M.Macabre's Hallowe-e-ners #4 - Ivan
Removing the dust and placing the pieces in the white and black squares of the chessboard, I heard Ivan say, ‘Spring is coming.’ I said nothing. N owadays h e had been like this. The Gestapo would be any moment over here, and then they would take him away, on account of him being a preacher of anti-Nazi propaganda, and then… And then? What would be left of our twenty-year old friendship. Staring at the chessboard, I said, ‘You take the black one. Or white suits you more?’ Ivan said nothing. He just smiled. He had been doing that since the War broke out. He would smile, part his lips, and say - just like today: ‘Spring is coming.’ The evening wind of the last day of October had been howling over the moor. In the air, I could hear a mournful tune being played on a flute. It was Hungarian, and was being played by one of the Romani gypsy boys who had been forced to flee their homeland… The nations didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore... Was spring reall...
