Germany, 1940
I crouch uncomfortably in the cloakroom, as quiet and still as the walls around me. I am huddled into a corner, each shoulder pressed firmly to the cold tiles of the wall. I am completely blind in this room, there is no sense of up or down. I just sit, floating in the blackness; swimming in the silence; drowning in the trembling embrace of the walls enveloping me.
Waiting.
Old receipts and bus tickets crunch beneath my weight, scattered dryly on the floor like autumn leaves. They have fallen from the pockets of the coats above me, coats that hold empty faces and the mysterious lives of strangers. They rustle ominously as I try to move from my corner, wrestling with me as I desperately attempt to pull my lame leg behind me and fight towards the door. Hot fingers of panic wrap around my throat as a frenzied anxiety sets in and I collapse back to the ground sobbing, raking bitter air into my lungs and choking it back out as the coats suffocate me, and my cries engulf me. Heavy tears shatter on the floor like teacups and I realise just how fragile I am. A cripple can't survive on their own.
Dad promised he would be back. 'Ten minutes,' he had said. 'Wait here,'
I still remember the warmth of his smooth fingertips on my cheek, his earnest gaze cutting through me like soft ice cream. I melt into his hands and say 'Don't be long.'
But now it feels as if I've slipped through his fingers. It feels like I've been here for hours in this timeless place with only the hollow crowd of coats for company. They are flat, limbless, lifeless people: each with a purpose, each shrugged carelessly onto a hook and abandoned in this cloakroom. Their empty fingers stretch down to reach me, pleading for me to be strangled by their warmth. I'm so cold. But Dad told me not to touch anything.
So I stay, shivering mercilessly, every point of my small body pressed harshly into the carpet. When I finally stand, hours later, I marvel that I haven't left an imprint on the floor. My tongue scrapes against my lips, feeling like dry leather in my mouth as I start to crave a drink.
The line of light from the opening door slices through my vision like a hot knife. I cringe away from it, stepping back into the wall of coats that murmur at my return, snagging my hair and clothes with their buttons. A dark silhouette stands tall and solidly in the door frame. He is a pencil of a man. He is neatly combed hair and rough callous hands. He is a uniform. He is a symbol.
A scream climbs my throats as he confidently steps into the light and I see the swastika burned into my eyes like a hell-raised stamp. Dad wouldn't do this. He wouldn't do this!
But the evidence is in front of me clear as day.
The Gestapo.