THE GREEN KING (part 20)
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The Photographer
from Salzburg
His way of
recounting was curious. He spilled out his memories backwards, the way you
rewind the film. He went three steps farther and was now directly in front of
the books, separated only by pane of glass.
‘These books
are yours?’
‘Yes,’ Tarras.
‘The second
time I was in Janowska, I was coming from Belzec, My mother, Hannah Itzkowich,
and my sister Mina died at Belzec on July 17, 1942. I saw them die. They were
burned alive. May I open the cabinet and touch the books, please?’.
‘Yes,’ said
Tarras, transfixed.
‘My sister Mina
was nine years old. I am absolutely positive that she was alive when they
burned her. My other sister , Katarina, was two years older than I. She died in
a railroad car that I was also supposed to get in. She climbed into a
compartment meant to hold thirty-six people. They pushed in one hundred and
twenty or one hundred and forty, the last ones in were lying on the head of the
others. On the floor, they had spread quicklime. My sister Katarina was among
the first to go in. When they couldn’t fit any more in, not even a child, they
slid the doors shut, took the car to a
siding and left it in the sun for seven days.
He read out
load: ‘Walt Whitman. Is he English or American.
‘American,’
said Tarras’.
‘He is a
poet?’.
‘Like Verline,’
said Tarras.
The grey eyes
touched his face, then when back to Leaves of Grass. Tarras asked a question,
and thought he would have to ask it again, the answer was so long in coming.
But the boy shook his head.
‘Not yet; only
a few words. But I’m going to learn it. And Spanish also. And maybe other
languages. Russian, for example.
TO BE CONTINUED
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I LOVE YOU…
I LOVE YOU…
I LOVE YOU…
I LOVE YOU…
I LOVE YOU…
I LOVE YOU…
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