Ranting Elders (cont'd)

Ranting Elders  (cont'd)

       by Douglas Elder Sr.

              old is as old does

       I said no, but she kept going anyway. I straightened my dress. I liked it. Pretty pink material with a few little white flowers scattered and green flower stems around the neck and encircling the puff sleeves near the shoulder. I had bought it at The Forks. Rita Kinsmith's. They have nice things there for young women, I told the old lady. She nodded and got back to the march. I didn't want to hear about the march but she said she was Jewish.

       "I was in Buchenwald," she said. I said what was that and she said it was a concentration camp. I didn't have much concentration just now I said with a smile to myself. But she went on to tell me.

       "The paper said that when the Americans and the other allies came to Treblinka and Buchenwald they found 348,000 dresses there and 173,000 men's suits. The shoes to go with them, too. All in a pile. That's how many Jews they killed there." I looked at her, too, now, interested, even though I didn't want to encourage her.

       I had heard of this before, but to see what she would say, and to hear from someone who knew more about it, I asked, "Why did they kill them?" I asked, too, "How did they die?"

       She said, "The showers," and told me about gas and soap and such, how men and women and children where given bars of soap and told to go to the showers to wash themselves. They would have really wanted to clean up after the dirty and scary train ride and then they were killed in the showers. Lots of them just falling down and dying in piles in the corners. So terrible. I hate to think about it. I won't be able to sleep very well because I know what happens to me when I have a bad story in my mind. I keep it out but it comes back when I am almost asleep and can't control it.

       Anyway, she told me of the shoes, lots of shoes, most in huge piles, and some others lined up. I thought of the shells I have lined up in my house. My sister Lana plays with them and disarranges them but I don't mind much. She is forty something and not too smart. She has neurological damage and can't go to the toilet or bathe alone. My mom has to help her. Anyway, I line these up again when I come home if she has been in my room.

       "What did they keep the shoes for?" I asked her. No answer. 
        She said, "I don't know everything about it but I know they had the shoes, that is all." Her own shoes were quite old-looking. Black. A little scuffed about the toes. Small. Her nylons were too big for her skinny legs. They didn't fit very well. No one would have wanted them. No one would have wanted her dress either. A funny blue with maroon letters on the collar. "Meme," it said. I didn't know why. Why would it say "Meme," I wondered to myself.

       "Did you read about that Chief Stevensom of the Peguis reserve?" she said. I said that I hadn't.

       "He makes more than Murray or even Doer," she said. "Why would they give him so much money if he is in charge of only a small town. He travelled quite a bit. Seventy thousand dollars worth."

       That would be about fifty long trips, I thought. One every week. The old woman said, "You should read the papers sometimes. You learn about the wonders of the world that way." But my bus stopped at St. B. and I got up to get off. She smiled at me and her hat looked funny from the top. I said that I had enjoyed talking to her but inside I was glad to be leaving. I even waved to her through the window and she waved back as the bus went down Marion towards St. Mary's.