“Maxim!” I yelled. “I’m going!”

          Maxim halted abruptly.

          “I love my dad,” he slurred, “and there’s nothing he did that I’m ashamed of. I don’t think he did anything wrong.”

          “Then you should,” I said softly. “You should praise and love his goodness and accept his faults as faults.”

          “Faults!” Maxim barked. “My father had no faults! All he did was kill a few fuckers that deserved to die. Vermin. Fucking vermin. God, I loved him. Still do.”

          There was a long silence. Then suddenly I knew.

          “And how long before you decide to go out and buy yourself a Nazi uniform?” I asked.

          Maxim stared at me, then nodded.

          “There’s one upstairs, in my wardrobe,” he said, reaching down and picking up his brandy glass. He drained it in one swallow. “It was on a dummy for a while, but that used to freak me out when I went into my bedroom. Now it’s hanging up in the wardrobe. I’ve got the boots, belt, riding crop, the lot.” Then he marched out of the room. I heard him go upstairs.

As I put the photograph down on the chair arm and straightened up, I remembered a line from some ancient poem, something along the lines of how you will undeservedly atone for the sins of your father.

 Out in the hall, I called up the stairs to him.

“Maxim, I’m going now,” I said. “Sorry about your dad. I’ll see you around in a few days.”

“No, wait!” I heard, but I didn’t want to wait to see someone who’d been a friend descend wearing a Nazi uniform on the night of his father’s death.

I hurried through the hall and out the front door.

          As I made my way home, I wondered how much of my evening had been real. I sincerely hoped none of it, but I knew I had seen the truth.

          And it wore such terrible clothes.

More To the Picture

© R J Dent (2010)

www.rjdent.com