lost and found
It's frightening when you don't remember writing these things:
I was fifteen. I was having wet dreams and fantasies. At the thought
of a Poland re-united and of the blonde german military nurses,
tending at the heels of their soldiers, my hands went between my
knees. Then upward toward my hips. It was not the whole world that was
involved, it was my body, with boundaries overlooked and mitigated by
their driving forces.
We schooled in groups of not more than five, in houses, with
professors. All in utmost secrecy. We waited for the British to drop
our books from their planes. We learned in earnest and in rebellion.
At 10pm the streets evaporated, erasing our smells, our language, our
people. All that was left were the Germans and their desires, their
drink, and their women. At fifteen I led a small group in the night's
streets. One by one, we would single out the officers, pulling back
their arms, thrusting their backs against our chests, and stripping
them of arms. Four or five on one man - good odds - youth against age.
There was one man, one night, utterly nervous and completely alone. He
was a German officer from the Air Force, shaken and holding a hand
between the buttons of his uniform, resting on the quickened breathing
of his chest. We surrounded him in the trees, on the street. I yelled
"hands in the air" and the air was empty. Instead I saw a pistol.
Later a lit pellet gracing my arm.
Laws forbade me. I could mame in self-defense but killing was out of
the question. One German dead and they would pull 50 Polish civilians
and shoot them point blank. I saw their faces marked with my guilt. I
ran away.
The first girl I ever kissed offered to repair a tear in my pants - I
was in the city, out of the forest, gathering milk and bread for my
underground militia. I unsinched my pants and fell into embarassment,
my white ungarments black with weeks of wear. Her mother sewed and she
threw herself on me. Lips and all.
We had laid out mines in the road and we heard an explosion, almost as
if it were a vacuum, more of an implosion. For now it was friendly
fire - in less than four years it wouldn't be. Soviets fell of their
trucks and landed with surrendering thuds. I ran to a priest and he
gave me water and a carriage. Rode to the site and there I saw an
officer, spread eagle. Friend, I said. Friend. And shook him. Took his
shoulder. Friend. I raised him from the ground and saw that I only had
half of him. His entire back was entirely in another place, scooped
out, left out, lying around the merry-go-round. I heard a whistle.
From Stalingraad, a Soviet said, handing me a rifle. I was on fire and
this very weapon saved me. Have it, hero. And I took it with more
pride than as if it were from my own father. Red and white stripes
around my arms. We're just gathering information on the Germans from
the Eastern Front, they say. And we believe them. Red and white, dazed
and seeing stars.
I was an interpreter and this was the beginning of my skin's history -
where later my granddaughter would imagine scars on my knee, on my
arms, and wonder about the concave signature on my head.
I was fifteen. I was having wet dreams and fantasies. At the thought
of a Poland re-united and of the blonde german military nurses,
tending at the heels of their soldiers, my hands went between my
knees. Then upward toward my hips. It was not the whole world that was
involved, it was my body, with boundaries overlooked and mitigated by
their driving forces.
We schooled in groups of not more than five, in houses, with
professors. All in utmost secrecy. We waited for the British to drop
our books from their planes. We learned in earnest and in rebellion.
At 10pm the streets evaporated, erasing our smells, our language, our
people. All that was left were the Germans and their desires, their
drink, and their women. At fifteen I led a small group in the night's
streets. One by one, we would single out the officers, pulling back
their arms, thrusting their backs against our chests, and stripping
them of arms. Four or five on one man - good odds - youth against age.
There was one man, one night, utterly nervous and completely alone. He
was a German officer from the Air Force, shaken and holding a hand
between the buttons of his uniform, resting on the quickened breathing
of his chest. We surrounded him in the trees, on the street. I yelled
"hands in the air" and the air was empty. Instead I saw a pistol.
Later a lit pellet gracing my arm.
Laws forbade me. I could mame in self-defense but killing was out of
the question. One German dead and they would pull 50 Polish civilians
and shoot them point blank. I saw their faces marked with my guilt. I
ran away.
The first girl I ever kissed offered to repair a tear in my pants - I
was in the city, out of the forest, gathering milk and bread for my
underground militia. I unsinched my pants and fell into embarassment,
my white ungarments black with weeks of wear. Her mother sewed and she
threw herself on me. Lips and all.
We had laid out mines in the road and we heard an explosion, almost as
if it were a vacuum, more of an implosion. For now it was friendly
fire - in less than four years it wouldn't be. Soviets fell of their
trucks and landed with surrendering thuds. I ran to a priest and he
gave me water and a carriage. Rode to the site and there I saw an
officer, spread eagle. Friend, I said. Friend. And shook him. Took his
shoulder. Friend. I raised him from the ground and saw that I only had
half of him. His entire back was entirely in another place, scooped
out, left out, lying around the merry-go-round. I heard a whistle.
From Stalingraad, a Soviet said, handing me a rifle. I was on fire and
this very weapon saved me. Have it, hero. And I took it with more
pride than as if it were from my own father. Red and white stripes
around my arms. We're just gathering information on the Germans from
the Eastern Front, they say. And we believe them. Red and white, dazed
and seeing stars.
I was an interpreter and this was the beginning of my skin's history -
where later my granddaughter would imagine scars on my knee, on my
arms, and wonder about the concave signature on my head.