Fighting For Love

VIII - The Arrival

     Hello ladies and gayntlemen, I'm back once again to present you with the next chapter of our favourite German boy's saga.

    As some of you know, this is a rewritten and translated version, so this chapter was originally two separate chapters (each one with about 1000 words), but I managed to merge them into a 2000-word one.

    But that does not mean this version of the book will have less chapters, because the next chapter is a double chapter! YAAAYYY!!!

    Sorry, I got caught up in the moment.

    Read the final note to know more about how the double chapter thing is going to work.

    Good reading!

~~¨^^¨¨~~¨^^¨~~¨^^¨~~

    Chapter 8: The Arrival

    October the 5th, 1939, 23:30.

    Poznań, Poland.

     It happened exactly what I was afraid it would. Nighttime came and I was sleepless, lying on the bed with a lamp by my side, reading an old rendition of The Merchant of Venice for the hundredth time in my life.

     My mother used to read it for me when I was younger, part of the reason why I am so in love with Italian culture, though I cannot say or understand a single word apart from cazzo, which I usefully learned from an Italian classmate of mine.

     No, I do not believe it was appropriate for a mother to read to her seven-year-old son a story about a man who wants a pound of flesh from another as a way of paying a debt, but at least it taught me to never, ever, go into debt with anyone. In retrospect, it is probably a very nazi-friendly book, as its portrait of Jewish people as greedy, flesh-seeking beings is something that Hitler himself could have come up with.

     Otto was sleeping by my side, in different beds this time, though I have mixed feelings about this. If he wakes up in the middle of the night to throw up again, I will not wake up too, but I won't have his warm body next to mine when I get cold either. Not that we would consciously find comfort in each other's warmth, but I shan't be blamed for whatever my subconscious does while I'm asleep.

     Günther and Hilde were in the room next to ours, sleeping. How did I know they were sleeping and not doing anything more interesting? (as I would be, had sober Otto shown some interest) It is simple, I could hear their snorings. We shared the same balcony.

     What a loud couple!

     Poznań — or Posen, now that it was in German hands — was probably very interesting and amusing, I would love to walk in the narrow, medieval alleys I saw when I arrived earlier that day, but the general's orders were very strict: "you are not allowed to leave this hotel unless I say so". Saying so meant never and I could say with every fiber of certainty in my body. I am convinced the only authority men answer to is their mother, even more so than their fathers, so Hünessdorf was - and, to his credit, had to be - just like a mother. And for mothers, "maybe" is only "maybe" after at least a couple of days of thinking, not overnight.

     The hotel we were staying in was not any better than the one Otto and I were the day before: the bed was not as comfortable and the whiskey did not taste as good, but at least the food was delicious. I walked downstairs to have dinner earlier that day with a big concern: eating Polish food. I'd heard their cuisine is very exotic, to say the least, but I would not know from my time in Posen, as they served us nothing too uncommon, just mashed potatoes, lamb and cabbage salad. I could eat that anywhere in Europe, including at home.