a ‘NO!’ instead of a ‘No.’) Playing in the sand of the valley was prohibited. Even going out on the
many balconies jutting off from the Great Hall was prohibited.
I don’t really remember the day the war began. It all seems blurry and far away. I can
remember the afternoons spent on the lake with my brother with astonishing clarity, but not the
dark days at the beginning of the war. I was not a very observant child and chose not to listen to
the barrage of political talk in which my parents indulged, but even I could not fail to notice the
agitation, the worry, the anxiety in the air, and the danger we were in.
Every morning, Father read the newspaper to us over breakfast, and although I generally
chose not to listen and instead snatch pieces of toast from my brother’s plate when he wasn’t
looking, I remember Mother and Father having heated discussions about strange words:
‘aristocrats’, ‘siege’, ‘peasants’ revolt’, ‘civil unrest’ - words I did not understand but haunted
me for the rest of my life. I looked up every word he mentioned in the dictionary, but I was not
perhaps the most intelligent child in the world and its long, complicated words proved too much
for me.
Suddenly we were under siege. Suddenly, soldiers and guards appeared from out of nowhere.
Suddenly, the palace was filled will burly men brandishing weapons. Mother told us we had
nothing to fear from them and that they were here to protect us, but the sight of them was enough
to send my brother and I scurrying into the shadows. There were hundreds of them, striding
around everywhere and firing at our attackers from the safety of the balconies.
By this time, we were all terrified.
I never understood why we were under fire. There were a lot of things I didn’t understand
about the war. I never understood why there was a war in the first place. There are many things
even today I still don’t understand.
But after three years of imprisonment in what was no longer a beautiful palace, but rather a
burning, smoking pile of collapsed stones with half-destructed minarets poking bravely out of the
wreckage, I had had enough.
I went to the window. It was the only window remaining of our original 903 in the Great Hall
(my brother, who liked to spend his time in a productive manner, rather than staring at the ceiling
sulking, as I often did, had decided to count them). The rest of them were destroyed.
I wasn’t allowed out on the lake. Neither of us were. But gazing at the tempting, alluring,
enticing azure water, calm and peaceful, on a beautiful sunny day, was too much for me. I
beckoned to my brother.
I pointed out the window.
My brother had not looked out of the window since the first bomb fell. He was petrified that he
would be seen at a window by the enemy and would be shot. So for three years, he had not allowed
himself to look out of our magnificent stained-glass windows.
But he looked now. And he was, like me minutes before him, completely and utterly blown
away by the beautiful lake below us. I saw tears start in his eyes as he remembered all we had
done out there. The sight of the scene of so many happy memories convinced him.
He knew exactly what I meant.
“Yes.”
* * *
