The Eyes
The Nazis drove into our small city.They looked comfortable and happy. They looked around as if the city already belonged to them.
A translator announced that from now on, everyone had to register and receive a special identification paper.
I spoke German. It had been part of our school program.
Because of that, I was ordered to work as a maid in the house where one of the female secretaries lived.
She was a German woman in her thirties.
She had a lot of clothes, and my job was to organize them and keep everything clean.
She was calm and confident. She read books and studied our language.
Sometimes we talked.
One day she told me that our land was going to be redesigned for new German settlements.
That was the work of her company.
She asked me questions and promised that I would not be sent to Germany as a slave if I listened to her and behaved well.
I promised.
And then I began secretly watching her.
She was having a romance with one of the soldiers.
They met secretly.
And I secretly listened to them.
One evening, while I was listening, I realized something.
The German woman was afraid.
I could hear it in the tone of her voice.
“We are not going to stay here,” she said. “They are watching us like animals, ready to attack.”
The soldier tried to calm her.
He promised her that they would soon achieve victory over the Soviets.
He promised they would get married.
But the woman began to whisper.
She was talking about civilizations in the West, about different wars, and about the resistance here.
I stopped being afraid of her.
Something had changed in me.
Every look I gave them, every step I took, was the look and walk of an animal ready to attack.
Then the Germans began leaving.
They were running away.
The woman hurriedly pushed her clothes into her suitcases.
“Help me,” she said.
I didn't move.
I looked at her.
There was so much anger in my eyes that they no longer looked human.
They were the eyes of something wild.
Something ready to attack.
For the first time, she didn't say anything.
She quietly grabbed her suitcases and ran toward the truck.
Soon, our city was liberated by our army.
