He tried to understand his grandfather and followed the rules to the best of his ability. But the year he turned fifteen, he rebelled against his grandfather for the first time. His grandfather had stopped him from going out with his friends after the winter sun had set. The reason was not to simply make his grandson obey him, but because he was so afraid and anxious. It was precisely because his grandson understood this that made him snap at his grandfather.
“I shouted at him that the war was long over, Communism was dead, everyone was free, and nothing bad happened to children who played outside past seven p.m.”
“What did he say to that?”
“He said nothing.”
His grandfather had stared at him for a while, turned around, and went into his room. His unfocused eyes and slumped shoulders made him look as if he’d aged ten years in a single moment.
From then on, his grandfather stopped buying canned food or keeping bags by the front door. Until the day he graduated high school, all his grandfather did was sit gazing blankly into a television screen. He died in front of that television.
“He was dead when I came home one day. And right next to him stood a younger version of him. About the age I am now, the way he looked before he was taken to the concentration camp.”
His grandfather’s younger self kept agitatedly looking back and forth between his older self’s face and his grandson’s. The grandson slowly pointed to the door. When he nodded, his grandfather’s younger self, still with a confused expression, slowly walked toward it and departed. From a window, the grandson stared for a long time as his grandfather’s soul walked down the street, crossed the sunlit plaza, and disappeared into a wider realm.
“Grandfather had spent his whole life being terrified of a war that was long over, of a concentration camp that had long disappeared. It was only after he died when he could finally walk about the city freely,” he murmured.
I had to ask him. “Who was that older gentleman walking in one direction in the plaza?”
“Probably someone shot during the war,” he said. “I’ve seen him there often. He crosses the street and tries as hard as he can to go back home, but I think he lost so much blood that he died before he could make it.”
“I wonder why they can’t leave those terrible times behind. Whether in life or death.”
“Trauma. Probably.”
… If I could make a wish
I want to be just a little happier
If I become too happy
I will miss sadness
He occasionally hummed a song under his breath. I asked him what it was once, and he said he didn’t know. “Some song my grandfather sang often. Probably from the war.”
A long time later, I heard the song again in an old movie. It was about World War II and the Nazi concentration camps, and the main female protagonist slightly altered the lyrics of a Marlene Dietrich song.
Life
I love life
… I don’t know what I want but
I still expect a lot
In the movie, a woman imprisoned in a concentration camp seduces a Nazi officer in order to survive, serenading him half-naked. A life destroyed, not knowing what one wants, but loving life nevertheless—the lyrics resurrected my long-forgotten friend, and thoughts of him lingered for a long time.
*
The summer was short, and I had to go back. When I had only a few days left, I asked him a question.
“What is the sadness you miss that makes you want to be tied up?”
There was conflict in his gaze. It was a long time before he spoke.
“No one has asked me that before.”
“Are you happy when you’re tied up?” I asked.
“No,” he immediately replied. And then, after some thought, he added, “It feels safer when I’m tied up.”
“What feels safer?”
He always wanted me to tie him up as tightly as I could. It was clear he was in pain when I did, and there were red welts where the restraints had been when I untied him. Even if I was physically weaker than him, and even if I was his lover, I found it hard to believe that such tight knots made him feel safe.
Slowly, he whispered, “I feel like I’m being given permission to stay alive.”
His reply was somehow so heart-breaking that I tied him up with all my might.
*
When I met him again, he was still in the same apartment. It had been a long time and I couldn’t remember clearly, but his apartment seemed emptier and more desolate than before.
“I thought you’d be married by now,” I said.
“I almost was.”