Post by Erick Ganz on Oct 16, 2013 13:40:36 GMT -8
Begin at the beginning, as they say.
I was conceived in February, 1943. My father died two months later. As my mother told it, he perished on 21st April, when his Luftwaffe Dornier 217E was shot down over Aberdeen, Scotland, in what would come to be known as the Mittwoch Blitz; the final bombing raid on a Scottish City during the war, and one of several ‘last gasps’ of the Nazi war machine towards ultimate defeat.
Bereft, widowed, and with child, my mother took the only suitable course for one in her position: she sought a husband.
She met Klaus in late May of 1943, and they embarked on a whirlwind affair; a cyclone fueled primarily by my mother’s desperate circumstances, and Klaus’ inept experience with women and relationships. He had other motivations as well, but we’ll come to that.
They were married only months later in September and, in the only attributable act of prescience I will ever credit the man, Klaus thought it best to leave Germany, opting to take his wife and my unborn self to southern Austria. This decision likely saved my life, in retrospect. Again, the only credit I will give him.
I was born on November 19th, 1943; an auspicious date indeed, though I would not be made to understand this until many, many years later. My childhood, what I remember of it, was well. Klaus was a good provider, though I never really understood what it was he did. I recall images of tanks and military men, and an atmosphere of tension and hardship in those early years; just flashes, really. Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany ended in 1945, and the Allies took over as a sort of ‘police’ force until the Austrian Government could reorganize itself. All of this was merely background noise to a young child, of course.
Around the time that I was 10 years old was when my mother and Klaus’ relationship began to wane. My mother would often look at me and smile, telling me how I resembled my father more and more with each passing day. This irritated Klaus, and was just one of many things that widened the rift. I would be kept awake many nights to the sounds of them fighting with each other; over money, or Klaus’ drinking, or over nothing at all. It was also around this time that they began sleeping in separate beds, and on occasion my mother would come into my room, curl up with me, and sob herself to sleep in the dark while clutching me close.
I do not precisely recall when these occasional visits by my mother became sexual encounters. It was a slow transition; I think I was 12 when what was happening was undeniably incest. The ritual would begin with her quietly entering my room late into the night, and whispering my true father’s name as a question. I would answer yes. Our roles for the encounter affirmed, things would begin.
Those first few times she was slow, and experimental; pausing now and then to give instructions on things to which I had no idea. But as I learned how best to please her, things became more comfortable; almost routine. At one point, I sensed she was becoming bored; whether this was actually so, I cannot tell. My mother was never anything but complimentary to me, outwardly. So I began to experiment myself, take the initiative, and apply my imagination. This invigorated her: she became more wanton; almost savage in her ecstasies. I felt proud.
I was not myself during these times, you see. For my grieving mother, I was her lost love. I did what was necessary to love my mother in the best way I could. To give her what she wanted the most. To try and make things better.
Klaus, if he knew what was going on at that time, acted oblivious. To this day I have no idea exactly when he realized what was going on. But I do know precisely when he chose to acknowledge it.
I was 15. I had been taking care of my mother for the better part of 3 years, and in that time I had apparently grown into the exact likeness of my father “in every way,” my mother would often assure me. On the night of 26th May, Klaus had apparently had enough of it.
My mother and I had returned home from a night at the cinema to find Klaus sitting in the living room. The familiar atmosphere of sweat and cheap whiskey permeated the air.
I knew the procedure on nights such as those, and I escaped to my room to avoid the oncoming tumult. From behind my bedroom door I listened as things began as normal...though on that night there was an anguish in Klaus' voice that I had never heard before. After several minutes of angry preamble, he confronted my mother – for the first time – about the truth of things.
Every part of my being froze with fear, and shame; the façade of fantasy-as-normality began falling apart in that moment. There was a brief silence from the two of them as the accusation seeped-in. Then sobbing poured from my mother, and I could not help but join her from behind my bedroom door. Klaus shouted more curses, more fury, as though he had only been guessing and had just had confirmed as fact what he hoped was fiction. There were other sounds then; sharp footfalls and drawers being opened.
Another shout from Klaus. My mother screamed. And then there was a sharp popping sound.
My mother's scream stopped. A crashing sound. Silence.
I burst from my room and ran down the staircase in a blur of terror and adrenaline. There in the living room stood Klaus, a Luger pistol gripped limply in his hand, a whisp of smoke curling up from it. Beneath him lay my mother in a heap, her blouse sopped with blood still pumping from a slowing heart.
Realizing my arrival, Klaus looked up with eyes filled with tears and rage, and lifted the barrel towards me. I clamped my eyes shut.
I do not remember hearing the gunshot, only the heavy and sickening thud of Klaus’ body hitting the floor, and the wet spurting of blood from the bullet wound to his head. I opened my eyes to the two of them, laying beside one another, draped in crimson.
I stood there, all night.
* * *
Understandably, I was never quite the same after that.
I became the equivalent of a ‘ward of the state,’ and over the next 3 years was shuffled between a handful of orphanages and schools. I was a lonely child. My experiences set me well apart from my male peers on several fronts, and perhaps predictably I gravitated more towards the female of the species for both intellectual and emotional stimulation. This tendency branded me as something of a sissy, and I was punished for such a reputation with persistent attacks and beatings. As I was not so made as to do battle, I eventually learned to let my mind depart so that my body could deal with the pain on its own.
There were positive events, however. I successfully seduced two of my teachers into acts most unbecoming, and while I can grin in conquest about it now, at the time I was sincerely looking for something akin to real affection; they were, too, certainly. Desperate and delirious for something beyond their own loneliness or unhappy marriages, they undertook an offered taboo, next to having nothing at all. A very important lesson for me.
Upon my eighteenth birthday, I was set free from the state supervisions, and for whatever legal and bureaucratic reasons was provided with several boxes and ledgers, making-up what remained of Klaus’ estate, being his only heir.
Left alone in the small room of the lawyer’s office to peruse my new belongings, I discovered several interesting facts: first that Klaus’ reasons for moving us away from Germany had as much to do with his own legal perils as it did with the inevitable invasion by the Allies. Klaus was actually Gerhardt, and Gerhardt had been a war profiteer; specifically one of the industrious fellows who had gleaned considerable wealth from collecting and moving gold teeth, jewelry, artwork, and other valuables harvested from the concentration camps. Along with overseeing this process, Gerhardt had not been reticent on skimming a little extra for himself, here and there.
This skimming ended up in a variety of numbered Swiss Bank accounts; accounts he had apparently feared to access, lest the Nazi-hunters and likes of the Nuremberg inquisitors catch a whiff of him. So he had changed his name and decided to lay low in Austria until the coast was far more clear.
But he had taken my mother from me, as well as the coward’s way out. And now I had all the paperwork necessary to reap the benefits of his ‘work.’ It seemed fitting. So I took the small stipend provided me by the state upon my exit from their tender ministrations, and bought a ticket to Switzerland.
A week later I returned to Austria disgustingly wealthy.
Whatever was a young man to then do with himself?
