Don’t Forget!

The room was cold, and I fidgeted in my stiff, uncomfortable clothes. Two people, a man and woman, sat in front of the large desk. The old woman sat behind it. They were talking. I could understand what they were saying now. I had been in this dark, grey building with the lonely, grey children for over a year, and their words made sense now. I used to think only in my language. It was a part of me, so fundamental that I could not even name it, it was just my language. Now I knew their words, sometimes I thought and dreamed in their words. I was beginning to forget my language. Just like I was beginning to forget them. Don’t forget! No, I would not forget. I closed my eyes, and let my memories drown out the English words being spoken. My mother’s soft hands, holding me. My father’s boots. My mother’s voice, singing to my baby sister as she rocked her to sleep. Gently calling my name. My sister’s happy laugh and the smell of candle wax and bread that hung around my mother like a cloud. And then they were gone, and all there was were screams and shouts, the smell of burning and the sound of gunshots. My mother’s sweet voice twisted and warped into a horrible scream. And my sister's last cough on that long cold ride; the boat swaying as my mother had once rocked my sister, except my sister no longer laughed. She coughed, and wheezed, her breath coming harsh and uneven, and then not at all.

“Are you listening?” They were all looking at me now. The woman smelled of soap, and not the hard, greasy soap that they used in the orphanage, but soft smelling and sweet.

“Albert, did you hear what I said? These lovely people want to be your new parents. Albert, are you listening?”

Albert. Albert. Why was she calling me Albert? That wasn’t my name. I knew that that wasn’t my name. But they were talking to me, calling me that. And every time those distant, austere old women at the orphanage looked at me and called me Albert, I knew who they meant. They meant me. Perhaps I was Albert, perhaps that other name that my mother had called me was just a dream. It felt like one. Don’t forget! No, Albert was not my name, I knew my name. Those familiar syllables in my language. My name. But I could no longer remember what sounds made up my name, the familiar feeling of mother’s voice calling to me was slipping away, and the place in me where my name should have been was empty; my name was absent, replaced by the sound of her scream, and the persistent voice of the old woman.

“Albert.” I looked up. Yes, I was Albert. I had always been Albert. “Albert, wouldn’t you like to have a new family?”

Family? I had a family. Back across the water: my mother and father and sister. But no, they had died. My mother and father in the flames and screams, and my sister on the water, the ceaseless rocking of the waves lulling her to sleep. Leaving me with only the fading memories. Memories I held on to.

“Don’t forget.” I whispered to myself.

I didn’t want a new family, I didn’t want to forget the sound of my name and my mother’s voice and replace them with another. “Don’t forget.”

But the sweet-smelling woman knelt before me. “Hello Albert,” she said. Her voice was low and soft. “I am your mother.”

I stared at her. I fidgeted, rubbing my ankles together. And then she spoke again, but this time it wasn’t in English.

“Albert, we are going to take you home.” She spoke in my language. It didn’t sound like how my mother had spoken. The syllables were strange and accented, but it was undeniably my language. And she had said home, not the cold unfamiliar English word, but the soft word: heym. I knew what that word meant. It meant safety and warmth and the smell of wax and bread. Or was it soap? I couldn’t remember.

“Do you want to come with us?” I nodded. I wanted to go home. Some tiny part of me screamed inside: No, she cannot take you home! Your home is gone! You are forgetting! Don’t forget! But it was too quiet, I could not hear it over the sound of her words.

She reached out her hand and I took it. Her hands were soft, like my mother’s had been. Of course they were, she had said, hadn’t she? “I am your mother”. The other mother I remembered was just a dream. A dream that smelled of wax and bread, and sang and rocked, but that was all. A dream. Of course this woman was my mother. She always had been. So I took her hand, and walked with her out of the grey building, filled with the lonely, grey children. Perhaps, as I did, somewhere in me, something was screaming: This is not right! She is not your mother. Your mother smells of wax and bread. This is not your life. Don’t forget! Perhaps a part of me knew that I was losing all I had left of my old family, my life, a little part of my identity. But the rest of me only saw the woman who spoke my language, whose hands were gentle and soft, and who smelled of soap. And little by little, I forgot.