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I just saw her by the window. In the span of a single blink, she disappeared.
I looked around and then next second in front of me, “Hey?”
23rd January 1942
I opened my eyes, and my mom was right in front of me. “Hello?! Wake up? Breakfast’s ready?”
I looked around, I was in my room,
My eyes widened, looking here and there…
Coming to my senses, and realizing it was a dream,
I rubbed my eyes with both hands, gazing up at the old ceiling, where spiders had made their abode,
I woke up and slowly lowered my feet to the floor, using my hands to steady myself against the bed, feeling a bit dizzy.
I saw my window and remembered my dream.
In the living room, I could hear the radio going on,
Nazis. My family was terrified about the happenings which were done by them.
Sometimes my own family didn’t feel safe about what was happening outside. Dragging the Jews, killing them, showing no mercy.
In anger, my dad just turned off the radio. We were not Jewish, but our neighbors. We loved our neighbors who were dragged out 3 weeks ago.
We loved them. It was such a great family.
We had known each other for 13 years.
I mean at least, as far as I remember. I can only remember 13 years back.
I am a 17-year-old, who can just remember 13 years ago,
My father was hit by the gun’s butt on his head when he tried to stop the soldiers from taking away our neighbors. They warned us that they will take us away if we did anything further to stop them,
He cried, and my whole family did. I was terrified as well.
I doubt these thoughts will easily fade from my memory anytime soon.
I wore my boots and I was ready to go with my friends to school.
I was excited. To see Eva.
Yes
there’s a girl to this story,
Me and my friends walked by the Amsterdam streets.
And we always stopped at this place on the street, where the guy would sell ice cream,
Very less people knew about this,
Through his window, hiding behind it, he would give us 5 cones of ice cream,
Right in front of that building, on the window of the top floor, there she appeared.
Smiling at me, and my eyes got heavy,
She waved at me,
I looked at my friends, Ehud, Gad, and Joel, they were talking,
I told them that I will be back,
And I ran to the other side of the street, with an extra cone of ice cream in my hand.
Opened the door of the building and ran upstairs.
It was a 3-floor building. I ran upstairs and knocked on the door.
She opened it, and smiled at me,
Admiring her lovely soul, she smiled and said, “Hey!”
I got so nervous, that I looked at her and said nothing for a whole 5 seconds.
I got back to my senses and said, “Sorry! Here, your cone.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off of her nor I could blink, and just moved my hand which had her cone in it towards her
She said, “Did you run on the stairs?”
I said, “No? Why? Why would I run? I wasn’t excited. No? Why Would I be?”
She smiled wider. I could see she was controlling her laugh. “I am so stupid”, in my mind. I looked straight up to the ceiling, and said, “Okay ok, here. Take your cone. I have to go.”
She was still smiling. I could feel that. I closed my eyes hard and said, “Please.”
She said, “Um, I did.”
I looked at my hand, the cone was still there, but the ice cream was not on it.
As she laughed, I couldn’t help but wonder about the reason behind her laughter, though her beauty wouldn’t let me think more.
She said, “Hey, where did you go?” I got to my senses again, and said “Ah, here? I am here haha.”
She said, “You know you came here running, you dropped the main parts of the ice cream on the stairs today.”
I said, “What?” I looked at the stairs. And definitely, it was all creamy.
She looked at me, smiled, and said, “I count the steps you climbed for me, and think a world of me and you, although some things were lost behind, I still gain love and only love from you”
I had my mouth open on what she said. I couldn’t say anything!
“Eva! I. I was… I would… I was…”
She laughed, “Altan? It’s okay? You can bring a cone some other day!”
“No wait! Just wait! You can have my cone, just wait! Joel has my cone. I will just bring it to you.” I said
She said, “Okay breathe first! and here listen? Take this.”
It was an empty chocolate wrapper. I asked, “Ah… you want me to bring a chocolate like this from the market?”
She laughed and said, “Altan? I didn’t have any chocolate. This was the last bar at my house and my sister ate it. But open this wrapper would you?”
I opened it and I saw something she had written for me.
Suddenly it was all quiet, and because of what she had written, it made everything quiet around me. In the wrapper, it was written…
“His eyes are hope of mine to live, if it’s a sin O Lord, please forgive.
Your art is good like heaven and above, he is the ideal definition of love.
If death will come take me not him, I pray to you from deep within,
Let no one kill this love of mine, my heart is his and his heart is mine.”
It felt like the sweetest piano playing in my ears. My eyes filled with tears. One fell on the wrapper. It felt like heaven. What I read. The most beautiful comfort to my eyes. I felt alive. I felt real.
“Yes yes, and I lo… I love… I… I love your floor today is it new? Or you painted? No why would you paint a floor, you’re not a painter! No, I didn’t mean you can’t paint. Because if you did you’d be amazing! I know. Really! You know what?! I will just get the ice cream”. After messing up my moment by saying this I just ran to my friends for my ice cream cone.
When I almost reached downstairs, my friends started shouting my name to call me downstairs, “ALTAN WE’RE GETTING LATE BECAUSE OF YOU. Come down now or else we’ll leave”.
When I reached the first floor, I saw a man in the room just looking at me, scared, and said, “Please, don’t tell anyone.” He had fear in his eyes, when he saw me, his eyes filled with tears. I could feel that he might be having his whole family in there.
I gave him a nod and a friendly sign, ensuring him that he could trust me, and then went behind a bookshelf disappearing. Maybe another Jewish family, hiding in a secret place. This world has become a living hell. Eva was also one of them, who had to hide in her own house with her family right now.
‘ALTAAANNN” They were literally screaming.
I reached downstairs and all of them started screaming at me, telling me that we were getting late.
“Altan? Do you even realize how late we are? We are going to be kicked out of the class AGAIN!” Joel said angrily
“I am really sorry guys, but… wait, Joel? Where’s my ice cream?” I said
Joel smiled weirdly and said, “Oh, that. I mean, You took so much time I had to lick my hand a lot of times. Your ice cream was melting on my hand. So I just thought of… I mean… Like not giving myself much pain. And just, eating it… it all.”
“Joel WHY? Oh man, I got to buy another one. Guys, I will be back, I will buy an ice cream, and then I will be back in 5 minutes okay?” I said
Everyone said, “NOT AT ALL LET’S JUST GO”
They all pulled me and didn’t let me buy.
I looked at the window above, she wasn’t there. Probably waiting for me. I felt so bad. My friends pulled me on the way to school.
Gad asked me where I was, and I told him nowhere.
I looked out the window again, and I felt bad.
I thought I would say sorry when I will meet her next time.
Many soldiers were, also kind of scares us too. But we just headed off to school.
Gad asked me, “Where were you? And who is upstairs that you go there daily.”
“None of your concern Gad. And instead of wondering about this, if you’d focus on your math score, it would help you better” I snapped
He didn’t look happy with my reply. But I was not in a mood to worry about his feelings.
“Eva”
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