Up in the mulberry tree

by Nick Tullius

     Before the war, many people in our village did quite well, because they sold their surplus wheat, corn, potatoes, and even fattened pigs for good money. They spent most of the money on their enterprise, but many had more than just a little left over. They fixed up their houses, built additions, and sometimes rebuilt the whole house. Some farmers sent a son away to get an education. After completing their education, some of the boys returned to their native village. In this way, our village acquired a number of educated people, as did many other villages. At first, these were mainly teachers and priests; later on there were also medical doctors and lawyers.

    The main character of our little story was actually one of the educated sons of the village, let’s call him Franzi, first because that is not his real name, and second because the name seems to fit the person. After Franzi completed his studies somewhere in Germany, he married a nice girl from a neighbouring village, and opened his practice in our village. With the help of his family, he took possession of a beautiful new house. The house had shiny marble plates at its base, and four windows on the long side of the house, which was facing the street. All windows had modern roller blinds, controlled from the inside of house. The little horizontal Wood strips could be pulled up or let down, or angled either way.

     On a hot day, just before harvest time, the older boys had gathered in the Rundell (as we called the round public place in the centre of the village), sitting on the grassy lawn around the heroes memorial, talking as usual. They sung a song or two, until around ten or eleven o’clock, then everybody started on his way home. On his way home, Hans was just passing Franzi’s house, when he heard some unusual voices coming from one of the rooms. He tried to look in through the window, but the blinds were adjusted with the wood stripes closed on the bottom and open on the top. In this position, air was getting into the room, but you could not see into the room.  But older boys usually knew what to do. Hans climbed up onto the mulberry tree closest to the window. What he saw literally took his breath away. Franzi and his pretty young wife were like Adam and Eve – stark naked. They chased each other around the table, with Franzi trying to pat his wife’s round, white bum. Then they got closer to each other, until they could not really get any closer . . . No need for me to describe it any further, because in our day and age you can see it almost every day on TV or in the movies.

            On the following day, after Hans had recovered from the shock, he just simply had to tell his friend Peter the story. In the evening, both of them were sitting on that mulberry tree. One day, in the following week, four boys were sitting on that mulberry tree. And then it happened: There was one big crash, as the branch broke, and all four boys fell down to mother earth. The light in the room went out, and Franzi looked out the window. He could not see anything, but he could hear a few people running away. Luckily, none of the boys needed medical attention, but the mulberry tree had lost a good branch. From that day onwards, the blinds remained closed in the evening; one could not even see if the light was on in the room.