Don't Talk to Me About the War

by David A. Adler

  That’s real good!

  We walk into the lobby. It’s big, with a high ceiling, a few chairs, and an old but comfortable-looking couch.

  Dad says, “I’ll be right back. I’ll get the super and he’ll show you the apartment.”

  “The lobby is nice,” Mom says, “and with the stores so nearby, I can do some of the shopping.”

  Dad comes back with a short, old man. He’s mostly bald, and it’s the middle of the summer and pretty hot, but still, he’s wearing a long-sleeved flannel shirt.

  “Hello,” the man says, and holds out his hand for Mom. “I’m Frank.”

  Mom shakes his hand.

  “Come, I’ll show you the apartment.”

  We follow Frank down a hall just off the lobby to apartment 1C. He unlocks the door and we go in.

  “It has a nice big kitchen,” Frank says. “It’s what you call an eat-in kitchen because it’s big enough for a small table and some chairs.”

  “I can sit there and prepare dinner,” Mom says.

  There’s a small dining area, a large parlor, and a good-sized bedroom.

  “Look here,” Frank says, and takes us to the two large windows in the parlor. “It’s a back apartment, so it’s quiet. And it has four large closets.”

  “I like it,” Mom says.

  I walk through the apartment again.

  “Hey,” I ask Dad, “where’s my room?”

  “I know. It has just one bedroom, but it’s the best I could find. I thought I’d put up a curtain closing off the dining area. That could be your room.”

  I’ll be sleeping in the dining room, right between the kitchen and the parlor. In the afternoon, when Mom listens to Helen Trent, I’ll have to listen, too. I could go to my room, but really, I’ll just be behind a curtain.

  “If you don’t like it,” Dad says, “I won’t take it.”

  Mom seems so happy with it. I look at the dining area again. It’s bigger than my old bedroom.

  “It’s okay,” I tell Dad.

  What else could I say?

  Dad and Mom go into Frank’s apartment to sign some papers. I wait in the lobby for them and think about what this move will mean. It’s not near Goldman’s, so next year, I won’t meet Beth there and walk with her to school. I won’t meet Sarah at the corner. Maybe I could walk to school with Charles and Roger. They live nearby, but that won’t be the same.

  Sarah moved from one country to another. Beth moved from one city to another. Charles’s brother joined the navy. This is a year of changes. I’ll take Aunt Sylvia’s advice. I’ll wait before I decide if I like the move.

  It’s a long walk to the stores Beth shops at, so I’ll probably just see her in school. At least I can still sit with her at lunch.

  We’ll talk about the war. I’m real interested in that. Well, maybe I just like talking to Beth, and since that’s what she likes talking about, I do, too.

  Epilogue

  It’s already the first Sunday of December 1941, more than a year now since we moved, and do you know what? The baseball season is over, but this afternoon, just a half hour from now, I’ll be listening to a game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. No, not the baseball teams. It’s a game between the football Dodgers and Giants. Of course, even though it’s football, I’m rooting for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

  I’ll always root for the Dodgers.

  For the baseball Dodgers, nineteen forty wasn’t their year. The team finished second, twelve games behind the Cincinnati Reds. And I didn’t go to a game all summer. Beth and I wanted to, but I was just too busy with Mom, grocery shopping, and packing to move.

  This year, 1941, was the Dodgers’ year. The team finished first and played against the New York Yankees in the World Series. But the Dodgers won just one of the first three games.

  The fourth game was on a Sunday, and I listened to it in Charles’s apartment. He’s a Yankees fan so when I cheered, he booed and when he cheered, I booed. The Dodgers were ahead until the very end. With two outs in the ninth, the Yankee Tommy Henrich struck out. That should have been it, the third out and the end of the game, but the Dodgers catcher, Mickey Owen, dropped the ball. Henrich ran to first and was safe. After that the Yankees scored four runs and won. The Yankees won the next game and the series.

  Wait till next year!

  When I was in Charles’s apartment I saw a photograph of George in his navy uniform. He looks good. He’s at a base in Virginia but Charles thinks that soon he’ll be sailing to the Pacific. Charles says, when he’s old enough, he’s joining the navy, too.

  Oh, and I’m in high school now, a freshman and I’m working harder. I try to listen in class and take notes. Homerooms are divided alphabetically, so Beth and I are still together; even our lockers are close. I see her every morning and we meet for lunch along with Sarah, Roger, and Charles. Sometimes, after school, Beth, Sarah, and I sit on a bench and talk about the fighting in Europe, and other things, including my mom. But it’s not the same as meeting Beth every morning at Goldman’s. I miss that.

  Sometimes, on weekends and holidays, I meet Beth at Goldman’s for ice cream, talk, and hand-holding. She’s my girlfriend now and I wish we could meet more often, but we’re both so busy.

  Sarah’s aunt finally got out of Vienna. She’s in London, hoping to come here and be with her children, but it’s not easy to get into the United States. We have quotas, Sarah says, on how many people we let in, and it depends on where they’re from if we let them in, not how much they need to get out of wherever they are. Sarah’s aunt doesn’t know where her husband is or what happened to him. She just hopes one day he’ll come back.

  And Mom. It’s good we moved. She walks with a cane now. Some days she really struggles, but she almost always goes out, sometimes just to sit in the lobby, but she goes out. She couldn’t do that if we were in the old apartment, not with all those stairs. Also, we live so close to Dad’s store that he comes home for lunch. And sleeping in the dining room isn’t really so bad. It’s close to the kitchen, so at night, if I wake up, it’s easy to get a snack.

  It’s almost two. “Hey, Dad! It’s time for the game.”

  Dad comes into the parlor. “Shh,” he says. “Mom is resting.”

  He sits in his chair, turns on the radio, and tunes it to WOR. It’s not really an important game. The Giants already won the division, but still, I want the Dodgers to win.

  Ward Cuff—he’s a Giant—kicks off and the game starts.

  Dad and I aren’t real football fans, but with the baseball season done, and not much else to do on a cold Sunday afternoon, we often listen to games.

  Nothing happens in the first quarter. No score. Then, the broadcast stops. “We interrupt,” an announcer says, “with this special bulletin. The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor. I repeat, we have just received word that the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor.”

  “Pearl Harbor, where is that?” I ask Dad.

  “Just get your mother,” he says, and turns up the volume.

  “The damage is not known yet, but we do know we have definitely been hit.”

  I hurry to the bedroom and tell Mom, “Dad said you should come to the parlor. The Japanese bombed someplace.”

  “The Japanese,” Mom says as I hold both her hands and help her get off the bed. “They’re sided with Germany and Italy.”

  Mom puts her arm around my shoulder and leans on me as I walk with her to the parlor.

  “We’re at war,” Dad tells her. “The Japanese bombed our naval base in Hawaii.”

  Mom holds on to both arms of her chair and slowly sits. Dad moves his chair close to the radio. I’m real close, too, on the floor, with my legs folded. Dad has tuned the radio to a news program.

  “These reports are just now coming in. At Wheeler Airfield perhaps as many as one hundred P-40s and P-36s—while still on the ground—have been destroyed. B-17, B-18, and A-20 bombers at Hickam Airfield were hit, also while still on the ground. U.S. Army barracks have been bombed
with a still unknown number of soldiers lost. The battle-ship Oklahoma was hit and is reported to be on fire. According to other reports it already sank with a still unknown loss of life.”

  “We’re at war,” Dad says.

  War!

  What does all this mean for our country? What does it mean for me? I’m only fifteen, too young to serve, but if the fighting lasts awhile, I might be called up. It’s scary, but sitting there, listening to the reports of the attack on our men, I know I want to go, to do something.

  Mrs. Roosevelt was right. The war has come to us.

  Mom and Dad are holding hands. I want to talk to Beth, be with her. I call her house and her dad says, “She’s at Goldman’s.”

  It’s a long way from our new apartment, past lots of buildings, stores, and my old school, West Bronx Junior High. As I walk there, the streets are eerily quiet. I guess people are inside, sitting by their radios, listening to the news.

  I stand outside Goldman’s and look in. It’s crowded for a Sunday. I guess people came here to listen to the radio and to not be alone at a time like this. And there’s Beth, her long blonde hair hanging to her shoulders, sitting on a stool by the counter.

  I walk slowly to the front of the shop, and Beth sees me. We hug. There are tears in her eyes. For the rest of the afternoon we sit in Goldman’s listening to the same horrible news again and again. It doesn’t get better. It just feels better being with Beth.