CASANOVA

CASANOVA

What? Swietlicki? But that was not his real name!

A relative of yours? I can see some resemblance. Same good looks.
That chap was quite handsome. Like a real movie star!

How do I know? Because Wanda, my sister, dragged him in here.
He hung around for a whole year afterward.

Swietlicki - was the name on his false Aryan identity papers. He didn't look Jewish, and with those doctored papers, no one gave him a hard time.

He could be a good companion at times, and he was well able to drink.
Whenever he clinched a shady deal, he used to buy a round or two in the pub. You couldn't call him tightfisted in any way.

He had a tremendous pull on women.
nd they knew his secret. Because what they could see with their own eyes wasn't just his papers, if you know what I mean...

He was a womanizer before the war and bragged about it to Wanda.
He said that one time he seduced a high-brow lady writer.
From the start, she told him that she would never go to bed with a Jew because she could not stand any of them...
But then, after he pleasured her, she did everything he wanted, when and how he wanted. The ways she debased herself - everything just to keep him interested in her.
And that SOB was poking fun at her.

I don't know how Wanda met up with him. She did not want to say.
She was totally into him, and he took advantage for sure.
She even agreed that he could go and see other women if he came to her in the end.
He had such sex appeal that women just threw themselves at him.
One passing glance from his eyes, and their skirts went up.

We lived in a garrison town, and when the Germans came and took over, many men ended up as POWs and were imprisoned in the camps.
But the ladies had their needs, and Swietlicki was there to help.
He was so popular that the women agreed he could switch from one to the other at will.
A night with one, breakfast with a second, lunch with yet another, supper, and so on. Such a Padishah!

But he always returned to Wanda.
She repaired his clothes. Bought him new shirts. And a suit.
He accepted it all as his due.

The worst part was that the rest of the women fully accepted that, too.
It looked like even those whose husbands were here, at home, also wanted to test the waters.
And that ribald would not refuse any of them.
He even had a smile and kind compliments for the elderly ladies.
There were rumors that he even did our policeman's wife...

He only kept his distance from the innocent marriageable girls.
Once, over a drink, he explained that they meant nothing but trouble.
They were inexperienced in bed and usually thought the next step up would be a wedding. It was dangerous because an irate father might put a bullet through one's head.
And why take a risk with one filly who doesn't know the game if you can do it with another who knows how to receive and reciprocate?

For all this, the local men became not too enthused with Swietlicki.
However, none of them knew he was a Jew.
And the women were solidly mum about it...
don't know. He must have been a sorcerer or what?
One time he was caught with contraband, and that gendarme's floozy wiggled him out of that trouble.

But a time came when he began to disappear for short periods of time.
For a week, sometimes for more than ten days.
The ladies were worried. It could have happened that he was caught in a forced labor roundup. And they knew what would happen to him if his secret had been discovered.
But he just laughed it off and assured them he was born under the lucky star.

Eventually, someone discovered he latched on to another hussy in the nearby town.
After the war, it turned out that she survived thanks to her false Aryan ID papers.
But nobody knew it at the time.
Except, he was not as eager with the local women as before.
Not that he turned into a monk, but it seemed he had lost interest.
And he did not return to Wanda.

And so, one day, they came for him.
This time he knew it was for real and attempted to escape through the window. But our policeman was quick, shot him in the back, and Swietlicki fell on the pavement below. The policeman went down, shot him twice in the crotch, and said, "Die, you Jewish bastard!"

Who betrayed him? - Wanda!
She said that if she could not have him, no one would!