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Four Words Whispered on a Smoky Field by Baņuta Rubess

Image shows a top-down view of blue-green water pooling on white sand in Latvia; title card for the Hybrid Writing Contest third-place winner, "Four Words Whispered on a Smoky Field," by Baņuta Rubess.

Baņuta Rubess’s “Four Words Whispered on a Smoky Field” is the third-place winner of the 2023 CRAFT Hybrid Writing Contest, guest judged by Nicole McCarthy.

“Four Words Whispered on a Smoky Field” pushes genre boundaries as it attempts to excavate troubling family history. The narrator traces the footsteps of their father, a prisoner of war during World War II, and takes the reader along through visual routes, maps, historical records, and photos. History, as the narrator shows, is an inescapable part of the land—multilayered—encountering a field of sheep grazing on grass that was once seeped with slaughter. This pilgrimage draws back the curtain on a singular experience of war and the lengths some will go in order to survive. It is a chilling, courageous investigation that benefits from its hybridity.  —Nicole McCarthy

 

Slide 1 An image of a group of sheep under green trees. A handwritten note and a photo of a young man. Alt-text: POW Camp Zedelgem, now nature park Vloethemveld, Belgium Text: I’m in a nature reserve in Belgium, off-limits to the public. It’s 2017, and most locals don’t realize this was a prisoner-of-war camp with some 60, 000 men. Instead of guards with guns, the wild sheep come out to stare at us. My guide says, “I know which cage your father was in and I even know his pseudonym.”

Slide 2 A map with many towns. Arrows and boxes and a red line squiggling across a box of text. Alt-text: Overview of the movements of the Latvian Legion Text: This is the Baltic Sea and Riga is over to your right. End here/Wrong Cammin/Start here/Right Kamin This is an overview of the movements of the Latvian Legion during WWII. Follow my dad on the red line. In May 2019, I can barely make heads or tails of this map on the breakfast table in an airy seaside hotel. I intend to drive to the site of a vicious battle. It takes me three cups of coffee to realize that there were two towns with the same name and the right one is hundreds of km away, in the thickets of Poland. Kamīna, Camyn, Cammyn, Kamien, Kamin. My father grew up under three dictatorships and two occupations. He was conscripted at the age of seventeen by his

Slide 3 Misty trees at the bottom of a page of text. Alt-text: Commentary with minimal imagery Text: A very expensive book arrives in the mail. It’s a graphic novel by a French artist called Tardi. His father spent five years in Stalag IIB, a German POW camp in Pomerania, near the town of Hammerstein, now Czarne. That’s very close to where the SS taught my father to salute, obey, hold a gun for the first time. As the war ended, the Nazis emptied their camps and forced their prisoners on death marches. Monsieur Tardi’s march lasted four months. I’m shocked to see how much it matches my father’s itinerary as a young soldier. The drawings are a dismal black and white; page after page documents corpses in the fields; thousands of men trudging along in rags; an armada of refugees with horses, wagons, and baby carriages. Millions are walking and running and hiding. Nazi overlords who had occupied Latvia. They were losing the war and needed more

Slide 4 An open book with a map lying on top of another map. Alt-text: A graphic novel by Tardi with a map of his father’s march across Germany Text: cannon fodder. At the time, my father

Slide 5 An oval shape cuts the page in half. On the left are military maps. On the right is text. Alt-text: Map of the battles in Camin, Pomerania Text: was a. one year shy of finishing high school b. madly in love for the first time

Slide 6 Many numbered pink boxes filled with text on top of a map. In the lower right corner, a small blue box with the Devanagiri version of a mantra. Alt-text: Map of the battles in Camin, Pomerania Text in numbered boxes: 1. On January 22, 1945, at 0.10 hours, Bruno (later my father) wished briefly to be dead. At 0.40 hours, marching in the deep snow, he saw a rabbit hop across the field, and imagined he was kissing. 2. On the same day in the same year on the same continent, Ludwig Wittgenstein completed his investigations into the terms SLAB and ISN’T THE WEATHER GLORIOUS TODAY and BLUE and IS and BUBUBU 3. This is the map of a battle for the village of Cammyn-Kamien-Kamin, the correct one. It is one of those maps no one understands, least of all me and certainly no teenager 4. On February 11, 1945, Private Rubess stood at attention through the night, while old man Colonel Janums stuck pins into this map, looking for a way OUT 5. The ice on the lakes was so thick that a wagon pulled by four horses could cross at high speed. The shrieking of the wounded in the back had to be ignored. 6. On February 12, 1945, at 8.15 Bruno was ordered to take a message to Lieutenant Bonaparte, the very same Lieutenant Bonaparte who fell at 13.45. My father ran faster than he had ever run in his life despite always having been poor at sports except for chess. The snow was shimmering white canvas and he was a perfect black blob, a moving bububu for the enemy. He ran all the way back, too. “Well done, son,” Colonel Janums said. 7. I have looked up the military term ‘encirclement’ many times. It is not quite an ambush, but it does mean you’re fucked. My father broke through ten encirclements thanks to the old man and his pins. I could try to make you feel sorry for Bruno by saying he was barely eighteen but so was every-boy in those days. 8. between one battle and the next he clung to her skyblue eyes and pranayama ॐ ह$ जँू सः repeat 109 times c. an orphan

Slide 7 A printed map placed against a background of diagonal dots colored red/yellow/blue/green. The map is covered in colored arrows. At the top of the image is a mantra. Alt-text: 1905 map of Pommern Text: d. a violinist e. a member of a clandestine yoga club f. all of the above

Slide 8 White text against black. The photo of a handwritten text above a red line. A handwritten list on brown paper beneath the red line. Alt-text: A list made by the author’s father in 1949 of all the places he’d been in the last ten years. Text: “Words are vibration bombs,” his guru Harijs said. “Chant Om Haum Joon Sah.” His guru gave him a mantra that would shield him from death. “There’s no point in fighting anymore,” Colonel Janums said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Slide 9 Close-up of a map with a lit candle in a candleholder illustrated with pine trees. Two boxes of text on top. Alt-text: Marco Polo map, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Text: It was April 1945. They were driven by the fear of the Russians coming from the back, or the Germans who would execute them for desertion. They marched for four hours, rested for one. They ate what they could steal. They slept on the ground, under an open sky. Keep moving, keep moving! They had to find their friends, the Americans; then they would surrender; then they would be fed; then they would be free. It is April 2019. My car flashes through verdant forests. In Himmelspfort – Heaven’s Gate – I dine on trout next to a sparkling lake. I get back behind the wheel, and then there’s the sign for RAVENSBRÜCK.

Slide 10 Close-up of a woman’s face with sunglasses in front of a lake and trees. Captions with dialogue. Alt-text: Ravensbrück concentration camp Text: Here I am in Ravensbrück. I’m going to recite the mantra as I walk and see where it takes me. It takes me to the ovens. The old man gathered them near the lake and said, “I'm deserting.” He told Bruno to get on a horse and see if the Russians were near. Bruno had never been on a horse before and

Slide 11 A map of Germany with many pink and red lines. The rim of an old book with the title YOGA CHAKRAVARTY. Alt-text: Marco Polo map, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Yoga Chakravarty, by Sri Harry Dickman

Slide 12 Drawings of a cattle wagon and an airport with planes, next to the top parts of two books: YOGA CHAKRAVARTY and WHAT BECOMES OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. A box of text. Alt-text: Tardi, Dickman, and What Becomes of the Soul after Death, by Swami Sivananda Text: In the forest of Schwerin, my father became a prisoner of war. For an entire year, he was shunted across Europe from one camp to another. Collapsed under the wing of an abandoned airplane in Hagenow, he nearly starved to death.

Slide 13 A photo of a forest with superimposed text. Alt-text: Buchholz forest, Germany, May 2, 2019 Text: It’s exactly 74 years since my father stood in this forest, waiting to surrender. The place is so deserted that I feel safe enough to pee. I zip up my pants, walk back to the path, and discover a sign: HALT! LEBENSGEFAHR! The forest is contaminated with munitions. Entering is strictly verboten. Any violation of these terms will lead to arrest.

Slide 14 A document made of grey paper with a grid filled with writing. A passport photo of a young man. A photo of a man balancing his body perpendicular to the ground, on his hands, with text. Text on top of the image. Alt-text: The author’s father’s application to the International Refugee Organization, July 9, 1949. A picture of his guru, Harijs Dīkmanis Text: “Chant Om Haum Joon Sah 109 times,” his guru said. Mantras are chanted 108 times. My father got one extra for good measure.

Slide 15 An open book sandwiched between two maps with confetti sprinkled over it. Some text is legible: “Fear exhausts life energy.” Alt-text: The Law of Success, by Paramhansa Yogananda

Slide 16 Sources 1. POW camp Zedelgem, now nature park Vloethemveld, Belgium 2. Overview of the movements of the Latvian Legion, in Mana pulka kauju gaitas [The Battles of My Troops], Vilis Janums 4. Excerpt from the book, Ich, René Tardi, Kriegsgefangener im Stalag IIB. Der Lange Marsch durch Deutschland, Tardi, ©Casterman. With the kind authorisation of the author and Editions Casterman 5 and 6. Map of the battles in Camin, Pomerania, in Janums 7. 1905 map of Pommern: http://www.der-familienstammbaum.de/pommern/pommern-karten

Slide 17 Sources 8. A list made by my father in 1949 of all the places he’d been in the last ten years. The handwritten list was made for an application, see slide 14 9. Marco Polo map, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 10. Ravensbrück concentration camp 11. Yoga Chakravarty, by Sri Harry Dickman 12. Excerpt from the book, Ich, René Tardi, Kriegsgefangener im Stalag IIB. Der Lange Marsch durch Deutschland, Tardi, ©Casterman. With the kind authorisation of the author and Editions Casterman13. Buchholz forest, Germany, May 2, 2019 14. My father’s application to the International Refugee Organization, July 9, 1949. Arolsen Archives. A picture of his guru, Harijs Dīkmanis, published by Swami Sivananda 15. The Law of Success, by Paramhansa Yogananda

 

 

BAŅUTA RUBESS pioneered feminist theatre and contemporary opera to national renown in Canada and Latvia. She has lived in four countries and writes in two languages. She has written plays, libretti, radio drama, television biopics, stories, and has devised site-specific productions for a beach and a mansion. She has been nominated for many awards and has won a few, including Best Play, Best Director, and Best Short Story. Her writing is published in Aesthetica (UK), Creative Nonfiction (US), and Domuzīme (Latvia). Baņuta lives in Toronto and is writing a memoir about the personal cost of surveillance. Follow her voracious reading habits on Funny, You Don’t Look Bookish. Find her on Twitter @banuta or Instagram @labagne.

 

Featured image by Kristaps Ungurs, courtesy of Unsplash.

 

By | HWC, Longform CNF, CNF | July 14, 2023

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Author’s Note

“But I’m not an artist,” I protest.

I’m studying with the formidable Kyo Maclear, who often includes her own sketches in her writing. (See Birds, Art, Life.) Kyo invites us to make collages, and I balk. I turn images into words, not vice versa. Or so I think. But I can’t say no to Kyo. She distributes magazines, origami papers, Sharpies, glue. She recommends a site called Canva. I pick up the scissors, the glue; I take one step, another, and then I don’t stop.

Never underestimate the pleasure of scrawling on a page, of assembling objects linked by association, like reaching for a pine-scented candle and planting it on a map of your road trip, and voilà, there’s the story of your father’s travails. There is a childish glee in shaking out tiny paper bits from your three-hole punch across words about fear and thinking, “That’s all I need to say.” The eye and the hand circumvent calculated thought; they whip up their own dish. My first draft of “Four Words” aimed to be more gamelike, interactive, a piece in which you could click on a map and snippets of text jump up. But I lacked the technical skills to construct that kind of work. And now I prefer the messiness of random-seeming text boxes pasted across a PowerPoint slide.

I’d written 95,000 words about my father for a memoir called Bruno Slept Here; I’d read a score of books and interviewed a bevy of experts. But Kyo’s prompt let me vault across all the facts to a visual poem about what keeps you going amidst the mayhem of war.

I’m indebted to Rebecca Solnit’s book The Faraway Nearby for the idea of running an independent string of text at the bottom of the page.

 

BAŅUTA RUBESS pioneered feminist theatre and contemporary opera to national renown in Canada and Latvia. She has lived in four countries and writes in two languages. She has written plays, libretti, radio drama, television biopics, stories, and has devised site-specific productions for a beach and a mansion. She has been nominated for many awards and has won a few, including Best Play, Best Director, and Best Short Story. Her writing is published in Aesthetica (UK), Creative Nonfiction (US), and Domuzīme (Latvia). Baņuta lives in Toronto and is writing a memoir about the personal cost of surveillance. Follow her voracious reading habits on Funny, You Don’t Look Bookish. Find her on Twitter @banuta or Instagram @labagne.