March 07, 2009

Since I was older, I was always held against my sister as a good example for discipline, as the better student in school, and of course she hated me for that. But then I was jealous too, I hated all the attention she got, because she was so cute and sweet

My niece got up from the piano seat and bowed slightly to the audience. With some embarrassment on her face, she hastened to her seat in the last row, out of sight of the other piano students and their parents. She did get frantic applause for her jazzy little piece though — but the 12-year-old girl just hates to be looked at.

Of course I was proud of her, just as her mother. It is nice to listen to her swing, her lightness. Very different from our performance some 40 years back. When my sister and I started to take piano lessons, I was 12 years old. Our father was sceptical; he had doubts that we’d practice and wasn’t keen to pay for the lessons if we wouldn’t. It took me a full year to convince him. My sister, two years younger than me, just got it because I got it. She pulled out from the lessons after a year as she didn’t like the piano teacher. I ignored him; I had to prove my determination to my father, who was a school teacher.

Playing, however, was never playing as it is for my niece. It was a lot of hard work then. We lived in a block of flats with strict rules and strict people; making noise was forbidden during lunch break and after 10. Practising piano was noise, of course. My sister and I shared a room, one of four of the family flat. We fought over toys when we were young and told each other stories before falling asleep. When our parents were out, I had to check underneath her bed for dangerous creatures. Being afraid is a privilege of little girls. With the piano I got my own room; my father gave up his study and moved his desk to the lounge.

Our area was made up of brand new three-level-houses built from bricks, established in the ’60s for middle class families. Many fathers in our neighbourhood were state employees, people with a limited but secure income and a determination to raise their children clean and tidy.

We played with these neighbourhood kids on the grass between blocks of flats, most of the time in motherly sight and control. However, my little sister belonged to those wild ones, who would skip off if not watched. She ran with the boys to play in the deserted small gardens up the street where the suburb was still under construction. That was strictly forbidden, and she’d never admit it, of course. I wouldn’t give her secret away, but I never came along. If it comes to parental orders, older sisters are the better ones, I suppose.

When I entered secondary school, I found all my classmates playing violin, flute or piano. They were sons and daughters of professors or owners of banks and businesses in the little town of ours. It was then when I started to work on my father — I wanted to be like them.

It was a class thing, in a way. Both our parents came from a working class background. For my father, playing the violin in the school orchestra was a painful exercise. He grew up during the Nazi regime in Germany when boys had to be tough. Playing an instrument was a soft thing, embarrassing, and bourgeois as well. Our mom dreamt of a piano when she was a child. She knew she wouldn’t get her own and so worked on a sophisticated plan where she could practice. But for her, it was just out of reach, just as training for a profession was. She’d marry and have children, like her own mother. She told us of her piano dream only very late. I remember her crying when I played at her last birthday. She would have been proud of her daughter’s child, too.

Maybe the happiest time in our childhood was just at the age of my niece these days, 10 and 12 years. My sister and I belonged to a “secret club of the black five”, a group of girls in our street. I was the leader because I was the oldest one. We spent afternoons after school in the local forest, constructing shacks from wood and wandering through the grass. Once we discovered a small snake and alarmed all guests of a garden restaurant – but, of course, it wasn’t dangerous; there aren’t many poisonous snakes in German forests. For us it was still an adventure.

But we had a lot competition between us too. I was held against her as a good example for discipline, as the better student in school, and of course she hated me for that. And then I was jealous when I saw her easily making friends, while I would be too shy to talk. I hated all the attention she got, because she was so cute and sweet.

We travelled Europe by train together when we were 17 and 19 and about to leave our parents. That was another adventure. We’d spend nights in trains or sleep with others outside in order to save money. We lived on bread and tomatoes, saw the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and had a life open before us.

We left home together and took completely different life decisions. While I went wholeheartedly for studying and entering a profession, she became a nurse and founded a family. That difference though became the base for our relationship later: She would listen to my stories from other countries, I looked after her boys and later her daughter as much as I wanted. Different disciplines, no competition — that was our solution.

And I guess it still is. While I lived and worked in South Africa, my sister came to visit in spite of her big fear of flying. When I returned, her daughter was six years old; we bought her piano together. Now I sit in at all the piano students’ concerts. We’re sharing a song of three generations of women in our family: what our mom couldn’t get what we had to fight for, now it can be offered to the little girls in our family. I like the music.