November 14, 2022
By Joan Da Silva
I am very blond and blue-eyed, and the Nazi soldiers love my looks. Of course they don’t know I am Jewish.
The summer air is full of our chatter and the village grass high and unkempt when I see black leather boots. Three Gestapo officers are looking down at us with amused expressions.
An agreeable warm feeling spreads through me, a fullness in my chest and throat almost like love. I have no tail to wag, but I feel as if I am wagging. My hair feels alive as if it is shining and glistening. A glow radiates from my head and chest. My shoulders feel caressed.
I am especially conscious of my shoulders. I move them in their soft resilient sockets as if they have already been patted. “Good girl,” I say to myself, “sweet and tired, maybe cranky and pouty, but understandably so. Lovable nonetheless—Look, soldier, how lovable!” I always look soldiers straight in the eye when the moment demands it. I don’t stare at them unguardedly, no. When I know they are near, I bristle with inspiration. My eyes shine with respect and cooperation. I wag and wag my invisible tail and emanate from every pore my desire for a pat.
And very often it comes. A hand reaches out to me. It is white with delicately pinkish palms. It pats me someplace on the cheek or head. It is soft and warm and the man belonging to it is a nice man. He is smiling at me and the knowledge that he is a man of power and fear for others only fills me with more love and appreciation.
Nothing exists besides this moment. All else is a boring matter. In this glow everything is softened. I am never questioned by these harsh-voiced men with their guns and shining black boots, their fashionable uniforms and leather-tipped hats. I never expect that they will question me.
To each his role in life, and mine is settled at age five. Everything is in its place, and I am there complete for each moment. Nothing else exists, only my full concentration of myself into the moment. I must, with all my being, ward off all danger from myself. I can only do that through distraction. I must, through enormous concentrated will, pull out the energy to involve each man with my portrayal: I am the light, and I am sweet; I am the glow of your little girl at home; I am the rippling laughter of your little love; I am the response that touches you now and makes you remember how homesick you are.
© 2022, Joan Da Silva. The text, images, and audio and video clips on this website are available for limited non-commercial, educational, and personal use only, or for fair use as defined in the United States copyright laws.
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