Someone appeared at the corner: a small old woman, whose shoulders were covered by a worn cloak. Even the cloak was familiar to me. My mother was carrying a small milk can. She was walking toward a neighboring farm, which I knew well. She was also walking toward me. I thought I was going to fall. She was coming down the middle of the road, about two yards from the grassy verge along which I had been forcing my steps with the last of my strength.
Although my eyes were blurred by almost inconceivable emotion, I recognized her face.
My heart contracted so hard I thought I would faint.
My mother walked past me. I leaned against a wall to keep my balance. A bitter taste filled my mouth, as if it had filled with blood. I knew that within a few minutes she would come back the same way.
I felt like running, but at the same time, couldn’t move, and stood paralyzed, letting the minutes trickle by.
After a few moments, as I had foreseen, she reappeared, going the other way, grayer and more shadowy in the deepening darkness. She came closer and closer. I was afraid to move, afraid of frightening her. And then it was unbearable. I summoned up my courage and spoke.
“Maman.”
She stopped. I took several steps toward her, and then I saw that she was about to faint. The milk can fell to the ground, and I caught her in my trembling arms. She gave a long-drawn-out groan, and I was afraid someone would come.
Carrying my fainting mother, I hurried toward the doorway, in which a young man had just appeared. This young man was my brother. Suddenly alarmed, he called out. “Papa! Someone’s bringing Maman home! She’s sick!”
Hours went by. I remained motionless and mute, surrounded by my family, who gazed at me as if they had forgotten that the earth was round. Over the fireplace I noticed a photograph of myself as a young man. Beside it stood a small vase which held a few faded flowers.
Time passed, leaving behind it a monumental silence. The tale was drawing to an end. It would take all of us — those who had waited, and I, who had hoped — a long measure of time to accept the evidence of our senses.
I also understood that my return could create complications for everyone, and that they too had needed courage to give up the habit of hope. The neighborhood must not learn too quickly of my return, and for the time being our happiness would have to be kept secret. For the next few days, while I collapsed into an anesthetizing exhaustion, I could use the room of a sister, who had married during my absence.
In due course, I would enter the victorious French Army, which would make room in its ranks for a particle from the ranks of the vanquished. It was to prove an unexpected transfer for my unease, the filter I had been hoping for. Of course, I would be a damned Boche to whom a great kindness was being done. I would even be able to enjoy experiences which the others found tiresome. The discipline I was used to made it easy for me to be first, and I had to watch myself, so I didn’t annoy the others. I would meet people who hated me, and others with generous hearts, who accepted the totality of my experience and offered me a glass of beer to help me forget.
My parents imposed an absolute silence; I would never be able to tell them the things which would have relieved me.
I listened attentively to the tales of the heroes on the other side heroes to whose ranks I would never be admitted.
People who hated me would pursue me with vindictiveness, seeing in my past only cupidity and culpable error. Others might someday understand that men can love the same virtues on both sides of a conflict, and that pain is international.
The French Army, which I had entered for a three-year tour, finally kept me for only ten months. Despite my sense of well-being, I fell seriously ill and in the end was sent home.
However, before that, I took part in a huge parade in Paris, in ’46. There was also a long silence of remembrance for the dead, to which I added these names:
Ernst Neubach, Lensen, Wiener, Wesreidau, Prinz, Solma, Hoth, Olensheim, Sperlovski, Smellens, Dunde, Kellerman, Freivitch, Ballers, Frösch, Woortenbeck, Siemenleis…
I refuse to add Paula to that list, and I shall never forget the names of Hals, or Lindberg, or Pferham, or Wollers. Their memory lives within me.
There is another man, whom I must forget. He was called Guy Sajer.