Our Father Comes Back

We don't see our Father again until several years later.

In the meantime, Grandmother has had a new attack, and we have helped her die as she asked us to do. She is now buried in the same grave as Grandfather. Before they opened the grave, we recovered the treasure and hid it under the bench in front of our window, where the rifle, the cartridges, and the grenades still are.

Father arrives one evening and asks:

"Where's your Grandmother?"

"She's dead."

"You live alone? How do you manage?"

"Very well, Father."

He says:

"I've come here in hiding. You must help me."

We say: "We haven't heard from you in years."

He shows us his hands. He no longer has any fingernails. They have been torn out at the roots:

"I've just come out of prison. They tortured me."

"Why?"

"I don't know. For no particular reason. I'm a politically suspect person. I'm not allowed to practice my profession. I'm under constant surveillance. My apartment is searched regularly. It's impossible for me to live much longer in this country."

We say:

"You want to cross the frontier."

He says:

"Yes. You live here, you must know..

"Yes, we know. The frontier is impassable."

Father lowers his head, looks at his hands for a moment, then says:

"There must be a weak spot somewhere. There must be a way of getting through."

"At the risk of your life, yes."

"I'd rather die than stay here."

"You must make up your own mind when you know all the facts, Father."

He says:

"I'm listening."

We explain:

"The first problem is to get as far as the first barbed wire without meeting a patrol or being seen from one of the watch- towers. It can be done. We know the times of the patrols and the positions of the watchtowers. The fence is one and a half meters high and a meter wide. You need two boards. One to climb onto the fence, the other to put on top so that you can stand up on it. If you lose your balance, you fall into the wire and you can't get out."

Father says:

"I won't lose my balance."

We go on:

"You have to retrieve the two boards and do the same thing at the next fence, seven meters further on."

Father laughs:

"It's child's play."

"Yes, but the space between the two fences is mined."

Father goes pale:

"Then it's impossible."

"No. It's a matter of luck. The mines are arranged in a zig-zag, in a W. If you follow a straight line, you only risk walking on one mine. And if you take big steps, you have almost a one in seven chance of avoiding it."

Father thinks for a moment, then says: "I'll risk it."

We say:

"In that case, we are quite willing to help you. We'll go with you to the first fence."

Father says:

"Okay. Thanks. You wouldn't have something to eat, by any chance?"

We give him some bread and goat cheese. We also offer him some wine from Grandmother's old vineyard. We pour into his glass a few drops of the sleeping potion that Grandmother was so good at making out of plants.

We take Father into our room and say: "Good night, Father. Sleep well. We'll wake you tomorrow."

We go to bed on the corner seat in the kitchen.

The Separation

Next morning, we get up very early. We make sure that Father is sleeping soundly.

We cut four boards.

We dig up Grandmother's treasure: gold and silver coins and a lot of jewelry. We put most of it into a linen sack. We also take a grenade each, in case we are surprised by a patrol. By getting rid of the patrol, we can gain time.

We make a reconnaissance tour near the frontier to locate the best place: a dead angle between two watchtowers. There, at the foot of a tall tree, we hide the linen sack and two of the boards.

We go back and eat. Later, we bring Father his breakfast. We have to shake him to wake him up. He rubs his eyes and says:

"It's been a long time since I slept so well."

We put the tray on his knees. He says:

"What a feast! Milk, coffee, eggs, ham, butter, jam! You just can't find these things in the Big Town. How do you do it?"

"We work. Eat up, Father. We won't have time to give you another meal before you leave."

He asks:

"I'm going this evening?"

We say:

"You're going right now. As soon as you're ready."

He says:

"Are you crazy? I refuse to cross that bitch of a frontier in broad daylight! They'll see us!"

We say:

"We have to see too, Father. Only stupid people try to cross the frontier at night. At night, the frequency of the patrols is four times greater and the area is continually swept by searchlights. On the other hand, the surveillance is relaxed around eleven in the morning. The frontier guards think that nobody would be crazy enough to try to get through at that hour."

Father says:

"You're absolutely right. I put myself in your hands."

We ask:

"Will you allow us to search your pockets while you eat?"

"My pockets? Why?"

"You mustn't be identified. If anything happens to you and they learn that you are our father, we'll be accused as accessories."

Father says:

"You think of everything."

We say:

"We have to think of our own safety."

We search his clothes. We take his papers, his identity card, his address book, a train ticket, some bills, and a photograph of Mother. We burn everything in the kitchen stove, except the photograph.

At eleven o'clock, we leave. Each of us carries a board.

Father carries nothing. We ask him just to follow us and make as little noise as possible.

We are getting near the frontier. We tell Father to lie down behind the big tree and not to move.

Soon, a few meters away from us, a two-man patrol passes by. We can hear them talking:

"I wonder what there'll be to eat."

"The same shit as usual."

"There's shit and shit. Yesterday it was disgusting, but it's good sometimes."

"Good? You wouldn't say that if you'd ever tasted my mother's soup."

"I've never tasted your mother's soup. Me, I never had a mother. I've never eaten anything but shit. In the army, at least, I eat well once in a while."

The patrol moves off. We say:

"Go on, Father. We have twenty minutes before the next patrol arrives."

Father puts the two boards under his arm, he moves forward, he places one of the boards against the fence, he climbs up.

We lie face down behind the big tree, we cover our ears with our hands, we open our mouths.

There is an explosion.

We run to the barbed wire with the other two boards and the linen sack.

Father is lying near the second fence.

Yes, there is a way to get across the frontier: it's to make someone else go first.

Picking up the linen sack, walking in the footprints and then over the inert body of our Father, one of us goes into the other country.

The one who is left goes back to Grandmother's house.