Roselinde V. Davis has been a friend of the Council since it began, working on the Calendar portion of SPOTLIGHTS, and later joining NWCC's Visual Arts Advisory Board.

When she was Director of Special Services at the Rolling Meadows Library she was instrumental in opening an NWCC Corporate Gallery; it is located outside of the community room where the art receives a great deal of exposure, and many sales of our artists' work have occurred.

Roselinde has won two Illinois Arts Council awards of $1,000 each for "In the Land of Milk and Honey," published in Whetstone volume 8, and The Rebel, published in Story Quarterly volume 19 in 1988. These very competitive prizes are awarded annually to Illinois magazines to recognize outstanding work by Illinois prose writers and poets.

We are pleased to publish Sledding. Like many of Roselinde's stories, it reflects her experiences growing up in Germany during the Second World War. Sledding was awarded the Editors of Whetstone Prize for Fiction in 1988.

Kathy Umlauf

Sledding

Anderl pretended to nap, too impatient and excited about the season's first snow to sleep. Behind his closed eyelids, a vision of the snow flashed brightness. It was December 13, 1944, two days after his birthday, and though he was now five years old, his mother still insisted on naps after lunch. The other children who lived in his house were all outside-he had heard Lena and Hans rush down from the apartment above, and then he heard Gerd who lived below, slamming the gate on his way to the sledding hill in the orchard. Gerd was his big friend, two years older than Anderl, one year older than Lena and Hans.

Then it was quiet again-only the ticking of the clock and the little chirps from the canary in its cage. Mother was mending her skirt by the long window. He was anxious to get up and try out his new sled. He had wished for one but hadn't thought he would get it. Because of the war, there was barely enough food on the table. But to his surprise, there was the sled, polished and just the right size.

By the time his mother was satisfied that he had his rest, the afternoon was almost over. Once outside, he ran across the yard, pulling his sled on braided blue yarn up the path to the orchard. At the sledding hill, he saw that the morning's new snow was already sparse and dirty. Other children, who didn't have to take naps, had been sledding for hours.

He tugged at his mittens, but he couldn't close the gap between his wrists and his coat sleeves. He pulled off his cap and stuffed it into his pocket. He didn't like wearing things on his head. His hair was curly and thick, the color of copper, and covered his head like a domed Iid. A bunch of stray Iocks curved over his crown like a handIe. He cIimbed uphill and got in line behind Lena and Hans.

Gerd, who had stood by the trees, hands in his pockets, came running over to him. "Hey, Anderl, I'Il steer you through the orchard where the snow is still good."

"No," Anderl said and tightened his grip on his sled.

'I'm good at piloting sleds," Gerd persisted.

"Go home and get your own," Anderl said.

Gerd shook his head and looked straight ahead. "My father chopped it up for firewood last night."

Anderl remained silent and moved his sled up in line.

Gerd stayed right beside him. "It's true," he said.

"Why would your father burn your sled? He still has a pile of wood in the cellar."

"He was upset," Gerd said and swung his arms up to hug his shoulders. His father had come home from the front with one leg shot off. Sometimes he did crazy things, like throwing furniture out the window or peeing in the street.

"Someone stole all their rabbits," said Hans, turning around so that he and his sister Lena made a circle with Anderl and Gerd.

"It made him mad," said Gerd. "He chopped up everything he could get his hands on."

"Rabbit bins, fishing rods, sauerkraut barrel, Gerd's sled," Hans said.

"We watched from our window," said Lena.

Gerd kicked at the slush with his boots. They were old and patched, laced up with frayed bits of rope. "He didn't want to leave anything else for them to get," he said.

"What about the thieves," Anderl said. "Didn't anybody catch them?"

"They got away like always," said Lena.

"We'll have to eat turnips instead of rabbit on Sunday," said Gerd.

"Our father sent us a box with canned meat from France," said Hans.

"My father is missing in Russia," Anderl said softly. Nobody heard him. He let go of his sled to unbutton his coat. Like his mittens, it had grown too short and too tight for him this winter. The sled began slipping away, but Gerd caught the cord and wrapped it around his fist.

Anderl waited for Gerd to give back his sled. It was almost his turn to sled down the hill. All the time he seemed to be waiting for something important. At school, he waited for the noon bell to ring so he could go home. The teacher kept her hat on indoors and was very tall. She made him say Heil Hitler over and over, telling him he was either too fast or too slow. On his way home he peered into the mailbox, looking for a letter from his father who had not written for such a long time. During his nap he waited for his mother's signal to rise. He had waited in line to ride down the hill on his new sled. But Gerd had the sled now.

"Sit down," said Gerd. "I'll pilot us through the orchard where the snow's still good."

Anderl sat down on his sled. He had no choice. He would have to share his first ride with Gerd. It was not only because he felt sorry for Gerd having lost his sled the way he did, but Gerd was much bigger than he was. He was used to letting Gerd be the leader.

Gerd settled himself behind Anderl and then they flew down through the orchard where they were not supposed to sled. Darting in and out between the apple trees, over a bump, through a hollow, down the steep part they flashed, steady and fast.

"Hold on tight, here we go," Gerd yelled. Then he cooed like the turtle doves that lived in the eaves of their house. Gerd always cooed when he had a good time. A big tree trunk seemed to race toward them. Anderl shut his eyes. He tried to put his head between his knees for protection. Spasms of cold shot down his spine. But when they crashed, a sensation of heat spread over his body. Then a stab of pain made his breath go wheezy. He coughed, opened his eyes and couldn't focus, couldn't talk. Through a fog he saw Gerd get up from the snow and kick the sled, yeIling, "Verdammter Schlitten!" He looked apelike, hunched over, hands dangling low. Then he turned and ran off, crying.

Hans and Lena sat Anderl back on his lopsided sled and pulled him home. Along the way they began to scold him in shrill voices.

"Sledding through the orchard."

"Didn't you know you would crash?"

"You and Gerd always do stupid things together."

Anderl sat on his creaking, wobbling sled and didn't say anything. But, as they kept on scolding him for being so dumb, his head throbbed and hurt. He began to scream as Ioud as he could.

When his eyes focused again he noticed that his mittens were gone, he must have lost them in the crash. He looked up to his house and saw his mother's mending basket fall from her lap as she left her seat by the window. Then she came running across the snow in her stocking feet and picked him up, asking, What happened? What happened? A thousand times. Then she carried him upstairs, propped him up on the kitchen table and washed his blood-crusted curls and the wounds on his forehead. Later, when the swellings seemed to be getting worse, she called for the doctor.

The doctor came late at night, probed and pushed, said the cuts were not serious. All the swelling and pain would be gone within a week. Anderl cried for a while and then fell asleep. In his dream he saw his father coming home through the snow and rushed to greet him. His father lifted Anderl up in his arms, and Anderl could smell the tobacco in his hair and feel the stubble on his chin.

Lena and Hans came the next day, and they played together in Anderl's room.

"Have you seen Gerd?" Anderl asked.

"He is hiding from us," said Hans.

"He's too embarrassed to come," said Lena.

They pIayed with marbIes on the wooden fIoor and then they buiIt bridges and tunnels with the blocks in Anderl's toy box. They let tin soldiers march across minefields and booby-trapped roads. And all of the soldiers, when hurt, got up again and reached safety. Hans promoted Anderl to second lieutenant and Lena became head nurse at the Lazarett. Anderl's mother brought them slices of bread with a little duck grease spread over the top and they drank hot, herbal tea sweetened with beet juice.

At the end of the week the air raid sirens sounded during the night. Anderl, half asleep, put on his mother's short velvet robe and followed her to their assigned place in the lowest part of the cellar. Everyone in the old, sprawling house scurried down. Some took along water and lanterns. Some carried blankets. Anderl held his box with the tin soldiers.

The cellar was damp and cold, and the air smelled musty and stale. Anderl blinked at the folding chairs, flickering oil lamps and flashlights. People loomed in the dark like giant shadows. He saw Lena and Hans curled up on cots, sucking their thumbs. He saw Gerd and Gerd's parents coming down with bed pillows.

Anderl didn't go back to sleep. He sat up and waited with the adults whose heads were tiIted upward, straining for sounds from outside. His mother beside him looked like a ghost. Her face was so pale; her dark hair fell over her shoulders, unbraided. She wore his father's long, gray loden coat over her nightgown. He felt scared seeing her like this and he stroked the folds of the blue velvet robe. How could he tell her that they had forgotten to bring her canary?

He let the box with the soldiers slide to the floor and shifted in his chair to look at Gerd. Gerd sat on a bench close to the coal bins. A lantern was hooked in the wall and Anderl could see that Gerd had his eyes closed. His legs straddled the bench. His hands seemed to reach for something and then find it while his feet scraped and pushed against the cellar floor. He was taking off. He was sledding on the new snow, straight down the hill. Then Anderl heard that throaty cooing, that turtle dove sound. The other tenants didn't seem to hear it. Rigid in their seats, they were listening upward to deep, thudding sounds coming closer. Their house was being bombed overhead, Anderl thought. Blown to bits. Nobody talked. Someone far back began to wail. Hunched in his chair, Anderl looked hard at Gerd, wanting to be part of Gerd's dream. He waited for the feel of the wind on his cheeks, for the sled's smooth, solid boards beneath his hands, for the feel of Gerd's grip on his shoulder. He lowered his eyes and watched Gerd's boots become covered with snow, new-looking, like white, supple leather. Whirls of it shot up through the air as he and his friend were sledding together. Not a tree barred their way, only fresh, powdery snow in front, and clear sky above.

Roselinde V. Davis