Lale Andersen
Lili Marleen

THE REVIEW

He will return, I'm sure of it. He will come back from this idiotic war.
He will return and we will embrace again, under that streetlamp where I used to wait for him when he got out of the barracks. He was so handsome, he shone in his uniform that he kept all night under the mattress to make it look pressed.

He would tell me about the conversations of his barracks mates, the fear of going to the front and at the same time the desire to save the homeland threatened by the enemy. Then he would smile, telling me that such conversations were not to be had with a young lady. He would ask me to tell him about my day and never seemed to tire of my silly gossip about the baker on the corner who had taken a lover and my chatter about the fashionable dresses from Paris, which I had never seen in my life but were talked about so much. My bicycle was leaning against the lamppost and we had so little time, each time, before the curfew.

Sometimes, in the distance, blasts. Sometimes the air raid siren forced us to a swift goodbye, he had to rush back to the barracks and I home. But when I huddled in the shelter and the bombers roared over our heads, I dreamed of being embraced by him, protected like something small and fragile, like endangered Chinese glassware.

Then he left, a long time ago. The last hug lasted longer than usual, it seemed never to end, it ended immediately. I cried like rain, he tried to joke about it, but didn't manage very well. We set up a meeting for his return, under the same streetlamp.
We didn't mean to, but thinking about it, we really do seem like the protagonists of that song, “Lili Marleen.” The Nazis wrote it, but now Goebbels no longer wants it on the radio, saying it depresses the troops, a good soldier shouldn't want to return to a woman; he should think only of the Reich and glory. Even if they wrote it, now everyone sings it, they've translated it into every possible language: soldiers, on all fronts, are moved listening to it and think of their beloved far away. All the girls see themselves in it, and only wait for the return of a live soldier, with the black fear of seeing a broken body come back, tightly wrapped in the flag to make it look whole.

Since I saw him last, fifty years have passed, Hitler killed himself, the war has long been over but that street, that lamppost is still there... and so am I every night. I know he'll return, sooner or later: he promised me. I know he'll come back to hold me and never let me go. I know it, just like I know I'm still twenty, in a flowered dress and shiny heeled shoes, like I know I have a flower in my hair, that it's summer and there's a warm, fragrant wind full of promises.
Sometimes someone walks through me, shivers for an instant, and shakes their head, confused.
No one can see me, but everyone leaves humming, as if lost in thought.
The song they sing is always “Lili Marleen.”