Week 15: Elder Voices -- Gutema
Guardian Angel
By Sossina Gutema
Essex Middle School, Grade 6
From the Memory of Maria Avery
This is the story of my grandmother, Maria Avery who traveled with her family from Eger, which is now Chechoslavikia to West Germany. She was 11 years old at the time.
Every once in a while we have to cross the border from Eger (Czech) to West Germany. The point of these dangerous night time trips was to take our valuables to my Uncle’s house in West Germany.
The border was always heavily guarded and hazardous to cross, but if we didn’t get our stuff across ahead of time it would be taken by the guards at the border when we were finally forced to move. We’d made many trips before and had always been lucky and had never been caught. My mother even called me a Guardian Angel because she thought I brought good luck. But one particular night in the late Fall, we were almost to the border when suddenly voices echoed through the night.
“Stoy!” they called in Czech and we all dropped to the ground. I was traveling with four others, my uncle, cousin, brother, and mother. We were all walking a reasonable distance apart, too far to talk without calling. Gun shots whizzed through the air, every one sounded like it had only missed me by an inch. I was positive that I was going to die. Instead of being killed, my brother, uncle and I were all captured and taken by the guards. They were big, gruff, and mean as they marched us to a nearby cemetery. As we walked through, we passed many graves that were crooked and old and made spooky silhouettes against the bitter moonlight. We went into a small chapel located in the center of the cemetery, one of those little churches that they hold funerals in. I guess it was cold although I didn’t really notice because my thoughts left the graveyard and searched the field of tall grass for my mother. We didn’t know where she was which left my stomach in a huge knot and I couldn’t even ignore the sinking feeling of despair in my gut. I always felt better on these night walks when my mother was around; she made me feel safe and cared for. But we had no idea where she was, she could have been captured, or worse yet, killed.
We stayed in the chapel all night, the hours seemed to pass like years and the seconds like months, all I could think about was my mother. When morning finally broke over the horizon we were brought to another town. I was so confused. Why did they not kill us immediately, were they going to make an example of us? Fear, like thick smog, hung in the air around us as we were taken to a strange building. I suppose it could have been worse, they made us work, hard. The men were cutting and chopping wood and I would stack it carefully in a pile. If I was too slow or dropped a piece, the guard would smack me in the back of the knees with the butt of his gun making me fall to the ground, but I didn’t fight back, I only stood and continued my work. We soon fell into a pattern, swing, chop, stack, swing chop, stack, over and over. The wood felt lifeless in my hands, earlier it had belonged to a live and happy tree, now it was dead, possibly like my mother. The days melted together as I lost track of time. During the daylight I just worked and no thoughts entered my mind, like the sun created a barrier to keep away my fears, but at night fear and sorrow haunted my dreams. I thought constantly of my mother late at night when the moon was high.
Eventually they let us go, maybe they ran out of work for us to do, but they took all our stuff and let us go. Home was the only option, it was a long walk and my protective shield seemed to have disappeared. I thought about my mother, she was gone, I knew it, I could feel it in my heart. She wasn’t going to be there when we returned. With that thought I kept my hopes at a manageable level all the way back to the house. Home had never looked as welcoming as it slid into view, getting larger and larger as we approached. My heart beats slowed and my breathing increased with every step in the blessed direction. Home, was my only thought. Soon I’ll be home.
Joy is a playful thing. It shows itself in strange quantities, a different amount for every happy thought or feeling. Utter and complete joy was what I felt as I walked through our door, joy that filled me up and spilled out over my head. I’m sure one day that my mother will go to heaven just for being there when I got back. She said she’d heard the gun shots too, and thought we were all dead. That made me laugh, Death, that naughty trick, had entered all our minds. Mother had just gone and finished up the trip, taking what she was carrying to West Germany and coming home as planned. She was so sad and scared when we weren’t there. She’d cried and cried. But home was the place we’d all met again after being caught, scared, and almost killed, home. Sure we’d go on many more trips to Germany, and one day we’d move there, but captured was one thing we weren’t going to be again.
