In the dim lighting of the low-ceilinged room I watched Therese as she filtered the hot water into a carafe for coffee. The water had just finished heating on the wood burning stove in the corner and was ready for coffee and cake-time with her circle of old-lady friends from the village . Her arthritically knobby hands made coffee the way they must have made it when she was a child in that house—a house that hadn’t been refurbished (it seemed) since after the Second World War. Wide, unfinished wood planks lined the floor on which stood an old bureau filled with her china for entertaining. On a wide wooden dresser against the wall stood a yellowed card—folded out against the mirror—that showed a picture of a handsome young man in German military uniform. A year before I had asked her who it was as I picked up the card and noticed the Reich emblem embedded on the bottom and the eulogy for the Fatherland.

He had been the fiancé of the wife of Uncle Fritz—who was killed before they ever married.

“Apparently he had another admirer,” my Aunt quipped when she saw the card.

Shortly after that the room was filled with clucking old ladies speaking in the harsh dialect of the region firing questions in my direction: Why aren’t you married? Why are you so thin? Where are your sisters? Will they join us? How do you know Fritz? How do you know Susan (my Aunt)? Do they starve you in America? Don’t go to Russia (I was on my way in that direction that summer)—you will die like our men did during the war.

“Or come back without any toes! It’s so cold!” Therese howled with her mouth in a familiar puckered shape with her head tilted to the right. “That’s what happened to my brother!”

I laughed. “It’s not cold in the summer,” I said in German. Only I said it in what is called “high” German—not Malscherish. Malscherish is the dialect of the village. So where High German says “Ja” for “Yes”, people in Malsch say “Hi-yo” for “yes”.

Yeah—not very similar.

So when the ladies started talking about Helga and her sheep, (who lived across the street from Uncle Fritz) I jumped right in to discuss how Helga’s sheep had all been shorn just the other day.

As I relayed this information I noticed, slowly, that the women’s faces began to cloud with horror. One woman clasped her throat and her mouth dropped open. My aunt had a confused and concerned expression on her face. Therese tisked and moaned over the corner--- what the?

The women kept gasping and shaking their heads. Turning to my aunt I hissed through my teeth:

“What’s going on? Did I say something wrong?”

“Um, you know my German isn’t exactly fluent and my Malscherish is even worse—but I’m pretty sure you just said….”

Pause.

“That Helga cut off all the legs of her sheep.”