♫♪ Tempo Slows ♫♪
AN: It was played before his very eyes… the most poignant song. And it stretched into his heart.
Captain Wilm Hosenfeld never saw a Jew. In his eyes he only perceived a man who looked like he had not eaten for days or even weeks. He was so skinny his eyes were bulging out of their sockets and his nose looked too pointy on his gaunt face. But the German captain could be right after all for what seemed to be going on: the man was trying to break open a can of food. It was the clanking sound of metal against metal that had disrupted Captain Hosenfeld's playing, making him upset as well as drawn to find out what or who could be in the same empty house, here in the deserted part of the city.
Captain Wilm Hosenfeld never saw a Jew. Though the minute he looked at the man he knew that it was a Jew. The German could immediately tell from the dark eyes and brows, and that crooked nose. But still those were not the things he heeded. The color of the eyes was not telling him that the owner was a Jew, only anguish and shock for seeing an enemy turning up all of a sudden. And the starvation seemed to shadow his lanky figure. That was what Captain Hosenfeld saw.
Captain Wilm Hosenfeld never saw a Jew. And never heard one. The Jew's German was fairly fluent in his ears though it was a little accented. But again, he would care less even if the other person could not speak German at all and stuttered in Hebrew, especially now that the German was sat mesmerized on a bench. He was blind now any races in the world, for any races his country might fight against. And he was deaf for any differences in language, human language, that is, and not melody.
Captain Wilm Hosenfeld never saw a Jew. As those delicate, slender fingers of the other man started to strike the piano keys, the soothing tune had begun to bind him in their spell. Now Captain Hosenfeld saw nothing but his family: his lovely wife who waited for him at home, his only son who got naughtier every time (at least that was when he was home), and his adored daughters, so beautiful they were, after their mother. The German sighed deeply as memories of home flooded into him, carried by the game of slow and fast tempo of the piano playing. He could not see anything anymore, and now it was literal. Mists had threatened to shade both of his eyes as tears began to spill.
fin