A Common Enemy

Forced to take him in, the man hates the boy: young, foreign, alive—unlike his own son. With German too good to toil in a camp, the boy translates documents for the Nazis.

Each day, the man and the boy eat a meagre evening meal in silence. “Danke,” the boy whispers, after.

One evening, when the hue of clouds promise snow, the boy is late. The man paces the kitchen until he returns, face split and torn.

“Sit,” the man says.

Cleaning the wounds, the man talks, the boy too, words of a common enemy uniting them.

Outside snow falls.

The boy knows the man hates him, knows he is a forced reminder of a son not long dead. Fluent in German, he is spared the camps, spends his days translating documents for the Nazis.

The man’s house is steeped in silence, except for the boy’s “Danke” after each meagre meal.

One evening, the threat of snow low in the sky, a hand grabs the boy, splits and tears his face. He stumbles back, arrives around midnight.

“Sit,” the man says.

Cleaning the wounds, the man talks, the boy too, words of the common enemy uniting them.

Outside snow falls.