The rainbow never sets

speak. "There doesn't seem to be a way out."

"This can't be the end!" I was getting quite anxious. "Günter in the army, I at the FLAK, you here, it doesn't make sense." After a pause É "We belong together, and we belong together here. This is where my roots are, the roots of my being! Our beautiful world, our childhood's paradise!"

I sat back and stopped trying to hold back my tears, which had pressed against my eyes and my voice box. I cried, and cried. Tears of a child rebelling at the adult. Tears that knew subconsciously, that neither the past, nor the present, could be retrieved.

After a while I felt renewed. All the tension of the last months seemed to have gone. Then I looked up. The last Christmas candle was still shining brightly.

"There is light, there is hope, Mutter, there must be! I can see the colours of the rainbow reflected in the chandelier."

At that moment I felt very adult. The student in me was pushed right into the background, the soldier seemed to have won the day.

It was to be the last time I stayed in our beloved home. Soon after breakfast on Christmas morning, I had to leave. Vater had asked Franek, our playmate of old, to take me in our dockar, a sulky, directly to Battery 213 near Posen. Vater described the way carefully, so that we would not get lost, for I had to be back before noon. I was amazed how quickly we got there, in less than two hours. By train it would have taken me more than half a day.

I thanked Franek for his kindness and sent him off to have his Christmas dinner.

I took my rucksack with my things, including some of the Christmas presents and walked towards our barracks. I had stopped the sulky some distance before the gate. I didn't want to give my mates an opportunity to make any comments about my feudal background.

The inside of our barrack was devoid of any Christmas decorations. It was rather dingy inside, stepping in from the snow-covered outdoors. My room mates were going about their leisure activities. I stowed my stuff in my corner, got out some of the Christmas biscuits from home, and offered them around.

"Happy Christmas to you all." "These are good. Where did you get them?" "From home. My mother made them." "No doubt about you bods from the country. The war doesn't seem to have affected you at all. Some people are lucky."

"Yeah. Have another one." I really didn't want to be here. The others lived all in the city, which was such a different lifestyle from ours. I was feeling lonely and sad. I was thinking of my family back home, the only place I wanted to be. So I curled up with a book from the night before and read.

Boxing day was also free from duties, very boring with too much time

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