When I was little I had very long hair and my mother would braid it in two big loops over my ears with big bows. So tight and neat. When I took them out at night my hair fell over my shoulders in wavy little kinks and I was beautiful.

How was it for you when you were little? I asked my father at bedtime. "I don't remember" he answered. Instead, he told me about pink elephants growing inside baloons, hanging on trees. And the story about a man with a hole in his tooth. Once there was a man with a hole in his tooth. And in the hole was a box. And in the box was a letter. And in the letter is was written, once there was a man with a hole in his tooth... I didn't like that story. After a while I did not ask any more. When the lights were out, I hopped into bed with my sister and we tortured our dolls under the covers at night. We bound them by their feet, hung them upside down, and made them eat shit. Outside there came a thunderstorm in the summer night with lightning and branches of trees came crashing down. We went running out to jump naked in the dark rain. The worms came out and we caught toads. By dawn everything was still and fresh and my mother was gardening at five in the morning. On warm summer days my sister and I clambered through the forest of mulberry trees, eating till our fingers stained purple from the fruit.

When I was 21 I had very long hair. It hung down my back in a long braid. One day I chopped it off, wrapped it in a plastic bag, and left home. As I walked through the streets I looked down, collecting bits of garbage and put them in little jars, labeling each one according to time and place. A handful of shoe taps, a rusted out clock, pebbles, twisted wire, a motorcycle chain, old photographs, shut off links, washers, car coils, nozzles, and some stuff, I don't know what it is. Then one night I found a cigar box in the trash. I bent over to pick it up but it was so heavy it almost pulled me down to the ground. So I sent it home by UPS instead. An old man approached me, begging for help. He clung to me and I was afraid. He was sick but he was very strong. He almost pulled me down to the ground. I pushed him away, and left him squatting, trembling by the side of the road. A train tracked high in the sky.

The next day, as I got on the bus, someone told me that my grandfather was last seen standing in line, going to Auschwitz. When I complained to the busdriver about this, he got angry and told me he didn't want to hear about Auschwitz and places like that. So I told him to stop the bus and got off in the middle of the block. I walked back to the bus stop where people were still standing in line. I drove all through the city on my motorcycle, looking for my grandfather, but on the way I had an accident and ended up in the hospital instead.

There was so much to do I had no time to sleep. As soon as I could walk again, I went to look for my grandfather in the city morgue. I saw lots of bodies, some charred, some cut open with apendages coming out of their nose. Others had bandages on their head and legs, a chain of beads taped to their chest, tatoos on their arms. But he wasn't there. Finally I came home and slept.

After a while, I got up and worked through the night. I sat down to my desk and organized a box of letters from earlier years, pressing out the wrinkles and stapeling the envelopes to the backs. Each one had a little swastika stamped on it. Ten years later I was finished. I wrote a letter to my sister, telling her what it was like in Germany in 1942. By the time I finished, it was seven-thirty in the morning and the snow was falling at a slant. There had been a stabbing in the night. When I looked out, the knife still lay on the sidewalk and the front door glass was punched in.

Suddenly the door bell jingled.

Amelia was standing in the hall with a white scarf wrapped around her head. "You're limping," she said, looking down at my foot, and stepped into the apartment. "It's that accident I had last year" I mumbled and pivoted to let her pass. "You brought coffee" I noticed, a little brown bag in her hand. Amelia wandered into the next room. "Your place is looking good!" she cried out. I turned on the water kettle. The room was stuffed with furniture I had brought in off the street. A pile of chairs stacked on top of each other, a rocker by the window with puffy upholstery. I pulled open the table as large as it goes and cleared all the papers from its top. "I see you got dressed for the party," I said, glancing at her white scarf enviously.

"What party?" Amelia stood in a red dress by the window, her brow furrowed. "I'm having a party," I explained. "That's why I invited you here today." She lifted the scarf and tilted her head. "You want to wear this?" She dropped the cloth on the table and twisted her hair into a long spiral. "Remember the hospital?" she asked, "I came to visit you." "I remember," I answer. I brought out my collection of jars and cigar boxes, emptying their contents over the table. Amelia picked up a sqashed car coil. "What's this?" she asked, "you could string it on a chain and hang it around your neck." I slid a washer over my finger like a ring. Then I tied her white scarf around my leg. The kettle was blowing and I limped into the kitchen. "Are we going to dance at this party?" she asked again. "Is anybody else coming?" "Yeah," I answer, raising my voice. "I invited your grandmother and I'm expecting my grandfather any day now, by UPS."

"What!?" Amelia yelped. My hand jerked, I laughed, and the mug dropped to the floor. It cracked in half and coffee spilled on my leg, staining the white cloth in brown blotches. I bent over to sponge up the floor. When I looked up I saw her standing in the doorway. "I wanted to invite our grandparents to this party."
"Oooooh, what is that on your leg? There are stains on that rag," she stared.
"It's just coffee," I answered in a dull, tired voice, "well, what do you think?"
"I heard you, I heard," Amelia answered. "I don't know. I don't think it's in very good taste."
"Well, I'm going to put on my evening gown of blue velvet," I continued, as I unwrapped the wet cloth from my leg and dropped it in the sink.
Amelia was staring at the cloth. Her eyes grew wide, "what will my mother say?"
"She'll never know," I replied. "If you don't stay..."
"No, let's start over," Amelia looked up. "Let's do it my way."
"So how would you like to do it?"
"First I'd make myself pretty. Like this." She reached into the sink for the stained white cloth and began to wrap it around her forehead, mouth and neck until only her eyes were showing. "Just wait. Wait till I make myself pretty," she explained and twisted the cloth tighter and tighter. "There, how do I look? Do I look like you remember me, like I used to before?" I heard the sound catch as she tore it out of her mouth and scratched it onto her forehead. The door buzzer rang. I turned. "That must be your grandmother!" I called out. "I knew you would bring her! You look gorgeous!!" Amelia screeched.

The UPS man stood in the doorway, carrying a big, heavy box. He staggered in with the load. "Watch out!" I shouted and pushed him against the wall, "you might fall in!" The box crashed to the floor. A pane of glass in the kitchen window lossened from its frame and smashed to the ground, leaving a great jagged hole. "What's going on here?" the man whirled around and stared. "We're having a party!" I cried out. I pointed to the box. I pointed to Amelia. "We invited our grandparents, maybe some aunts and uncles will come. Maybe some cousins?" Amelia whimpered. The UPS man stumbled past me. "I'm sorry," he whispered and rushed for the door.

"It's hard to tell what time it is,
"Day's night, night is day,
"No news is good news,
"Remember that?"
"No time like the present."
"Ignorance is bliss."
"Home is where the heart is."
"I think I have to go now. Is it five o'clock?"

The answering machine switched on as the telephone rang. I lunged toward the phone but it was dead.

A thin sheet of sunlight finally fell into the room. I turned to open the box and bent way over to look inside. Amelia moaned, "Now there are two Amelias. Amelia and Amelia," she called out in a hollow voice. She hovered just off the ground, her hair clinging where an ocean of blossoms grew. Her presence grew large behind me. Then it roared, "I don't know who I am, but I have to be!" Then I saw her glued to the ceiling, arms spread wide. "This is a bird-fish!"
"A what?!" I cried out.
Amelia was singing, "I'm so high, I'm so high, hanging in the sky!"
"No, wait!" I shouted, "my grandfather is coming..."
I bent over the box again to squint in the dark. All I saw was a little piece of paper and some string. "You can't start without me," I pleaded. "I'm not dressed yet. And Look, here's a letter..."
Amelia floated toward me a bit and looked down sadly, "You have to learn to fly. The day of liberation my grandmother was drowned. She survived even Auschwitz," the word cut as she articulated it with a sweet, crisp lisp. "You have to fly. You can't fly," she hovered.
"Fishes don't fly," I glared and tried to grab hold of her but she slipped away. I turned and lunged. I missed and lunged again. The letter flew out of my hand, as I grabbed hold of something and twisted with all my might. I could hear her flesh tear as she gagged on the rag and dug her nails into my arm. Then she crashed on top of me, a brave smile stamped onto her face and we lay on the kitchen floor, a pitiful, pathetic lump. Amelia whispered hoarsely through clenched teeth, "when they put her in the hospital, she could no longer take care of herself. They took everyone, the whole hospital ward, and drowned them." Then she got up and shook out her dress.

The letter fluttered to the ground. She picked it up, "did you drop this?" Amelia peered at it, "look...." "You can't read that!" I snatched it away angrily. "My grandfather sent that letter!" Amelia laughed, "we haven't danced yet. I want to dance." The rag on her head flopped as she gave a twirl and it flew from her hand as she unwound it. "Your grandfather came to the party! I didn't even see him come in, but I heard him. He came up the stairs, slowly, limp, limp, limp. Here! Catch this!" She threw me the rag and I grabbed for it, bunched in my hand. Brown stains and dirt. Some hair with knots in it, caught in the folds. I stared at the lump. "He says he'll be seventy years old on August 15 and he says 'Don't forget me'." I looked up to see if she was listening.

"So, let's party," Amelia insisted. "I wanna eat Nazis for breakfast. I'm cheerful. Our grandparents have come to visit... We could make this a birthday party for your grandfather and I could sing for you my most beautiful memories."

"A little box full of pictures and letters from former years. That's how he came," I explained. "And how did he die?" Amelia asked. "He left for Theresienstadt in the spring, no the summer, while the balconies were still in bloom. He was last seen standing in a line going to Auschwitz. You had to stand in line to get in," I paused. "There were so many people. But then, everything was lost in the war."

"I remember," Amelia reassured me, "There was a war going on all the time while the trains switched right and switched left. A one track mind, remember?" And now I'll sing for you," she added sweetly. I smiled. She laid the rag and the letter on the table, side by side. " "What did you say your grandfather's name was?" I looked startled. "I didn't" I replied. "His name is Otto. Otto."