I was taken back to Kallady camp and interrogated there. They wanted to know all the details of what had taken place, about those violent deaths, the number of deaths, about how much I knew.

‘We want to know the truth about how many died,’ they said. And I had to pretend that I did not know. The truth, once it was out, would endanger my life. All I wanted was to go back to the people, the villagers, to live among them peacefully. I did not want a lot of possessions or goods or wealth. I wanted to go back and teach in my village, listen to the old men as they cleared their throats and began to sing their folk songs. After they die who will remember these songs? The young have no time to learn them. There will be nothing to remember except the horrors of this eternal war that goes on, day after day after day. The people are tired, tired of war.

I am back in my school now. I have placed my fingers on the bullet holes that pit the walls. Looked out to the field where I saw death. I remember. Perhaps in time I will forget. But—an innocent man?

Elysium

I WAS SIXTEEN. I was in a world that was green, with rills of the purest water and covered with flowers. A tranquil landscape. I sat gazing at it. Colours. Fragrances. Ah, the sensuous feel of flowers touching my skin. And the sound of water sliding over pebbles—very cool, liquidy, like flute notes. Elysium. Paradise. Persephone’s heaven for heroes. Isles of the Blest. An apple land, like Avalon and Eden. This was where I could always escape to in between dreams and reality.

Lipovsky. Lipovsky. No, I was never in love with him. I did not allow myself to be attracted to him. What would have been the use? To have given myself, all of myself to a man—and then to have been forgotten? Oh, everybody thought I was beautiful. Schön, Schön, they would murmur, all of them. I was a virgin. It was rare, in that country, to be a virgin at my age.

Did Lipovsky touch me? Yes. Sometimes, when we danced together in that quiet room in his house. Or when we drove out into the woods, travelling along those quiet country roads, not a soul to be seen, only trees on either side.

Lipovsky promised to take me nutting. I imagined myself gathering the nuts. How sweet the flesh would taste once I had cracked open the hard shells. The berries I would crush against my lips and let the juice trickle down, tart, sweet. And drink the pure water that flowed in the little stream green with the shadow of overhanging trees.