And none of us understand what is about to happen

A book of facts, quite cumbersome in hardback.The same encyclopaedia my grandfather had bought mefell upon by accident forty years later. Not a hometownas much as a half town demolished, like childhoodis never the actual place you grew up in. Encyclopaediashave no reference for that. The nowhere you moved tofrom nowhere, and moved from again and again. Empty

space where I may have been scanning the pages for flatinformation hoping to spot my grandfatherout in the African desert with Montgomery. Of course,the whole exercise was pointless.

The idea I might have recognised him forty yearsyounger as easily as that man posing for a photograph in uniform,the note on the back, that said, Rome 44. All through the matchI remember my mother trying to call him. Later,she told me the thing that kept playing on her mind was the thoughthe was already dead in his chair, (phone ringing out), watching Englandgetting beat by West Germany, or maybe just thinkinghow only last week, his grandson

had asked him if he’d ever killed a man during the war. I had no brainfor encyclopaedic knowledge. Except I thought that was a factI ought to know that would belong to me alone.

Only memory is not a book of facts. Neither a yes nor a no.I don’t remember his exact words. Instead, I keep thinking how noneof us understand what is about to happen. That those bombswill rain like memories again, flesh dripping from a hand burntbeyond recognition. Knowledge he must have knownhe could never pass on, just an old encyclopaediawhich I never really read. Again, I had it in my handsleft empty handed from the shop of charity. A second chanceto learn and yet I left it there and told myself I would returnwith lighter hands. A question that I can’t take back.A fact long dislodged to erase.