Part 111

In the house on the curve, although that house is gone now, was a room we weren't supposed to go into. We rented the house, but one room was off-limits. And not just us kids, but the room was to be off-limits to even the adults. My father couldn't have cared less about stuff like that, but with my mother it was a different story. The room didn't have a lock so to keep intruders out, there was stuff piled against the door so it wouldn't open. Don't ask me how they had managed to rig things that way, but people were creative out of necessity back then. One day my mother put my brother and me on alert: "If you see anyone coming, let me know right away,"she told us. "I'm going in." And so she did. She managed to pry open the door a crack, reach in to move the boxes and junk back out of the way far enough for her to squeeze inside and then closed the door behind her. I was so afraid that someone migh come to the door, but I was more afraid that she would not come out and I'd never see her again. But nobody came to the door; all visitors were rare. My mother did come back out and she told what was behind that secret door. "Nothing but old furniture and bits and pieces of junk," she informed us. But then she told us something intriguing----laid on the top of each piece of the old tables and dressers, there in plain sight was a nickel. She told us it was a trap, that if someone had gone into the room, they would have taken the money, and then the owner would have known of the intrusion. She was insulted that anyone would have thought her a thief,and a stupid one at that. It reaffirmed in my mind that Germans were pretty bad. P.S. Just to be defiant, my mother did take one item from the room. It was a small toy figure, a bulldog, made of tin, which was corroded at the back.
She gave it to us to play with, but we didn't like the broken and ugly thing.