Johann and Daniel
by Charles Lacey
Chapter 1
Johann.
As a boy, I always knew I was different. I didn't like to play ball games like the other boys. I preferred to be with my sisters Ilse and Brigitte. They loved to have me around; they were three and five years older than me and I must have been like a real-life doll to them.
Our parents were very good, upright, God-fearing people. We went to Mass every Sunday and every important Saint's Day at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. In those days the men had to sit at one side and the women on the other, so I was always with my father and my mother and sisters were some way away. But it was only for the duration of the Mass itself; afterwards we would always go home and Traudl, our maid who was also a wonderful cook, would serve our luncheon.
Sometimes I would understand the sermon, sometimes not. On occasion I asked my father to explain something to me, but his answer was usually the same: our business is to do our duty and do as the priest says, not to try to understand things that are too hard for us.
Which brings me to Father. He was of no more than medium height and quite slight in build; he wore steel-rimmed spectacles and a small moustache and was always neatly dressed in a formal style. He was not a hard or stern man, but he was very rigid in his views. He was assistant manager in a bank; utterly trustworthy and reliable, but without the imagination or originality which might have taken him higher. I remember one of his sayings that has guided me through my life: "Always do what is true, and honest, and kind." He and my mother loved each other, and us children, dearly, but we were always to be obedient to Papa; to be otherwise was to risk falling into sin.
Mamma was small and a little plump, always the dutiful wife but also a kind and affectionate mother. Her hair, like mine, was mouse-coloured, but it turned pure white in her later years.
At the age of nine I took my First Communion. I had to go to classes with Father Moritz for some time before, and then make my first Confession to him. My sins cannot have been great ones: perhaps I had cheeked my teacher, or failed to put away my toys neatly, yet I confessed them to the good Father and received a penance, and Absolution. The penance was always the same; to kneel and reverently recite the Paternoster or the Ave Maria so many times. Or just occasionally it might be a Psalm I had to read.
But I have not yet introduced myself! Behold me, then: Johann Stresemann, born on the 12 March 1927 in Linz, the third largest city in Austria. We lived in an apartment in the northern part of the city, and I attended the Romerberg Elementary School on Donatusgasse. We were neither rich nor poor, but somewhere in the middle. My mother had a little money of her own, though as a dutiful wife she surrendered it to her husband upon their marriage. To do him justice, he invested it wisely and if she asked him for money to buy a new dress or something of the kind, I do not think he ever refused her request.
I didn't have many friends at the Elementary School. Most of the boys liked to play football, and basketball, and hockey. I was never any good at these games. Some of the other boys invented unkind nicknames for me; Schwächling which means Weakling or Mädchenhaft which means Girlie. When this happened I had to try very hard not to cry because if I did they would call me Heulsuse which means Cry-baby.
I was a very slender child, with small hands and feet. My colouring was rather "in-between"; with brown hair and hazel eyes. Mother used to call me her Mauschen which means "little mouse", but Father used to say to her, "Don't call him that, he needs to grow up and become a strong man. Call him Männlich instead. But she never did.
But if I was not good at the games at school, I found the work quite easy and I usually came quite near the top of my class. I had learned to write a good cursive script and coped easily with arithmetic, and geometry, and nature study. I also learned to love the poetry of Hugo van Hoffmansthal and Rainer Maria Rilke, and to write good descriptions of our holidays, or the ships passing on the Donau. Sometimes in my compositions I would try to write a little like them.
So Papa used to read my school reports to me, saying in his dry way, "Well done, my son. I wish your teachers could give me a better report of your athletics, but you seem to have done well in your classroom subjects. And I see your report in Art is good again." Art was indeed one of my best subjects. I had drawn pictures ever since I first held a pencil, I think, and I loved to draw with coloured pencils and even more with pastels.
In History lessons we learned of Austrian heroes like Andreas Hofer, but we steered clear of modern history. Already nervous eyes were being turned towards our Northern neighbour, Germany, where the power of the National Socialists was becoming ever greater. We knew that Hitler and his friends hated Jews, and this was a worry to Papa as his boss, the bank manager Jakob Meyer, was a Jew. They got on well and Mamma was friends with Frau Meyer. But what, we thought, what if Germany were to annex Austria? How would it be then?
But I had other things to worry about, then. Two of the bigger boys, Heinrich Müller and Johann Krause had great delight in tormenting some of the smaller ones, myself included. Our teacher, Fräulein Schulze, kept an eye on us as well as she could, but when we went out to play on the grass behind the school building, only one teacher would be there, and could not possibly watch all of us.
Once they had caught us, they would do things like putting their fingers into our collars, so that when we tried to pull away the buttons would burst, and we would be scolded for looking untidy. Or if we brought marbles, for example, to school, they would take them and play with them, and then claim that they had won them in a fair match.
But Fräulein Schulze was a kind and generous teacher who had a pretty shrewd idea of what went on. Less so was Herr Gregor, the headmaster. He was much stricter – indeed, if he thought our class, which had its room next to his, was too noisy he would bang on the wall, or even come in and shout at us to be quiet.
When I was old enough I moved into Herr Gregor's class. I was surprised to find that although he could be testy with children who did not, in his opinion, make enough effort, he was generous with praise for those who did well. He gave me a good deal of help with preparation for my senior school. He was also outspoken about Hitler and the National Socialists, whom he referred to as "that gang of scoundrels". I hope with all my heart that after the Anschluss he had the sense to keep his opinions to himself. I lost touch with him after I left the elementary school, but I hope he did not come to any harm under the Occupation.
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