HAM SANDWICH Kenneth E Knapp Four years in the camp had negated the will of stronger men...but that wasn't Nico's problem today. That was over and done. No longer a part of a clustered muted mass, his concern now was the pursuit of the elusive qualities of confidence, decisiveness and individuality...to feel comfortable again, to become part of this fluid uninhibited throng, who, in the utter freedom of this new land, seemed almost vulgar to Nico; certainly always frightening. Nico knew the first step in his rehabilitation would not be easy. Just how much total submission and abject docility could do to a man, Nico didn't know. He did know the prognosis for him did not look good, because the very will, essential for recovery, has been essentially invalidated by years of non use... even non recognition. That is why so much depended upon the successful execution of today's carefully planned and long awaited undertaking. This was Nico's first step on the long road back...his first independent act since that terrible day...the first exercising of his own initiative...the first show of his own inventiveness... the restoration of his volition! Every contingency had been considered. Though he did not understand this strange and garbled tongue, yet he had learned exactly what the waitress he had so attentively studied would say. His response had been carefully rehearsed...how could there be the slightest doubt; and besides he had to try, for he had to know if he could cope with life again as Nico, a separate, single human being. Nothing had been overlooked--he was certain of that. Time 12 and again he had stood unobtrusively in the background and heard the young lady in her stiff clean uniform say, "Your order please." Time and again he had heard the customers respond, "A ham sandwich." Then, pencil poised in that funny little way, regularly, and without exception the words that always came would pass across the counter, "Plain or toasted?" Nico had rehearsed the procedure in his room a thousand times. "Plain," he would say, with just the right amount of control in his voice; "Plain," he would say, and it would be done. The rush hour passed. Nico quietly slid onto a stool at the near empty counter that comprised her work station. As she approached, he pressed his left elbow and forearm firmly against his chest as though to muffle the heavy throbbing within. With effort he suppressed the urge to quickly withdraw before it was too late. Nervously he watched her hand mechanically remove the order pad from her apron pocket and place it in front of him on the counter. Even as she would speak the words, he knew her right hand would reach for the pencil tucked securely under the rim of her uniform cap. "Your order please?" "A hem senwich." Nico spoke with a belied calm and then with a sudden sense of elation he waited for the words he knew would follow. "On wholewheat or white?" "Nein, nein," Nico's lips scarcely moved and his head lowered into the cup of his hands, "Mein Gott ! Mein Gott!" 13