"How is it you can speak our language?"

He says:

"My mother born here, in your country. Come to work in our country, waitress in café. Meet my father, marry with. When I small, my mother speak me your language. Your country and my country be friends. Fight the enemy together. You two come from where?"

"From the Big Town."

"Big Town, much danger. Bang! Bang!"

"Yes, and nothing left to eat."

"Here good to eat. Apples, pigs, chickens, everything. You stay long time? Or only holidays?"

"We'll stay until the end of the war."

"War soon end. You sleep there? Seat bare, hard, cold. Witch no want take you in room?"

"We don't want to sleep in Grandmother's room. She snores and smells. We had blankets and sheets, but she sold them."

The orderly takes some hot water from the cauldron on the stove and says:

"I must clean room. Captain also return leave tonight or tomorrow morning."

He goes out. A few minutes later, he comes back. He brings us two gray army blankets.

"No sell that, old Witch. If she too mean, you tell me. I bang-bang, I kill."

He laughs again. He covers us up, turns out the lamp, and leaves.

During the day we hide the blankets in the attic.

Exercise to Toughen the Mind

Grandmother says to us:

"Sons of a bitch!"

People say to us:

"Sons of a Witch! Sons of a whore!"

Others say:

"Idiots! Hoodlums! Snot-nosed kids! Asses! Slobs! Pigs! Devils! Bastards! Little shits! Punks! Murderers-to-be!"

When we hear these words, our faces get red, our ears buzz, our eyes sting, our knees tremble.

We don't want to blush or tremble anymore, we want to get used to abuse, to hurtful words.

We sit down at the kitchen table face to face, and looking each other in the eyes, we say more and more terrible words.

One of us says:

"Turd! Asshole!"