Don't Talk to Me About the War

by David A. Adler

The weather is nice. We walk slowly past the bakery, turn at the corner, and go to the park. It’s crowded. I guess with the holiday and nice weather, lots of people decided to go outside. I look past the open area and the swings to the benches and see my parents.

  “There they are,” I tell Beth, and point.

  “The man with the dark hair and blue shirt and the woman in the green sweater?”

  “Yes.”

  Beth starts toward them. I have to hurry to keep up. I guess she’s anxious to meet Mom and Dad.

  “Hi,” she says. “I’m Beth Doyle, Tommy’s friend from school. We’re in the same homeroom and history class.”

  Dad stands, shakes Beth’s hand, and says, “I’m Louis Duncan and this is my wife, Barbara.”

  We sit with them for just a few minutes and talk, really about nothing—you know, the weather and that the summer break from school is coming soon. At last Beth says she must get home, and I say I’ll walk with her.

  “They’re very nice,” Beth tells me when we’re outside the park, “and your mom looks fine. I looked at her hands a few times and they didn’t shake.”

  Beth looks at me, smiles, and says, “You look like your dad.”

  That’s okay. I’ve heard people say he’s handsome.

  We walk past the bakery and Goldman’s and at the corner Beth says, “Thank you for meeting me. It wasn’t the celebration we’d planned, but it was nice.”

  “I thought I was walking you home.”

  She smiles and says, “Sure.”

  Instead of walking straight, the way I go to get to my house, we turn left and walk about three blocks. We stop in front of a building just like mine. An old man is sitting in front on a folding chair. There’s a small dog on his lap.

  “Hi, Beth,” the man says.

  “Hello, Mr. Barnett.” She pets his dog and says, “Hi, Skipper.”

  Beth introduces me to Mr. Barnett and Skipper. “Come on,” she tells Skipper and takes his paw. “Shake Tommy’s hand.”

  I feel silly doing it, but I shake Skipper’s paw.

  “Hi, Beth,” a young woman says as she leaves the building.

  “Hey, everybody knows you.”

  “Not everyone,” Beth says, and smiles.

  We stand there for an awkward moment. Then Beth kisses me quickly on my cheek, says, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” and runs into her building.

  “Sure,” I say, and watch her run off. “Tomorrow morning.”

  Mr. Barnett tells me, “I like your friend.”

  “I do, too,” I say, and start toward home.

  There are just a few weeks left to the school year. I wonder what I’ll be doing this summer, if I’ll go to any games, if I’ll see Beth. I want to.

  When I get home, I turn on the radio to listen to the Dodgers games, the Memorial Day doubleheader at Ebbets Field. I shouldn’t have. They’re playing the New York Giants, and if there’s any team I really want them to beat, it’s the Giants. It’s what you call a “cross-town rivalry,” because both are New York teams.

  The first game is depressing. Carl Hubbell is pitching for the Giants, and he gives up just one hit the entire game. He’s a screwball pitcher. I don’t mean he’s crazy, it’s just that his best pitch is the screwball. The Dodgers lose 7-0.

  The second game starts out better. The score is tied in the twelfth inning, so that’s not as bad as losing a one-hitter, but then the Giants score eight times. I keep listening, hoping the Dodgers will come back in their half of the inning, but they score just once and lose 12-5. What’s worse is, with the two lost games, the Dodgers are no longer in first place!

  Mom and Dad come home in the middle of the second game. Mom is tired. Dad tells me it’s the steps. Climbing them is difficult for her.

  Later, Dad helps Mom prepare dinner, and while we eat, Dad says he’ll help Mom with the laundry and cleaning. The doctor said exercise would help, and Mom says, if it’s okay with me, from now on when I get home from school, she’ll be downstairs. “If you don’t mind, you can help me shop, or just walk with me.”

  I say, “Of course, I don’t mind,” but I think about Roger and Charles and stickball. I can’t play with them after school, not if Mom will be sitting in the lobby waiting for me.

  “You don’t have to hurry home,” Mom says. “I won’t leave the apartment until three fifteen, after Helen Trent.”

  It takes a long time for Mom to get down the stairs, so I figure she won’t reach the lobby until about three thirty. That gives me time to wait for Beth after school, walk with her, even time to talk a little.

  During dessert, strawberries with some powdered sugar sprinkled on them, Mom smiles and says, “Your friend Beth seems very nice.”

  “Yes,” I say. “She is.”

  The next morning, when I get up, Mom is already sitting by the table. At my place is a plate with a roll, a tab of butter, and a glass of milk. Mom hadn’t done that for a while, prepare my breakfast and sit with me in the morning.

  “It’s nice out today,” Mom says. “You don’t need a jacket.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  I guess this will be one of Mom’s good days.

  While I eat the roll, Mom reminds me that she’ll be downstairs this afternoon, that we’ll walk together and shop.

  Goldman’s is busy again, not like yesterday. Mr. Simmons is sitting across from Beth, and excited as usual about the war news.

  “The stories that keep coming in about these men are really something,” he says. “One British soldier’s boat capsized and he swam seven or eight miles before he was rescued.”

  “There are lots of great stories,” Beth says, and gets up. “I’ll read more of them this afternoon.”

  I help Beth fold her newspapers. We both say good-bye to Mr. Simmons and to Mr. Goldman and leave the coffee shop.

  When we meet Sarah at the corner, I tell her what the doctor said about Mom’s disease, and by the time I’m done, we’re walking into school.

  Sarah pats my arm, which is somehow comforting. It’s always good to have friends, but especially now.

  “I want to tell you some things,” Sarah says. “I want to tell you what my Mutti, my mother, one day said to me. I think you should know it. I will tell you at lunch.”

  Sarah walks to the right and we go to the left. When we’re at our lockers I ask Beth if she knows what Sarah is talking about.

  “Yes, I do know, but Sarah has to tell you.”

  All morning, during math, science, and history classes, I wonder what Sarah’s mother said, and how it relates to Mom’s sickness.

  At lunch, Roger goes on and on about last night’s Baby Snooks show.

  “Snooks was at the harbor, by the docks, and pointed to boxes on a ship and asked what’s in them. ‘Cargo,’ her father said. ‘But where’s the car?’” Roger asks in his Baby Snooks voice. “‘There is no car,’ her dad said. ‘If the boxes were carried in a car it would be called a shipment.’”

  Roger wrinkles his nose, looks up, and squeaks, “Huh!”

  Roger laughs. When he sees we’re not laughing he says, “Don’t you get it? Things carried on a ship are cargo and things carried in a car are a shipment. It’s all mixed up!”

  “We got it,” Charles says, and looks at me.

  We both think that sometimes Roger gets too wrapped up in all his radio jokes.

  Beth first looks at me and then at Sarah. They both get up, leave their empty lunch bags and waxed paper, and go to one of the empty tables in the back. Beth turns. She wants me to join them.

  “I’ll be right back,” I tell Roger and Charles.

  “Hey, what did I say?” Roger asks.

  Charles tells him, “I think they want to talk in private.”

  Beth and Sarah are sitting on a bench near the far wall of the cafeteria. I sit opposite them.

  Beth says, “Sarah wants to tell you now about her mother.”

  Sarah looks down, at the table, and talks. I have to lean close to hear what she�
�s saying.

  “I was born in Germany, in Frankfurt. It is a big city and very nice. We have a good apartment and many things. When I am ten, we go to Vienna, in Austria, also a big city. We must leave many things, also my books. My uncle and aunt and cousins, they moved with us. We go because of the Nazis and Hitler. It was not good for us in Germany.”

  “They passed many anti-Jewish laws,” Beth explains.

  “Yes,” Sarah says. “They would not let me be in school. They did not let my Vati, my father, work. Vati is a doctor. In Vienna he took a job in a hospital. My uncle, in Germany, played violin in orchestra. In Vienna he played violin in restaurant.”

  I look at Roger and Charles. They are just sitting there, watching us.

  “Then, when I am twelve,” Sarah says, “the Nazis, they come to Austria. Mutti, my mother, says we must not keep running. We must stay. But one night soldiers with guns and papers come, bang on door, and say Uncle must go with them to play in new orchestra. That night, Mutti says she is wrong. We must go.”

  “Why?” I ask her. “Your uncle has a new job.”

  “No,” Beth tells me. “They took him to play in a labor camp. They take people all the time, prisoners, and many never come back.”

  I guess Beth read about that in the newspapers.

  “Now tell Tommy,” Beth says. “Tell him what your mother said.”

  “When we get ready to go, I ask, ‘What about Uncle? How can we leave with him still here?’ and Mutti, she says she loves Uncle. She is scared for him, but we must leave or soon they will also take us.”

  Sarah stops for a moment. She seems real upset.

  “Yes, Mutti says, ‘We go, and we go on.’ She says, ‘We go because we have to.’”

  Beth says, “That’s what my dad and I did and that’s what you and your family will do now. You’ll go on, because you have to.”

  I think about that, and I ask about Sarah’s uncle. “Do you know where he is?”

  Beth tells me, “Her aunt stayed in Vienna. She has gone to the Nazi headquarters, but she can’t get any information. She sent her two sons here with Sarah and her family.”

  I shake my head. “That’s awful.”

  “Her mom writes to her sister almost every day,” Beth says, “about how the boys are, but she hardly ever gets any letters back.”

  “My Mutti, when she knows someone comes from Vienna, she goes and asks if they know Aunt and Uncle, but no one does. Mutti thinks maybe they do know but do not want to say what happened.”

  In September, the beginning of the school year, I was so happy with my teachers, and the baseball season was getting to the exciting part, the World Series. Of course, 1939 wasn’t so good for the Dodgers. So much has changed since then. So much has happened—Mom’s illness, meeting Beth, the war, and now all this I found out about Sarah and her uncle. I hope things turn around, but I’m not sure they will.

  15

  Thank God for the Navy

  After school, Sarah and I are waiting by the oak tree and Roger, Charles, Ken, Johnny, and Bruce stop by. “It’s Friday,” Roger says. “You can play today, can’t you?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “But it’s Friday. We always play on Friday.”

  “I know and I’m sorry. I have to help my mom with some things.”

  “Come on,” Johnny says. “We can still play. We’ll find someone else, or we’ll put only two men in the field. That’s fair.”

  I watch them walk off and hope I’ll be able to play during summer break.

  Beth joins us, and on the way home, we stop at the corner for a while and talk. Sarah tells me about her two cousins. They’re five and three, both boys, and don’t really understand what’s happening, why their parents didn’t come to America with them.

  Sarah shakes her head sadly and says, “I also don’t understand it so much.”

  I ask about her father, and she tells me he’s a pediatrician, a children’s doctor. “He works now in hospital, in an emergency room.”

  If he works with children, he probably doesn’t know much about multiple sclerosis.

  I watch Sarah walk off with her heavy bag of books and ask Beth if it’s true that in her old country people looked through school lockers.

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “Do you think anyone looks through ours?”

  “No,” Beth says.

  After I leave Beth off at Goldman’s, I decide Dr. Johnson can look in my locker if he wants. There’s nothing in it but schoolbooks and old test papers.

  I open the door to our building, and there they are. The two women are sitting in the lobby, in the big cloth-covered chairs, the comfortable chairs. Mom is sitting on the steps.

  “I’ll put my books away,” I tell Mom. “Then I’ll come right down and we can walk.”

  “Good,” she says, “and we’ll go shopping. I didn’t get a chance to get out earlier.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  I hurry up the stairs and put my books away. When I get down, I help Mom from the steps. It’s hard for her to get up. I want to hold on to her as we go through the lobby, but she says she can walk alone. She can, but she goes slowly. Her legs look stiff.

  “Are you okay?” I ask when we’re outside.

  Mom nods.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Mom nods again.

  Mom leans against a car parked in front. Then I go in again, into our lobby, right up to the two old women, and say, “Please, if you can, when you see my mother, let her sit in one of the chairs.”

  One of the women, the heavy talkative one with short curly brown hair and lots of red face powder on her cheeks says in an angry tone, “Why? Why should we? We got here first.” Then she takes a deep breath and tells me, “Do you know how old I am? Do you? I’m sixty-four years old! People should get up and let me sit.”

  The other woman, the thinner one with gray hair, asks, “Is your mother okay? She seems to have trouble walking.”

  “She’s sick,” I tell her. “She has multiple sclerosis.”

  “Oh,” the thin woman says.

  The other woman just looks at me.

  I go outside, and Mom tells me, “First, I want to go to the fruit and vegetable store and get what I need to make a salad and maybe some fruit for dessert.”

  Mom walks slowly, so I do, too. Then she stops and tells me, “Aunt Martha called. She’ll come by with John, she said, if she can get someone to watch the children.”

  I like her and Uncle John. He’s a bus driver and loves baseball. But he’s a Giants fan. He and Dad argue a lot about which team is better, the Giants or the Dodgers.

  Mom stops again and says, “Isn’t it a nice day.” After we walk another fifteen steps or so, she stops and tells me, “I’m glad you’re shopping with me. You can help me choose the best vegetables.”

  I don’t say it, but I know she’s not really stopping to tell me about the weather and how nice I am. She’s stopping because she needs to rest.

  The store is three blocks away, just beyond Goldman’s. As we pass the coffee shop, I look in. Mr. Goldman is sitting by the counter and reading a newspaper. No one is sitting at Beth’s corner table.

  Mom stops in front of the fruit store. “Here it is,” she says.

  There’s a display of apples and pears outside. We walk in, and just to the right, a man is sitting on a stool behind a counter and cash register.

  “This is my son, Tommy,” Mom tells him. “He’s helping me.”

  Mom gives me a small basket to carry. Each time Mom picks up a fruit or vegetable, before she puts it in the basket, she asks me, “Tommy, does this look good?” When we’re done and Mom has paid the man, we go around the corner to the grocery store.

  Mom buys so much—noodles, tomato sauce, crackers, tissues, toilet paper, and other things—two full bags. She says she’s buying it all for the weekend, because it’s Friday, but I think she doesn’t know how often she’ll get out, so she’s stocking up. When we’re done, I
combine everything into two bags. That’s all I can carry.

  We walk slowly back to our building. I’m getting used to Mom’s many stops. Now, sometimes when she stops, she doesn’t say anything. She just has her legs a bit apart, I guess for balance, and looks around as if this is the first time she’s been here and she wants to see everything.

  When Mom stops, I stop, too. I put the bags down. They’re heavy.

  “Tommy,” Mom says before she opens the door to our building, “I enjoy being with you. I’m really happy you helped.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  One of the two women, the thin one, is in the lobby waiting for us. She’s sitting, but not in one of the cloth-covered chairs. Those are empty. She’s sitting on a wooden chair, the kind that folds. As soon as we walk in, she hurries to Mom, takes her hand and says, “Hello, I’m Gertrude Feiner. I live on the fourth floor.”

  Mom says, “I’m Barbara Duncan. This is my son, Tommy, and we live on the third floor.”

  “You shouldn’t have to sit on the steps,” Gertrude Feiner says, “and you won’t if I’m here. I’ll give you my seat, but if I’m not, if two other people are here, I want you to know where you can find this chair.”

  She folds it and says, “Follow me.”

  As we walk behind her she tells us, “After you left I went upstairs and got this.” Now we’re standing by a door just beyond the mailboxes. “I spoke with the super and he said I can keep it here.”

  She opens the door and puts the chair against the side wall of the closet, next to a large broom and mop.

  “You’re welcome to use it anytime.”

  “Thank you,” Mom says.

  “You know,” Gertrude Feiner tells Mom, “I see your son every afternoon when he comes home from school and he’s always very friendly. He always says hello.”

  Mom smiles at her and walks slowly to one of the comfortable lobby chairs. “I’m going to sit here and rest for a while,” she tells me.

  “I’ll also sit,” Gertrude Feiner says.

  Mom and her new friend each sit and talk while I take up the groceries. I make two trips.

  “Go ahead upstairs,” Mom says when I come down for the second bag. “Gert and I want to talk awhile longer.”