2010
Welcome home, daddy
by Nikita PisaniIt was 25th October 1956. Aaron was enjoying the symphony of the birds as he observed their dynamic flight patterns, which made a most spectacular sight. This was harmonized, almost, by a host of cirrus clouds that filled the late autumn sky. He set off for a walk along the Honig Bridge in Konigsberg, Germany, as he liked to do on a warm Sunday afternoon. A sense of pleasure swept over him with the smell of the sea-laced air and the breathtaking sight of what he perceived to be the magnificent late medieval houses lining the waterfronts, few of which had remained after the war.
The young man was startled by an alarming sound announcing the arrival of a huge fishing boat and the subsequent opening of the bridge. He moved back, off the lifting middle section, and felt uneasy standing amidst a small group of people who had gathered on the bridge; they were waiting rather impatiently, he observed, for the boat to set sail. To him, they looked like ordinary Germans: a stout old man leaning feebly on his wooden crane, an upper-class lady whose face was eclipsed by terrifyingly large reddish-brown wool felt hat with faux-fur trim; and a fairly young couple, in their later twenties or so, hand-in-hand, possibly newlyweds. However Aaron, with his head bent down, could feel their protruding eyes almost inspecting him, and sizing up the blackness of his hood. He could easily sense their discomfort and their uncertainty about how to deal with this sudden vicinity to a Jew, an outsider.
As the boat sailed through, the crowd hurried away, with their backs to him. Meanwhile, a sunken-eyed, middle-aged, pale-looking soldier hopped on his Rangerbred horse; yawning heavily, he leisurely navigated through the unmade road, eyeing up the young man and his hood as he passed by. ‘Why dun’t ya go home, huh?’ he uttered in a husky voice as he disappeared in the midst of the fog that obscured Aaron’s vision, even though it was still half past two in the afternoon.
I envy them, he thought, resuming his walk, their sense of normality and lack of fear, their carelessness. They could just walk around along the bridges freely, without having to stand in awe.
Perhaps he envied them most, however, for not being Jews, and hence his family. It was at this moment that Aaron conjured up a distorted image of his father, whose face was slowly and surprisingly fading away; the older man had strongly disapproved of his son’s hasty marriage to Dana. The young teenage green-eyed girl had bewilderingly, and much to the dismay of his family, stolen the heart of the young Jew, despite her being a Christian. Aaron had managed to catch a glimpse of his family in one of the many cloudy days of November 1938, when Nazis had smashed up Jewish homes, shops and synagogues. Aaron, Dana and his family were held, for some time, in the same police cell, but the youngsters were moved to a different location, before he could even reach out and utter a final farewell to his family.
Some weeks later a number of Jews held up in prison were released, whereby Aaron together with his wife set sail to Britain in search for a new and better life. He remembered how anxious and agitated he felt, looking for what seemed like the umpteenth time, at the circular issued by the German Jewish Aid committee, which read, amongst an endless list of other rules, that refugees were not supposed to draw any attention to themselves by their dress or loud speech. This was printed in red ink, bold and underlined. Another advice, so to say, issued by the ‘Helpful information guide to every refugee’ was that refugees should not, for their safety, criticize or come close to any form of criticism at any Government regulation. They were also strictly banned from talking German or reading German newspapers in public.
This had made him wonder: what kind of world was this? Weren’t we supposed to be a whole, united loving bunch? Being black, or a Jew, an African, a South-Arabian, an Orthodox or an atheist, should not deny a person his sense of dignity and his rights. He shifted his thoughts upon the working industry, whereby it was an undeniable fact that coloured men in Britain were, more often than not, unfairly judged, and given second preference in terms of interviews and jobs. A Jew among a sea of Christians, as himself, was often alienated and looked down on for being an outsider, a foreigner, a so-called ‘cuckoo in the nest’.
Recollecting his thoughts, Aaron continued his way down the street, and headed towards a shabby-looking almost archaic house. As he climbed the front porch steps, ever-inconspicuously, he regained his senses by the angelic smile of his eight-year old daughter wearing a vibrant, coquettish dress that was brimmed with coloured sunflowers. “Welcome home, daddy”, she said in a soothing voice that radiated her parent’s love and her complete ignorance of what was in store for her in the outside world.
