Tuesday, July 3, 2007

In The Air

Here is another story that I picked from my mother's blog and translated in English (if there is interest, I may end up translating her entire biography).
This one precedes the previous story by several years. It is WWII, Spring 1944.

Mama hung the laundry to dry on a wire that is stretched between two poles across a narrow creek. I am laying on my back in the grass, between countless dandelions. The bedsheets are gently rustling, rhythmickly undulating in the wind.
High above in the blue sky are thick white clouds flocking together into castles that melt and dissolve, reforming a little later into splendid big palaces again. When I grow up I will live in a castle because I will marry a baron... or a prince.
I can hear a soft mutter in the distance. It grows louder as it approaches.
"There they are!..." I jump up and run to the road. A uniform rumble fills the air by now. Hundreds of small sparkling white dots in formation. Small triangles that disappear, hidden by the clouds for a moment, to reappear glistening in the sun.
The neighbours also came outside. Everybody is standing by the earthen road, gazing up in the air. " That is not for Brussels, they are flying too high." "It’s for Germany...They’re going to get it over there!" A feeling of excitement, a feeling of hope. Caution is put on the side for a moment.
Shining silver metalic ribbons are filling the air and falling like snow around us. Someone shouts not to touch them, they could be contaminated... poisoned pencils had been distributed from the air before, they said.
I do not understand why they throw those ribbons. The rumbling ends, the airplanes disappear from sight. It is over, they are passed for today. Tomorrow there will be more, and again after tomorrow, and the day after... they fly over each day... somewhere there is hard fighting.
"Come on, Jacqueline, let’s go play!"

Copyright Jacqueline De Dier 2007

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting to know.