Through My Eyes. Again
Copyright© 2019 by Iskander
Chapter 2
Monday 15th October 1962 – Early December 1962
My eyes flicked open and sighed. I was still in my childhood bedroom.
How had I survived the continuous tension of my life here?
My father would have left early to catch a train to work in London and I wouldn’t have to face him on weekday mornings. My young brain’s habits readied me for school. After breakfast, I walked up the road to catch a number seven bus. Passing a pair of new houses, I saw the wall Col had been sitting on was the garden wall of my Colin’s home. I stopped across from what had been his house. A young man came out of the front door, accompanied by a woman with a toddler on her hip. The man gave the woman a kiss, patted the toddler on the head, got in the car and drove off. It was not my Col’s family.
A deep sense of loss descended on me: my Col, my only childhood friend, didn’t exist in this world. I saw the woman across the road watching me with curious eyes and turned and walked on. I would have to make do with the new Col, and though he was not my closest friend from back home, he was kind, and that had to mean something.
At school, the bullies were there as expected, but I reacted differently. I ignored their taunts as we waited for school to start and got out my book and read. The leader, a tousled blond boy, started shoving me. I pushed back, but the bell sounded in time. The glare we shared foreshadowed unfinished business.
Schoolwork was easy, given the level of education I carried in my old brain. I tore through everything in front of me. By the end of the first lesson, Mr. Maple, my Maths teacher, had questions in his eyes. He had chided me about showing all the proper working as I skipped calculation steps but gave each of my solutions a tick as he walked round checking them.
Next period in French, as I completed an oral translation with few missteps, Mr. Partington nodded. “Très bien, Will.” He sounded puzzled at my sudden improvement.
Later in music, Mr. Armitage placed an LP on the turntable and told us to listen and think of the pictures the music created in our heads.
“Tchaikovsky sixth.” I muttered to myself as the music started.
Mr. Armitage’s eyes watched me and I dropped my head to stare at the floor. As class ended, he looked across at me, but I slipped out in the press of students.
I would have to be very careful about showing my knowledge and intellectual skills – assuming I was marooned in this world, which seemed likely.
On the number seven (hooray) bus trip home, I worried at my situation. If I were stuck here, I needed to find out how different this world was, but there was no Internet, Google or Wikipedia in 1962. My parents still had a newspaper delivered each day, so I would have to read that. This was a problem. I had never done so in my previous childhood.
I was still hoping this was some complicated dream. Then an awful thought occurred to me.
Doesn’t your life pass in front of you when you die? Was I doing that?
For a minute, my mind worried at this possibility – until the differences in this world brought that train of thought to a halt.
I would not be reliving such a different world whilst I died, would I?
As I seemed stuck here, I must act as if this were a permanent arrangement or there could be big problems. Fortunately, I had all the experience of my ‘old’ brain to make it work. Pondering this almost caused me to miss my stop and I had to rush to the exit as the doors closed.
“Pay attention, young ‘un.” The driver’s voice was surly as he recycled the doors.
I walked down the road, giving what had been Col’s house in my old life an intense scan, but nothing struck me as different – except it held the wrong family. I carried on past my house and turned into Sea View Road, before knocking on Col’s door.
“Willi, welcome. Come in.” Frau Schmidt smiled.
Col helped me hang up my coat.
“Do you have schoolwork to finish, Willi?”
“Yes, Frau Schmidt.”
“Sit down at the table and you can do it there. I will help Col, but he will do the same work and you will learn the German and Col, the English.”
I worked on my Maths problems. Frau Schmidt gave Col a pencil and paper and insisted he did the same work. I found to my delight I could help Col once I understood the different way he wrote some numbers. Also, I was learning the German for the work as Frau Schmidt explained to Col what he had to do.
Once we had finished, Frau Schmidt provided us both with a slice of cake and a glass of milk – and the double-sided language lesson continued.
That set the course of my days as autumn slid into winter. I avoided my father as much as possible and so kept out of trouble. I knew a major confrontation and beating was inevitable and this reality slunk along beside me, a dark shadow. My mother was an intelligent woman and sensed something different about me, but couldn’t put her finger on what it was. I hoped she would pass it off as part of puberty and growing up.
Each day, I smuggled the previous day’s newspaper up to my room. This was easy to do as they piled old newspapers onto a stack beside the kitchen door. I could slip the top one into my school bag as I passed, returning it later. The writing style differed from that of 2020 and the reporting was far more restrained. Each day I would spend half an hour going through the paper, searching my memory for things that jarred. Part of my problem was I hadn’t been into world events and politics until later in my teens and so what was being reported was new to my old brain. I didn’t even remember the Mariner 2 flyby of Venus, which surprised me when it happened in December. My addiction to space must have developed later than I thought.
But I worried about what I would do if I found something different. My primary fear was this world would descend into nuclear madness and there seemed to be precious little I could do about it as a teenager. Life struggled on, even if my inner life was strange by any normal standards.
An explanation of what had happened – was happening – eluded me. I knew this was a different world, but it occurred to me Col and Frau Schmidt in this world could be significant, as they had defected to the west. None of this had happened in my world where Col was English.
Most afternoons, I walked to Col’s house after school. Col and I would sit at the table and I would do my homework with him. Frau Schmidt would listen to music and act as translator and guide as our knowledge of each other’s language deepened. I tried very hard not to ‘learn’ too fast. But as Christmas approached, Frau Schmidt commented to my mother about my ‘remarkable language ability’ when they met on the High Street. Col’s English improved as well, although he still spoke with a noticeable German accent.
We were sitting at the table, homework finished one day, chatting.
“Willi, how about we meet in town after school tomorrow? There’s something I want to show you.”
“Okay.”
Col smiled, delighted at my agreement. “Where shall we meet?”
“How about in the library? That way, whoever gets there first can stay warm and dry while they wait.”
The next day, I caught a number six bus into the town and then walked to the library. I found Col and greeted him in German. The young librarian at the desk heard me and sniffed.
“I wonder what her problem is?” I asked Col, still speaking German. As my ‘relearned’ German was better than Col’s English, we spoke more German than English.
Col sighed. “Willi, you must understand many people suffered in the war and blame the Germans for that. Some of them cannot move past that. Mutti and I have talked about it and I can see it happening when people realise I am German.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No, but I am German, Willi.” His shoulders slumped in resignation.
I changed the subject. “Come on, what is it you want to show me?”
Col’s face brightened into a smile. “Oh, wait until you see this. It’s the most...” He stopped, realising he was about to give away his surprise. Instead, he grabbed my hand and pulled me out onto the street. At Col’s urging, we almost ran a few hundred yards out of the main shopping area until we came to a car showroom. Col stopped and pointed at the car in the main display area. There, under bright lights, crouched the sleekest sports car: a Jaguar E-type coupé resplendent in British racing green and glistening chrome.
“Wow.” I breathed.
“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Col sighed. “Do you think we could go in?”
I doubted the salesmen would want a pair of schoolboys putting their fingers all over their gleaming centrepiece, but they could only say no. I grabbed Col’s hand and we walked over to the car. Everyone must have been busy, as at first no-one noticed. We walked around this vision of automobile pulchritude, staring at our faces reflected and distorted in the chrome and polished paintwork. We peered round the driver’s window at the leather upholstery and polished walnut dashboard.
“You like this car, do you?” A deep, rumbling voice almost had us leap over the car in fright. We both swivelled round to find a huge bear of a man standing there watching us with a crooked smile; a scar ran from his right eye to pull at the corner of his mouth.
I swallowed twice. “We haven’t touched it, sir.”
“That’s all right, boys.” He looked us over and we must have passed inspection, for he leant past us and opened the driver’s door. “Would you like to sit in her?”
I pushed Col forward, speaking English. “Go on, Col, it’s your car.”
Col’s gaze was devouring it.
“Go on, get in, but don’t touch anything.”
His voice was so deep, it rumbled inside me. Col’s eyes widened with uncertainty.
“Mach weiter, Dummie.” The German slid from me without thinking. Col frowned, but climbed into the car. I caught a sour glance from the salesman.
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