I did as ordered. I told him I was nineteen. Despite him already knowing, my real age revealed itself to him when I broke down in tears under shellfire and was hauled before an unsympathetic officer.
Old men today – the survivors tell stories and tales about their youths in the army. One story that face-plants my mind the most is the story of a young boy who could barely see over the trenches. I was that boy.
Horrors of war soon got caught in my boots. Always dust and smoke. To me, they looked like paint clouds. A paintbrush dream, but it helped me cope, and I found it so contagious. All that was left was our voices, and we had no choice but to raise them. Screaming. So much screaming. A grown man called for his mother and believed, really believed that they were there. His blood-soaked hand grabbed my coat. “Johan, take care of Mama, little one, take care of her.” He believed me to be his little brother. I let him coat my hair in blood-paint and held his hand. Only when I stood did I realise. “Medic!” But it was too late.
Walking away, the medic explained. “His little brother was killed three months ago.”
Over the next few months, I would learn that the days were bearable, but the nights were excruciatingly painful. I read and composed letters to Tomas. Every word I read felt so lonely.
“Dear Josef,
Everything is good here. Come home soon.
Your brother.”
The night sky drowned the stars, and I buried my face in the letter. There was a fresh sketch of a dog beside me.
The faceless man stared at it. “You look so serious, my friend. What’s wrong?”
A forced laugh. “Nothing.”
“Tell that to your face.”
“It’s just that.”A sigh.”During the day, when there are things to do, I’m so focused on my training.” My fingers were blue – my toes in a worse state. The real enemy of the war was general winter. Hitler thought the war would be won by winter, so we were still wearing our summer uniforms.” But I think about death at night. It doesn’t scare me at all. Right now, I think death sounds so fucking peaceful.” I stretched my arm. The damn gear practically tore off my shoulder blade.
In your visions of how this all might end, you probably see a young boy fulfilling his dream and his paintings going on to mean a lot to thousands – remaining a symbol of hope forever. A holiday might even be held in his honour. There was nothing like that.
Reality doesn’t work like that.
Some people are destined to go down in history.
Some people are destined to be forgotten.
Everything was chaotic, messy, and matched my mind.
“You won’t die here. We’ll get you home. War doesn’t suit you.”
A drunken man staggered in, offering me a cigarette. God, did I want one? He was led away by another. “Don’t give the boy cigarettes. What’s wrong with you?”
“No, I see you as – what’s the word – a creative type. One of those lucky bastards.”
I had a dirty laugh. “I’m an artist, actually.”
“See!” He practically slurped the air. “Why do you want to be an artist?”
“I don’t think I want to be an artist. In my mind, I’m already there.” I picked up the colours trapped on the page. “I just have to prove it to the rest of the world.”
Fear rolled down and dripped off my shoulders. Dreaming is hard.
Back in Inland, the skies were on fire and the grass was a sea of black. Dispatch riders were coming on their bicycles; my brother was manning the searchlight. Blue shadows hit him under chin. The Flak guns were shivering, and the boys could hold on no longer. A platoon took a direct hit, and all fourteen members were killed instantly. Their bodies were dragged like colourful rags along the shallows.
“Keep safe, Tomas.” I repeated it nightly and let the words carry me to sleep.
I taught myself not to think during the day. The weight of the kit tripped me up. God, I fell so many times I lost count. The rifle gripped my arms in support. So many runners, so I followed them, stars in my eyes. They came out and ran beside me on the grass. I ran straight into a boy. An English boy.
“Get up!” An order came from the boy. He looked around thirteen.
“Nicht schiessen!” We held our guns together. They kissed, and I thought of Von. He would know what to say. “Don’t shoot!”
We let each other go. Unnamed war friend was not impressed. He picked me up by the collar. “Don’t you know how to shoot?”
I was crying. “I forgot Herr Kapitän. I’m sorry.”
“What? The amount of training they gave you in that school…”
I controlled myself. “But this is real life war, Herr Kapitän. This is scary, and I am not good enough for it. I’m scared.” Wiping my tears did no good. The dust and dirt drenched them. “You are very brave. I need you to teach me to be a man. Please, Sir.”
“No.” His face fell back. “I am afraid every day, Josef.” He gave me a lollipop. “It’s alright. Don’t lose the boy just yet.”
I realised I had pissed myself when I felt the hot sting in my socks.
A gift was sent to camp later. A 155mm shell inscribed “Unhappy New Year, Nazi pigs.” It was retrieved from the rubble. As I made my way, German men spoke. “The fuck do they know? We’re not even Nazis.”
A younger man with whiskers like Oskar’s replied. “Why don’t they just go home?”
“England is a shitpile. Suppose they don’t want to.”
When I did make it, I could not contain my anger within the box it sat in any longer. It spilled out. A bit at a time and then all at once. “They think we’re terrible.”
Oskar replied. “We are.”
“Tomas isn’t.” My forehead creased. “If he were on their side, he’d be called a martyr.”
The only reply I got was from the bombs in the distance.
“Fuck me, your arm, kid!”
“My what?” It was then that I realised my arm bore a large gash. Blood was everywhere. I must’ve trailed it all over Holland. Panic made me vomit.
My unnamed friend stood, looked up at the sky and breathed. “Medic!” Someone snapped a photo. Who the fuck are you? The sky was falling all around. It was no time to be afraid. The medic arrived, cloaked in adrenaline. I do not know what happened in the room he came from. There was a lot of screaming. “Stitches,” he said and prepared. I was laid on the grass.
“No anaesthetic?”
“Not for this, sir.”
“Fuck.”
“Josef, listen to me.” He was hovering. “This is going to hurt a lot, but I will stay with you…” He saw my eyes trail off to my arm. “Josef. Josef.”
“What’s he going to do?”
“I’m scared.” Hands were clamped down upon my arms, and my chest was knelt on with such force, I thought my lungs would collapse. “Don’t look at it. Don’t.” It was needed, for when he began, I screamed. A primal mind crying out for the love I was taught to expect. When it ended, my arm throbbed with the cold and pain. I was offered another lollipop, but I wanted nothing to do with it. I cried into the chest of my forgotten friend, and he held me in the trenches for ten minutes.
A flash. Again with the camera.
The one nice memory I recall was listening to Oskar’s stories. Men were shaving each other, revisiting old memories out loud. Some simply wanted to go to a bar for a beer. Laughter was creeping on our faces. In the distance, death was rubbing his hands together.
Oskar spoke: “I bought us a house. It was cheap – very cheap, and I knew she would kill me, but I took the chance.” He was already laughing. “We were walking around this house, and I was talking about the view from outside, and just at that moment – you couldn’t make it up – the back door fell off.” Others joined in. “I said, ‘A view out,’ and she very nearly did kill me.”
I knew that the story shocked Oskar. How did this particular story come into memory above all others? We are all filled with stories we don’t know about until we tell them.
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Unnamed war friend was killed two days later, shot in the chest by the same English boy that let me go. It was a tricky situation. Being cornered by two Germans was a predicament. The ground was all around him. He raised his gun, and he stitched two bullets into my friend’s chest. I returned the favour, unwilling to acknowledge it was me that caused the corpse to lay face down.
“Is he dead?”
“No.”
It’s funny how we lie to be kind.
My friend slowly flattened on the grass – so much blood.
I saw a medic in the white. I only spotted the cross.
Englishmen.
“Hilf mir. Bitte.” They did not help. I was the enemy. I was responsible for their fallen men. “Bitte.”
My hands were caked in blood.
He tried to say the word. “Go,” but what came out was a watery grunt. Coughing exploded more blood on my face.
The sky was swollen. The boy did his job. I can’t blame him. In his mind, he killed the enemy. But in my mind, he killed my friend.
In my thought catalogue, there are many men whose faces I can recall, and some that I cannot. Their words have stuck to my lips like glue, but my eyes don’t remember the lines and cracks on their faces. How do you forget the unforgettable? I don’t think it’s people we do remember. We remember moments. That’s why I paint them.
We can’t decide who lives and who dies.
Who is important enough to be remembered and who isn’t.
But we do have our stories, and maybe some hopeless little boy will pick yours up someday, and he’ll walk around with it in his heart forever.
You cannot plan for such things.
There cannot be songs for every soldier.
There cannot be solace every time we cry.
Stories keep the world revolving. Make sure you’re around to tell yours. Don’t miss out.
46
Brotherhood
*Bud Green*Bubble Gum*Burnt Orange
Homecoming, 1945.
Our transport arrived on the Inland grounds. We sat with bruised hearts and broken bodies. Above all else, I was happy to be alive.
A flash of blond, just for a second. Diamonds and purples. I ran to the back of the truck. In the time it took the street lights to illuminate him, the back of Tomas’ head was spotted. I knew it was him because the blond kicked out just right. “Tomas!”
I stood. My eyesight was flimsy.
“Sit down, will you?” A man said.
Oskar laughed. “He won’t listen.”
The reunion was gaining on me. I jumped from the back, and I ran.
“Tomas. Tomas.” It must have been repeated several times.
Stefan and Manfret held drinks for the returning men.
I took him. “Look how you’ve grown, Tomas. You’re so big. Look at you.”
His head stood beneath my chin. His arms held me tighter.
When I held him, it made it easier to breathe.
Stefan practically threw his happiness and the water into the wind, and watery footsteps and fatty bacon arrived. We were tackled to the ground and more piled on top.
“Willkommen zurück.” The light was fuzzy. “Welcome home.” The bodies had grown, minds expanded, and the street crumbled some more, but the chalk, I deduced, is always stolen. Their chalky hands pressed through my skin.
Excited questions for Oskar. “Do you like my new uniform?” The man with woollen-jumper eyes went from medal to medal just for a second. “I don’t care. Come and hug me.” The boy did.
My worries lost their keen sting, and the optimism raised its head from the ground. Perhaps, the hope had been there all along, but without some love, it was trapped, like crystals in a stone. But like all happiness, it didn’t last forever.
The inky darkness set in, and a boy stood before me. Tamed eyebrows, bandaged head, and crutches for legs. His grief leaned over it. It did not look like the Derrick I had left.
I didn’t have to speak.
“Where’s Penn?”
Loss takes many shapes. Sometimes, the form of someone we knew well. He remembered his brother’s wild eyebrows, his knack for trouble, the way he always sang slightly off-key, and the corny jokes they couldn’t help but tell.
I was in shock but composed myself.
“Penn is dead,” said Derrick, and he delivered the blows so beautiful that I staggered; everything blurred, I was unable to speak.
Derrick’s face was decorated in frozen streams of steam.
Then I saw it. Derricks’ arms were heavy. He shivered. He was scared. Death isn’t fast. It’s excruciatingly slow. There were bits of hope in between, and Derrick would whisper, “Stand up and tell it to go away, Penn.” Derrick held his brother’s hand until the moaning and breathing stopped.
The boy that should have lived.
When Derrick’s parents delivered him back to Inland, he held onto his mother’s jacket, and he cried.
“Shh. No. More crying, darling. We made a promise.”
“Oh, look, you’re making your silly mother cry.” Her eyes screamed.
This is not supposed to happen. First, your parents die, then you die, and then your child dies. You should never have to pick out a coffin for your boy. The puzzle doesn’t fit. There’s nowhere that piece of the puzzle fits.
“No more crying.”
She left him in the capable arms of Manfret Wünderlich. He was soothing him into calmness.
When we ate that night, the chairs sat empty.
Derrick had a face caved and drawn amongst the gashes, eyelids of paper.
“You were ever so brave in the war, but we are glad you are home,” Stefan said. He ate with his mouth open. “Working in a field like us isn’t going to save this country.”
His face was drawn to the man-sized uniforms that dominated our frames. “You’re uniform is nice.”
The table was quiet. “Penn looked excellent in his uniform, too.” Derrick gave a small laugh.
“Don’t Derr…”
“What?” His lips quivered.
The walls were singing Hallelujah.
Derrick’s breath grew shallow. “Penn was hit in the back. It blew most of his guts and intestines out the front. It wrecked his uniform.” His words got caught between the in-and-out struggle of his breath. “Get out of my sight.”
Breathing is hard when you’re weeping. I held his hand on the table. Derrick Pichler looked like he lived too much life, and he was afraid. He was scared that his brother would disappear.
That he’d be the dead kid no one remembers.
I don’t want Penn Pichler to be forgotten.
No one deserves to disappear.
People keep saying things like, “He shouldn’t have left us now,” or “It was too soon for him to go,” but is there ever really an opportune moment to say goodbye to someone we love? There isn’t. Nothing can soften the blow or dust away the feeling of sorrow we feel when they leave us.
To lose someone when they are old and grey is certainly bittersweet, but to lose a boy so young is a tragedy.
A remembered conversation.
I didn’t see its importance at first, but now I realise that no feeling felt is ever random – something accidental.
I was mopping the floor when the twins entered, showered by the empty hopes.
“You have to go, Penn.”
“Why should I?”
“Mama asked us.” Derrick had see-through skin.
“She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you. She’s just trying her best.”
47
Victory
*Vivid Auburn*Viridian*Vivid Burgundy
We stood bandaged and bruised, some with walking sticks, some in wheelchairs. My hands and toes still hadn’t got their colour back.
A recurring thought: what the hell are we doing?
The ceremony took place in honour of the boys who fought for their country. Derrick refused to go. “I don’t want a damn medal. I want my brot
her back.”
Hitler couldn’t even be bothered to show up. Another Nazi took his place and came to decorate children with medals for something. The event was captured on film, but I don’t need a camera to remember. It chronicled the collapse of Hitler’s thousand-year Reich, as the tottering, senile-looking Nazi is seen congratulating little boys who were staring at him with worshipful admiration.
Watching Tomas on the stage, my hands were clenched in rage.
The flags climbed high into the light. There were no birds. No angel could be born in hell.
I wondered how everything looked from the clouds. From above them to be precise. Would I see beauty? Or would I see chaos? Or would I see both?
I painted on the hill for the last time.
The sky was powdered gold and caught between clouds of silver rope. The grass murmured.
“Do you live in that book, Josef?” Tomas’ voice came from the tree.
My emotions ordered every line I drew, every stroke I painted. “Yes.”
The sky had an eerie silence.
“What are you painting?”
“It’s an owl. A story.” I showed him.
“A little owl who didn’t have any wings. The sky forgot his name. But then he grew up and grew wings much bigger than everyone else’s…”
Being an artist is like being an author. You pick the colours that work and exclude the ones that don’t. My hands had blisters from leaning so hard. I worked for three hours that night, using a bucket as a chair.
“Josef...”
“I’m proud of you; you know that Tomas?”
“Of course.”
I had to stop treating moments like they would last forever.
It was Tomas that spoke this time.
“I’m so tired.”
I thought about it, and I realised I was also tired, and I had been for some time now. It wasn’t my eyes, though. No, it was my heart. A sixteen-year-old heart shouldn’t hurt this much.
The Boy Who Saw in Colours Page 28