The Mascot by Mark Kurzem

Author:Mark Kurzem
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group, Inc.
Published: 2007-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

My father on the steps of Moritzburg Castle, outside Dresden, during the firebombings of 1945.

“I didn’t know where Auntie and Uncle had gone, but they didn’t return till just before dawn. I suppose that they must’ve been with other Latvians, discussing what was going to happen in the immediate future.

“They woke us up. Uncle wanted to talk. It was as if he’d read my mind. He put his arm around my shoulders and sat me down on the side of my bed. Then he crouched down to my level and stared into my eyes.

“‘From now on,’ he said, ‘if any person, no matter who they are, asks who you are, you say that you are the son of my cousin. You must remember this!’

“Then he turned to the others in the room and warned them, too. ‘Young Uldis is the son of my cousin whom we care for because his parents died in the war. Remember that.’

“Uncle had heard that the Americans were going to hand Schwerin over to the Soviets. He said that this was the worst thing that could happen to us. No Latvian could live under the oppression of the Soviet Union again.

“Among the other Latvian refugees he’d met, it’d been agreed that we needed to head farther west to Hamburg, which was in the British zone. We’d be safer there. We had to leave immediately, before the sun came up, and to pack only the bare minimum.

“There was a truck waiting for us in a nearby alleyway. Families were crammed onto the back of it, so that we had to squash in as best we could. I was wedged into a corner, but at least I could get some air and see through the slats.

“The truck soon picked up speed, and we had got some way out of Schwerin, when it came to a sudden halt. We were transferred to an old bus, so quickly that it was all I could do to hold on to my case. Still it was wonderful, finally, to be able to sit down and breathe properly.

“I nodded off with my head on Auntie’s shoulder and didn’t wake until the bus came to a halt in the middle of nowhere. It had broken down, and nobody had any idea what we should do. We simply sat there quietly on the bus while the driver examined the engine.

“A short time later, two soldiers—American—appeared in a jeep and took over. They ordered everybody off the bus. It was quite warm, so everybody headed for the shade of some trees by the side of the road. They lounged there passively, making occasional complaints about their discomfort and the heat of the afternoon. I was embarrassed by their complaints and laziness.

“I returned to the bus, where the two soldiers and the driver were working on the engine. Soon another jeep pulled up. For a second, I froze to the spot when I noticed that there was a black soldier among them. I had never seen a black man before.

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