Living with your nose amidst death like that, every ânormalâ moment in the war is etched in your mind . . . but now, in the post-war life, it seems my life can never retrieve that intensity, as if the normal is now suddenly deathly. Meaningless. I yearn for the war, yes, pining for that vividness! A firmament of sorrow envelopes my thoughts.
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Even if the new isnât really new, itâs always new for those who, ceaselessly, wash up on the worldâs shores, generation after generation, wave after wave. So, in order to find yourself in life, to not lose yourself on the path, you must listen to the voice of duty. To think too much about yourself is to falter. Whoever understands this secret has the potential to live in peace. But itâs easier said than done.
One child said he slept outside because the house was filled with the cries of nightmares. The doctor had the impression that no conversation took place in houses anymore, only vicious discipline, orders and brutal teasing.
You know, we all came out of the war aged, dearest Anna, with a sense of life and death that does not exist in normal lives. So, how does one look forward if all that exists as soft-weeping wounds? You cannot imagine any future . . . You just lie. And wait.
It was on patrol. I was on the left flank, & dismounted Voska to inspect some tracks when a Tommy suddenly emerged from behind a taaibos. We were both frozen in shock, each with his loaded rifle in hand. I believe we both thought the same thought: He could be me. That was the first time I shot somebody down from such proximity. Though I recount it now, I possess no visual memory of it. Before, during & after, everything is missing. Only the words with which I am reporting here, remain.
War eludes grasping. It is as if you & the men around you perpetually strive to impose order on the chaos of something untransmittable. Only men like De Wet, you think, comprehend the war to its full extent. We, beset daily by events that defy reality, can later make no sense of anything. We are merely a crumb tumbling in a saddlebag as somebody gallops away.
I see God comes towards me through mud.
God has no ears.
He stares with blunt & lashless eyes.
Listen. Donât try building a metaphysical German underground for what was nothing more than schoolgirl mice-nests. Would that I rather did my schoolwork properly! Fortunately, the everyday chaff of inappropriate yearnings cleared up like a fog at university.
Donât know if I am getting better or dying. The children say that I keep saying the same things over and over. Thatâs true. But my days are so barren that I sometimes think: How in Godâs name can this be regarded as a life? Is there not a way to bypass it? I drill all around me, but my life is as small and bare as a penny.