... my Dad used to make his morning coffee in a one-cup tin filter on his cup, made, or so I was told, from old Nazi Wehrmacht steel helmets to fit the new age.
He was oblivious to any outside noises at those moments...
... or so I thought.
Against the morning light of the kitchen window he seemed like a ruffled hero to me,
striped pyjamas, swollen eyes and a heavy sigh and smile for me - a smile to fit the grandest dragon slayers.

He must have loved me.

Even on those days proven more grey than my worst days ever, he couldn't pass me without ruffling my hair.
That didn't fit the picture of Rommel's cunning desert warrior, plucked from the battlefield to wait for peace in a British POW camp.

What do war heroes look like?
Different from war criminals?
How does a small boy know, when he looks up to his white knight?

He used to ache for a touch from my mother.
And he never hit her.
But he tortured her and us with his drinking...
tortured her with his silence
even though we never stopped touching him

He was a quiet man.
Unjustly quiet towards us
but justly quiet towards the fat-gaining survivors of inflicted hell.

He was a man hanging on a thin thread of new hopes.
He was a man of ignorance towards his former master's past.
He was a man who turned his soul upside down, before he left the shadow of his captors.
For that I'll forever thank him.
Because he loved me as well.
He had changed after he had left the camps and returned to Germany - in uniform but stripped of any signs of rank or other foolish signs of bloody pretense.
Now, only his small wallet and his watch gave him trouble, and he entered the shop of my grandmother to get it fixed.
My mother looked like a small, skinny version of Hedy Lamarr at the time.
She must've been his type.
He loved her from the first moment she asked him what his business was.
He didn't have any oranges, nylons or Hershey Bars to offer, like all those foreign soldiers trying to take the fear off her face.
He also didn't have the stony face of all those German loosers returning from the sick nightmare of world domination.
He was tired, and he had an honest smile.
She liked how he scratched the back of his neck whenever he felt in trouble. That made her beg my grandmother to fix his watch for half the price..., so that he'd come back..., so that she could look at him again.
She didn't know why, but he had rendered her sleepless - even looking dashing in rags.

He came back to get his watch and to ask my mother out to the pictures.
Something with John Mills in the lead.
Only British pictures were running at the 'Palace' cinema.
Poor and happy days.
She liked to feel his hand on the back of her neck when heroes and heroines died on screen.
He liked the curves of her youth pressing against his.
Aching for each other they forgot the world outside for 90 minutes - when John Mills, Trevor Howard, Peggy Ashcroft or Kenneth Moore told of worlds outside the German horizons.

I wasn't a wanted child.
My older brother was.
But once I kicked inside my mother's womb
once I made myself felt...
... I was wanted

Once I slipped from my mother's torn and bloody crack under the incapable hands of a god in white,
once screaming light hit my screaming senses
I was falling...
... falling towards whoever might catch me

I don't really know if I was ever caught
or just hit across the court
to make my own way
cos I arrived at the worst of times

I didn't know that my father was alone...
... didn't know that he lived a poor man's life on a pile of gold.

When I was a child I used to search for holes in the ground, in case monsters really *DO* have their hiding places during the day.

When I was a child my mother thought mashed apples were the thing to make me grow in stature as well as in character.

When I was a child I used to stare at things they did prepare for me or themselves...

... and I was petrified in awe.

Gods don't ever loose their power.
They only change their shape.

When I was a child, I didn't like my dad's hand ruffling my hair whenever he passed me.

Once I was a grown-up, I missed my Dad ruffling my hair whenever he could have passed.

He died in 1970

When I was a child I didn't know what death was - even though he died right before my eyes.

When I was a child, I was a fortress of belief and ignorance...

... even though I saw the light fade from his eyes not more than a few inches away.

His dying body made strange noises, uncontrolled by his already vanished mind.

Like a pig sucking in breath.
Eyes rolled upwards,
Mouth open.
Embarassing, isn't it?

I was 11 at the time.
I had a holster with a fake colt tied around my waste.
Dreams and bloody realities clashed faster than any child's mind could muster.
So, I wasn't the hero of my dreams when I ran to reach the nearest phone to call a doctor.

When I was a child I took things for granted;
things which proved the glue of the future decades after the last clear picture of my Dad faded..., decades after I finally discovered that he wasn't there when I needed him.

When I was a child, I didn't know that gods look like parents.
I just knew.

When I finally grew up, I knew that gods didn't look like people.
I just knew.

Today I don't know anything anymore.
Today I chase the shadows of the past as well as promises of the future.

Today I am as stupid and as wise as I was 30 years before.

But today I have a chance to level the pain.
Today I am.

... and I miss him.

***

close
The Xenatizer

[ December 31, 2002, 09:04 PM: Message edited by: The Xenatizer ]

This is a beautiful piece of prose. It's so full of emotion, and drive to know, and dispair. Even the pain is beautiful.

Ulrich- From my little corner of "this" world I have always thought you and I had something in common but I didn't know what. My father also died when I was young. (That's enough to feel a common bond) but as read your piece I realized that he was also a tortured man- unable to go to war because of a disability- he always felt like less than a man.

I think this could be the start of a great book about a subject that is not talked about very much. Not the hero, but the anti-hero, the guy who survives, in spite of what he hasn't accomplished.

FYI- Here is a line that needs some work:

"When I was a child I used to stare at things they did prepare for me or themselves...

... and I petrified in awe."

Here is what I think it needs:

"When I was a child I used to stare at things they prepared for me or themselves...

... and I was petrified in awe."

Thanks for sharing this. I'm inspired to share something equally difficult from my past now.

Thanks a LOT for your input as well as the tip.


***

BTW, I agree about the potential of the theme. In fact, I'm already in the research phase for a story. It was time I realized that the best themes lie closer to my own doorstep than I often liked to see.

Thanks again, and I whish you a good and steady flow from your own quill

*
The Xenatizer

Beautiful.

The Xenatizer

[ January 01, 2003, 05:21 PM: Message edited by: The Xenatizer ]

Ulrich,

That is truly beautiful... beautiful and inspiring. When I first glanced at it, I'll be honest and say I didn't know if it was going to be able to keep my interest with the long lines and the length. But as I read the first part, I entered into your world, and I couldn't leave it until you had finished. You had me entranced with your tale. And you had some amazing insight that seems to come in the oddest of moments... like how you said "Embarassing, isn't it?" when your father died.

Honestly, a beautiful piece. Definitely deserves to be kept for a long time (as well as to be archived here). Thank you for sharing this part of your past (and your future) with us. You shared so much of yourself right there, and I hope you know how much I personally appreciate it.

Thank you.

~Gabber

ooh--but i liked "...and i petrified with awe." i love to use a word as a part-of-speech it's not generally used as.

amazing piece, Uly--you gave me chills. my dad died only a few years ago, but holding his hand when he died made me feel more child-like than i ever have in adulthood.

btw--your title made me think of the opening lines of Wings of Desire--a favorite flim of mine i'm sure you know. i had to go look up the actuall text:

When the child was a child, it was the time of these questions: Why am I me, and why not you? Why am I here and why not there? When did time begin, and where does space end? Isn't life under the sun just a dream? Isn't what I see, hear, and smell only the illusion of a world before the world? Does evil actually exist, and are there people who are really evil? How can it be that I, who I am, didn't exist before I came to be and that someday the one who I am will no longer be the one I am?

ich weiss jetzt
was kein Engel weiss...

multikultural,

z

[ January 23, 2003, 08:22 AM: Message edited by: twist of fate ]

I read this before once Long ago

& was left unable to reply..
I planned on waiting & coming back to it..

Well I finally have...

Im going to try to speak to the emotions of it all.. Cause your writing is impeccable as usual

First Im saddened to learn you lost your dad at such a young age...& right before your eyes.
It must have been hard for you & youre entire family.you have my sincerest sympathy & condolences.

My dad was in WW2 also ..
he was engineer or crew chief on a B24 in the Pacific ..
I dont think he saw any combat tho
He never really spoke about that bit of it.

Later he taught airplane mechanics in the army air force
That he enjoyed,& made his students enjoy too..

They would come up too him & say he was the most humorous instructor they ever had.

This little anecdote makes the rest harder to write actually.

My Dad passed away in 1995-or 96.
I havent shed a tear over his passing...
& might never..
I would have liked to be close to him or my mom.. but ..
I always felt un-important, ignored & well.. tolerated is word that comes to mind.. after some thought, as a child. I grew up with my spirit broken.I dont know when exactly,
some time before I was 8 I suppose.

I have 1 child.... & being an extremely doting parent..
I see how little effort it takes to love a child..

& what a joy it is for me..to express such affection.

The scary thing is that my dad that I dont miss
is perhaps the better of my 2 parents at Parenting.
He at least tried occassionally.even if he didnt have a clue what to do or say.

In short What I want to say is :

You may miss him .. but,Be glad/Proud that hes worth missing..ok?

My parents werent/arent bad cruel or wicked people.They were just rather cold & inept parents..

I dont punish my mom with it,, but Im certainly Damn ambivalent about it all..

Best wishes,old friend,
Bruce S

[ February 24, 2003, 12:07 AM: Message edited by: Brucy Braless ]

I found this piece late.

Glad I did.

Absolutely breath-taking writing, Ullers.

Well Ul you seem to be done with this ,, but Im not!


WHat you wrote & what I replied with has got me to rethinkin my dad.

He wasnt 1/2 bad.
Thanks.