The City in Flames by Elisabeth von Berrinberg Read Free Book Online Page B

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    The next trip, however, was again in vain. After four and a half hours of waiting, my mother, together with the rest of the people in line, was told to come back the next day. Choked with tears, she walked back to her bicycle. But as she rounded the corner of the building, the unmistakable smell of freshly baked bread wafted toward her. Tracing the aroma, she found herself in the storage room of the bakery, surrounded by shelves, all of them filled with still-steaming loaves of bread.
    “Hallo, ist jemand da?” she called out.
    My mother was determined not to return home empty-handed. If she could persuade the baker to make an exception and sell her a loaf of bread, she would at least not have to fear being turned away again the next day.
    She called again, “Hello, anybody here?” Still no answer. She was about to give up when an idea struck her. I’ll just take a loaf and leave the money for it on the shelf, she thought. Quickly she grabbed a loaf. As she searched for her billfold, she heard footsteps coming from the basement stairs. Now that she had the bread in her possession, it could be a nasty situation if she got caught. She left the room in haste. It was not until she was pedaling her bike along the country road that she realized what she had done.
    “May God forgive me for what I have done,” my mother muttered when she set the bread before us.
    “What happened?” my sister asked.
    “Not a word to Papa!” she said and made us promise; she told us what happened.
    Having become a thief bothered her so much that she confessed her misdeed to the baker—though not until a long time after the incident. He just laughed and, instead of taking the money she offered him as a belated payment, rewarded her for her honesty by presenting her with another loaf of bread, which was just as fresh and aromatic as the one she stole.
    One time the rain set in and lasted for four days. We gave up our daily trip to the village while it rained and instead set up every available pot and pail, which left us with plenty of water. But bread, unfortunately, did not fall from the sky.
    In hopes of a shorter wait in line because of the unpleasant weather, my mother left for the village. Wrapped in my father’s raincoat and holding an umbrella, she swung herself onto her bicycle. We watched her pass the ravine. Only the black dome of her umbrella was visible now, but we knew she would soon come into sight again after she reached the other side of the hill. But the road remained empty. There was no way we could have missed her. Fearing that something happened to her, we prepared to leave for the ravine. Without any proper clothing to shield ourselves from the rain, we wrapped bedsheets around ourselves. By now we were certain something happened to our mother because her figure never appeared on the ascending road.
    To shorten the walk to the spot where we suspected her to be, we crossed through the fields rather than following the road. The ground was soaked, and we sank ankle-deep into the mud. It slowed us down, but it was too late to take the road.
    When we spotted my mother we knew she was hurt. Her bicycle lay on the side of the road. Her umbrella drifted into a field, blown further away each time a gust of wind caught its frame.
    “Mutti!” my sister and I called to let her know we were near. We could hear her sobs as she lay in the mud, unable to raise herself. Mud and tears covered her face. She looked at us with a strange expression.
    “Are you all right?” we asked.
    “My children?” asked my mother, wiping her face with the back of her hand.
    “Ja,” I answered, wondering at her strange question.
    “Who did you think we were?” my sister asked. “A couple of ghosts?”
    In a weary gesture my mother motioned toward us as we stood there, enveloped in white bedsheets—well, they were white when we started out—but her movement brought back the pain in her hip. She cried out when she tried to shift her