Lilli's Quest Read Free

Hess, with his sharp-tipped nose and pince-nez eyeglasses, comes every weekday to give Helga and Lilli instruction in science, history, and English. “Enough German grammar,” Grossmutter decreed aloud soon after the girls moved in. “Englisch!”
    Helga has never questioned this peculiarity. In view of the fact that England is declared to be Nazi Germany’s chief target of destruction, why would Grossmutter Bayer want her granddaughters to learn English? “Perhaps,” Lilli remarks slyly, “she is training us to be spies!”
    Helga finds this “crazy,” but Lilli insists it could be true. “Once we know English, the Hitler secret service will smuggle us into England to send them signals about the English war plans. But instead, while there, we could escape the Nazi clutches and become free.”
    â€œYes,” Helga mocks, “and send for Mutti and Elspeth, and get Papa out of Buchenwald, and live happily ever after. You read too many books, Lilli, all of them fairy tales!”
    The mention of Papa returns Lilli to the somber mood that underlies her every conscious minute thesedays. Yes, there has been some mail from him. The first was a postcard, written from Buchenwald about three weeks after his arrest, which raised everyone’s hopes. My loved ones, I am fine and thinking of you only, as I wait for my case to be reviewed. You cannot write to me, but I will write you again. Do not worry. I send my love to you, Martina, and to my three treasured girls. Josef/Papa
    Hope began to fade, however, after a second and a third postcard arrived, bearing the same message in Papa’s handwriting, but with a later date. What could this mean? Only last week a fourth post card of the same kind arrived. “It’s as if Papa wrote these cards all at the same time, but dated them several weeks apart,” Lilli had commented to Mutti. “Why would he do that?”
    Mutti had shrugged sadly. “I will try to inquire,” she murmured.
    â€œFrom who? How?” Lilli challenged.
    Mutti had turned away and reached for her handkerchief.
    It is time for the trip to the Kaufhaus , the large and elaborate department store that is the pride of this mediumsized German city.
    The façade of the store could be that of a palace, with many windows and carved stone decorations. It sits in the busiest part of downtown and has six stories and a basement that are served by electric elevators. Eachmirrored and gilt-trimmed moving car is run by a uniformed young woman, who calls out the number of the floor and the type of merchandise offered for sale.
    Lilli says she can remember having been to the Kaufhaus before, when she was four or five. She insists to Grossmutter in a friendly way that she has often seen this “dream palace” in her sleep. Helga says that can’t be true, while Grossmutter remarks that Lilli has a “too-strong imagination.” But Lilli remembers the ground-level floor, where they sell beauty accessories, ladies’ gloves, handbags, silk stockings, and fine jewelry. She is certain now that she has been here with Mutti. Of course, she and her sister won’t be lingering on this exotic ground floor—they are both too young for such frippery.
    What are Lilli and Helga hoping for on this surprise shopping trip, on a sun-drenched May day that heralds warmer weather? They are visualizing cool summer frocks of cotton or linen, with short sleeves and a bit of smocking or embroidery, new underwear to replace their itchy winter garments, half-socks, and shoes with straps, not laces!
    â€œCome along,” Grossmutter urges, as the girls’ heads are turned by smartly-dressed women shoppers, and even some gentlemen and high-ranking officers who are sniffing perfumes, holding jeweled earrings up to the light, and examining incredible alligator handbags.
    Who would have thought, Lilli muses to herself, that with all the rationing of everyday