Flash

Encounter with my Mother, 1939

Damn, it's my mother! She looks exactly like her sixteenth birthday portrait, before she went to serve in Arbeitsdiest, the female equivalent of military service required before proceeding to advanced education.

Or is it? How can I be sure?

What should I say? Should I say anything?

If we start a conversation, I might let slip who I am and screw up the time line.

Why did I let my son talk me into this, anyway? "You're going to love it!" he said as he sold me a pack of 14 tickets, each good for an hour in the past, or fifteen minutes in the future. Apparently future travel requires inverted temporal power, which is a power hog and harder to manage. Only suicidal daredevils and fools ride the temporal rocket into the future. I had no intention of doing either one. I only bought the tickets because Charles was broke and needed the commission. It was a tactful way of helping.

I didn't seriously expect to go anywhere. But curiosity got the better of me. Here I am, somewhere in Germany , on the cusp of World War II. Has it started yet? If I ever try this time travel thing again, I will do research. A lot of serious research.

I check out my reflection in a store window. I am wearing a long black coat with a fur collar and a yellow star on my chest.

I keep walking, head down, trying to be invisible. I have to get out of sight and wait out the time until I can go home again. I was assured that the temporal tracking system will find me wherever I am and whisk me home at precisely 10:37 AM. How can I be sure that I'm not stuck here forever? I duck into an alley and stand still, trembling.

"Kommen Sie mit mir." A hand slips into mine. It's her! The touch of her fingers convinces me that she is really my mother. I want to scold her, tell her to leave. Doesn't she know better than to put herself in jeopardy?

She pulls me along the alley and knocks on one of the doors. A code. Three, then two, then four.

The door opens. A thin man with a hooked nose peers out, and smiles with relief. He says something incomprehensible in Yiddish, takes my hand, and pulls me inside.

Soon I am sitting in a corner, drinking tea and listening to a multilingual discussion by a dozen desperate people. I can't understand everything that is said, but the meaning is clear. Some want to flee. Others want to stay and fight. Others argue that everything will be fine as long as they co-operate with the government authorities. I don't think anyone notices when I vanish into the temporal tunnel..

Sitting in the comfort of my living room, I cry for a long time. I am incredibly proud of my mother. I wish I could tell her that I am sorry that I accused her of participating in the Holocaust. She did what she could. Even if it was one simple act of pulling one old woman to shelter, it was something.

I want to go back again. 1954 would be a good time, after we immigrated. I could pretend to be a reporter and ask her to tell me her story. When I was growing up, all I wanted to do was fit into Canadian culture. Whenever my mother started talking about life in Germany, I closed my ears and my heart and got away as quickly as possible. I didn't want to listen then, but I do now.