lost by hans-ulrich treichel

lost is an alternatly funny and sad little book. it is about a german family who lost their oldest son when they were fleeing the russians during the second world war. the story is told by their younger son, who never met his brother, but lives in his shadow.

this passage is about a remodeling the father has done to their home.

"The windows were changed from casements to ones that tilted, and they never got frost flowers on them anymore...The house that had once been my childhood labyrinth, with long corridors, deep built cupboards, and unexpected stair landings, behind which more corridors stretched away, leading to other connecting doors and landings. It gave me pleasure to roam through the house, just as it gave me pleasure to go see and see the attic crisscrossed with and wooden braces-my magic forest, but also my place of terror. The attic must have once served as a storeroom and warehouse, because there was a trapdoor set into the floor...When I opened the trapdoor, I could see into a room I'd never been into, and which appeared to have no other entrance...I woulld have given anything to know if there was a door to the room, but i didn't dare ask my parents....The rebuilding took away my childhood labyrinth, straightened it out, gutted it, let the light in. The corners, nooks, long passageways, had disappeared along with the built-in cupboards, connecting doors, and unexpected stair landings. Naturally, the trapdoor went too, and with it, the only entry to the hidden room. Yet curiously the area under the trapdoor was the same size after the reconstruction that it had been before. Not one square meter had been gained, and I was convinced the room still existed..."

there is also a very funny section about the biannual event of getting a pig's head, but i'll spare you the details of that.


very good short read. highly recommended.