“That thing on Pinocchio’s face was a growth Baby T…
a twig.”

She never laughed much. She never even smiled much. Even so, thinking about her last words and looking at the old snapshots Mrs Connelly gave me at the funeral, I can’t help but remembering her in an almost comical way. Despite the exterior reflection, she was certainly never low-spirited. She went throughout life absorbing every detail around her. Being taken seriously was important to her. She was always very passionate and sincere when she was trying to teach me lessons of life…my mamma. I was certainly not grown enough to understand most of what she was saying at the time. Even now, many things she said back then still make no sense.
Her way of trying to get through to me was by using characters from children’s books or cartoons. I believe it really was the best way for her to teach me the things she thought necessary. She loved to listen when Mrs Connelly told me stories from her children’s or grandchildren’s old books. The dusting of the reading room was always left until it was time for my afternoon visits at the house. Getting to know all those stories and the characters in them was just as much a journey for her as it was to me. They inspired her to teach me as much as she could about all aspects of life.

Mamma’s favourite lectures were about pain, love and respect. Men even came up from time to time. Sometimes she would get a bit too carried away, forgetting that she was only talking to a little girl. There I would be, under the big old oak tree, absolutely clueless about anything on the subject. All the while she would give free rein to her views on relationships, men and women.

She used Pinocchio as an example when I asked her about the black boy living with the neighbours. I wanted to know about him being so dark while his parents were the same pale colour as Mr and Mrs Connelly. I remember us sitting under the big old oak tree in the peaceful garden. It was at the back of the Connelly family’s house, where Mamma worked. We also lived there. Our place was a little cottage behind the shed where my grandfather worked with Mr. Connelly. Mostly in silence, the two of them created the most beautifully carved furniture in that shed. Now, whenever I see a beautiful piece of hand carved furniture I remember Grandpa saying: “No tree ever dies Baby T, they just take on life in another shape.”
After asking Mamma about the dark boy, she told me about Pinocchio. “He was carved out of dark wood by a pale man who then became his father. Their love for each other was without colour Baby T. That doll turned almost black after that colourless man varnished him. They still loved each other just the same.” Without stop she would go on about pulling bark off trees, about some trees with dark bark having light wood, and about some dark wood having light bark. She would keep going about some wood being soft and others being hard, and about wood just being wood. “All trees grow from the same earth, Baby T.” When she told me that, I remembered my grandfather sometimes talking about some wood being very hard and others being too soft for this or that.
Once Mamma got going, she would get so carried away in the midst of her own philosophical stories, sometimes unaware of me falling asleep. She kept going about the nice but disobedient Pinocchio for what felt like an hour. I lied down under that big old oak. I fell asleep.

Her voice drifted off halfway through Pinocchio being dishonest and always getting his nose in some kind of mess. I woke up after I don’t know how long. She was still going strong. Pinocchio was now being deceitful.
“Mamma, if Pinocchio’s nose grows when he lies does that mean that Pinecone never tells lies? His nose never grows.” Pinecone was a wooden doll with string hanging down its arms. Grandpa made him for me on the morning of my birthday. He started in the early hours of the morning before I woke up. He finished it long before he had to start work with Mr Connelly. My sister later told me that they had forgotten all about my birthday and Grandma told Grandpa to quickly make something before I woke up. I assume that the string must’ve been an effort of his to make a marionette of some kind. Pinecone was painted white from head to toe and black nylon hair was glued onto its deformed head. It must have been Grandma’s old wick. I remember seeing her with hair like that on Sundays, wearing her best dress and pink powder on her cheeks. The doll’s eyes were painted in black and looked hard underneath the black fringe. The lips were painted in red. I remember looking like that one day when I was looking in the mirror. I had just smeared some of Mamma’s pretty weekend lipstick onto my mouth, but I washed that mess off as soon as I saw myself. The doll’s nose was a pinecone. It was glued into a hole just above the red lips, hence the name ‘Pinecone’. My sister, who was a teenager then, baptised Pinecone in the pond. The white painted wooden doll looked like a character I’d seen in a horror movie before. The paint had a cracked look all over the body and started flaking off almost as soon as Grandpa gave it to me.

Mamma asked me why I asked her something like that [about Pinecone never lying] and I told her about wanting to know about Pinocchio being pretty but bad, and Pinecone being ugly but good. “You are never to say such a thing to your Gramps, you hear, Baby T. Don’t you hurt Gramps telling him about that damn ugly doll, you hear?” She said this, pointing a finger with a long red, chipped nail at me. “You mamma…you said always to speak the truth just now.”
She was quiet just for a second and said: “Sometimes one must just not speak at all, you hear. When you grow older it will all just come to you. You’ll know when to let your tongue grow thick. Grow you’ll grow, Baby T. Know, you’ll know.”
After that I certainly never said anything to Grandpa about Pinecone being ugly. In the evenings after he finished work we always played, but he always wanted Pinecone to be part of the fun. He called him Mister P. “Go and get Mister P, Baby T. Let’s have that doll here and play for a while.” Sometimes I would just pretend not to hear him when Mamma would say: “You heard what Grandpa said, Baby T? Now you go and get that Pinecone right away.”
I think he was very proud of that doll. He made it from an old fence pole. I recall one evening, him telling Grandma about wanting to make more dolls like Mister P. He wanted to sell them at the Friday night market in town. She did not answer him when he said that and no friends were ever made for Pinecone.
Under the big old oak my mamma was not yet done with the day’s lesson. She tied my shoestring and said: “You see Baby T, some people paint wood because they are trying to hide something. Some people paint wood to make it look pretty. Sometimes
they just paint it so that it would fit into their lives…like Mrs Connelly painting that old table to match the colour of her curtains. Look at Pinecone all flaky now. Look at where the paint came off his body. Is it not the same wood all over?”
I remember trying to make sense of it all, but only for a couple of seconds before she started talking again: “Pinecone’s nose grows smaller with all that rough playing in the evenings. His heart grows bigger because he’s good. Pinocchio’s nose grows bigger and his heart smaller because of all the lies.” That’s how she used to get. She could turn an innocent children’s story into some saga. A simple question from me, which required a simple answer, was enough reason for her to turn it into a drama for required taste.
I think she was trying to make her stories sound like Grandma’s. She wanted to sound grown-up and wise. Somehow she could never let herself be heard in the same way as Grandma was able to. The only times my mother grew quiet was when Grandma was telling stories. Mamma’s eyes would just go off into the distance like everything else around her was growing into nothingness.
“Sometimes the grass grows so fast, you have to grow fast enough to keep your head even higher. If you can’t grow with it, get rid of it or you’ll get lost on your own lawn” Grandma said once with Mamma nodding her head in a haze and Grandpa snoozing away in his chair. I only figured out what she meant many years later. I think what she was trying to say was that one should keep moving and keep getting rid of whatever pulls one down in life otherwise one will go down with it. If we allow the bad to pull us down, how will we be able to grow?

A lot of the things she and Mother use to go on about are still in the dark to me, still playing games with my mind as it did back then. I did get to know the facts about the little black boy that lived with the neighbours back then. I asked Mrs Connelly. He, not having anybody to take care of him, was adopted by the neighbours. His mother, who worked for them, died suddenly when he was just a baby.

I do from time to time feel very distant from myself. As soon as I snap out of it I realise that I must’ve looked like a picture of my mamma when I was gone. She used to drift off like that. Sometimes someone else snaps me out of it. The other day I was sitting at my office desk when the new girl working in the cubicle next to mine suddenly tapped on my shoulder. She was pointing at my phone which was ringing for I don’t know how long before that. Afterwards she apologised, sincerely, for disturbing my deep thoughts. She told me about her mother teaching her to share with others, especially sweet thoughts. I told her I was only thinking about life and growth. Confused, she looked at me. She apologized for not understanding what I meant and for not being imaginative. I felt pity for her.
I feel indebted to my roots, my family. They are not alive as human beings anymore, but with their beautiful stories and lessons they allowed me to grow. They taught me to be in love with life.
I have my own stories to tell now. I have my own life lessons to pass on. I looked into the girl’s eyes and said: “Today and every day, little by little, we are all rising and growing towards being part of an old oak tree in a peaceful garden. Even if we are just a small growth, like a twig, on that tree - we are all part of its greatness and beauty.”

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 10.01.2010

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