to say.”[4] I couldn’t imagine why Mother would say something like that! Will she go to hell? I knelt down in front of my altar, begging the saints to ask God not to be angry with her! I was afraid for her soul!

That same day it was my turn to wash the dishes, but I just couldn’t scrub the burnt food off the bottom of the pans.

“We will put some water in them and soak them; it will come off easier later on,” Mum said absently. She put the pans on top of a shelf on the balcony, just behind a blind she had installed to keep people from gazing into our kitchen. For days, the pots remained there!

Mum was enthusiastic about the booklets she had gotten. She went to the bookstore to get a Bible. Day after day she would read and read and read—she barely cooked anymore. Ever since the day she had forbidden me to go to church alone, she hadn’t returned to our church for confession and communion. She started going to another Catholic church nearby. But, after a while, she decided that she wouldn’t attend Mass anymore. So Dad and I went together. He seemed really down, and I felt uncomfortable, too. Even the beautiful organ music didn’t make me feel better.

My mother also forgot how to cook. She reads too much, I said to myself.

One night as I was lying in bed, I could hear my parents’ voices. I stretched my neck and tried to listen in. I was convinced they had a secret I was not supposed to know. I had to discover it. Creeping alongside the wall, I tried to hear what they were talking about. Father’s voice was insistent; Mother’s was very firm, but in an undertone she said something about being free to worship according to conscience.

“We are Catholics!” Dad kept repeating.

“We all know that! What is Dad thinking?” I wondered. Mother’s answer was inaudible.

Dad got really irritated and insisted, “We have to stay faithful,” and he added something about a rock in Rome called Peter and the pope who sits upon it. All of a sudden Dad stood up. I quickly turned to hustle back to bed, but it was too late. He saw me. As he came out of the salon, disgusted, he said to Mother, “Do what you want!” He continued to walk away, then suddenly turned to Mum and added in an emphatic tone, “I forbid you to talk about your ideas and your readings to Simone!”

I was ignored, left out, treated like a baby! I felt like I would burst from anger. I was so mad at Dad. I was determined to resist.

“Mum, what do you read every day?” I asked her first thing the next morning.

“Bible literature.”

“What’s that?”

“The Bible is the Word of God.”

“I’ll read it too.”

“Later.”

“No, right now.”

“Simone, I promised your dad that I wouldn’t share a Protestant Bible or any literature with you.” I knew they were keeping something from me!

“But Dad isn’t here!”

“Yes, but I promised him.”

“Dad won’t see you, and I won’t tell him!”

“That would not be right; it would be lying. Child, your father is working hard to feed us and to pay the house rent. He has the right to make decisions concerning your education.” Inside I was burning up.

“But why? Why can’t I read what I want?”

A strange atmosphere had crept into our home. Mother still didn’t go to church, but at least she didn’t burn the food anymore. Father didn’t talk anymore, not even about socialism! His greetings to Mother were mechanical—no warmth, no enthusiasm, only questionings.

“Who have you seen? Where have you been going?” What foolish questions! Father knows that she sees only the grocer, the butcher, and the baker. Why does he bother her like that? But one time his questioning got worse.

“Do you mean the men who gave you those booklets didn’t come back?”

“No, and I feel bad about it. I have so many questions I want to ask them.” Dad didn’t like this either. They were so absorbed in their conversation they didn’t notice me. He kept on.

“Who brought you those other brochures?”

“I ordered them,” and nervously Mum pulled out a brown paper with stamps. “Here is the proof,” she said with annoyance.

“Why did you order so many, and where are they all?”

“I ordered three kinds. They sent me ten of each.”

“And what did you do with them?”

“I shared them with our neighbors in the apartment and down the street.” Dad shook his head angrily.

Sneaking farther back in the corner of the room, I said to myself, Dad has forgotten that I’m here. I’ll try to keep quiet.

He looked straight into Mum’s eyes and said, accentuating each word, “Are you spreading propaganda now?” Mother turned pale. Would she fight back? I would have! Dad was treating her like a child.

After a while she said, “Adolphe, people have the same right that each one of us has—the right to choose. But to do so, they have to have a choice; this is not propaganda.”

I thought, “Well done, Mum!” And without realizing it, I spoke up, murmuring that people have the right to read what they want, and I did too! Turning to gaze at me, both of them fell silent.

CHAPTER 3

Books Broaden My View

A

fter we learned of Frida’s death, we remaining four girls walked on the other side of the street, along the apartment houses. A young girl I had never seen before lived in one of them. She was always coughing badly. Blanche knew her. Her name was Jacqueline. She had been sent away from home to live in a special house; she was older than we were, and she had tuberculosis. We wanted to know what kind of sickness it was. I promised the girls that I would look it up in my medical book because I was the nurse.

Standing way up on top of the ladder in Dad’s library, I felt my heart pounding. I could feel the beating in my temples. My hands trembled as I reached out for the red, leather-covered, heavy “house doctor” book. I decided to sit on the top of the ladder. That way, as soon as I heard Mum going down the cellar stairs to put the garden tools away, I would have the time to put the book back, climb down and put the ladder away.