Lest We Forget

In summer, Magda always has breakfast on her balcony overlooking Vienna’s St Stephen’s, and reads her home-delivered paper. She’s worked hard for the good life and now, recently retired with a good pension, she enjoys all the culture her adopted city offers: opera, concerts, coffee and Strudel at Demel’s, outside the tourist rush, of course.

Magda doesn’t like to dwell on the past. It’s the here and now she loves. But the news has been heating up in the wake of the recent heatwave. They’re lying on the train tracks at Bicske, screaming “not here”.  

“Not here.” The words slip from the page and morph into her mind. “My home is no longer here.” It is 1956. Magda is preparing to flee. 

Magda stares down at the buskers on St Stephen’s square. She kneads her fingers as a solitary tear drops onto her wrinkled hand.

Kirchholz

 The war was over, but a soldier sought flames for a photo.  In a wood behind a church he struck a match.

 Flames licked and spread to the church. Click. Click. 

 Maria, stood on her pedestal, crimson tears staining her long white robe. Flames at her feet. Click. Click. Her arms were burning as she reached for the golden chalice from the last Mass.

In his dark room, the photographer sipped wine from the region where the church used to stand. An image appeared: Maria, a golden chalice raised to her lips, gazed at him with a knowing look.

Yoska

My grandmother would tell me stories of how they put us away back then. Not because of our politics, not because of our religion, just because we couldn’t stay put. It’s funny how things go round, and I’m not talking about karma.

Eighty years later they’re doing it again. They said we had to move on because folks were complaining about our caravans, saying we stole food and clothes. Then they locked us up. Now they’re making us work on a barbed wire fence, not to keep us in this time, but to keep others out, others who just want to pass through. Folks are now offering food and clothes, things that we were accused of stealing. 

They talk of getting the right balance between security and humanity. But what about me and mine, where do we sit on this bloody seesaw? My hands are bleeding.