a short memory

a short memory There were and still are two airports on the flatland outside of our town, therefore many German soldiers where stationed here. Since roads, and bridges had to be built and maintained there was good employment for everyone and the payment was good, but not much to spend the money on a German military band playing loudly in the park, a cinema showing heroic soldiers saving cats when not killing Russians, a couple of cafes selling what was called coffee, but made of roasted peas It was left to people, to go to meeting at Christian sects and that was OK by the Norwegian Nazis who were the moral police at the time Young Nazis joined a battalion called “Vikings” sent to fight the communist in Russia where most of them perished, those who made it back home, faced long jail terms for treason. After the war there was a great upsurge of people joining the communists, after all, the Russians had freed northern Norway of the enemy, Russia bought our fish and Soviet “workers” came, and told of how wonderful, the life of ordinary people was my mother, a well-read woman, small of stature, but vociferous about her new faith organized, with her brother, town hall meetings, until illness struck, and she was sent to a sanatorium up the mountain, the war had taken its toll she, when returning, was still a communist till Russia invaded Hungary in our working-class community, my mother cut an odd figure, had a lashing tongue did not tolerate fools, and lesser people feared her but we who loved her could not scare us we knew she had a soft heart