Russia, July the 1st, 1945.
The old german steam engine pulled the passenger train which would drive Hans to a foreing and distant land. His fate, was not of the prisoner, because his dad travelled with him and, as all boys, stuck his nose on the glass.
Under the serene gaze of Hans seas of corn surrounded islands of forests, houses like ships sailed in small convoys and beyond the horizon the infinite Russia. Only, here and there a derelict tank or a ruined farm would commit treason against the buccolic fantasy who developed in the boy's mind. Still worse were the conversations Hans was begining to understand.
- "Is it true what they say about kid?" A young sergant asked with hushed words.
- "Don't worry, he can't understand anything. Yes, he was German". Answered a more seasoned comrade.
- "Was?"
- "Yes, was. Remember that if you don't want problems with Captain Bogdan".
The young man was about to screw his finger on his head to signal the young officer as crazy but his movement was cut try by the old man's cold words.
- "He saved my children and the lifes of half of this company. If he says his boy has ressurected I would let him baptize me. Do you think you know about war? He already got the Order of the Red Banner defending Moscow in 1941. He had seen nobody should see and he has survived more or less sane..."
As the conversation wandered to other matter Hans returned to his own thoughts. Now he had a Russia name: Ivan Bogdanovich, and a communist man call him son; everything that he had hated loved him. Worst of all, Hans considered himself a traitor of the most nefarious kind and so his eyes wandered in the landscape flying his mind away to the never ending ocean of land.
Sat on the roof of a the car, barefoot, next to a pile of German sausages, bread, real chocolate and butter, Bogdan sang like the small kid he once was. "I have recovered my little angel, my Ivan. He will be a good boy again. In one year nobody will think he is German, nor even God would care. He is not German, No!, He was not. He is my Ivan, forever, that's all. I would help myself another sausage". Those were the thoughts of a man who could be then a little bit crazy, but in his defense let me tell you that this was the last time he acted so merrily weird.
One hour later, as the sun set on the horizon, Hans and Bogdan were sitting in front of each other in a department they share with two other people. There were a grandmother and her granddaughter who lied her head on the old woman's lap and a pile of every conceveible baggaged which squeezed Hans to the window. Men being men, remained quiet but the the inquisitve mind of the little girl and the biblical patience of her granny have kept them in a long, slow chat who had continued for two hours. Buni, why this or what happened that, or how do you call that, and so on.
It waws then that the train engineer, concerned at the sorry state of the rails slowed down in the outskirts of the corpse of a small town which had been burnt down to ruins. The train held its breath as the setting sun bathed in red light the blackened walls and the charred frams of houses, shops, theaters and churches. It was then when only the forgotten motion of steel on steel defied the forebodding silence than only the little girl braved to defy.
- "Granny, why did the germans do that?"
She made that question every time that she approached her old town and every time her granny answered gave the same answer.
- "Because they have a heart of brimstone and hell they will inherit.
Hans, who had seen the devastation and understood more than half of the words, struggled with all his soul not to to fall in tears with such a determintaion that he would have been victorious had not the girl made one last question.
- "Granny". She said in a loud voice. "Why is that kid so sad?"
- "Shh..." He grandmother answered. "Leave him alone, maybe the evil Germans killed his mom".
It was then that, sticking his face to the window Hans started to sob like a puppy thrown to a stream.
- "Ivan, son, let me take you".
With these words his dad took Hans in his arms and carried the boy away to the corridor where, embraced, they waited for the rising moon.
As the dim white light covered them, Hans forgot his name and his land and baptized himself Ivan ; adopted Bogdan as his father and prayed his birth parents, wherever they could be, alive or death would forgive him.
Hans, who was born an abandoned child had resurrected as the loved Ivan embraced to his dad till the beating of their hearts became as one.
