Evelyn Arslan
The whole place stank; putrid food and putrefying flesh. Around him, men were in various stages of dying. Young, fit, healthy men reduced to wasted skeletons, their dead-glazed eyes sunken into the recesses of the skull. Not many of them felt the dull aching misery that he felt. Most were robots; empty shells. All emotion was redundant; no point.
He reached out for the letter; but with no excitement. The postcards he was allowed to send betrayed none of the hellish conditions around him. ‘I am quite well’, he had ‘ticked’ as usual.
The very few letters that reached him (months late) were flat and disjointed. No- one dared to offer hope – the whole exercise had become meaningless. But if he could write the truth, he would not have done so. Who back home could conceive of living in Hell?
He looked at his letter. A tiny gleam of light found its way into his eyes. His mouth tried to smile, but found it strange after so long. Suddenly he began to shake. The realisation that he could still feel shocked him into near hysteria. The few, very few, near him, who could still bear to move their weary limbs, turned anxiously towards him. Had he too been stricken with POW fever?
‘Steady on, Jim’, some–one spoke softly.
‘I’m a grandfather’, said Jim holding up the photograph.
’ I have a grand-daughter!’
And as he said it his will to survive was renewed.
* * *
Her grandfather’s garden was beautiful. Neat rows of vegetables; beetroot, lettuce, runner beans, cabbages, onions, carrots, all in straight lines. But also rows of flowers: marguerites, stocks, Sweet William, marigolds, snapdragons, cornflowers and gypsophilia. And lilac trees she remembered. He often sang of ‘gathering lilacs in the spring again’, which made her giggle. He was not tall but of strong, stocky build and had a very loud voice as befitted an ex-Company Sergeant Major!
She was the eldest grandchild and was fascinated by him. She knew that he had not been ‘there’ when she was born, and he seemed to have arrived in her life at that very time when she began to be aware of people other than her parents. He was always ‘Jim’ to her as she had heard so often the phrase: ‘Jim’s coming home!’ and he liked it better than Grandad anyway! He also smoked a pipe, which intrigued her and seemed to calm him too! He was less fun when he demanded total silence to listen to the News on his wireless set!
Over the years he began to tell her frightening tales of being taken to dig his own grave; and of how he had escaped by using the spade to demolish two guards simultaneously, one with the blade, one with the handle, in one quick motion. She knew he was re-captured but he did not talk of this. She listened and tried to understand, and when he saw distress creep into her eyes he stopped and talked of other things. He showed her ‘souvenirs’: a shiny dagger and a Mah-jong board game.
She also remembered the fear when he came to their home the worse for drink. Anger and aggression were frightening enough, but the tears and remorse that came later were far worse.
To many he became the local drunk, but to her he was a hero.
He came back for her and she loved him.
