After Auschwitz: A Love Story Read Online Free PDF
Author: Brenda Webster
The parents take turns flying off, spreading powerful white wings and returning with food that they regurgitate for the little ones, who signal their hunger by pecking at their parentsâ bills.
Iâm as fascinated as if I were watching some earth-shattering event: the pope at Easter on the Vatican balcony addressing the crowds. I stare as a small snake emerges from the parentâs craw and is swallowed by the least vigorous of the chicks. He canât quite get it all down and one of his siblings grabs the end and swallows it until only the tip is showing. The game continues until finally the stronger one succeeds in getting it all in.
I fell some months ago and broke my hip. There were complications and I found myself condemned to my bed for two months of hell. Who could have ever imagined that reading would take so much effort? Our attic apartment was packed full of books. In the little room that opens onto the first terrace, they run from floor to ceilingâall the English classics, Dickens, Scott; the French, Balzac, Victor Hugo, Rimbaud, Becket, Sartre. My eyes stop at Sartreâs
Nausea
âthat would describe pretty well the sick state of my soul. In past days, which I can now hardly remember, I would dip into it just to show myself my basic healthiness.
Hannah says our early married life was too calm for me to tolerateâlike a peaceful lake. There is some truth in that, particularly when I was young, but she doesnât seem to realize how much of myself I had to submerge and leash. She had experienced the worst human beings can do to each other.How could I subject her to petty squabbles? I feel now as if I am coming undone, part by part. My eyes tire after a few minutes and if I leave a book for a few days, I donât remember who the characters are.
Hannah cares for me exquisitely these days but I sometimes hear her on the phone with her friends, speaking in a funereal voice.
âYes, it is so complicated now. My husband isnât well, poor thing. He broke his hip you know. I canât leave him alone.â
Sometimes she can still be playful as a kitten. My old friend Ernesto came over for lunch with his new wife, Elena, and Hannah cooked her motherâs pancakesâsomething between a latke and a quiche. What impressed me was how she sang in the kitchen and how strong she looked, carrying the heavy bowl of soup and then afterwards digging out the gelato in big chunks, ignoring their insistence that they couldnât eat another bite, not pulling away from me when I put my arm around her and patted her thigh.
After three glasses of white wine I donât feel eighty-eight. I see the young wife studying me. She knows our story from books that each of us has written, films weâve made, gossip in the news, and she looks as if she is trying to figure out what attractions this old coot has, could have had. I stare into her eyes, mine still a penetrating green, or at least after the wine I think soâ¦windows of the soul. I slap Hannahâs thigh again. Elena asks about my film,
Journey into Madness.
I tell her I saw the girlâs journal introduced by a French psychoanalyst and immediately felt drawn to it for a film. This analyst had saved the girl and sent her to school to study medicine. When the analyst died, the girl killed herself. She needed a lot of love.
âI was a laureate in medicine myself,â I tell the young wife. âThen came film and poetry. I didnât want to give up making films, but when I turned eighty no one wanted to giveme a job anymore. It was too risky. No insurance company would insure the film. What if I died halfway through? No, just like that I was finished.â I pause, hearing the self-pity in my voice. âWell, life goes on. We can fight aging to the best of our powers ⦠as Dylan Thomas said: âDo
not go gentle into that good night; rage, rage against the dying of the light.ââ
I canât stop trying
Iâm as fascinated as if I were watching some earth-shattering event: the pope at Easter on the Vatican balcony addressing the crowds. I stare as a small snake emerges from the parentâs craw and is swallowed by the least vigorous of the chicks. He canât quite get it all down and one of his siblings grabs the end and swallows it until only the tip is showing. The game continues until finally the stronger one succeeds in getting it all in.
I fell some months ago and broke my hip. There were complications and I found myself condemned to my bed for two months of hell. Who could have ever imagined that reading would take so much effort? Our attic apartment was packed full of books. In the little room that opens onto the first terrace, they run from floor to ceilingâall the English classics, Dickens, Scott; the French, Balzac, Victor Hugo, Rimbaud, Becket, Sartre. My eyes stop at Sartreâs
Nausea
âthat would describe pretty well the sick state of my soul. In past days, which I can now hardly remember, I would dip into it just to show myself my basic healthiness.
Hannah says our early married life was too calm for me to tolerateâlike a peaceful lake. There is some truth in that, particularly when I was young, but she doesnât seem to realize how much of myself I had to submerge and leash. She had experienced the worst human beings can do to each other.How could I subject her to petty squabbles? I feel now as if I am coming undone, part by part. My eyes tire after a few minutes and if I leave a book for a few days, I donât remember who the characters are.
Hannah cares for me exquisitely these days but I sometimes hear her on the phone with her friends, speaking in a funereal voice.
âYes, it is so complicated now. My husband isnât well, poor thing. He broke his hip you know. I canât leave him alone.â
Sometimes she can still be playful as a kitten. My old friend Ernesto came over for lunch with his new wife, Elena, and Hannah cooked her motherâs pancakesâsomething between a latke and a quiche. What impressed me was how she sang in the kitchen and how strong she looked, carrying the heavy bowl of soup and then afterwards digging out the gelato in big chunks, ignoring their insistence that they couldnât eat another bite, not pulling away from me when I put my arm around her and patted her thigh.
After three glasses of white wine I donât feel eighty-eight. I see the young wife studying me. She knows our story from books that each of us has written, films weâve made, gossip in the news, and she looks as if she is trying to figure out what attractions this old coot has, could have had. I stare into her eyes, mine still a penetrating green, or at least after the wine I think soâ¦windows of the soul. I slap Hannahâs thigh again. Elena asks about my film,
Journey into Madness.
I tell her I saw the girlâs journal introduced by a French psychoanalyst and immediately felt drawn to it for a film. This analyst had saved the girl and sent her to school to study medicine. When the analyst died, the girl killed herself. She needed a lot of love.
âI was a laureate in medicine myself,â I tell the young wife. âThen came film and poetry. I didnât want to give up making films, but when I turned eighty no one wanted to giveme a job anymore. It was too risky. No insurance company would insure the film. What if I died halfway through? No, just like that I was finished.â I pause, hearing the self-pity in my voice. âWell, life goes on. We can fight aging to the best of our powers ⦠as Dylan Thomas said: âDo
not go gentle into that good night; rage, rage against the dying of the light.ââ
I canât stop trying