Brigitte

Brigitte, Mutti’s sister was nine years younger than Mutti. When I was very small, right after the war, Brigitte once came to live with us in our tiny caravan. By then Mutti had Carmen, Josefa, and me, and my little brother was a newborn. Brigitte was supposed to help out with us children. But it didn’t last long before both sisters lost their patience with each other and Brigitte left again.

She rarely wrote after that and never visited again until I was a teenager and we had left the carnival circuit. Mutti had separated from Vati and lived with us girls and baby Michael in an apartment.

One day, a knock came at the door. Eva, my little sister, opened the door and a strange woman with light brown hair and blue eyes, and obviously pregnant, asked for our Mutti. Mutti called her Brigitte and pulled her into the apartment.

Brigitte had nowhere to go, so she lived in my older sister’s room for a few weeks, while Mutti and she tried to find her a job and a place of her own. Eventually Brigitte found work at the hospital in Wetzlar, a few miles away, and moved out. She never contacted my mother again, and we still don’t know what happened to her. Mutti is 91 now. When I visited her last, I asked about her sister. Mutti didn’t know whether she was still alive or where she lived. I don’t think either sister cared too much for the other.

A few years earlier, when I was twelve, we had another family member visiting. I’ll talk about that soon. Now I’m getting ready to take out my own little surprise visitor, Liesel, and her sisters!