forgotten or forgiven. I traveled through distant lands, not needing any money, and yet I always ate and drank well, a bed with warm blankets always waiting for me. The borders were passable; all I had to do was say, “It’s me!,” and immediately the guard would acknowledge me and let me through. Helping hands pointed the way. Whenever I asked to ride along in someone’s car, he just invited me in with a wave and was happy to have the company.
Thus I arrived late one afternoon in my old city. It had changed very little during the war, the old stonework, massive and dignified, had survived the years well, only the paint and plaster having suffered here and there. The streets were also grayer than earlier, while, unexpectedly, in the public parks a network of graves spread out among the dug-up earth. The grass, which it used to be forbidden to walk on, was worn away, broad tents erected in which people camped beneath the tarps as if it had always been so, the people looking satisfied and at ease. I had left my knapsack at the train station, an unrelenting desire to look around pressing me up and down the streets, which didn’t mind that I was there, though they no longer seemed to recognize me, since my steps in stiff boots struck the patterned cobbles in a half-confident, half-unfamiliar manner. Many people moved back and forth, both residents and newcomers, all of them caught up in their fates, whether large or small, yet each so certain, as if they knew just what was going to happen to them. Children romped around, grabbing one another’s hands, chasing after balls, raising a real ruckus, though no one got into any trouble. Soon I was caught up in it, swept away by it all, as if death had never once had an eye on me.
With bated breath, a tired back, but my legs still strong and my eyes full of curiosity, I turned a corner where people moved about more energetically. Here no children dared to jump into the heaving noise of therumbling traffic, as cars rushed by in earnest, a policeman directing traffic in a silent fashion. I looked around me with harmless pressing glances at the many faces. How clueless they all seemed whenever I tried to decipher my own obliterated memories within them. All were strangers. Also, when they noticed my curiosity they didn’t stop, for they hadn’t expected me. Whether they thought anything of it I couldn’t tell, since it wasn’t possible for me to turn around and look back at them, for fresh faces continued to flow toward me which I gazed at with ever more pressing questions. And yet these were strangers as well, nor did I learn anything more from them than I did from their predecessors, who had already been swallowed up in the flow of traffic. Once you were late and were no longer expected, your arrival in the past doesn’t go well. That I had to realize.
But why despair as long as there is another corner to turn? Another one approached that was more familiar than most. Sleepily I walked along hunched over, slowing my steps warily, since I wanted to be ready in case I encountered my father. I was almost afraid to be surprised by him too suddenly. Indeed, I had no knowledge of what had happened to him other than that he had been murdered. That also happened in the war, but way off, as I wasn’t there, murder having occurred in too many places. But that just couldn’t be; perhaps I was only the victim of a frightful rumor, and therefore could still hope that my father had survived and, just like me, was gazing at the people streaming by, looking for those who recognized him and could help. But there was no father in this street where papers were hawked, cigarettes were sold, brash sweets were wrapped up in garish colors, and sausages reeked of garlic, the uncooked ones hanging in the open air on a rack, while the cooked ones looked much more appealing as they waited for customers on a wide griddle covered in grease. The vendors didn’t wait on me at all; in fact, they didn’t
Thus I arrived late one afternoon in my old city. It had changed very little during the war, the old stonework, massive and dignified, had survived the years well, only the paint and plaster having suffered here and there. The streets were also grayer than earlier, while, unexpectedly, in the public parks a network of graves spread out among the dug-up earth. The grass, which it used to be forbidden to walk on, was worn away, broad tents erected in which people camped beneath the tarps as if it had always been so, the people looking satisfied and at ease. I had left my knapsack at the train station, an unrelenting desire to look around pressing me up and down the streets, which didn’t mind that I was there, though they no longer seemed to recognize me, since my steps in stiff boots struck the patterned cobbles in a half-confident, half-unfamiliar manner. Many people moved back and forth, both residents and newcomers, all of them caught up in their fates, whether large or small, yet each so certain, as if they knew just what was going to happen to them. Children romped around, grabbing one another’s hands, chasing after balls, raising a real ruckus, though no one got into any trouble. Soon I was caught up in it, swept away by it all, as if death had never once had an eye on me.
With bated breath, a tired back, but my legs still strong and my eyes full of curiosity, I turned a corner where people moved about more energetically. Here no children dared to jump into the heaving noise of therumbling traffic, as cars rushed by in earnest, a policeman directing traffic in a silent fashion. I looked around me with harmless pressing glances at the many faces. How clueless they all seemed whenever I tried to decipher my own obliterated memories within them. All were strangers. Also, when they noticed my curiosity they didn’t stop, for they hadn’t expected me. Whether they thought anything of it I couldn’t tell, since it wasn’t possible for me to turn around and look back at them, for fresh faces continued to flow toward me which I gazed at with ever more pressing questions. And yet these were strangers as well, nor did I learn anything more from them than I did from their predecessors, who had already been swallowed up in the flow of traffic. Once you were late and were no longer expected, your arrival in the past doesn’t go well. That I had to realize.
But why despair as long as there is another corner to turn? Another one approached that was more familiar than most. Sleepily I walked along hunched over, slowing my steps warily, since I wanted to be ready in case I encountered my father. I was almost afraid to be surprised by him too suddenly. Indeed, I had no knowledge of what had happened to him other than that he had been murdered. That also happened in the war, but way off, as I wasn’t there, murder having occurred in too many places. But that just couldn’t be; perhaps I was only the victim of a frightful rumor, and therefore could still hope that my father had survived and, just like me, was gazing at the people streaming by, looking for those who recognized him and could help. But there was no father in this street where papers were hawked, cigarettes were sold, brash sweets were wrapped up in garish colors, and sausages reeked of garlic, the uncooked ones hanging in the open air on a rack, while the cooked ones looked much more appealing as they waited for customers on a wide griddle covered in grease. The vendors didn’t wait on me at all; in fact, they didn’t
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