Summer of My German Soldier (21 page)

Mr. Grimes was looking at me as though Anton couldn’t be all those things I said he was. Why did I have to go spouting off to him? What made me think he would understand when nobody else could? “Don’t you think,” I asked, hearing
the anger in my voice, “that a German can be good?”

“Oh, I reckon on St. Peter opening up them pearly gates for some Germans,” he said. “Now, there ain’t no need to go getting your dander up jest ’cause I don’t understand who’s this Mr. Kishner.”

“I’m sorry. He’s the man, the lawyer, my father hired to tell my side of the story in court. Only thing is he kept saying that the really important things were not pertinent to the case.”

“Them lawyers are tricky fellers all right,” said Mr. Grimes. “One time, oh, this was two or three years ago, I was taking a feller name of Cranston Hollis to the Cummins Prison Farm.”

He waved his empty coffee cup in the air and Miss Beaded Moccasins filled both of our cups from a steaming pot. “Well, Mr. Cranston Hollis, he was one big man. President of a state savings bank in North Little Rock. Only thing was when the bank examiner came to look at the ledger he found that Mr. Hollis’ bank was shy one hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars and that ain’t even counting the change.”

I said, “That’s a lot.”

“Ooh-whee, I’ll say it is. More money than I’ll make in all my working lifetime. Well, this Mr. Hollis, he was one smart man, told me eight people other than him worked in that bank. Six of them had more opportunity than he did to take the money. But his lawyer didn’t even entertain the notion that he was defending an innocent man. So Mr. Hollis’ advice to anyone who has to go up before the bar of justice is to beware of at least two people: the lawyer the state hires to convict you and the lawyer you hire to defend yourself.”

It was easier for me to agree with poor Mr. Cranston Hollis now than before my experience with Mr. Kishner. But it wasn’t exactly his fault. I mean, actually he didn’t want to take my case in the first place. My father had especially wanted Mr. Kishner because he was known as a really big Memphis lawyer, and I know for a fact how proud the Beth Zion Synagogue is that he is one of them.

When my father first phoned him, Mr. Kishner said that it wasn’t the kind of thing he wanted to get involved in, and besides since the case would be tried in the Arkansas courts, it would be much better to hire a local, non-Jewish attorney. Somebody who knew all the local judges and wouldn’t be afraid to speak out.

After Mr. Kishner refused to take my case, my father placed another long distance call to Memphis. This time it was to Morris Frank, president of Beth Zion, who I think my father had met before. Mr. Frank said that he had known Harold Kishner for more than thirty years and if anybody could get him to take the case he could. And he did.

On the very next day Mr. Kishner’s thin and unsmiling secretary led me into an office of dark wood, real leather chairs, and an oriental rug of such fire and density that it must have taken a hundred weavers all their lifetimes to complete. A window behind the great man gave a fine view of the Memphis skyline.

The lawyer sighed into the receiver, “Leo, why can’t you keep in mind that we’re treating it as a tax preference item?”

When he finally placed the receiver on the hook he nodded at me without smiling. I nodded back while forcing a smile. He got up from his chair. I edged forward in mine. Finally
he said he was my lawyer, hired to be, and that he was going to see if he could help me.

He asked me to tell my story just as it happened, and as I did he scribbled notes on a long yellow pad. Every so often he would interrupt to ask a question or clarify a point. A couple of times and in slightly different ways he asked if I were afraid of Anton, afraid that harm might come to either me or my family if I failed to obey.

Mr. Kishner’s lips thinned when I shook my head. “I was never afraid.”

Then he tried to get me to say I was too young to understand that Anton was an escaped prisoner. How could I not have understood that? I wanted to tell him that I had some pride left and that they could accuse me of being a traitor, but not of being stupid. But I kept quiet.

Finally Mr. Kishner replaced his fountain pen in his onyx desk set and rose, looking me over closely for the first time, and I knew that he would speak. “Young lady, you have embarrassed Jews everywhere. Because your loyalty is questionable, then every Jew’s loyalty is in question.” He sighed before adding, “I just wanted you to know.”

Outside Shanley’s Restaurant the air came up sharp and clean. “Cold enough for you?” asked Mr. Grimes.

“Oh, I don’t mind,” I said. A vision of snow on distant mountaintops came to me and I was close to asking if there were mountains at Bolton, but fear that he would say there was only flat land kept the question unasked. With the end of Anton, hope had taken to its sickbed, if not its deathbed.

I found a small bit of courage within, not enough for
mountains, but maybe for a little snow. I decided to squander it. “Any chance we might get snow for Christmas?”

Mr. Grimes looked to the right and then the left, shifted into second, and entered the two-lane highway before speaking. “Weatherman on the radio said the Carolinas might get some, but I ain’t never heard of snow taking no geography lessons. Back in ’38 or ’39—’38 it was—we got almost an inch of snow for Christmas.”

“I’d like that to happen again,” I said as I brought my shoeless feet up beside me on the car seat. My head found a resting place in the bough of my arm. I felt myself going down, down to sleep.

Against my arm, tapping. “Wake up, girl. We’re almost there.”

“Wha—” I shifted my yawn inside the crook of my elbow.

“We’re coming into Bolton, thought you’d like to see it. The school’s east of town.”

“Oh,” I said, conscious of feeling nothing but sleepy.

Then, spanning the width of the street, strings of Christmas lights—red and blue, green and yellow. A lighted movie marquee announced,
THE FIVE SULLIVANS AND XMAS CARTOONS.

“I saw that movie!” I said, coming alive. “All about five brothers, sailors on this ship that was sunk. Saddest thing I’ve ever seen. Try to see that movie if you get the chance.”

“Nope,” answered Mr. Grimes. “Don’t have to spend my money for sadness. Plenty of that to be had for free.”

Mr. Grimes followed the road through town, past two blocks of houses, a gas station, and then open land. Headlights picked up a black iron fence, and as the car swung
through open gates I saw a sign with the Arkansas state seal. It read:

THE JASPER E. CONRAD

ARKANSAS REFORMATORY FOR GIRLS

BOLTON, ARKANSAS

The lights were on in the three-story building. In the darkness it looked no different from any other three-story brick. No! There was something different. The windows were covered, all covered, with diamond-shaped, heavy wire screening. At the Memphis Zoo they use the same kind of screening for the animals.

20. My only hope

M
Y EYES OPENED.
I measured the bleakness of the morning against the painted grayness of the walls and estimated the time to be six thirty. Ever since I had been here, and today marked the thirty-second morning, there had been this new ability of mine to awaken, fully awake, without stretching or yawning. Part of it was knowing that this thirty minutes before the wake-up bell was the only time that belonged to me.

All right, get to it, I told myself. This is finally going to be the morning when things come to me: My plans for a lifetime. I gave myself the usual instructions: Try new roads; check out all byways, explore every possibility. But my mind hadn’t even finished its pep talk when the familiar vision intruded. “Go away,” I said out loud, “I have to be practical.” I couldn’t risk everything on such a slim hope. It didn’t make sense!

Think practical; think about living in Memphis with Grandmother and Grandfather. My father wouldn’t hear of it. Didn’t he tell the FBI that they had no right to take me to Grandma’s that evening after they had finished questioning me?

Then think about going away to school, to some private place in New England where nobody would know me. My mother wouldn’t let me. Even before the scandal I clipped an ad from the back pages of
The Ladies’ Home Journal
showing a girl about my age smiling at her horse, and underneath the picture it read, “Briar Cliff: an experience in living.”

My mother only glanced at the ad before starting to laugh, “Where do you dream up such ideas?” she demanded. “Are you such a fancy girl you need such a fancy school?” No possibility there, none at all.

Well, I’ve heard about people working their way through school, and there are things I can do. I could take care of the horses. I’d love that, but even if that job were filled there are other things. Cooks need helpers, or maybe I could use the work experience that I’m getting here. As I brought my hands from beneath the blanket bleach attacked my nostrils. That smell may have been part of my imagination, but my red, chapped hands weren’t. No, I don’t want to work in
anybody’s laundry anywhere, anymore.

The vision was still there waiting for me, soft and appealing. I let it in. It’s six years from now. I’m eighteen. The war is over. With my thousand-dollar war bond, I have money enough to take a train to New York and from there a ship to Germany. Another train ride and I’m in Göttingen. At the train station I change into my prettiest dress before dialing the number. No, not at the station, better at a hotel.

A woman answers and I ask, “Mrs. Reiker?”

“This is Mrs. Reiker,” says the voice in elegant English.

“Mrs. Reiker,” I say slowly, “I’m an American. My name is Patricia Bergen. I knew your son, Anton.” There is only silence, so I stumble on. “We were friends back when he was a prisoner of war, in America.”

“You knew Anton?” she asks, her voice hollow like it was traveling over great distance, or great sorrow.

I breathe in deeply before answering. “Yes, I knew Anton. We were friends. I tried to help him.”

“You tried to help him? Where are you?” asks Mrs. Reiker, sounding suddenly energized.

I tell her that I’m right here in Göttingen and she asks, “Could you possibly have dinner with us tonight? And of course any traveling companions you have would be most welcome.”

“Well, I don’t actually have any traveling companions,” I say.

“Then you must stay with us,” she replies. “We have a large house. We could make you most comfortable.”

My heart floated up like a helium balloon until the ringing of the wake-up bell punctured it. I cried out against the intrusion, wondering if there weren’t some way to hold onto
the vision. It seemed unfair. I had lost my chance to become a member of the family.

“Hey, Natz, you gonna get up? Scrambled egg day.”

I pulled the covers down to look directly into the Raggedy Ann eyes of my roommate, Mavis McCall. “I’m getting up,” I said, wiggling my feet to give the impression of forward movement. “Could you please stop calling me Natz?”

“Geez, whatta ya want me to call ya, Nazi or Spy like them others do?” Mavis managed to look as though I had just spit upon her grandmother’s grave.

“Well, if it’s all the same to you, you could call me Patty or even the name I was born with, Patricia.” Mavis looked a long way from being convinced so I added, “I don’t call you Thief, do I?”

In the cafeteria line Mavis stood in front of me as rigidly silent as the angel on the topmost point of the room’s Christmas tree. “Don’t they know that Christmas trees are supposed to be taken down as soon as Christmas is over?” I asked.

“Can’t go ’bout taking a Christmas tree down on a Sunday!” she said, sounding shocked at my ignorance. “Wouldn’t be right.”

I was grateful that she was still talking to me. “No, guess not,” I answered.

As Mavis wiped the last crumbs from her plate with a piece of white bread, I saw her eyes check my plate. “I haven’t touched my eggs,” I said, pushing my plate towards her and wondering why the eggs didn’t taste as powdery to her as they did to me.

Mavis scraped them onto her plate, then paused with her fork directly over my mound of grits. Her eyes sought my permission. “I’m all finished eating,” I said.

“You ain’t much of an eater, is you?” she said and then added in lieu of thanks, “Patty.”

After breakfast the day room, with its hard-backed chairs lined like soldiers against the wall, was empty. The girls had all gone over to the nondenominational services in the chapel. On my first Sunday here I had gone because the head matron, Miss Laud (secretly called “Miss Bald” due to the fact that pink skin was beginning to show through her hair) kept emphasizing that the services were absolutely nondenominational. Now maybe, and I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, the services are nondenominational for Baptists, Methodists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, but they are definitely not nondenominational for a Jewish girl. I say this because the minister spent just about his whole sermon talking about the method the Jews used when they killed Jesus.

The clock high above the doorway of the day room read ten till ten, yet the grayness of the morning hung on. On the side table sat the room’s most valuable item, a mahogany radio with an arched top. Usually it was ablare with sad-sounding cowboys singing of girls they had loved and lost, but for the time being it sat quietly neglected.

I snapped the knob to the right and waited for the tubes to warm. I tried to find something good to listen to on a Sunday morning. Phil Baker and his
Sixty-four Dollar Question
wasn’t till evening and so was
Baby Snooks.
Even Andre Kostelanetz and his orchestra wasn’t till later.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that—”

I moved the dial. This time to singing. “Where he leads me, I shall follow—”

And another turn of the dial. “Tell me why it is, dear friends,” cried out a man’s voice in apparent anguish, “that people will believe the promise of a bank. Give us your money, we’ll keep it safe. And they’ll believe the promise of a boss. Work for me, and I’ll give you money. Then why is it that these same people have trouble believing in the greatest promise ever given to mankind? Jesus made that promise to you, and he made it to me. And this was his promise: Whosoever believeth in me shall be given life everlasting.”