Summer of My German Soldier (13 page)

It took only a few minutes’ wait for the initials “H.B.” to be ironed onto the pocket. But it was only by the greatest amount of self-control that I was able to check my impulse to present the shirt to my father that very night. Actually I did cheat, but only a little, when I told him that I had bought him a perfectly wonderful Father’s Day gift.

When Sunday finally arrived I felt the way I used to feel about Christmas. My imagination had played the scene over so many times. I knew that he would be pleased with my gift. He’d say it was the finest shirt he’d ever owned. And then the focus would shift from gift to giver and I would rest there in his arms like a long-lost daughter come home.

The reality wasn’t like that. He opened the box, said “Thanks,” and then, replacing the cover, he tossed it casually out of sight. But it’s what happened next—what I did next—that even now makes me feel the painful pinch of shame. I brought the shirt back to him. “Look, it has your initials, H.B.,” I said. “And see the buttons, genuine pearl dyed to
perfectly match the fabric which is very special too. Comes all the way from Egypt.”

With a sudden half swing of his hand, he pushed both me and the shirt out of his way. “I
said,
‘Thank you,’” he said, edging each word with finely controlled irritation.

Anton asked me to excuse him while he went into the bathroom to change into the pants. It was then that I handed him the cocoa-colored box. “A shirt. You’ll need a shirt.” I turned my head away. Maybe it isn’t such a great shirt. Maybe he won’t like it either. But I turned my head back just in time to see his face change from surprise to pleasure. His hand stroked the blueness and his fingers even stopped momentarily to examine a button.

“Thanks,” he said, touching my cheek with his hand.

Then he was gone and the room seemed emptier than it had ever before been. Probably it was just that before Anton the room had grown accustomed to its loneliness.

Anton came back, filling it up. His eyes looked blue now, very blue, like the shirt he wore. During our lunch I told him about all the excitement in town, and about my visit to the prison camp. He seemed confused by it all, especially about my interrogation by the FBI.

“Why is there such interest in me? An ordinary soldier.”

“Only because they think you’re a threat to our national security.”

“Me?”

“Because of the German saboteurs from the U-boats the FBI captured. They think you escaped to join up with them.”

“U-boats were here, Patty?”

“They just stopped long enough to let off the saboteurs.”

“And they think I—”

“Yes.”

“It was the timing. It was the worst possible timing!”

“But you’re safe here, Anton. You can stay here till the end of the war! Nobody knows about this place and I can bring you food and books to read and anything else that you want—tell me what you want!”

Anton raised his eyes to look at me without raising his head. “A bit of your courage, P.B.”

“P.B.” he called me, and my initials took on a strength and beauty that never before was there. And now that I had of my own free will broken faith with my father and my country, I felt like a good and worthy person.

Anton laughed, keeping it well within his throat. “After the war when I’m with my family again I’ll tell them about you. How an American Jewess protected me.”

I searched through his words for even a slight implication that when he was with his family again I’d be there too. But I couldn’t find it. I was close to coming right out with it—asking him, begging if that would help, to let me go where he goes.

Then my hand brushed across my hair and I felt the forgotten—the tizzledly, frizzledy handiwork of Mrs. Reeves. The moment went sour.

“Tell me,” he said, showing a perfect set of teeth like an advertisement for toothpaste. “Why have you suddenly taken the vows of silence?”

A knot of anger rose up. Anger towards Mrs. Reeves who uglified me, towards Anton who pretended not to notice, but mostly against myself for believing that a prince could love a plowgirl.

“If I talked less would you talk more?” he asked, still showing off his teeth. Show-off!

“No! It’s only because—because I don’t feel like any more talking. You want coffee? I’ll bring you coffee.” As I reached for the door, I saw his hand reach out towards me. But I closed the door firmly between us.

I found myself in front of the house and sat down on the steps, out of view of the garage. The carousel inside my brain began its revolutions: He’s nice to me only because I’m useful. He’s nice to me only because he likes me. He’s handsome. I’m homely. Love is blind and beauty, skin deep. He’s laughing at me—with me. With me. Why did I have to find him? How could I endure losing him?

My head dropped forward and rested in the dark hollow of my hands. Remember what they say? My father, mother, the clerks in the store, and the salesmen with heavy sample cases from Memphis, St. Louis, and Little Rock: “You only get what you pay for.”

From somewhere a voice called my name. My eyes remained closed. At any moment he’ll sit down next to me, and after a little quietness he will ask me to go away with him. “You really want me to go away with you?” He’ll nod his head, and I’ll say, “Yes, Anton, yes.”

“Looky here!” said the voice close up. “I got me some salt pork for crawdading.”

Freddy Dowd! “I don’t want to catch any crawdads, Freddy. I might have a headache.” How do you tell a boy who never has anything more to brag about than a piece of salt pork that you want him to go away? Poor Freddy, so thin, like he never quite gets enough to eat.

He sat down next to me. “Salt pork is what them crawdads
would rather eat than anything in this here world.”

“Have you ever tasted crawdad, Freddy?”

He laughed, showing jagged areas where his teeth had darkened and decayed. “Crawdads ain’t for eatin’, they’se for catchin’.”

“Did you know that crawdads are in the same family as lobsters and crabs? The crustacean family, and only people who are very, very rich can ever afford to taste them.”

He looked at me like I was telling him the stars are stuck to the heavens with little bits of cellophane tape. “I’m a-gonna ask my daddy,” he said after an interval.

Freddy is getting very close to being twelve years old, and he still believes that being a grown-up man is the same as knowing things. Daddy Dowd is a big, slow-moving, slow-speaking man who delivers milk, but drinks something else. Poor Freddy, you’re not going to find many answers there.

O.K., so Freddy is simple. There are worse things than that. There’s hypocrisy, for example, pretending to like somebody just so they can keep you safe from the FBI. And with Freddy a person can feel comfortable because from his miserable perch he’s not likely to be laughing at anybody. Sometimes I feel Freddy and I are related. Well, not exactly related as much as we share something that makes us both outcasts.

Part of our outcastness has to do with simple geography. He is a country boy who because of some accident of his daddy’s job lives right here in town. And my geography problem is in being a Jewish girl where it’s a really peculiar thing to be. Even when I went to Jewish Sunday school in Memphis the geography thing was still there. I would come
in on a cold Sunday morning wearing short-sleeved, short-legged union suits under my sash-tied dresses, while the other girls looked as though they were born into this world wearing matching sweater and skirt outfits.

It struck me that neither of us had said anything for a while. I looked over at Freddy who was busily picking at a piece of scab. How like Freddy to sit quiet and amuse himself when I don’t feel like talking. One thing you can say about him is that he’s appreciative. He’s just happy having someone to sit with.

Leaving downtown was the familiar roar of a car motor. (Did all Chevys sound angry?) It must be six o’clock. Moments later I watched my father steer a wide turn in front of the house and gun the car up the gravel driveway.

“Oh, Harry, leave her alone!” cried my mother through the open car window.

Me? What did I—oh, God, it’s Freddy! Where do I keep my mind?

“Go, Freddy!” I whispered. “Go home!”

The car door slammed shut. My father’s face was a pasty white. “How dare you disobey me!”

“Please let me explain something to you.” My hands automatically reached out in a gesture that looked futile even to me.

My mother stationed herself between us. “Now, Harry. Harry, leave her alone. Please!” With one hand, he gave her a strong push that sent her staggering backward across the grass.

“God damn you!” he shouted at me. “You’ll obey me if it kills you!” My legs were carrying me in reverse toward the rear of the
house. “Let me at least tell you what happened. I was sitting there and he just came over a moment ago and sat down. I swear to God that’s the truth!”

His feet came faster and I moved to keep space between us. The sounds of Ruth’s kitchen radio tuned into the gospel station poured out the open window. “Op-pressed so hard they could not stand. Let my people go ...”

We were deep into back-yard territory and my eye caught sight of the garage hide-out. God! Don’t let him see this. I tried to maneuver back toward the front of the house, but my arm was caught with an explosion of pain.

“Awllll!” My arm felt as if it was pulled out of its socket. Then the barrage. “Noooo-ohhh.” The ground reached up and laid me down. Oh, God, can’t you help?

Everything was quiet. Was it all over? It seemed too quick to satisfy him. I forced my eyes open. He was standing over me, the brown of his suit in perfect outline against the white of the garage. His breath was coming in quick, heavy gasps and I began to hope that his exhaustion would cut short the agony.

Metal clicked against metal. A leather belt rushed through fabric loops. As the belt whipped backward, I saw Anton with raised fists racing toward my father’s unsuspecting back.

“Nooo!” I shouted. “Go ’way! Go ’way!”

The belt came down. “Ohhhh-nonono!”

Anton, his hands outstretched before him, froze. His face was like I had never seen it, dazed with horror. Then he clapped his hands to his eyes and backed towards the garage.

11. Mining the gold

“S
HE HAS TO BE
taking it home with her; I can’t think of any other explanation. That kosher salami cost one dollar and ten cents.” My mother repeated the price a second time for added emphasis.

I pulled the top sheet over my head to block out the early morning sounds from the kitchen and rolled over a now very warm ice bag and remembered. In another few minutes they would be leaving for the store. Only then would I get
out of bed. Just as soon as my mother downs her second cup of coffee and my father finishes his corn flakes. As long as I can remember it has been corn flakes and nothing but corn flakes. He’s got the same loyalty towards cars. “I’ll buy any kinda car as long as it’s a Chevrolet.” And cigarettes too. He’s never had a cigarette in his mouth that wasn’t a Lucky Strike.

“So you’d better talk to her, Harry.”

“Talk to who?”

“To Ruth!” Her voice hit a shrill note. “I want to know what’s happening to the salami and chicken and all the other food that’s been disappearing around here lately.”

“Well, how do you know she’s taking it home? I don’t know what you’re talking about. But she’ll be coming any minute now, and if you want to fire her it’s fine with me. Something about that woman I never liked.”

I didn’t want to speak to them, but I didn’t want them to suspect either. I yelled out, “I’m sorry about the salami ’cause I ate most of it myself. And about the leftover chicken, Sharon and Sue Ellen ate the last of it.”

“Now you see that!” he told her. “Don’t ever talk to me again about missing food.”

I’ll have to say this for him, he’s always generous about food, even when we eat in restaurants. Like that Sunday in Memphis not too long ago when we ate at Britlings’ and I ordered the chopped sirloin steak and he said, “That’s nothing but a hamburger. Wouldn’t you like to have a real steak?” My mother didn’t like the idea of ordering “an expensive steak that will just go to waste.” But my father told her to mind her own business, and that as long as he lived I could eat anything I wanted.

The phrase, “as long as he lived” sounded like a vague prophecy, and I became sorrowful that he might die now that he was being good to me. I became so sorrowful, in fact, that it was Mother’s prediction that was soon fulfilled. An expensive steak went to waste.

The familiar sounds of a spiritual—Ruth was passing below my window on her way to the back door. “Morning, folks,” she called. “Well, I heard the weatherman say we’re gonna get us a little rain by afternoon, enough to cool things off.” My mother agreed that a little shower would be very nice. “Is that piece of toast all you’ve had to eat?” asked Ruth. “That’s no kinda breakfast, Miz Bergen. I could make you some hurry-up griddle cakes.”

“Griddle cakes are fattening. Besides I have to leave now.”

A couple of minutes later the car backed out of the garage, the motor gunned for the two-block trip, and they were gone.

Ruth came into my room, bent over and picked up the flowery chenille bedspread that had fallen to the floor, and asked, “Are you feeling all right?”

I remembered who had brought me the ice bag and aspirins for my head and the ointment for my legs. “I don’t know. I guess I am.”

From the other twin bed came a long, low, early morning sound as Sharon flopped over to a better dreaming position.

“Come on into the kitchen,” whispered Ruth as she tiptoed out of the room.

The marshmallow slowly began to bleed its whiteness over the steaming cup of chocolate. On the shelf of the breakfast
room’s built-in cabinet our one surviving goldfish, Goldilocks, began her vigorous after-breakfast swim.

“How come that fish got sense enough to eat her breakfast and you don’t?” asked Ruth as she sat down at the table.

I ignored the buttered toast and scrambled egg, but took a long drink of the now lukewarm chocolate. “Don’t know except maybe Goldilocks has a better cook than I do.”