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Today’s letter to Helene’s son Harry is the companion to Clipper letter #62 that Helene wrote to his sister the day before.
Vienna, 9 December 1940
My dear Harry-boy!
So, you’re playing a “prankster in America”. I wouldn’t even think of saying anything reproachful to you about that, because I behaved like a rascal on the street myself this week. In order not to forget how to walk, I decided to go shopping last Friday.
When I left the apartment, the weather looked really great, although doors and windows were rattling quite a bit. Papa gave me the food ration card and some good advice - not to wear a hat. My first path led to Knoll. A woman was pushing the other ladies who were shopping there around from one spot to another because she had lost her meat card and she kept assuring everyone that it just had to be here because she had it in her hand the whole way there. The butcher said “well, maybe the wind took the card out of your hand” and she said “what would the wind want with my meat card?” Although the other various housewives certainly showed a lot of understanding for this problem of having lost her card, nobody could really keep from laughing after she said that. After I finished shopping, I went in the direction of “Nordsee” to the Löwengasse. And around the corner was the Kegelgasse and there was quite a wind and next thing I knew I was in the Bechardgasse. Branches and dried out leaves and scraps of paper and hats and caps were filling the air. And as if it were pecking at me, a not very appetizing piece of paper covered my face and I had trouble getting it off of my face with my hand, because the other hand had to hang on for dear life to my shopping bag which was trying to act like a hot air balloon, taking me with it. I worked my way up to Kolonitzplatz and it was if the advertising posters and the store signs were giving an atonal concert. A musician would have been able to hear it and imagine a modern rhapsody, but I think if he had passed this off as his own composition, he would have been booed. Because my God, the “Pastorale” certainly sounded a lot sweeter. On Kolonitzplatz when I finally got there, I thought I was at a Mardi Gras ballroom - a nice Vienna wind enjoys playing a joke on you. Rather stout and serious looking gentlemen grabbed as if on command with both hands to keep their hats on and turned around in 3/4 time and took quite a few steps without making any progress. An invisible hairdresser made a Medusa head out of my hair and the storm was quite gallant to us ladies. It would pick us up from the ground and carry us along a few meters and then put us down on the other side of the street. After I had bought some pickles, I let myself be moved. Who was that drumming along there? A head of cabbage was rumbling towards me. Maybe that’s why I was on the Kolingasse [pun on street name and rumbling cabbage]. And then it sort of brought me a black wax shopping bag which was following as if it were its duty the head of cabbage that I had found. I had far too much to do to deal with keeping my pickles under control, but then a colossal stomach almost ran me over. The stomach belonged to a bag and the cabbage and what the dear maid yelled at me could have been a set of legs. The pickles may go up in the hot air balloon again as I am thrown up in the air. But anyway, what the dear maiden said to me is the kind of thing that no decent person would write down in their family album (hence the name Stammgasse) [Stammbuch = family album/tree]. In the Kegelgasse where I ended up again, the cabbage had seemed to have hit and knocked over all nine trees (hence the name Kegelgasse) [Kegel = bowling ball]. I took advantage of a moment when the wind died down and I set off at a trot. I almost knocked over a guy who was there with a beer mug (hence the name Seidlgasse) [Seidl = beer mug].
I got home shortly before Papa did, who told me about his experiences on the Stubenring. The wind had taken delight in pushing over several benches which were reserved for Aryans to sit on. On the corner of Viaduktgasse, there was a wind bride who wished to dance with Papa, but he managed to get away from her impertinence. On the corner of Gärtnergasse, he would have been able to get some wind pants [Pun with whirlwind] without even having to pay points for them. Just like me, he was very glad to be home and we took pleasure in drinking tea about a quarter hour later. The wind, wind, wind of Vienna did all of that today.
That’s enough for today. Maybe I’ll write more tomorrow.
Helen
One of the wonderful things about Helene’s letters is how chatty she can be – she invites her children along with her on errands through the streets they’d walked on together many times before. They (and we) can feel the wind whipping as Helene treks through the neighborhood. Despite the daily privations and frustrations, she keeps the tone light. She throws in wordplay and puns, and likens her (and Harry’s) misadventures to a character in a book they would both have known. At first I didn’t understand her reference to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 — the Pastoral — because I thought of the calm, lyrical movements. But she is referring to the 4th movement, which evokes a violent storm, including high winds.
Below is a map showing the route Helene took. Since I did not have street addresses for the shops she went to, the arrows probably show her going further afield than she actually went. The starting and ending point of their home on Seidlgasse is circled in purple.
