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35
The Coat
with a white circle, and in the centre a black spider sprawled over
the dented tin. I picked it up, transfixed. Oddly, Youssef recoiled.
‘It won’t bite,’ I teased.
‘Just leave it there,’ he said quietly, ‘I don’t like it.’
‘But its so cool! Go on–have a look.’
Youssef gingerly reached out a chalky finger and touched it, but
his face remained pinched with apprehension. Irritably, I fumbled
with the rusty pin and fastened it crookedly to my shirt.
‘If you don’t want it, then I’ll have it and I think I’ll keep it there.’
I pointed defiantly to the fabric on my chest.
‘I think I’ll go home now,’ he coughed up quietly.
Why didn’t he appreciate what I had found?
As I trudged home, it seemed like the pin gave me a new light. I
had always been shunned as soon as people looked into my
dangerously coloured eyes. But the pin seemed to change that....
people held the door open, they moved aside for me as I walked
along the footpath.
That was only the beginning. From then on I became obsessed. I
persuaded my mother to let me join the Hitler Youth. Greed and
power conquered my naïve mind, its cancerous tentacles squirming
into every part of my mind. Willing to sacrifice everything to wear
that coat – the one that matched my pin.
I charged my way through military school and before I knew it,
my arm had slipped into that hot, savage sleeve of glory. I was now
someone the new world recognised and respected. I forgot myself
in that stiff iron-pressed coat.
I learnt quickly to kill in cold blood; believing it best for the
world to purify the German race. I climbed the mountain of ranks
step by step and would not rest until I reached the summit. I learnt
to see the smears of dirt on the fabric of the world. I learnt to fix
things with a gun and a trigger.
I gripped my status so hard, the blood drained from my knuckles
until they were ghostly white. And stupidly – I never let go. Not
even during the gassing or shootings or even when I saw my mother
die or my best friend fall. I didn’t bother to reach out and catch
them for the fear of letting go of what I idiotically valued so much,
revealing the pungent stench of a Jew.
’
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