Hansel and Gretel, Part II

Hansel and I were both relieved once we procured the proper trout for Friday's dinner and the correct eggs for Saturday's fruhstuck. Later over dinner both he and Gretel were very appreciative and unusually expansive with Hansel offering, "Gretel you know is a Krupp."





"Really! THE Krupps? The armaments, the conscripted labor...?"

"Yah," Hansel continued, "you know Alfried Krupp was made Wehrwirtschaftfuhrer early in the war."

"I am sure he was an unusual man. But Gretel, how was it being a Krupp during the war?"





Gretel replied, "Well, it was very difficult during the war for all of us, you know, and of course especially for Hansel."









"How so?"





"You knew of course he is survivor of Sachsenhausen."





"What? No, no.... we had no idea." I turned quickly to Hansel, "Sachsenhausen! I'm so sorry Hansel...I mean, thank god you survived but how did..."





Gretel explained, "He was a German Jew just like all those German Jews before World War II who saw themselves as Germans first and Jews second. In fact Hansel still is first a German and to this day he can not imagine why he was put in a prison camp." Noting our surprise, Gretel continued, "Yes, yes, you can see. He is such a decent man but he can be so naive."





We wanted more details on this astounding revelation but Hansel quickly diverted the conversation to Gretel's unscrupulous agent. We learned that she was to have a meeting with him early Monday morning and but was terribly afraid of his taking advantage of her. Leaning across the table Hansel asked, "V and Charles, what do you think? You can see Gretel is with her agent like a lamb asking advice from the butcher."





They were both lively and interesting and as the evening wore on, clearly indefatigable. Around 3 a.m. they were still going strong while we on the other hand were spent. Our Wobenzyme reserves depleted, we just couldn't go any further so we wished them "guten nacht" and dragged ourselves to bed.





We awoke with a start at daybreak Sunday. Somebody was yelling, "Gut morgan! What a beautiful day and we start Fruhstock mit ei und toast, yah?" Oy, it was indeed Hansel. V jumped out of bed and ran to the stove with his eggs but he was right behind admonishing her, "No, no, meine Schatz, we don't have scrambled eggs. Eggs we do hartgekochten, hard boiled, yah?"





"All right, Hansel. Hard boiled it is," she sighed.





Over the corrected breakfast our symposium began anew. Our guest speakers were often flattering with remarks like Hansel's, "You must do your reading early in the day while you are still fresh and then you do your painting," as if our amateurs' efforts were somehow comparable to their professional expertise.





Whenever we appeared to be fading during these marathon conversations, one of them would re-engage using the socratic method with something like, "Why so you suppose Masaccio's 'Expulsion fromo Paradise' hasn't gotten as much acclaim as Michelangelo's?" Or, "You know of course how Bach discovered the concerti of Vivaldi and Corelli when he was serving as the court organist for the duke of Wiemar. You can tell see the lyricism and elegance of the Brandenburg Concerto did not just come out of nowhere."

At the dinner table with Gretel sitting beside me I couldn't help noticing once again her manifest charms, especially those invoked by what my Irish friend might refer to as "the twins." I thought "formidable indeed and what a commendable feat of engineering it must have been to hold them in place so securely. Was Wonderbra possibly using re-bar these days?" During a lull in the conversation I caught myself humming the Commodores' "She's a brick....house....built like a amazon. She's mighty mighty, lettin' it all...." Well, anyway, a good thing Hansel has all this energy, especially late into the evening.



By midnight of the second night we could go no further. We ran up the white flag and collapsed into our bed.





Early the next morning V. scurried into the kitchen with Hansel in hot pursuit. When she pulled out the egg carton he frowned, "No Liebling, I am so sorry but never we have hard boiled eggs two days in a row! So, you don't mind this morning we have bagels and cafe mit schlag. That's right. So good of you, my dear."





"OK," she thought, "only one more day of this. I can do it." She dutifully put the eggs back in the fridge.





"Such an accomodating good hostess. We are all having such a good time that we must visit often and today right after breakfast we read together the Sunday paper and discuss, yah?"





To be continued.