Summer of My German Soldier (16 page)

“And I told you to shut up and eat your dinner!” His anger ended my flirtation with perfection. If there were questions or confusion before, they weren’t there anymore. I knew what I was going to do, and I knew why.

He lifted a fork overburdened with mashed potatoes, and I watched as the gravy started to roll down his chin. Across his mean, thin line of a mouth he smeared the paper napkin. It’s not even a contest leaving you, dear Father. I know it will be difficult for you, deciding what to tell people, but will you miss
me?

And what about you, Mother? Will I miss you? And do you love me? I only know for sure that we’ve never liked each other. Anyway it’ll be easier loving you from a distance.

And Sharon. I’ll love you no matter where I am. Sharon and Ruth, that’s who I’ll miss.

Ruth came out of the bathroom wearing her blue rayon walking-home dress, and at the bottom of the
V
-neck was the rhinestone pin in a flower design that I gave her last Mother’s Day. In a brown grocery sack she carried the cotton house dress that always got a washing and an ironing every time it got a wearing.

“I’ll walk you a-ways,” I offered.

When we reached Nigger Bottoms, Ruth said that it was getting on towards seven and I’d best be turning back. “Well, before I go,” I said, wondering what I was going to say next, “I want to wish you a nice evening and—and good-bye.”

Ruth smiled and wished me a pleasant evening. Then her
forehead wrinkled up and I expected that I was in for some kind of warning. “Now, Honey Babe, I don’t want you nowhere near that garage, you understand? Anton’s gonna be leaving after dark, and it won’t do nobody no good if the law catches him here. No Jewish girl and no colored woman needs that kinda trouble.”

I hated seeing her so heavy with cares. “Ruth, you oughtna worry. This doctor in Boston says that worrying makes you feel old before your time.”

“This here doctor from Boston you’re always talking about,” she said. “Did he say what you’re ’pose to do with your burdens? They got pills in Boston for that?”

When she gets sarcastic there’s not much I can think to say to her. But I didn’t want to leave her like that. I guess I didn’t want to leave her at all. “Well, now,” I said, grabbing her hand, “you be good now.” What a stupid, idiotic, last good-bye thing to say. Even for me. “Well, Ruth,” I said, trying again. “Good-bye.”

As I turned I caught a look on her face of surprise or suspicion. I walked on, feeling a painful pinching against the hollow of my stomach. “Well, see you tomorrow,” I called out, and without even turning to look I knew her doubts were being laid to rest.

I found my bedroom in quiet shadows. I was aware of the room like you are when you look, I mean really look, at something for the first, or last, time. The twin maple beds with their matching yellow and blue chenille spreads, the linoleum with its pictures of the cat and the fiddle and the old lady in the shoe that had been a source of embarrassment for quite a few years now. I remember Edna Louise looking
at that linoleum and saying, “I haven’t liked Mother Goose in years.”

The only thing that I really liked in my room was the desk my grandma had bought me. Inside was my simulated leather five-year diary. I wanted to record my life so I wouldn’t forget anything, but then I discovered there wasn’t much worth remembering.

For a while I tried to use my diary for self-improvement. I made three vertical columns down the page and marked the headings:
DATE. CRITICISM. FROM WHOM.
I thought if I could see them written down then correcting my shortcomings might not be all that difficult. I didn’t have to wait long for my first entry. “5/15/41—7:35
A.M.:
‘Get that hair out of your face.’—Mother. 5/15/41—7:45
A.M.:
‘Even when you comb it, it doesn’t look it. Can’t you get that dirty hair out of your face?’—Mother.”

Water began to drain noisily down the pipes. Sharon shrieked for a towel. Still time enough for packing. What did I need? Springy tennis shoes for jumping aboard slow-moving freight trains, polo shirts that never need ironing, blue jeans that save the legs from cockleburs, and a sweater for when the nights turn chilly. And, in case we go out together in some distant place, a dress.

In the bottom drawer of the kitchen cabinet Ruth stores dozens of neatly folded grocery sacks. I picked one for my suitcase and thought of Robert’s suitcase, the one the whole church chipped in to buy him. How proud he must have felt—all those people wishing him well.

After the nine o’clock news was over, the big upright radio in the living room was snapped off, and my mother and
father began readying for bed. At nine thirty his breathing deepened into snores, and I guessed that my mother must be sleeping too. Sure she was. Haven’t I heard him joke about it, “Pearl falls asleep on her way to the pillow.”

The unhooked window screen pushed out with a sound so slight that I didn’t bother to check to see if Sharon slept on. I dropped my paper bag to the ground and started to follow when I thought of something. I went over and stood for a moment by my sleeping sister.

Sharon lay curled on her side, just a small soft thing, her lips resting against her thumb. Already past the age when she needs to thumb-suck, but not yet ready to stop keeping it handy.

“Well, be good now,” I said. “I sure hope you grow up nice.” Sharon’s reluctant eyes opened. She took hold of my hand and closed her eyes again. As I tried to loosen my hand she seemed to get a better grasp, like she didn’t want me to go or maybe she didn’t want me to go without her. “Want to come along?” I whispered. Groaning like her sleep was being disturbed, she released my hand and turned over.

Outside, the darkness was complete. I walked by the sandpile and the chinaberry tree whose strongest branch supported our chain swing. The seat had been cut from an old restaurant sign, and there was still the word, “
EATS
” painted in faded red letters.

Is this how it all ends? Leave everything you know, and all that comes to mind is trivia—sandpiles and chinaberries.

I left my sack at the foot of the garage steps and crawled my way up through the blackness. “Anton,” I whispered. But behind the closed door, there was only silence. A feeling
of loss swept over me. “Anton!” I cried, hitting the door with my fist. “It’s me! Patty!”

Abruptly the door opened. “Quiet!” As he led me through the blackness I tried to find my voice. “I thought, I thought you had gone,” I said and then from somewhere came crying. Only after my tongue had tasted saltiness did I know its source.

Anton squeezed my hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know I was going to do that.”

Anton brought my hand to the slightly moist inner corners of his own eyes. “Just wanted to point out that the biggest difference between us is that you cry more noisily than I.”

I laughed, feeling grateful for the darkness which concealed my eyes.

“We both knew that I couldn’t stay. It had to happen, P.B., you always knew that.”

“No, I didn’t!” I breathed in deep. “Anton—” I needed to say his name aloud again as though it were a magical incantation. “Anton, I won’t even be that much trouble. What I’m trying to tell you is—” The hurdle felt too high for vaulting.

“P.B., I don’t think—”

“Don’t talk. Listen to me.” It was my hurdle, and I had to clear it myself. “I don’t think you oughta leave me, not now. I haven’t learned all those things you were going to teach me—things about Emerson and—and—Oh, Anton, let me be with you, go where you go.”

His thumb pressed against my palm. “You know what you are asking is impossible, but if you’re saying that you love me—”

“Yes,” I answered, wondering if it came out audibly. “Yes.”

“Then know this, Patty, it’s not completely one-sided. I love you too, and in my own way I’ll miss you.”

He opened the door, climbed quickly down, and offered up his hand to me.

Outside, the moon, almost full-grown now, threw soft illumination on his forehead and cheeks while leaving the deeper recesses in shadows. Then it struck me that if someday I grow old and forgetful, forgetting even friends’ names and faces, his face I could never forget.

He looked down at the luminous hands of his watch. “The train comes by about ten fifteen.”

“Yes,” I replied and then, thinking that my answer sounded curt, I added, “Yes, it does.”

“Let me help you back into the house,” he offered. “There’s still time.”

I began to feel jealous of time and trivia. Of last moments consumed in pass-the-salt type of comments. “No thanks. My bedroom window screen is unhooked and the water spigot is there, makes a good foothold.”

“Well, I must say good-bye now.”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” I dug into the right-hand pocket of my jeans. “Here’s some money—only four dollars and sixty-five cents. It’s all Ruth and I had.”

He took the money. “Thanks for this, for everything. And I have something for you too. It belonged to my father and his father and even his father before that.” Anton looked down at his hand. Then warm metal encircled my finger. “This ring was made by Germany’s most famous goldsmith for my great-grandfather when he was president of the University
of Göttingen. The crest represents the office of the president.”

A thing of value! He’d give it to me? “Maybe you’d better keep it, Anton. I mean, it has been in your family for so long.” My tongue! I could bite it off. The ring had been mine for only a moment, and now I would lose that too.

“The greater the value, the greater the pleasure in giving it. The ring is yours, P.B.” Then in the darkened silence, I heard him breathe in deeply. “Am I still your teacher?” Without pausing for an answer he continued, “Then I want you to learn this, our last, lesson. Even if you forget everything else I want you to always remember that you are a person of value, and you have a friend who loved you enough to give you his most valued possession.”

“I will, Anton. I’ll remember.”

I saw or felt it coming—my chin tilted up as my eyes closed. Then our lips touched, lingered together briefly before going their own separate ways. When I opened my eyes Anton was gone.

Time passed. I stood rigid and unmoving, wanting nothing new to happen to me. New time was nothing except a way to determine how long he had been gone. From under the weight of my foot I felt a chinaberry being pushed into the damp ground. My finger passed over the indented crest of the gold ring.

Then from down the distant tracks came the ten fifteen.

14. Dirty filthy girl

F
OR A WHILE
I carefully kept track of time without Anton. One day, one day and a third, five days, seventeen. Then abruptly I stopped counting. For one thing I didn’t like the time being long or the distance great. And marking off time struck me as something like counting empty spaces—spaces you know can’t ever be filled.

“Patricia Ann.” A voice came intruding into my world. “Do you find the schoolyard more interesting than our little
problems in fractions?”

A classroom of heads turned to stare at me. Quick, answer the question. About fractions, was I interested in them?

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” I said, trying to put real conviction in my voice. “Yes, ma’am, I sure do.”

Miss Hooten’s head tilted slightly to the right while Edna Louise led the class in snickering. “Are you sassing me, Patricia Ann?”

“Oh, no, ma’am, I only meant that I do like fractions, and I apologize for looking out the window.”

While Edna Louise attempted to revive the snickering, Miss Hooten’s face gradually relaxed. “Boys and girls, you have just heard a proper apology, and I hope that the next time any of you are called down that you will be able to do as well. Hear me talking, Edna Louise?”

It had to be a dream. Who would dare call Edna Louise Jackson down?

Edna Louise let out a wail. “I don’t know why you’re picking on me. I wasn’t looking out the window.” Her index finger pointed at me. “Patty was!”

I found myself focusing on that finger aimed at destroying me. You would never have loved her, Anton. Never given her your ring. Pulling the yellow chain up from around my neck, my fingers passed across the heavy crested ring. “Oh, you’re weak, Edna Louise,” I whispered to the ring. “And you’re no person of value either.”

Juanita Henkins between, “Well, uhs,” was trying to remember the principal crops of Brazil when the three-fifteen bell sounded. “Saved by the bell!” called out one of the boys. C.J. Peters I think it was.

By the time I had walked the block to the store I had come to a decision—a ring of such power and beauty has no business being hidden away beneath some dress front. It should be worn proudly for all the world to see.

In the store there was a small gathering of people. From their backsides I recognized Gussie Fields, Sister Parker, my father, a couple of women customers, and my mother. They were all the approving audience of a single performer, little Sharon, who was dancing and prancing around as she sang: “They’re either too young or too old. They’re either too old or too grassy green.”

When she finished, Sharon dropped her head and gave her fans an adorable little curtsy.

“Oh, Honey,” cried Gussie Fields, “that’s just wonderful.” She gave her boss a congratulating pat on the shoulder. “I didn’t know such talent ran in your family. Bet she takes after you.”

My father laughed and then, finding a remaining Lucky in a flattened pack, he said, “Now, Gussie Mae, you’re gonna think I’m crazy when I tell you this, but to my mind Sharon is every bit as good as Shirley Temple. And remember, Sharon hasn’t had anywhere near the training that Shirley Temple has!”

“Mr. Bergen,” said the clerk, “you’re not one little bit crazy. No, sir! I’ll tell you the truth. When I saw that child sing and dance in Sue Dobbins’s dance recital, well, I said to myself right then and there she’s got that special something—that movie-star sparkle, I guess you’d call it.”

“I’ve never in my life told this to anyone before,” said my father, pausing to blow out a blue-gray puff of smoke. Was he about to make a confession to Gussie? He mustn’t see I’m
listening. I bent down to tie a shoelace before realizing that I was wearing my brown loafers. “But one night, I sat up till almost midnight,” he said, “thinking that I oughta take Sharon, now don’t laugh, right out to Hollywood. All they’d have to do is to see her sing one of her little songs or do one of her cute dances. Well, in my opinion, it would put Jenkinsville right on the map.”