Time to Say Good-bye

The words melted together and Elvira wanted to scream. In the big auditorium the air was charged with the recklessness and impatience of youth, with the uncorked words of long simmering desires, with unrestrained hope bubbling, but Elvira was close to a complete and uncontrolled breakdown. This can not be, she thought to herself! I am in danger! Her mind screamed silently and with increased intensity it twisted every nerve fiber she had! Danger, danGER, DANGER!

The pictures came with frightening speed. Pictures of yellow star on her coat at the age of six or seven, the destruction of her father’s store as unknown people just kept on streaming through the door smashing, breaking, then looting and carrying out things which were not yet completely spoiled until there was nothing left just broken, twisted parts of the menorah, spilled flour and grain mashed into the floor with crumbs of homen tashen, oil and salt. All the result of hard work and self denial was gone, along with all the pleasant memories! Gone was the smell of fresh baked bread and rolls, gone was the memory of hide and seek among the boxes and bags. There was nothing in the store just the broken rocking chair her mother used to hold her after supper and the incredible mess on the floor. In the next moment she saw the picture of chanting, torch carrying crowd as they attacked her uncle in front of the store as he and her father were trying to clean up and put the place back together again. The crowd was surging to and fro; as people tried to find a better angle to snap a fist in uncle’s swollen face. She saw the jeers and the hateful sneers as the crowd called them “dirty Jew”.

Elvira remembered the knock on the door at night as the police wearing full-length black leather coats and Nazi armband took her father away. She saw her frightened mother as they were told to pack and to leave immediately in the middle of the night just three days later. They could carry only one bag a piece. And they came for them always in the middle of night awakening them from deep, deep sleep always breaking up her dreams.

They were told to go to the gathering place where they will be reunited with her father then go by train to a camp. The camp of no return - said the kind neighbor lady, the one who used to take care of her sometimes and used to tell her stories about the bible, but now she just cried all the time and she sighed and sighed. Elvira recalled the frantic effort to hide from the daytime bombs and from the artillery shells which seemed to come from not too far away but always landed too close, were too loud and too dangerous when they exploded. She remembered huddling in the dank cellar with many families and with armed nazi guards at the entrance. She remembered her mother crying hysterically all night as some of the people were called and taken away. She remembered the whispers of the neighbors pressing close as they talked about the camp. She remembered the hunger from not eating and remembered the fear that numbed the hunger pain and took away the appetite even when there were some cold boiled potatoes and carrots which were brought down the steps in big bowl and thrown on the floor like feed for pigs! The day when there was nothing to eat she remembered. But most of all she remembered the first Russian soldier as he appeared on top of the stairway.

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Steve thought of his disheartened and unhappy father, the wreck of a man he was when he died. He thought of the socialization of their farm and how every farmer became landless worker overnight. They lost the possessions and didn’t get compensated. Steve saw how the interest in the work disappeared. He thought of the disinterest, the lack of concern, how workers just followed the Communist program without question. There was no choice. Cadres directed from offices far away, without knowledge without wisdom and most importantly without common sense. He thought of the last photo of his father with the colt he had hoped to raise. On the back of that photo the inscription read -he was socialized and led away today.

Steve lost his smile as he remembered the hard work, the long hours, the planning his father had done in hopes of getting ahead. He thought of the genuine pleasure his father had grooming and handling that colt. Silently he made a determined promise:

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It's either him or a whole lot of other people!

It’s either him or me!

I will live, and with that decision looked down the length of the barrel of his gun and saw the shape of the leather helmet in the scope. He saw small flames around him as he tried to extricate his legs and his boots through the opening. He was trying to dodge flames burning on the outside but the smoke coming from inside the hull indicated that there was fire already inside the tank.

He must be the commander. He came out of the turret and he is trying to escape the danger inside that armored hull. He must be afraid, but he must be mad and he wants to kill. He is about to loose his tank and he wants to save his crew, but most of all he wants revenge! Revenge for the destruction of his beautiful machine that was his first command. He wants to kill the attackers for taking away his luck, for defacing him, for putting a blemish on his spotless military record. There was no way to justify loosing his tank to unarmed civilians in a friendly country, and he wants to kill the attackers before they would get him. He wants his hands on that machine gun on top and shoot everything that moves, everything that could hide a person. He wants to annihilate everybody in this block and everybody all around. He came in peace. He was ordered to come, but he was ordered not to shoot. Now his beautiful tank was burning, his hands were blistering from the flames and from the hot steel, he was coughing and his lungs ached from heavy smoke, from fuel vapors and from the hot air. He knew his crew was struggling inside. He had to save them and there was not a minute to waste. It was his responsibility. He had to reach that gun!

Tom aimed and squeezed the trigger.