long time to fall asleep, and in the morning Mother would be amazed at finding the bed clothes all tangled up. I would have strange fantasies whose outcome was always hidden from me by the arrival of sleep, but in which the central character was always Erik.

After Kurt's death, Erik's attitude toward me changed. Sometimes he would stare at me for long minutes and then would fire a barrage of embarassing questions. Did I have good friends in school? Was I fonder of one than 'the rest? Had I kissed a girl already?

་

He would also make plans. The war would not last forever; whatever its' outcome, he would settle in France as a newspaper correspondent, and nothing would then stand in the way of our friendship. My mind would wander while he spoke, and I would concentrate on his face and I would think him very good-looking.

•

For my sixteenth birthday mother invited some 15 of my young friends. and relatives. Erik had given me, the day before, his History of Painting which we admired so often together. This splendid book, which I was forced to hide for many years to avoid embarassing questions about its origins, has always remained to me the symbol of our friendship.

After the guests had left, I went as usual to spend a few minutes with him. He was much amused with my tales of the party. He seemed very light-hearted. I thought he was laughing far too readily. When it was time for me to go, he gave me a hug and said: "Happy birthday, kid."

·

I am unable to analyze my feelings... it was summer . . . I had been drinking some wine...my lace barely reached to his shoulder, and I let it rest there

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His subsequent reaction took me

a very long time to understand: he pushed me' away brutally. In his eyes there was strange expression I had never seen... "Get going now, that's enough." His voice was trembling. "What do you know about me, little French boy? Nothing. You are only a child and our countries are at war. Your parents are right here, a couple of steps away ... And don't look at me with that stupid expression Can't you understand anything?"

It was true. I did not understand until years later that he, that very night, had wanted me with all his being, that my confidence in him was such that I would have done anything for him, but that he preferred to destroy all so as not to influence that which he did not know was my own true nature, and, above all, to leave untouched the purity of a memory that was to brighten my entire life.

"Go on," he kept repeating,"you won't be angry at me forever, but right now get going, please, go away." He was almost shouting as he pushed me toward the door. I believe he would have hit me if I had not got out as I spat the first insult that came to my lips: "You dirty kraut!" Behind my back, the door slammed like a slap.

On the following days-I shall regret this all my life-out of pride or out of rancor, I avoided Erik, and left on my vacation without seeing him again. While away I received a letter from my mother saying with undisguised joy, in spite of her fear of the censors, that I would not see the German again: he had volunteered for action on the eastern front. For the benefit of my relatives, I expressed great joy at recovering my room, but when I found myself

alone, when I was finally able to bury my face under the covers so no one could hear my sobs, I wept

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:

bitterly for hours my last grief as a boy and my first grief as a man.

I never saw him again. I know that he was killed somewhere in Russia, like Kurt.

Less frequently now than before, but with a more profound meaning, some evenings when alone I leaf through the book he gave me, the only thing I have to remind me of him. My fingers glide over the thick

·

·

cloth binding, then turn the pages one by one. Among the paintings of Durer or Holbein I sometimes think I have found his likeness— something tightens in my throat) something that pains, and will not

pass on.

On the first page he had written our first names and a date: July 23rd., 1942.

W.W

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