A journal of narrative writing.
My Mother's Nazi

Standing together
over a sinkful of dishes
her few small words
stop my breath

“He lived with us
while the Germans
occupied our country”

“A Nazi?” I ask in disbelief

“We weren’t the only ones,”
she explains,
“We had no choice”

“But, a Nazi?” I ask again,
to be sure

She flashes her ‘Don’t be stupid’ look
“Of course, a Nazi,” she says

“What was his name?”

She shrugs, annoyed
“I was seven!
How should I remember?”

Thinking up German names—

Heinrich, Hermann, Horst—
I imagine my mother’s Nazi
to be ‘H-something’

“What did he look like?”

She frowns
scrubs a dish with vigor
Soap sprays the window

“It was a long time ago,”
she says
but her eyes drift
beyond the window
beyond our yard

“What do you remember?”
I ask,
gentler this time

Wearily, she begins
“He ate our food,
took over my room,
I slept in the kitchen”

Displaced, I’m thinking,
already displaced

“And I remember
the strangest thing”
Her hands slip absently

into the scalding water
and I watch her flesh redden
“He always came
to my birthday parties”

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