Songs My Mother Taught Me; A Collection Of Short Stories

Erika

Germany

1942

Ach, my feet are so sore, I will have to stop a moment and rest them.

Just here, in this side street where I can slip off my shoe and massage my poor toes for a moment. My stocking have holes in and although Dieter tells me I'll wear stockings of silk after the war, I can't bring myself to believe him. Silk seems like such a distant memory, it's almost a childhood fairytale.

Gretchen teased Dieter and told him that a man who is getting on so well in the party must be able to afford to buy his girlfriend a pair of stockings and Dieter told her that once we have won the war, I will have a factory worth of stockings.

Gretchen teases Dieter a lot these days. She flicks her hair and pouts and flirts and sometimes I find it hard to like her anymore. Mama says I must not be so petty, Gretchen and I have been friends since before we could even walk, but Mama doesn't see how Gretchen has changed. When she looks at Dieter, she has a hunger in her eyes and I don't like it.

When I try and talk about it with him, Dieter laughs and waves it away. All his talk is of the party anyway. The party, the party, the party. That's all I hear. Of course, I'm not so stupid as to insult his beloved Nazi party to anyone, but I wish he would talk about something else, just sometimes, instead of him just constantly listing what Herr Schultz said about his chances of promotion.

Gretchen hangs off his every word, so I feel that I have to do the same. I am Dieters girlfriend after all. Gretchen would do well to remember that.

Oh, why did I think about all this? Now I've put myself in a foul mood and I'm not finished shopping yet. Plus I have other things to worry about. If Dieter arrives at my house to collect me for the dance before I get home, Mama will know that I wasn't with him today and then she'll want to know where I have been.

This is getting to be more difficult by the day. I didn't realise I would have to start shopping further and further away from home to cover myself. And lying to Dieter! I never really thought about having to do that, not at first, yet here I am and every day the lie grows.

Gretchen doesn't have any secrets from Dieter.

Oh, I'm being silly now. Time to hurry along, my shoe is going to pinch but I'll have to stuff my foot back in regardless I suppose. There. Not much longer and I'll be home, trying to decide which dress to wear. Dear Mama had been so kind to make some alterations, but really, you can still tell it's the same dress.

Ah there now, this is a grocers I haven't been in before. The fruit looks bruised and pulpy, but what can I do? No, this will have to do. I can't go to the same place I went last week, especially not when I went back there with Mama a few days later and the man remembered me.

Oh, but these apples are so crushed he should be ashamed to sell them!

The moment he places them in a brown paper bag, the juice from the bruised skin begins to ooze through and if I had any other choice, I wouldn't place the bag directly on the loaf of bread in my bag, but I can't be seen with all this food in my own neighborhood. It's going to have to be soggy bread I'm afraid. The fish will make up for it and the chocolate.
The chocolate! I was so tempted to take just a small bite, for who sees chocolate in these times?

But no, no I mustn't. Ach now, the air is so cold and I hate it when there is frost on the cobbles. My heels have no grip on them and tonight I'll be sliding all over the pavement. Still, I can hold on to Dieters arm.

Dieter is a bit handsy at the moment. He pushes and pushes and when he kisses me his hands are all over my body, why just last weekend I had to fight him off and he told me that every girl wants a boy who is rising up in the Nazi party like he is and if I'm going to be such a prude then he can find someone else.