It Cannot be Possible

Sandy Wilson

Drink: Schnapps 

by Sandy Wilson

Schnapps

The package fell to the floor with an ominous thud. Miriam walked into the hall wrapping her dressing gown close against the cold. She turned the thermostat dial until she heard a click, picked up the package and walked through to the kitchen.

 

Miriam poured a mug of coffee, sat down at the kitchen table and turned the parcel in her hands examining the label. Untying the hemp string she folded back the brown paper to reveal a cigar box. Opening the lid she spread the contents on the table top: a letter, some old brittle documents; one looked like a birth certificate, and a faded photograph. There was a masculine aroma of tobacco. Apart from the letter, handwritten in English, everything appeared to be in German. 

My dear Miriam

You were far too young to remember me. I have enclosed a photograph of your father. He looks  quite glamorous in his uniform, do you not think? The birth certificate is yours. Of course, you had a different name then. 

 

I will contact you by telephone. We must talk.

Kindest regards

Esther

Laying the letter on the table  Miriam smoothed the paper with her cold finger tips, as if by doing so some deeper meaning could be deciphered. Outside a neighbour was cutting his lawn. On the wall next to her a radiator ticked, hot water coursing through the pipes, but Miriam felt chilled. She reached out and picked up the photograph. A handsome man smiled at her from some distant time. His peak hat, worn at a jaunty angle, was decorated with the insignia of the Waffen SS. Underneath the stylised eagle, claws gripping a swastika she could make out a skull and crossbones bright on the dark hatband. She turned the photograph over and stared at words written in faint pencil: Rudolph Höss, Commandant of Auschwitz, 8 May 1944 – 18 January 1945.

 

She thought of the numbers tattooed on the papery skin of her grandfather’s left arm, remembered her grandson’s Bar Mitzvah the previous month. This is not possible. Could not be possible.

The buzz of her neighbour’s lawn mower stopped. In the silence the telephone in the hall began to ring.

About the author

Sandy writes fiction, memoirs and sometimes poetry. His work has been published in the anthologies ‘The Pulse of Everything’ and ‘The Darkening Season’ and  the international poetry anthology ‘Indra’s Net’. He is a member of Otley Writers and blogs as www.sandyscribbler.com