I know the German's pretty awful- it was pretty much me and a wörterbuch and my textbook. ^_~ Do tell me if it's completely and utterly off; the first one translates to 'The boy has lit a match', and the second, "He spoke nonsense."
Anyway, any and all comments appreciated. ^_^
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Das Junge hatte ein Streichholz angezündet.
Holger was standing at the window with his hands at his sides, bandages falling from his forearms like greasy streamers, the flesh beneath his nails purple with cold. The hospital gown was a flimsy, flimsy thing- something scratchy and thin with more resemblance to paper than cloth.
The nurse tapped at the door with her pen and stepped in from the hallway, a roll of cloth in her arms. She was short, much too short, with shoes much too big for her- they shuffled behind her as she walked forward. Her uniform hung off of her like window curtains; corpse-gray to match her cheeks.
She gestured to his arms. “We will put on,” she said.
“They hurt.”
“No hurt.”
“It’s very itchy.”
“Itchy? This is meaning….”
Holger held up his hand and scratched the back of it, creating angry little red streaks.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. Strands of dull blonde hair fell out from underneath her cap and drifted to the floor. “Not ‘itchy’. We will put on.”
The nurse took his fingers between her hands and rubbed back and forth, tsking and muttering.
When she had let go he sat on the edge of the bed and sighed, watching her grasping at a small box- his box. There was a padlock on the front. The key was round her neck, and when she stuck it into the lock there was a small click and then, for a moment, near-reverent silence.
Seven small vials of creams were arranged in scrap-paper packaging, held upright so they would not leak. Seven small vials that the rest of the hospital did not know existed; seven small vials given to him directly from the Kommandant.
“You are a good boy, Holger. You have made your family proud. You have made Germany proud.”
They were expensive- a fistful of Marks, each. Things the others would kill for.
The nurses’ shoes struck the floor with a loud clap, and they both jumped. She muttered something in Polish and bid him hold out his arms whilst she peeled the bandages away, her arms winding, spiraling around his.
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Er sprach Quatsch.
Juliek had never had a mother.
He had never had a father, either- or sisters, or brothers. Or grandparents. It had always been just Juliek, by himself.
He didn’t mind this. It was easier, being alone- no one to stare or ask questions or tell you to stop fidgeting.
Juliek lived in the closet of Mrs. Feingold’s dead husband. It was warm, but dusty and full of moths and spiders. They’d sleep on Juliek when he slept, and then they’d all awake and disperse, like many of the real families in town- leaving for work in motorcars and walking to school with lunchpails and then all coming back as the sun was setting, greeting each other with kisses and dinner plates.
The spiders never brought kisses and dinner plates. That was the only different thing- Mrs. Feingold brought dinner plates, but she was shifty and nervous and always had red lipstick on her teeth. Her house was dark, with the shutters drawn- she dressed up, made up every day, with barely enough light to guide her brushes.
Juliek was certain Mrs. Feingold was dead – her neighbors buried in a heap of rubble, naught but rag and bone beneath books, scriptures, fallen timber.
He had been down by the river the day the men with broken crosses on their arms had come to town, guns to their shoulders. The door to Mrs. Feingold’s house had been open, shutters withdrawn. A few of them were on their knees in her bedroom, pulling jewelry from drawers and putting it into piles of gold, of silver, of gemstone.
Mrs. Feingold was crying. Juliek couldn’t see her, but could hear her- she was in his closet, hands tied together with rope.
“Frowny crossmen been bleeding you?”
“Go away, boy. Hide.”
“Hide-hide, cover eyes?”
Her breath shuddered and she nodded, eyes pouring.
One of the men turned round, a pearl necklace falling between his fingers. “Who are you talking to?” He had a rough voice; foreign. He raised his gun.
“He’s nothing, he can’t speak…he’s an idiot. Don’t hurt him.”
“He must be miserable, being undesirable- wouldn’t it be better?”
Her voice was gasping, weak. “Oh, no, he is happy, so happy! Don’t hurt him. Please, don’t hurt him.”
The gun kicked into his shoulder and fired, missing Juliek entirely. It instead hit the ceiling where it bore long, spidery cracks that spread and spread, leaving plaster snowing for long afterward.
Mrs. Feingold began to sob.
Juliek shuffled quickly down the stairwell and out into the street, where he sat and brushed dust from his hair.
A motorcar soon came rolling along and honked. He got up and scuttled away to the alcove in front of the synagogue- a small room filled with coats, hanging from bars, from chairs. He sunk to the ground and pulled one around his shoulders- a woman’s, with fur. It smelled of perfume.
Someone was singing. Juliek pressed his ear to the door and listened hard: to the breathing and occasional wails of babies and of muttering in a strange language he couldn’t quite make out.
He heard the first screams, but he did not see who lit the match.
--I was looking forward to this. I think it's wayy to short to get your full meaning out.
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