An Elephant in the Garden

The old man, clearly displeased, asks what the group wants in the middle of the night. Mutti pleads for help, explaining that her son needs a doctor. Inside the house, a woman’s voice calls to the old man: “Who is it, Hans? Is it more of them? Let them in” (155). Hurrying to the door and learning that Karli is sick, the woman, whom Hans calls “Countess,” acts immediately. She brings them inside, says she will send for the village doctor, and tells Hans to take Marlene to the stable. Lizzie goes with him and gets Marlene settled.

Back at the countess’s house, Lizzie finds it filled with refugees who are sleeping anywhere they can find a place to lie down. Karli, now burning with fever, is in a room in the attic, lying on a mattress next to a fire. The doctor finally comes; he gives Karli medicine and says he must be kept warm and not travel until he is completely well. After the doctor leaves, the countess explains that she is providing food and shelter for about 70 refugees passing through the countryside. Mutti and her family can stay for as long as they want, but the countess warns that the Russians are only a few weeks away.

They stay with the countess for several days. As Karli recovers, he holds on to Peter’s compass. When he is well, there is no keeping him in bed: In the stable, sitting atop Marlene, he often entertains dozens of the other refugees, including a group of schoolchildren, by juggling tennis balls the countess gave him. Carried away with his audience’s approval, he eventually pulls Peter’s compass from his pocket and begins juggling with it too. The compass flies out of his hands, and Hans, who is in the crowd, catches it. Seeing English writing on the face of the compass, Hans demands to know where Karli got it. Mutti tells Hans that her husband gave her the compass, explaining that while serving in the German army in France, he took it from a British airman who had been shot down. Hans seems to believe her story and returns the compass.

That night after dinner, the schoolchildren, who were in a chapel choir in Dresden, sing Christmas music written by Johann Sebastian Bach, Papi’s favorite composer. Lizzie and her family go to sleep feeling happy and peaceful until the countess enters their room. Hans, she says, does not believe Mutti’s story about the compass; he thinks Peter is an enemy bomber pilot and is going to summon the police. She believes Hans’s suspicions are right but does not want harm to come to the family. The countess tell them that they should leave immediately; she will tell the police that “Hans’s suspicions were quite groundless” (170). She also asks Mutti and Peter to take the schoolchildren, as their choirmaster is dead and they are traveling with no one to look after them. She promises to give Mutti and Peter enough food to be on their way.

The countess asks Peter directly if he is an American. When he tells her he is Canadian, she shares her own secret: Her husband, a German army officer, was executed for attempting to assassinate Hitler. Like her husband, she believes Hitler has led Germany “down a terrible road into the war” and feels the suffering it caused must end (171). After packing hurriedly, the group meets the countess downstairs, where the children are waiting to leave with them. The front door opens, and Hans steps inside with a German army officer and several soldiers pointing rifles.

The countess greets the officer, Major Klug; he and her husband served in the same regiment. At her request, Major Klug orders his soldiers to lower their rifles and follow her into her study. They remain inside, the door closed, for quite a while, leaving Lizzie and her family in awful suspense. When the door opens, Major Klug and his soldiers leave without a word. The countess threatened to report him to the Americans if anything happened to Lizzie and her family; she also bribed him and played on his emotions by reading her husband’s last letter. Klug will not arrest Peter or the others.

That evening, the family and schoolchildren leave the countess’s home and resume walking through many cold nights. Mutti and Lizzie take care of the children, comforting them in their distress, and Marlene makes them laugh. Karli “[grows] up fast during those days and nights of hardship” (177). After the near-disaster with the compass, Karli no longer shows off. When their food runs out, Peter again goes on “scavenging missions,” but his raids on nearby farms become increasingly dangerous and less fruitful. The snow melts but the cold remains, and it often rains at night. Nevertheless, the children often sing, and the family joins them in making music: “We were singing away our fears, and doing it together” (180). As more days and nights pass, they no longer hear the firing of Russian guns behind them but the sounds of American artillery ahead.

Sharing shelters with other refugees, they learn that American forces “[are] very close now, that they [are] breaking through everywhere, that their armies could be just over the next hill” (182). They meet the American army early one morning when tanks emerge through the mist, shaking the ground. Terrified, Marlene runs away. The American soldiers will not let anyone search for Marlene and instead lead them away to safety: “So at the moment of our greatest triumph,” Lizzie said, “we had lost Marlene” (185). They never find her.

In the present, Lizzie stops talking, as if her story were over. Karl demands to know what happened afterward, and Lizzie tells them the rest.

Peter resumes serving in the RAF. Lizzie, Mutti, Karli, and the children are sent to an American “displaced persons” camp for German refugees. When Peter and Lizzie part, he gives her his compass and promises to return. They exchange letters while Lizzie lives for months in the camp; they plan to marry and move to Canada. Released from the camp, Mutti, Lizzie, and Karli go to live with Mutti’s cousin in Heidelberg. Peter’s letters stop coming, and Mutti can learn nothing about Papi’s whereabouts, which causes her great distress.

After a while, Mutti, Lizzie, and Karli take a small apartment in Heidelberg; Mutti gets a job teaching, and Lizzie and Karli attend the school where she works. Lizzie writes to Peter every day, but receiving no letters from him, she believes she will never see him again. News comes that Papi is alive, having been captured by the Russians; four years after the war, he comes home. After school one day, Lizzie and Karli find Peter sitting on their doorstep. Peter explains that when he left England and returned to Canada, her letters with her Heidelberg address were not forwarded; he did not know where she was until they all arrived at his home in a bundle. Peter and Lizzie marry in Heidelberg and move to Canada. Some years later, Lizzie and Peter see Marlene performing in a circus and recognize her immediately. Marlene remembers them, and Lizzie and Peter spend time with her until the circus leaves town. Peter and Lizzie remain married until Peter’s death—almost 60 years.

Karl’s mother narrates the conclusion of the novel. Still holding Peter’s compass, Lizzie puts it in Karl’s hand. “You keep it,” she tells him. “You look after it, and look after my story, too. I should like people to know about it” (194). The next day, Karl and his mother bring Lizzie her photograph album and look at her pictures. On the last page, they see a picture of Lizzie and Marlene at the circus. Lizzie asks if they believe her now about her elephant. Karl says he always believed her about her elephant; his mother tells Lizzie she “almost always” believed her.