"Hiden Secrets"

[alidiabin]

 

Title: Hidden Secrets
Words: 1,135
Summary: A newly revealed secret causes a girl to realise her Grandpa was never quite perfect.
Notes: This is my English assignment for creative writing. The brief was something do with a change in a POV of the main character. Thank you leadsisters , proseac1 , rigil_kent  for helping me decide what to write. And part of the assignment involved cutting down words, and short sentences that appear to be bad grammar. 

 

Hidden Secrets

She walked down the familiar corridor. The doors were closed except for one at the very end of the long hallway. Eliza drifted in without a second thought or a knock. An elderly man sat at the end of the bed in striped pyjamas. He was looking outside at the world beyond his prison.

“Eliza,” he whispered. At a snail’s pace he stood struggling to grip onto the bed.

“Grandpa,” she whispered moving to greet him. She took his frail hand feeling the wrinkled papery skin as she sat him back on the bed.

The empty silence of the room just moments before was quickly shattered. Grandpa talked and talked and talked. Eliza still smiled. Eliza did not mind. She found his stories exciting. His tales of time long ago. Eliza liked to sit next to him back and leaning her brown curls on his bony shoulder and hearing all about the past.

As the sun begun to droop lower in the sky the tides of conversation turned.

“How is school Zaza?” Grandpa whispered in between laboured breaths. Eliza smiled at the use of the childhood nickname, a nickname she still loved.

“School is school.” Eliza replied nonchalantly. She casually shrugged, as she looked out the window, peeking at the evening sun bathing the crimson autumn leaves.  

Grandpa caught her eye, he stared at her with an eyebrow raised. Eliza felt as small as the cells she had been learning about in biology. With Grandpa there was no such thing as ‘just school’. He had been a man denied full education. Forced to leave school due to war was all Eliza had been told. It was often joked among family that Grandpa had learnt more from his son’s and later his granddaughter’s homework than they did.

An awkward silence stewed between the two of them. Grandpa despite his old age and failing eye sight held the stare. Eliza racked her brain for something to say. But school was school. In maths they were doing statistics, in English they were doing Shakespeare and in history … in history they were doing World War Two. World War Two Grandpa would like that, Eliza thought.

“We’re learning ‘bout World War Two in History,” Eliza said looking up with her blue eyes wide.  

She expected Grandpa to launch into a big long lecture on Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, and the Blitz. But he did not. His eyes became glassy looking into the distance. His mouth slightly open. His pink lips trying to form words but failing. His wrinkled papery skin was already pale but it seemed and even more ghostly white.

“What? … What about … What about it?” He asked in a nervous quiet voice. His hands trembled.

Eliza’s mind drifted back to that sleepy, musty last period history class. With the faint stench of body odour amd Mr Morris’ monotonous voice as he talked for twenty-five minutes on how Hitler had saved a crumbling Germany, about the Treaty of Versailles and harsh reparations. He then put a video on. The image of the stick thin, shaved, naked figures stained in black and white haunted Eliza.  The voice over horfied Eliza even more. The description of the gas chambers had caused the damn to break and tears to fall down her face. Her eyes were still red from the crying. How could on human do that to another? She left that class with one conclusion: Nazi’s were evil! Pure, pure evil!

“Nazi’s,” Eliza finally said. Again she got a surprising reaction. Grandpa’s eyes squinted and his face morphed into a ‘deer caught in headlights’ look. “They were evil!”

Grandpa turned away. Bile rose in his throat. His mind flashed back to a time long ago. A period of great uncertainty and strife in his native Germany. A charismatic leader with a moustache. A German utopic vision.

Then came the other memories. The Jewish neighbours being pulled away their houses being ransacked. Rachel Rubenstein a girl he had a crush on walking down the street with a golden star pinned to her trench coat. Not looking him in the eye.

The horrors of war player through his head like a silent movie. The marching. The smoke from the gas chamber. The laugh of the other men as they led the doomed to their final destination – the final solution. Grandpa looked down at his hands they were trembling, violently shaking. He found, he was not staring at the hands of him as a ninety year old man but at his own twenty year old hands. Kurt Krieger’s hands covered in scarlet red blood. The blood of his fellow man. He wondered: should he tell her? She was only fourteen – too young. His son did not know.

“Evil is not black and white,” he finally said. Eliza’s head shot up. She was shocked.

“How can you say that?” she shouted. Eliza only ever seemed passionate about silly things: ‘The Airborne Toxic Event’, ‘Amelie’ and ‘The Millennium Trilogy’. Not history. But how could Grandpa say that? The Nazi’s were evil! Evil! Plain and simple.

Grandpa got up. He slowly shuffled across the floor. His hands violently trembling. He did not have to tell her, he reminded himself. He opened the mahogany box. He slid his arthritic hands under the still soft velvet inside and produced a black and white photograph.

He wondered, all these years why he had kept the evidence. The proof of his crimes. Maybe it was torture? A reminder of past sins. He handed Eliza the photograph. His creased hands still trembling. She looked at it confused. Then she realised what it was; Grandpa in a Nazi uniform. Grandpa was a Nazi! Grandpa was evil!

She slid back from Grandpa, recoiling in shock. Her hand covered her open mouth.

“You … you,” she cried words getting trapped in her throat. Fresh tears formed in her blue eyes. No! She decided. Grandpa was good. Grandpa was a good man. Grandpa was good. He was not capable of this evil? Was he?

“It was a different time … you have pop stars we had Mein Fruther,” he said in an uncertain tone.

“I understand,” Eliza said not looking up. But her hand did not touch his. She did not really understand. How could the same man who rescued spiders from the bathroom using glass jars have been a Nazi? An evil blue eyed, blonde haired Nazi.

Grandpa reached for her. A lone salty tear feel down his creased face. He regretted telling her. Burdening her with a secret he had not told a single soul. Not his late wife.  Not his son. Eliza’s hand reached for his. Grandpa was not evil. Maybe he just used to be? Maybe he was just caught up in a lie? Maybe he was brainwashed. Brainwashed.

 

Comments

[proseac]

Nicely done! Feels like it needs another chapter...*hint hint*

[alidiabin]

Thank you, but I feel it's finished besides this is what I handed in to my teacher, but maybe one day ... I will extend it.

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[dragonheart]

very nice. I hope your teacher gave you exceptional marks.

You are really coming into your own as a writer - well done!

[alidiabin]

Thank you.

NCEA (the NZ education system) bases the grade on how well you fit the specifications. Hopefully it will get an E (e for excellence highest grade)

Thank you, again.

[leadsisters.livejournal.com]

Liked it! You have talent there! It's still a bit of raw talent but it most certainly is present ^^!

I read some of your other original fics too! You've got some great potential! More than I can say for many other fic writers! ^^

Have you gotten a mark for this story yet?

[alidiabin]

Ty. I really do need to fine tune my writing, but I don't have time to look into a course or something like that... maybe in Uni.

I'm glad you read them and enjoyed them. The grammar in them is terrible though. I need to go through and sort all of that out.

Nope, the teacher is going to mark it over the two week Easter holiday.

[sunshine-80.livejournal.com]

Nice work.

[alidiabin]

Thank you.