The bigger children are playing army. They’re using sticks for pretend rifles. A boy I don’t know is the commander.I find a rifle and join the game. We do left right left attention at ease salute. I don’t really understand left right left. Everyone walks left right left. There’s no other way to walk.A boy grabs my rifle. I don’t bother fighting over it. It’s not worth the trouble. Anyhow the game is boring. The commander is doing the same thing over and over.I run to the Room and show Daddy attention at ease salute. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like the whole army business. I ask him did you fight in the army? and he says not exactly. He doesn’t want to tell me. There was something else I had to ask him but I forget.Our First Year23 January 1949. We are now living in dispersed areas in the few good buildings that were left standing in the village. Living quarters assigned of course in conformity with needs of security. A spooky and unpleasant process to stumble home in the dark and rainy night, with a glaring battery light and all sorts of looming and unfamiliar ruins seeming to crowd forward on every side.Some of us still get lost from time to time on the unfamiliar paths, complicated terraces and treacherous rubble.
