The Wheel of God
Arend Wieman
Chapter 1 The War After The War
Germany had lost the war, and to many of us young men who had served in any of the forces and were fortunate enough to make it home again in one piece, an almost hopeless, empty and sometimes terrible time followed. A war of a different kind seemed to hound us now like a faint shadow of a full moon during a cloudless night following the lonely wanderer in the field, and it could not be warded off with guns or other weaponry we soldiers had been trained to use. Yet, this conflict, this battle, was not less destructive to the human consciousness, and could be deadlier even to some of the old survivors of the war.
For seven years I had been in the German Air Force and now was confronted with a dreamless world, a hard and even hostile world, where other laws and rules were in place, and where we were manipulated by other standards in a cold and aimless society. The future looked as bleak as . as the battlefield almost, the arena of action where we had faced death so many times and knew so well. But this time our comrades were missing, we stood on our own, lonely, individual selves.
I had to learn a brand new job to be able to provide for my family and myself. As young and as immature I was-and perhaps also to belong, to be loved in a cold war where nothing made sense anymore-I foolishly had married a girl of eighteen I had known for several months, and who later became the mother of my two daughters. Our union had very little to do with real love, a quality, an attribute I was not familiar with at the time and only connected with sex.
Recently released from Russian prison, we had come from east Germany over an unknown frontier, drawn by the super-powers. Using the daring of my old profession and with a lot of luck, I was able to get us all into the west, in spite of my weak condition. We moved into the large twenty-eight-room house of my grandfather, also the home of my parents, my sisters, an aunt and some renters. But it soon became apparent that this was not going to be a peaceful life at all.
I was at odds with my father, who had been interned by the English for several months because of his Nazi activities. We had endless verbal arguments and fights over the past Hitler time and the lost war. Often our shouts could be heard through the whole house or across the large garden. I was at odds with my mother, who never lost an opportunity to meddle in my and our family life. And I also was at odds with my two sisters, who never had seen nor experienced any of the real war action-our little northwest German resort town was twenty or so miles from the nearest city where the severe bombing took place-nor did they want to know about it. We never could see eye to eye on anything concerning my family.
The only peaceful current in all those negative vibrations was my grandfather. He never involved himself in our arguments and conflicts, and often enough wasn't even aware of them. I would inherit the house from him, which was an eyesore to my mother, because her daughters were much more suited to take over the place, for reasons I never was able to establish.
My aunt had died of cancer shortly after our arrival. When my grandfather died at the ripe old age of eighty-eight years, and I shortly thereafter discovered that I had been tricked out of my inheritance, our conflicts became almost unbearable. Although my family and I now were living in a separate part of the house, away from my mother and sisters, and I had started a radio store with an old friend as a partner, I seriously considered to get out of this whole. unhealthy atmosphere. I longed for peace in more than one way!
In the summer of 1952, my family and I emigrated to Alberta, Canada, to the city of Edmonton, to begin a new life. I had learned a new trade, that of an electrician, and was very confident I would find a job soon with that kind of occupation. I was hired by an aircraft repair company.
Although we had to work hard to make ends meet, particularly because of our limited English language, one should think that the New World would bring us happiness and contentment. But not so! The war we had tried to leave behind, continued. Looking back today, I freely admit that the main reason for the continuation of the conflicts was myself because of my immaturity, my bossiness and my general concept of how we should constitute our life.
The stubborn self-righteousness on my part created endless frictions, if not too serious at first. Then, adding to this, a deep down feeling of helplessness in our new country perhaps also began to magnify the insecurity of our relationship. Although some inter and outer play was to be expected with young and inexperienced people like us, and we would have survived these marital troubles if it weren't for my unbending and childish outlook and my consciousness in general. I had known the hard life of a soldier and did not know how to convert to this different world; I did not know how to bend a little here and there, and tolerance, humility and love were strangers to me.
Well, our marriage went broke after many painful years of trying it again. My wife married another, much older man eventually and found happiness. But our daughters still had to suffer, being torn back and forth between their parents. I found it extremely difficult to cut the deep emotional bonds I had with my children, which effected them negatively right into their adult years, when they started their own family lives. For myself, I kept on struggling with this abnormal emotional link until much later.
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