Relativity

Relativity

I sit with my grandfather in his computer room.
The walls are decorated with family photos, church bulletins,
and various clippings from the local paper.
He is showing me his latest discovery.
He smiles and beams.  They call it “Google Earth.” He says.
I see no reason to tell him, “I know.”

I have asked about where he went during the war,
so he is using this to show me Gambsheim, France.
It looks nice.  Quaint.  Forgettable.

But as my grandfather slowly moves the mouse
his eyes narrow.  I see thoughts manifesting.
Flashbacks.

His warm smile thins.  His eyes give cover to a thousand things
he’d rather not tell me about.
And  when the screen hits the city edge,
indicated by neglected train tracks that run
along the earth like a stitched scar,
He pauses.

He looks at the monitor, and me, and back,
and apparently decides I’m ready.
“You see this field?” he asks.
“Right across the tracks?”

I do.  It is open and empty and barren.
My grandfather knows this field, he tells me. Knows it very well.

When I look at him he’s unfamiliar. 
For the briefest moment I am allowed to see
how my perpetually smiling, hugging, can-I-get-you-anything? grandpa
returned from Europe with a Bronze Star.

He tells me they were stuck in Gambsheim
when the Nazis overran it. 
The unified sound of boots on stone echoed
through narrow streets.
Tiger tanks rolled in with the mortar crews.
German shepherds barked at any provocation
and my grandfather and two others were hiding their supplies
Inside a barn in haystacks
on the wrong side of town.

This was the city that my grandfather navigated.
Not the one on Google Earth.
This city had barbed wire, and machine guns
in church steeples.
This city was so full of the promise of death, or worse
that an open field to the south
that served as target practice for Nazi artillery,
was where they knew they had to go.

Because after that field the trees were dense.
The going was hard.
and the Nazis had better things to do than follow.

And so my grandfather and two others
Moved south through the shadows of the city.
They moved in the early morning.  In between buildings
and the moon and the sunrise.

When spotted by two girls about his age (and my age he adds later)
he puts his finger to his lips and prays they listen.

They hear the boots on the street ahead.  The precision mixes with
a harsh German dialect.  One of them laughs. 
The sound moves in their direction.
My grandfather has been to Dachau.
They will not be prisoners.

One man has a pistol.  He nods to my grandfather
and moves ahead.  He peeks around the corner.
Two shots.  Two down.
No congratulations now.
They must move forward.

The sun is coming up when they hit the train tracks.
It seems longer now.  Much longer.
They hide in the bushes just behind the field.
They wish that it was darker.  That they were faster.
That they were home.

They exchange wordy looks at one another in the silence
And then my grandfather yells a whispered “run.”
They do, and fan out and don’t look back.
Their feet fire like pistons.  Their movement is instinctual.
Adrenaline radiates through their muscles as they dart through tall grass.
They do not think of God, or Uncle Sam, or sweethearts back home.
They think “don’t die.”

They haven’t gone ten yards when bullets begin to fly.
They know this, because while they cannot hear the guns,
they feel the metal going by their faces.

They scramble and zig-zag and tear through vegetation.
After twenty yards the artillery starts.
Mortar shells fall around them.  The tanks overshoot
and take down a few trees ahead.
The concussion replaces any sound with high pitched ringing.
One man falls,
but gets back up.

My grandfather doesn’t know how long they were running through the field.
He looks at the computer screen. He swears that field is smaller now.
I stare at the field and take it in.  Open my mouth for the first time.
“I bet at a good run you could cross that in ninety seconds.”

He thinks about it.  Nods. 
Turns to me.

“ninety seconds.
Maybe so.  But that 90 seconds…
It was…

It was…”

He stops to think.

“time is relative in hell.”