Becoming Rapunzel

Plaiting the Hair

When little Alamanni girls turn five years old, all their female relatives come over for a party. Little boys also have their own birthday ceremony, but it is not nearly as pleasant. It involves a numbing solution, a knife, and a doctor. But grandmothers, aunts, cousins, sisters all join together and bring ribbons and bows for the girls. All little girls get for their fifth birthday are hair accessories. And the mother braids the little girl’s hair for the first time. It signifies childhood, and that the baby years and toddler years are forever over. Sometimes mothers get emotional at the thought of a child scampering around the house instead of a baby. The little girls bask in the attention of the older women, and shortly thereafter learn all sorts of braids and ways to fix their hair to look their age.

As I grew older, more sure of my footing, Gothel let me out of the tower sometimes. She never played with me, and I eventually learned not to ask her to play Seeking with me. I drew pictures on the wooden floor of the common room with charcoal from the fireplace, pictures of her and me, but didn’t show them to her. She wouldn’t have been interested. All Gothel was interested in, I learned, was magic and herbs. And, sometimes, me.

Sometimes she would leave the tower, out of a small door on the ground level, and we would play Seeking! If she left to gather herbs overnight it was frightening. But she didn’t. Instead, when she left the tower I would close my eyes and count to the highest number I could think of, while she sneaked back into the tower and hid somewhere. She was a good hider! I would search and search the tower, in every room, behind every piece of furniture, and still I wouldn’t be able to find her. Sometimes I would get hungry and go nibble on bread and cheese she left out in the kitchen. Then I would go to sleep, and the next morning I would keep seeking her. I could never find her. When I got so tired of seeking her that I gave up, she would show up. She usually came through the door again, acting all tired and worn out, as though she had been on an overnight journey instead of hiding somewhere in the tower and playing with me.

“I found you!” I would say, grinning and rushing to embrace her legs.

She would often smile at my enthusiasm, pat my back, and try to tell me that she hadn’t been hiding, that she wasn’t playing Seeking with me, but I just knew she was trying to trick me so next time I wouldn’t seek so hard and she could win. So I never listened when she said those things. Gothel usually returned with a basketful of flowers, roots, herbs, and every once and a while a book. I was in awe of her books. In them contained beautiful, sometimes illuminated, drawings of all sorts of plants and even insects.

For all her intent upon gardening, mixing herbs, and studying old books, she never left me, as a young child, unattended if she were at the tower. She never hugged me, not past my infancy, but every once and a while she would smile at me. They were real smiles, rare and dazzling, like the rays of the sun. She would usually flash them if I said something witty or childlike. I craved her affection, and would do whatever it took to glean a smile from her red lips.

For Gothel’s middling age, she was an attractive woman. Her hip-length black hair was usually tucked into a loose bun at the nape of her neck, particularly when she gardened around the base of the tower. She was tall and willowy and had an excellent figure. Her skin, however smooth, had brown age spots splattered across it, as though she were much older than the rest of her told. Her eyes were the clearest gray I had ever seen, and her eyebrows arched haughtily above them. Gothel dressed in simple colors of brown, grey, and undyed cloth, but I knew she valued beauty. Why else would the tower be decorated with the most beautiful pieces of furniture, wall trappings, and plush carpets?