PLAYING WITH A PRINCESS

My mother must have been driven out of her mind that summer I was in my tenth
year. Normally I spent the six weeks of vacation on a farm in Jutland, that part of the
mainland jutting north from Germany, the rest of Denmark being a series of islands not
yet connected by bridges. During the German occupation we children were sent out into
the countryside for our own protection. But the German military who were occupying
our country had put mines in the seas surrounding the Danish isles; so here I was,
homebound for the summer.
My parents worked it out so I could take swimming lessons with my cousin in a lake
ten miles from home. One day I started out on my bicycle in the early morning hours.
As I was passing a cozy old thatch-roofed inn, one of the landmarks of our town, I got off
to walk up the hill and was stopped by a young lady in a blue dress covered by a white
apron. She had a white, starched cap on the top of her black hair.
Could you do me a favor? To teeter-totter with Princess Elisabeth, she said. I am
too heavy to do it myself.
P..p..princess? I stammered and followed her into the garden.
Right enough, there sat a girl a little younger than I with the blond, curly hair I so
often had seen in pictures of her. She was sweet, just like the princesses in my fairy tales,
and her face lit up as I stammered my Hello.
Yes, I was light enough that she could bump me. I in turn bumped her and wondered
if her blue blood would show up on her fanny.

I was ten minutes late to my swimming lesson and was scolded by my teacher; there
was a sour look on my cousins face.
I teeter-tottered with Princess Elisabeth, I whispered to my cousin.
Oh, what a tall tale that is! she snorted.
No, its true.
My parents believed me. As a young boy my father had been given an apple by the
Crown Prince, who was the same age as my father. My grandmother had put it on a shelf
where it lay until it was rotten.
We were a small country besotted by our royal family, even more so in the middle of a
World War. The following morning I made sure I passed the old inn just at the time my
weight might be needed for another bumpy ride, and the third day I passed the castle to
see if I could get a glimpse of my new playmate. Elisabeth was nowhere to be seen, but
her father, Prince Knud, was walking his terrier.
Can Elisabeth come out to play? I shouted.
What is your name? he replied. I told him.
His next question was the usually expected one in the Denmark of those days.
Where does your father work?
He works in the china factory here in town.
So ended my short friendship with royalty, and I didnt even have an apple to show for
it.