Carrying

by Theodore Weesner

  It’s a warm September day, and I’m on base when I’d rather have been bussing to Kulmbach or Weidenberg. Soldiers are snoozing, writing letters in the day room, watching TV, and in truth I’m hungry for some life and meaning, some talk and laughter. “Tell me what you just said and I’ll do it,” I say to Sherman.

  “Walk into Bindlach, to Konditorei Plumrose. Do a Sunday morning heisse Schokolade German kind of thing. C’mon.”

  “Hot chocolate?”

  “Mon, you have got to be learning more Deutsch than you are.”

  “German thing?”

  “Wholesome cafes are where German girls make Sunday morning visits! There’s a neat Konditorei on nearby Nurnbergerstrasse. In der Durch-schneidung von Holderstrasse, ja. Zwei kilometer. Zwanzig minuten zum fuss. Heisse Schokolade da ist ganz wunderbar! Kom! Mits gehen.”

  “Not bad,” I say in praise of his language skill. “I guess.”

  “As I say, you have got to be learning more Deutsch!”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Try harder.”

  No U.S. soldiers are present at Konditorei Plumrose, and but two Germans, middle-aged men, are sitting over tea in the immediate room reading newspapers on wooden spines. “Okay, not much in the way of ladies just yet, but the music’s cool,” Sherman says.

  Violins squeak exquisitely into the air from a high-resolution sound system, and upon my days of training (my torn ear seems as healed as it’s ever going to be) the classic string music puts up substance of a kind I’ve never taken in before. I follow Sherman past a serving counter and chrome spigots into a second room where two German females sit talking, presumably listening to the music. As we settle at a blond wooden table in the midst of plants and hanging flower baskets, Sherman whispers, “Dogs.”

  Surprised by his put-down of the women, I only make a face. “Just so they’re breathing,” I whisper in turn.

  “What a slut you are,” Sherman says.

  We sit grinning as a Fräulein comes to take our order, when I say, “I’ll pay if you’ll do the ordering.”

  “You have got to get into the language, else you ain’t gonna have a good time over here,” Sherman tells me. “Ja, bitte, wir haben gerne zweimal heisse Schokolade,” he says to the Fräulein, who nods as she moves away.

  Impressed by his ability to just speak German in public to natives, I say, “You can really do it!”

  He tells of having had a German girlfriend with whom he broke up two months ago, saying it was just as well. As he’s speaking, however, I overhear a phrase in English, “…a stroll along the boulevard of broken dreams,” and while continuing to take in Sherman’s account of his girlfriend and her family, tune in with my dangling damaged ear to where the women sit talking, suppressing laughter in the good time they seem to be having.

  Following through the air like a trailer from a piper cub is another line in English: “Everybody do boogie woogie in the midnight café…” The line has me raising a finger to gain Sherman’s attention. “Those women, they’re flirting with us!” I say. Rarely the object of flirting (not since Dahlia Anderson in high school), I’m more than a little impressed with what is happening.

  Sherman pays little mind, noting, “They’re dogs, mon…oughta be flirting.”

  “They’re hitting on us!” I insist.

  “They are bow-wows.”

  “They’re hot to go!” I say. “Did you hear what she just said?”

  “You didn’t check them out when we came in?”

  “They’re not that bad.”

  “Dogs, mon. Ain’t about to be no bone.”

  “I am!” I declare, getting Sherman to laugh at last.

  “You’re like a virgin, practically,” Sherman says.

  “What do you mean ‘practically’?” I reply, making him pop with laughter.

  When I turn my eyes to the women (they happen to be looking our way) they break into laughter of their own. As I look back to Sherman I overhear one of them say with an accent meant, apparently, to be African American: “They have no rhythm…our dancing ship is sunk!” and I say to Sherman, “Did you hear that? Man, they’re hot to go!”

  “That’s racist,” Sherman says. “Rhythm shit. Don’t go for that.”

  “That’s racist?” I say. “How so?”

  “Racist code.”

  “You think so? To German women? African Americans don’t have rhythm?”

  “Racial stereotyping. Don’t like it.”

  Sensing we will lose our chance for fun with the German women (knock-out beauties or not, they’re female and full of life and laughter), I feel, with Sherman, that I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. “You’re serious?”

  “Totally.”

  “Sherman, I don’t think they’re racist. They’re just trying to have some fun. They’re trying to pick us up!”

  “They’re dogs. Don’t even think about it.”

  “Sherman…you know that thing about beggars and choosers? It’s not every day that women put any moves on my ugly mug. Maybe yours…but not mine.”

  “They’re the ones who are ugly! ‘Rhythm’ stuff is racist! Havin’ nothing to do with it, here or anywhere. Fuck racial stereotyping, mon! Fuck it!”

  My thought is, wow, and I decide to let it go. Sherman’s position has taken me by surprise, and now I’m embarrassed to have revealed how appealing sitting with the two women has been to me…as gangly or homely as they may (or may not) be.

  In that moment, on a glance, I catch the eye of one of them stealing a glance, smiling, and tell myself they’re not so bad, I attempt to stand up to Sherman by saying, “They’re not that bad. I think you’re overdoing it.”

  “Please.”

  “It’s Sunday morning. We sit and talk to some women. I thought that was why you wanted to come here. What’s to lose? How’d you get to be so uppity?”

  “Uppity? White guys got no self-respect, you know that. I can’t see being a slut. Nor do I see it as ‘uppity,’ which is also a racial stereotype, as you oughta know.”

  Wow, I say to myself. To Sherman I say, “Sorry…I just don’t get it.”

  “Every white guy in the army, they go with any dog come mincing down the street.”

  “You been following me!” I say in an attempt at humor that falls flat.

  More giggling comes from the women, and I say to Sherman, “You’re the one said Sundays were German girls’ hot chocolate time.” Sherman, as I just learned, has his associate’s degree (college guys seem to know things I have yet to learn), and I feel caught between revealing my baseness and thinking I’m right about these women about whom he is so wrongheaded!

  “You talk to them, thas what you wanna do,” Sherman says.

  “I can do that,” I say.

  “What you gonna ask?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask, that’s all.”

  “Ask what?”

  “If they’d like to sit and talk. Isn’t that what you ask girls to do?”

  “They’re older, you know. You know they’re gonna go for sittin’ and talkin’. They should do the paying.”

  Sherman is grinning, and I feel relieved that he’s cast off being such a hardass and is returning to being a friend.

  “Thought I’d ask if they’d like some heisse Schokolade,” I say, to tease him in a way that makes him grin.

  “Deperate ladies, ugly as dogs.”

  “Unlike us,” I say.

  Feeling bold and self-conscious at once, I get to my feet and cross the half-dozen steps to their table. They’re just not that bad, I think as I say, “Ahh, hi. My friend and me…we thought it would be nice if you joined us, you know. To talk a little. I’m Jimmy. He’s Sherman. He’s a little weird. Thinks women should do the paying. So I came to do the talking.”

  The girls laugh and speak auf Deutsch to each other. Sherman is right that they’re older, older than me (early twenties to my having just turned nineteen), while they’re attractively dressed. The angular one, whose eyes tend
toward closing when she smiles, says in English with a Brit accent, “We would enjoy this, yes. Our preference is that you shall remove yourselves to our table, however…that we are not perceived as wanton trollops.”

  The two explode with laughter, as do I, and the skinny, angular one adds, “Each, of course, shall pay his own fare. You may inform Mr. Sherman that we find his request unprecedented, and not so gentlemanly.”

  I’m impressed at once (tickled, in truth) by the angular girl’s language, wit, humor. (Where did she come from?) “Your English is neat,” I tell her, as certain high school girls (above my station) come to mind, girls able to carry on in the cafeteria like movie stars in any accent.

  “Kind of you to notice,” she says, and I like her all the more. As she smiles, and her eyes partially close again, I find her smile strikingly pretty, as gawky and skinny as she may otherwise appear to be.

  “You’re wanton trollops?” I say, not knowing the phrase but having an idea and getting them to laugh all the more.

  “It is what we are not! Please…we are proper young ladies.”

  “Be right back,” I say, taking in the angular girl’s eyes and knowing that I’m coming right around, just like that, to being smitten.

  “I’ll take the skinny one,” I utter, sliding in and knowing Sherman will need to be persuaded to do anything. “They’re not dogs at all,” I add. “They’re pretty neat, in fact. The skinny one is. Speaks English better than I do!”

  “They’re yours,” Sherman says.

  “I’m telling you they’re not bad!” I say, taking up my mug of hot chocolate in anticipation of moving to their table. After a pause, Sherman does the same and moves with me across the room.

  As we settle into chairs at their table he says straight off, “What you ladies doin’ talkin’ rhythm? Thought Germans had outgrown their racist past.”

  “Sherman, geez,” I say between my teeth.

  The girls eyes widen as they glance at each other. Upon a quiet exchange auf Deutsch between them, the skinny one says, “No offense has been intended. You see, rhythm and dancing are taught…in Germany…to be characteristic. We mean only to compliment. In no way to offend. Goodness. I can see we may have been wrongly taught. So sorry.”

  “Everything isn’t racist,” I whisper to Sherman, sensing that he means to screw everything up with any possible scene.

  The stockier girl confides auf Deutsch to the skinny girl, a quiet remark including ‘schwarzer’ that has Sherman snapping, “Jesus, you don’t think I know what schwarzer means?”

  More alarmed expressions come to the girls’ faces. “No offense, good heavens,” the skinny girl says. “This word means negro, is not to denigrate.”

  “Believe me, it denigrates,” Sherman says. “Like us saying kraut! Or heinie! Denigrates. Give me a break.”

  “Sherman, you’re sure a lot of fun,” I say, believing all to be embarrassingly lost already with the girls.

  “Please be assured we have not meant to denigrate,” the skinny girl attempts to explain. “In magazines, on television, in films from America, this term is used. Dancing and rhythm, they are not gifts? Is widely believed in Germany that they are gifts of which to be proud. I assure we have had no wish to offend.”

  “It’s racial stereotyping, forget it,” Sherman says.

  “What an unfortunate foot on which to begin an acquaintanceship,” the skinny girl says. “We apologize.”

  “Forget it,” Sherman says.

  “Do you have names?” I ask of the pair, mainly the skinny girl, who remains mortified and all at once on her guard.

  Names are provided…awkwardly…and hands lightly touched over the table in the German style, more than shaken. Birgitta is less fluent than the language whiz, Lotte, who continues looking prettier to me in her confusion at having been charged with racism by an African American soldier she did not mean to offend. Birgitta, as I understand it, works for an insurance firm, while Lotte works for a law firm. “Yes, translator, German into English, and French, and the other way around,” she says when I ask what her job is.

  “You speak English and French?” I ask. “And German?”

  “Not without many errors,” she says. “I continue studies, one evening weekly, as does Birgitta, yet to improve and earn higher certificates and increased wages.”

  “You’re students?”

  “Only office workers, in Germany. Not at university.”

  “You speak English better than I do, so I think you’ll make it. You’re how old?” I ask.

  They laugh and exchange remarks auf Deutsch. Lotte says, “This question may only denigrate,” causing me, if not Sherman, to titter. “It is improper, you know, to ask the ages of young ladies… which young ladies are declining therefore to reply. Only to say ‘not at university’ and ‘no longer schoolgirls.’”

  Charmed by her, loving verbal virtuosity as always, I say, “I was only curious. I like you anyway.”

  “To satisfy your curiosity,” Lotte says. “You may note that the young ladies before you are yet…how shall we say…in their second decade, or third, and leave it at that. Over twenty but under thirty, yes. Mid-twenties malaise,” she mocks. “Your age, sir?”

  I laugh. Her turning of the tables has me and both girls laughing, seems even to stir Sherman in his grimness. “About twenty,” I say, despite having recently turned nineteen. “He’s seventy-two,” I add, indicating Sherman.

  “Got yo seventy-two right here, you honky,” Sherman says with a bit of an edge, though everyone laughs some more.

  “What does ‘wanton trollop’ mean?” I ask Lotte.

  “You are unfamiliar with this term?”

  “I’ve heard it,” I fib, never having heard it at all.

  “Now I believe you are being mischievous,” Lotte says. “It has not been your goal, walking into town, to find ‘wanton trollops’?”

  “Every day for him,” Sherman says.

  “Tell me what it means,” I say.

  “I believe you are teasing.”

  “I want to know.”

  “You are not teasing? Well, I think it is not only to be loose in one’s morals. I think it is to desire immorality. To achieve fulfillment in depravity, and only there. You do not know this syndrome?”

  “I do now,” I say.

  “But you are not female and therefore may not be trollops. Birgitta and I are thoroughly experienced in this syndrome,” she teases. “Isn’t it so, Birgitta?” On a phrase auf Deutsch from Birgitta, the girls pop with laughter.

  “How did you get to be so smart?” I ask Lotte, hardly guarding my admiration.

  “Hmm, this question I shall also regard as mischievous and decline to answer,” Lotte says as Birgitta sits in silence, presumably not understanding all that is being said. “To do so would be unseemly for a young lady in her third decade, don’t you think? Though I wish I were as smart as you are suggesting.”

  “You are,” I assure her.

  “Thank you, sir,” she says, her eyes and smile all at once just for me.

  “Do you live at home?” I ask.

  “Yes, even German girls are produced in this way,” she says.

  “Now you’re making fun of me, and I’m shy and sensitive,” I tell her directly. There’s a touch of truth in my flirtatious words, and I believe that something similar just returned to me from her eyes.

  “I live at home, yes,” she admits. “But may we please not discuss home on this whimsical occasion? I apologize for teasing. It is only that you have embarrassed me, you see. I would never tease one who is both shy and sensitive.”

  I’m smitten, no doubt about it, as the skinny girl’s eyes take in mine in passing.

  “It is not to say we do not appreciate our homes and families, post-twenties malaise notwithstanding,” Lotte says, while into the merest pause following Sherman interjects, “Mon, you know, we gotta be gettin’ back.”

  “We what?”

  “I do. Don’t know about you. Gotta
go.”

  A moment passes during which I’m at a loss for what to say, as are the girls, who look both stricken and mortified. Sherman rises, just like that. I experience a rush of bewildering anger as I say, “What’re you doing? We just sat down.”

  “We agreed to get back early.”

  I stand in confusion, not wanting to leave and not knowing what to say or do. Removing bills from my wallet, I place them on the table.

  Looking wide-eyed, the young women have no reply. Are they mystified, hurt, insulted? Is this how they’re treated by U.S. soldiers (as young women without catchy looks), dumped after a ten-minute encounter? I fear ridicule from Sherman if I ask for Lotte’s name and number, and say, “Nice talking to you,” trying to convey an apology for Sherman’s rudeness. “Good luck with that French and English,” I add, drawing the merest of smiles from Lotte’s uncertain face.

  I follow Sherman through the Konditorei with its ferns and flowers. As I catch up on the sidewalk, he says, “Fucking dogs.”

  We walk on. Attempting to swallow my confusion and profound anger, I say, “I don’t think so. The one’s really smart.”

  “She’s a dog with that face. Listen, you wanna stay, I won’t tell a soul how hard up you are.”

  Sherman smirks, and I go along in confusion and self-abasement. I come close to saying I will stay while continuing with my roommate. “Never saw chicks so desperate,” Sherman adds.

  By then I’m unable to speak and walk on, despising myself. I know I’m coming up cowardly and keep wanting to speak my mind, to have Sherman know I believe he’s wrong in more ways than one.

  I say nothing. I go along, looking not to the horizon but at the ground. I can’t believe that my focus is not an act of cowardice. What would Audie Murphy do at a time like this? Eat a hand grenade to put an end to his shameful life? In any case, my friendship with my roommate is taking a hit. Oil and water. A crewmate and roommate, but never to be a buddy. A snob, I think, with two years of college. A rude head case, whatever his color, and not a person that I will ever want to be.