IF WE CAN 1974

A BOY AND GIRL ON A CAMPING HOLIDAY IN STOCKHOLM IN 1974

Strindberg was born here
I said

who is he?
Dalya said

an author who
wrote plays poems
novels etc.
I said

never heard of him
she said

we were in a bar
in Stockholm
sipping our beers
she in her jeans
and tee shirt
and I likewise
(not in her jeans
but my own)

what's the book
you're reading
on the minivan?

Solzhenitsyn's
The Gulag Archipelago
I said

you don't half read
some funny books
she said
what's it about?

Russian labour camps
between 1918 and 1958
where millions perished
I said

sounds a right
bundle of laughs
she said
why do you read
such stuff?

it interests me
how evil humans
can be at times

she lit cigarettes
for us both
and we sat sipping
our beer and smoking

she said
do you know
I had relatives
who died in Auschwitz?

no I didn't know
I said

my parents told me
a few years ago
when I was becoming
an arsehole
and they said
what would great uncle
Franz or Abel say
if they saw
how you behave?
and I said
who the heck are they
and they told me
and I cried
but I'm still
an arsehole at times
she said

sad that
having relatives
killed like that
I said

drink up Benny
we're on holiday
more beer and smokes
and she laughed
and she added
and more sex tonight
if we can get
my tent free
of the other woman
for awhile

and I nodded
and gave her
my Elvis smile.