MEMELLAND
My name is Camilla. My life, the best years of it at least, was disrupted by 35 years of non-stop World Wars and Civil Wars from 1914 to 1949. I was born in Memel, a remote Baltic seaport on the eastern fringes of the German Empire in 1896. The First World War broke out the summer after I turned 18 years old, and by the time peace returned to my life thirty-five years later, I was a broken, prematurely elderly 53-year old widow. I won't bore you with the lurid detalis of the war years--millions of other had it worse and lost more than me.
No, what I'm bitter about in my old age is not the lost years and repose of my youth. It's a German girl I fought right before all heck broke loose in Europe. My fight with her was bitter but necessary, and my only regret is that the chaos and displacement of the wars to follow caused me to lose track, forever, of what happened to her after our fight. I can say that I hope fate did not allow her the favor of a rapid death during the wars, and that her participation in humanity's suffering for the next 30+ years was at least as great as mine, or even greater.
Let me give you some background about Memelland first. In the Middle Ages, German merchants and Crusaders based in Hamburg and Lubeck sailed the Baltic Sea searching for markets to sell to and pagans to convert. One place they landed was Memel, populated by Poles and Lithuanians--I'm Lithuanian, Steffi was German. As the years passed and national boundaries soldified, the Russian Empire took over the countryside around Memel, but the German Empire carved out the port of Memel itself and the immediate city, and Memelland became a hybrid multi-cultural enclave, part German speaking, part Polish speaking, part Lithuanian speaking, even a little bit of Russian. Religiously, we were part Lutheran, part Catholic, and part Orthodox. Memel was wealthy and booming, and anyone who was good with book learning and languages and could keep multiple ideas in their head could thrive in Memelland, even if they were a girl. I was a natural with languages, and I was on a fast track to success in 1914. I was working as a tutor and governess in the home of one of Memel's wealthiest German merchants.
The German merchants lorded it over all the Poles, Lithuanians, and Russians in Memel. The early twentieth century was a time of all sorts of horrible, pseudo-scientific racial inferiority ideas, many of which would be put to use over the next three decades to justify the mass civilian uprootings and then killings which destroyed the world I grew up in. And the most important idea pervading Memelland was the the Germans were, well, Germans, and all the rest of us were Slavs. The word Slav is where the English word slave comes from--we Slavs were plucked from the Eurasian countryside from about 800 to 1250 or so, and routinely sold in all the world's large cities as slaves. Formal slavery no longer existed by 1914, but the memory of it was still fresh in the minds of all the German and non-Germans in Memelland. We non-Germans assumed the Germans would turn back the clock to the year 1000 if they could.
So, Steffi and I never stood much of a chance. She was German. And I was Lithuanian.
Although, in my defense, with the single exception of Steffi, I got along personally well with every German I worked and lived with. My direct employer, the wealthy merchant Herr von Leeb, and his wife, would talk with me formally for hours about the education of their two girls, and then informally about affairs of the day--culture, literature, opera. Heer von Leeb's many years of travels across the continent had left him wanting for friends in his own home city, and the northern latitude of Memel made for long, dark, lonely nights. To educated and curious souls like myself and the von Leeb's, in the days before television or even radio, intellectual conversation was something to be treasured and craved--it superceded all social divisions and taboos.
And spring was craved as well. It unfroze the Memel ice and snow from the long winters, and it unfroze our sexual Victorianism as well. As a port city, Memel was exposed to outside influences, sailors, and ladies of ill repute. Mind you, we were nothing like larger Baltic ports like Danzig or Goteborg or Copenhagen, and even further in miles and morals from Amsterdam and Liverpool. And, of course, compared to what was to come in the 1960s, we were downright chaste and modest. But while we were always discreet about it, we experimental, first in our minds, than with our bodies, with sex. Yes, even the women.
When the spring of 1914 came, I made the acquaintance of an 18 year old Jewish boy named Jared. Marriage to Jared was of course completely out of the question, due to our ethnicity and religion. Which is what made our flirtation so sexualized. Learning about sex, and then bidding each other farewell forever, was the only possible outcome of our spring and summer fling. Nothing is more enticing when you're 18 than an affair guaranteed not to end in heartbreak, so we both dove in head first.
And so did Steffi. Steffi was of the rich German merchant families, and had a whiff of scandal about her. At 18, she should have already been married or at worst engaged to a rich German merchant or Russian prince. And, in fact, rumor had it that three years ago she had been. But it had fallen thru for reasons which never were disclosed, and so she hung around her Memel apartment all day. And flirted with Jared at night.
Steffi and I never did see eye to eye about who saw Jared first. But to Steffi, it wasn't even relevant. She was German, I was Lithuanian, ergo she had dibs on Jared. Her attitude was what pissed me off most about the Memel Germans--they wanted it both ways. Jews were socially inferior and were shunned in business and culture, and yet in mistress-lover situations, they were property to be claimed and utilized when desired. Jared was loving the summer entertainment options unexpectedly opening to him at the dawn of his adulthood, and didn't even try Steffi from me nor I from her. It was 2 women, 1 man, and Steffi and my choices were either to swallow our pride or persuade the other to leave the field.
In 1914 Memel, the phrase "Three's a crowd" didn't exist yet, not in any of our four native langages. But we instinctively understood and felt it, al least Steffi and I did.
If we were gentlemen, we would have fought a duel, pistols at dawn. But we were girls, didn't own pistols, and wanted more than to graze each others' shoulders. We were 18, crazy in love, and insanely jealous of each other.
We were on a collision course.
To be continued.....