TE20 Migrant Mosaics

Birke

waited…

She waited for the rare moment when his clock stuttered.

Onkel Georg and Dad usually drank beer, which looked like pee andhad thatwhitestuffontopof it. But sometimes, usuallyduring a party, the adults would bring out those small clear glasses and pour what she heard them call Schnapps into them. The pouring and drinking of the Schnapps reminded Birke of those concerts her grandma took her to. The little man up front would raise his magic wand and when he threw it down, the instruments honked and snorted and cried in a different way than before. Instead of the magic wand, the adults raised their teeny clear glasses, clinked them together, gulped down their Schnapps , and then all of a sudden: some of them sighed; one grumbled; the next adult whistled; and another remained silent. Noch eins! And they did another. Noch eins! And they did another. The kids would look over, gawking only a moment, for they had much more important things to worry about. The politics of childhood called on them. While the other kids turned their back on the adults, Birke, who suffered from that malady called curiosity, observed how differently the adults behaved after drinking this clear white liquid. Of course, Birke did not know that this ceremony belonged to local tradition stretching back to who knows when. She had no idea that since the imperial days, when woodmen came home from a day felling trees, or when hunters finally gave up on their last game, they all stumbled into their homes and sought a small glass of Schnapps which surely restored all bad to good. 213