Summer of My German Soldier (11 page)

Inside the store I saw that the only activity was over by the hardware. Three farmers were lined up in front of a counter.

My father called for Chester. The black man in his gray porter’s jacket came running from the back storeroom. “Yes, sir, Mr. Harry?”

“Chester, go bring up all the twelve-gauge shotgun shells we’ve got.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Harry.”

Two men wearing striped ties and business suits came in the door and headed directly towards my father. I followed them.

“Mr. Bergen?” asked the older of the men as he flipped open a small leather case.

“Yes, sir, I’m Harry Bergen.” My father came from behind the counter to shake hands with both men. “What can I do for the FBI today?”

“I’m John Pierce. This is my partner, Phil McFee. We’re
here investigating the escape of the prisoner from the POW camp.” Pierce handed my father a black-and-white glossy photograph. “Do you have any recollections of this man?”

“Once,” said my father, “some POWs were brought in here to buy things, but I didn’t pay much attention to what those rats looked like.”

Pierce pointed to the photograph. “Look carefully, Mr. Bergen. Reiker may have been acting as interpreter for the others.”

“Oh, you know, there was one.” My father nodded his head up and down. “He was a kinda smart aleck, that one. Tried to joke with me, but I told him right off I wasn’t interested in making jokes with Germans.”

Pierce struck the picture with his index finger. “Is that the man who tried to joke with you?”

“Well, he might be the one. I’ll tell you fellows the truth, I didn’t pay much attention to what he looked like. There was one thing I remember. Don’t know if it’ll help you boys much.”

“What?” asked Pierce.

“He talked in a funny way, pretending to be a Harvard boy instead of a convict.”

“And there’s nothing else?”

“No, sir. I sure wish I could be more helpful to you and Mr. Hoover ’cause he’s one of the two greatest living Americans. The other one’s General MacArthur.”

McFee, who looked as though he hadn’t gotten comfortably settled into his twenties yet, allowed his chest to swell to enormous proportions. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate your saying that.”

Pierce crossed the store to show the picture to my mother
and Gussie Fields, who shook their heads in unison. Then Sister Parker was asked to take a look. She said No and was about to return the photo when she gave a second, more thoughtful appraisal. “You know, he looks a little something like the man Mr. Bergen’s girl waited on.” Sister Parker turned to find me only a step behind. She held Anton’s picture aloft. “Patty, isn’t this that German you were talking and laughing with?”

The eyes of the FBI were upon me. I asked, “Is it all right if I look?”

The older agent took the picture from Sister Parker’s hand and gave it to me. As a precaution against the shakes, I let my hand rest against the top of the counter. “Well, this might be the same prisoner I waited on. It looks like it could be him only I don’t remember his hair being so dark.”

“Why didn’t you say something before now?” asked McFee. “You’ve been following us since we entered the store.”

“I have a right to be in this store if I want to. It’s my father’s store.”

“You were laughing with him,” pressed McFee. “Did he say something funny?”

“No.”

McFee’s face came in close. “Then why did you laugh?”

“I laughed because—because—” The dam that kept my tears back sprang a leak. “Because he didn’t know what to call a pocket pencil sharpener.” I hid my eyes in my hands, letting the sobs come at will, regulating their own intensity and volume. Sister Parker put her arm around me, giving me little now, now pats to my shoulder.

My father’s voice approached. “What’s the matter? What’s happened?”

McFee shrugged. “We were merely asking her a few questions and—”

“They made her nervous,” interrupted Sister. “Both of them questioning Patty like she went and took that German out of prison.”

“Do you realize what you did?” asked my father, grabbing my wrist away from my face. It vibrated wildly like the agitator from some old washing machine. “Look at that child’s hand! She’s highly nervous and I don’t appreciate one bit your upsetting her. I’m going to call the FBI and ask them to give me an explanation for this.”

Pierce held his head like he was holding onto a headache. “Now, Mr. Bergen, please—”

“Don’t you please me!” said my father. “I want to tell you both something. I’m a Jew and I’d rather help a mad dog escape from the pound than to help a Nazi. Come to my house! Search it from top to bottom, attic, garage, everything!”

“Are you finished talking?” asked Pierce in a voice that just missed being a shout. “Allow me to say this. There is not the slightest suspicion against either you or your daughter. I apologize for my partner who’s new with the bureau and sometimes gets carried away. But now that he understands the situation, I’m certain that he’ll want to apologize to both you and your daughter. Don’t you, McFee?”

“Sure, I’m sorry. I didn’t know the girl was a nervous wreck.”

“Go wait in the car,” barked Pierce. He turned his attention to my father. “I’m going to have to ask you a favor. The escape of the prisoner Reiker may pose a threat to the very security of this nation, and it is considered essential that he
be quickly apprehended. We’re working night and day to do just that. Now, with that in mind, Mr. Bergen, I’m asking you to please let me talk with your daughter. It’s just possible that she might provide some useful thread of information.”

I wiped away the last of the tears and said, “I’ll tell you anything I can.” Just as long as the information is worthless.

Mr. Pierce smiled. “Fine. Fine. As you may have heard, we’re fighting the Germans because they’re bad, and if one of them gets loose it’s very, very important to catch him. The reason we have to catch him is so he can’t hurt children and other people. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Perfectly.”

“That’s fine,” he said, taking out a yellow pencil scarred by teeth marks. Mr. Pierce jotted down a few words on a stenographic pad as I told my story. He asked me to tell it one more time, adding anything that came to mind. The second time, I remembered the color of the pocket pencil sharpener—it was red.

The agent removed the pencil from between his teeth to inquire whether I had noticed if there was much money in the prisoner’s wallet. I didn’t remember seeing a lot of money. The agent wanted to know if I was absolutely certain that the only thing the prisoner bought was the sharpener, paper, and pencils.

I thought about the pin with the circle of glass diamonds. “There was something else,” I said. “Now that I think of it. The prisoner carried a large tan sack. He must’ve bought a straw field hat like the rest of the prisoners. Yes! I think he did.”

“Would you say,” asked Pierce, lowering his voice, “that there was anything peculiar in his behavior?”

“Yes, there was something out of the ordinary about him.”

“What was it?”

“Politeness,” I said, aware of beginning to enjoy the interview. “He was very polite.”

The FBI man muttered a thanks as he walked with weighted steps out of the store.

Across the store, Quentin Blakey and his crescent of men came in to catch the twelve o’clock news: “The FBI has rounded up an additional fifteen spies,” said the announcer’s voice. “These spies were preparing to help the eight U-boat saboteurs once they established themselves on the mainland. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover said in Washington today that the spies had enough money and weapons to carry out a two-year reign of terror. At two o’clock this afternoon, Director Hoover will give a full report to the President. In Arkansas a prisoner of war escapes,” continued the announcer. “That’s us!” said Mr. Blakey. “Throughout the country, law enforcement agencies are searching for a German prisoner of war. Frederick Anton Reiker, five feet ten inches, one hundred sixty-five pounds, vanished yesterday from a prison camp near Jenkinsville, Arkansas. The twenty-two-year-old former Nazi soldier is dark-haired, speaks flawless English, and should be considered extremely dangerous. The weather for Little Rock and vicinity is—”

My father clicked off the radio. “Serves them right for coddling those Nazis. Our boys sure don’t get that good a treatment when they’re taken prisoner.”

The president of the Rotary Club nodded. “The trouble with this country is that it’s too Christian. The Bible admonishes us to turn the other cheek, but we forget that it also tells us to take a tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye.”

“I’ll tell you something, George,” said my father. “I don’t think they oughta take prisoners. Not live ones, anyway.” There was a chorus of appreciative male laughter.

One of the men suddenly gave George Henkins an alerting poke to the ribs, “Would you looky what’s a-coming in the door.”

She was young, wearing a tailored dress of sea green, with shoulder-length hair that bounced in rhythm with her walk. But as she came up to the male quartet, they all appeared disappointed. For what looked like dazzling beauty at a distance was at close range only a trim figure and freshly laundered hair.

“Excuse me, gentlemen, I’m Charlene Madlee of the
Commercial Appeal,
and I’m looking for Sheriff Cauldwell. They told me you might know where I could find him.”

“I haven’t seen Harold since morning,” said Mr. Blakey. “You fellows know where he might be?”

The town sign painter, Blister, shook his head. “I reckon with all the ’citement, he’s busier’n a hound dog during hunting season.”

I followed the lady reporter out to the sidewalk and offered to show her to Sheriff Cauldwell’s office. As we drove together down Main toward Front Street I noticed an occasional cluster of men on the sidewalk. Then it struck me. Where were all the womenfolk? Didn’t any of the town ladies have bread to buy or an electric bill to pay? It reminded me of a movie I saw: The town men were stationed with guns behind every buckboard, waiting for the Comanches to attack, while all the women and children were holed up in the saloon.

The sun, when did it pull its disappearing act? The complexion
of the day had changed to unrelieved grayness.

“There’s the jailhouse,” I said, pointing to the dirty stucco bungalow with the rippled tin roof that squatted on an open grassy space between Dr. Benson’s drugstore and the Rice County National Bank. “The sheriff’s office is right inside, but I doubt if he’s around today.”

She made a skillful entry into something less than a full parking space. “I’ll be right back,” she said, which I took as an invitation to stick around.

I thought about Anton, alone and getting hungrier. Just as I decided that I’d better hurry back to him with news and food, the reporter returned. “Would you know how to get to the prison camp?”

She followed my directions through the center of town and then turned right onto Highway 64. “My name is Charlene Madlee,” she said, pulling a cigarette from a puffy beige pocketbook. “And I think it’s very sweet of you to guide me around.”

“Oh, that’s O.K.,” I said. “I think it must be very interesting being a reporter. How do you become one?”

Charlene smiled. I could tell she liked my question. “What’s your name?”

“Patty Bergen.”

“Well, Patty, you need to decide whether you have the aptitude—the ability—for it. A good reporter has to have enough curiosity to kill a dozen cats and a love for words. Does that sound like you, Patty?”

“Yes, it does, Miss Madlee, really.”

“Call me Charlene.”

“O.K., Charlene. Well, I’m very curious and that’s one of the things that upsets my father. He says that all I do is ask
questions. And I do like words, I use them all the time,” I said, stumbling over my enthusiasm. I laughed and so did Charlene. “What I meant to say is that, well, you’ll probably think this is strange, but I read dictionaries.”

“Really?”

“I keep reading until I find a word I don’t know and then I write down the word and its meaning. I got all the way through
Webster’s Elementary Dictionary
two years ago and now I’m working my way through
Webster’s Collegiate.
”

Charlene turned her eyes from the road to look at me. “How did you become interested in dictionary reading?”

“Well, it’s all mixed up with curiosity. When I read a book, I want to understand precisely what it is the writer is saying, not just almost but precisely. And it’s the same when people are talking to you. Like a moment ago you used the word ‘aptitude,’ and because you didn’t think I understood, you substituted the word ‘ability.’ But you didn’t actually mean ability. We both know that I don’t have the ability to be a reporter today, but I just might have the aptitude.”

“That’s very well put,” said Charlene admiringly. “I’ll bet you’re a real whiz in school.”

“No, I’m not.”

“And you’re modest too?”

“No, it’s the truth. I’m not at all good in school. Mostly I make
C
s—sometimes worse.”

At McDonald’s dairy barn, we left the blacktop to turn right on a dusty side road. Farther in the distance those familiar Y-shaped posts connected a network of barbed wire which squared off the compound. Charlene brought the car to a sudden stop in front of the gate, where two rifle-carrying soldiers marched sentry duty. A third soldier stepped out of
a guard house and threw Charlene a salute. “Where are you going, ma’am?”

“I’m Charlene Madlee, a reporter for the
Memphis Commercial Appeal,
and I want to see your warden.”

The soldier asked us to wait while he phoned the commandant’s office. Within a couple of minutes he returned, shaking his head. “I’m real sorry, ma’am, the commandant cannot see reporters today.”

Charlene opened the car door, “You get that commandant back on the phone. I want to speak with him.” The soldier’s obey reflex had been made strong by constant use. Without hesitation he returned to the telephone. “It’s all yours, ma’am,” he said, extending the black receiver to Charlene.

“Commandant? This is Charlene Madlee of the
Memphis Commercial Appeal.
Commandant, I have information that suggests that the security of this prison is lax and ... Of course. Yes, I understand that. ... No, I know it isn’t fair, and that’s the reason I drove the forty miles from Memphis just to get your side of the story. ... First barrack on the left. Thank you.”