When the Allies and the Axis Both Lie Within

“I once took on the name Fred Gray. I was British… but not, quite…”

When all the words burned in the fireplace, the crackle sound tangled every inch of space in the room. An old man sitting in the rocking chair, wrapped safely in a blanket, faced the fireplace. The light caressed every wrinkle – like the growth ring on an ancient tree – adorning his experienced face. A younger man, his son, sat patiently on the couch, his back facing the light of the fire as he watched carefully at the movements of his father’s face. 

“It was a brutal world,” the old man continued. “And to be Jewish and of German descent was a contradiction of identity that made things even more brutal… and so to become British meant a higher chance of survival.

***

        The chilly, howling wind quickly swallows any remaining heat from Manfred Gans’s body.  For a moment, he marvels at the sight of his white breath, until he is pushed into a line by a jostling crowd.

“Listen! Please stay in the line and keep quiet.”

The only scene occupying his eyes is of the union jack on the chest of the soldier.

The man stands tall and commands, “You have signed up for dangerous duty. You have five minutes to choose a new name and tidy all your things. You are now in the X Troop. You will become new.”

Manfred shivers his head and moves his gaze further to the ground. He cherishes his name as the identity of his family, but he also knows that fighting for the British is his only way to get out from the camp, and to find his parents. When the metal buttons of the commander’s belt generate sound from his movements, Manfred hears only one word next:  “Name?”

“Fred,” his voice is low – it is the shortened version of his given name.

“Surname?” Manfred is not even given the chance to grab a breath, the question chasing behind him.

He stares hard at the sunlit-reflected tip of the man’s boots and falls into deep silence. The man opens a telephone directory and, with arbitrary grace announces, “Gray – from now on, you’re Fred Gray.” A green beret is placed on his head.

Fred puts his old clothes and his old beliefs into an envelope, and marvels at the fact that his whole life fits within 7 inches by 4 inches, the envelope’s  thickness is  less than an inch.   He doesn’t know if he will embrace these symbols of his identity again, but in the not too far future, this old life will change the fate of himself and his men.

***

Fred squats in the corner of an undulating ship, the heavy breath of people mixing with the splashing of water creating clattering sounds that hurt his ears. Here, in the cabin of a moving ship, hundreds of people are crammed in like an overstuffed match box. Within this heaving crowd of people huddles Fred, totally unable to move.

A dead silence surrounds.

Fred sees his companions staring hollow at the stain on the wall. Many of them have entangled their guns closely within their arms, and their fingers unconsciously rub the cold metal.

Rather than fixate on the impending doom that will meet them at the beach, Fred tries to shift his focus by counting the time. There is no watch nor clock for him to be exact.

The last he knew, the time was June 5, 1944.

With the engines roar, and the incessant jolting finally subsides – Fred knows they have arrived. Moments later, the piercing sound of the gunfire shattering the sky, crescendos within the terror of screams that  mute the waves crashing against the shore. Fred feels the shaking, not from the sea, but from the people around him.

He murmurs one last time: “I love you” to the imagined figures of his parents standing with him.

Fred takes off from the ship and runs up the beach, his men following desperately behind him. His nose is assaulted by a pungent, rusty odor. When he feels a strange softness under his feet, he is horrified to discover that he now balances on human bodies.

He runs, until his path is suddenly blocked by the pairings of numerous feet.

When he looks up, Fred discovers gray uniforms, his eyes telescope sharp as they land on the black eagle and swastikas pinned on the chest of these soldiers. One of his men breathed to him: “Fred, there is no more place to run. What do we do?”

But Fred is already enacting his plan. He shouts: "Jungs!" Gib mir deine Waffen und zeig mir, wo die Minen liegen (Boys! Give me your guns and show me where the mines are laid)” in idiomatic German.

The words spill out from Fred like nature, and though the German soldiers spot the green in the beret, the tones of voice are all they need to know if this is friend or foe. Satisfied, they point toward where the mines are laid.

In that moment, the envelope ruptures, and the identity deeply constrained within his vessel finds a way out as he speaks his mother tongue. Manfred Gans captures the crucial intel for the bombs, and Fred Gray is spared, with his men, for another day.

***

“It was the longest day of my life.” The old man watched hard as the wood vanished in the fire.

Daniel Gans – the son – walked to his father and tangled his arm around him to feel the warmth.

He says firmly, “I love you, Dad, eine Menge (a lot).”