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chatting with the count then and there if I didn’t know how hesitantly the German language crosses her lips because it’s more or less just the language of the camps, as she maintains. I, at anyrate, am waiting for the count to ask, as do all the strangers who stray into our valley, if I understand any German at all. I would say yes, of course, although I have my doubts, but the count doesn’t ask any more questions and heads off towards the stables.
    We walk on to the fishpond. The gravel path lays a veil of dust over Grandmother’s black shoes, made for her by Perko the shoemaker. She’s wearing her Sunday dress and has tied her kerchief at the nape of her neck. She has coquettishly turned up the sleeves of her blouse, revealing her sinewy forearms. At the large fishpond, we sit on the wooden pier. In the dark green, rather murky water we see trout and tench flit past against the shaded, swampy ground. On the way to the second fishpond, we miss the turn-off and search for the path in vain. Grandmother is irritated. We’ll have to turn back, she says as if insulted. As we make our way back, one of the count’s loggers comes towards us in a tractor. He stops and asks if he can offer us a lift, he has to drive past the castle in any case. We climb up on the hydraulic jack and are chauffeured, standing, to the castle. I’ve brought the runaways back, the logger says to my aunt who had come out of the house to see who’d arrived. Vera thanks him, and Grandmother is in a fine mood again. Everyone seems to know me here, she says. An ugly old woman stands out!

T AKING trips has come into fashion in Lepena. The neighbors all suddenly come down with travel fever. They mull over all the places they’ve wanted to travel, or where they might venture again after so many years. Excursions to the shrines of the Virgin Mary in Brezje and Monte Lussari as well as the Mauthausen and Ravensbrück concentration camps are discussed at great length, although Brezje in Slovenia seems to be the preferred destination.
    Aunt Malka’s husband, Sveršina, knows his way around Mauthausen. He, Malka, and my parents travel to the former camp with a group from Slovenia. On their return, they described how it was in Mauthausen, how many people were gathered on the grounds of the camp for the memorial service. The camp is now a museum, Father says. Sveršina showed them the barracks in which he was held and took them to the quarry where so many inmates died. Mother says she can’t conceive of how anyone could survive the concentration camps. Grandmother gives her hostile and uncomprehending looks. Father tells us about a group of former Polish prisoners who had decorated a house near the camp with flowers. It moved him so deeply to see how the two men from Poland embraced theowner of the house and thanked him for rescuing them that he couldn’t help crying, and suddenly tears glisten on Father’s cheeks. It’s the first time I’ve seen him cry and I feel helpless and confused.
    Grandmother decides she will travel to Ravensbrück this year. The trip will take a few days. When she returns and again lies next to me in bed, I’m relieved. She says the trip was very stressful. Women returned to the camp from all over Europe. She liked the speakers, she didn’t understand everything they said, but their tone of voice pleased her. She tells me that former prisoners had gathered on the grounds of the camp. Many women stood at the edge of a lake and wept. They threw flowers in the lake and leaned against each other for support. She was hugged by two French women and by some Dutch women who were standing behind her listening to the speakers. She mentioned two names that she would always bring up from then on, Mici and Katrca, the names of her foster daughter and sister-in-law, both of whom died in the camp. She always thinks of Mici and Katrca, Grandmother says. She brought back two books. Books in which you can read about what happened in the camp.