Summer of My German Soldier Read online

  Uncle Max also told me that on a poor working-class street like Hamel Street, in South Memphis, the Bergens were considered the poorest of the poor. Grandma Bergen’s dresses were washed so many times that the threads were almost countable. And poor Grandpa Bergen, a cobbler, died of a heart attack at forty-two when he was only seven dollars short of saving enough for a stitching machine. With one of those machines he was sure he could repair enough shoes to support his family.

  Which gets to another point. Since the Bergens were so poor, I think my father would still be a ticket seller at Union Station if it hadn’t been for Grandpa and Grandma Fried’s lending him the money to go into business. So wouldn’t you expect him to be all choked up with gratitude? Well, he’s not! Maybe it’s because he hates favors—not so much to give as to take them. “I don’t like to be obligated,” is the way he puts it. It’s as though, in his own heart, he believes that he could never have made it without them. And he hates having needed them. But that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

  “Lock the doors,” my father ordered as he backed the car down the driveway. At the First Baptist Church corner I touched his shoulder and pointed towards the glass-enclosed sign in the churchyard. “Hey, did you see that? It says, ‘Sin now—pay later.’ I didn’t know they charged for that, did you?” I started up a laugh, but when nobody joined in, it made a hollow sound.

  “O.K.,” he said, “don’t bother me when I’m driving.”

  Suddenly Sharon jumped off the back seat and touched my father’s shoulder at the very spot I had touched. “There’s a bee on you!” she shouted. “April fools!”

  From deep within his throat my father chuckled, while Mother turned around to give Sharon a love pinch on her cheek. “Are you the bad girl that fooled your daddy?” she asked.

  Sharon reached out to touch the neck of Mother’s lavender dress. “There’s a bee on you. April fools!” She squealed with delight.

  Mother pretended horror. “Get that bee away!” she said, swatting at the neck of her dress.

  After a few more of Sharon’s April-fool bees, Mother seemed to tire of the game. “Can’t you do something?” she asked me. “Amuse Sharon. Tell her the story of the ‘Three Little Pigs.’”

  “I don’t know if I remember that story,” I lied. “But the story of ‘Cinderella’ and her wicked stepmother is still fresh in my mind.”

  At the end of the story when Cinderella marries the world’s handsomest prince at the world’s fanciest wedding Sharon sighed, looking every bit as happy as the bride and a whole lot sleepier. She curled up in the corner, and with just a touch of a smile on her lips, fell asleep.

  “So, if we take the men’s underwear to the back of the store,” Mother was saying, “we could use the front counter for an impulse item.”

  “Men’s underwear is a big seller. We sold more than six thousand dollars’ worth last year.”

  “But, Harry, we’d sell every bit as much,” she argued, “because men come in specially to buy it. But with women’s blouses it’s different. A woman sees something pretty and she just ups and buys it spur of the moment.”

  “Well,” said my father as though he didn’t want to give in too quickly, “don’t go moving things tomorrow; we’ve got a lot of merchandise waiting to be checked in.”

  When we reached the two-lane Harrihan Bridge that connects West Memphis, Arkansas, to Memphis, Tennessee, I looked down at the bluey-brown Mississippi. They say the river’s current is strong and very few people have ever been able to swim across, although not a year goes by that somebody doesn’t drown in the attempt. This may sound crazy because the only time I ever go swimming is a couple of times in early summer when Edna Louise Jackson’s mother takes a bunch of us to the public pool in Wynne City, but I could swim it. The secret is in absolutely refusing to let the river beat you down. If I had to, I’d measure my progress in inches. One more inch I’ve swum—one less inch to swim. Once you know the secret, then nobody’s river can bring you down.

  On Riverside Drive, “Memphis’s front door,” my father dropped his speed down to between thirty and thirty-five miles per hour.

  My mother was resting her head against the seat, her eyes closed as though she were dozing. She was wearing her healthy-looking black hair in my favorite way—brushed back so that her widow’s peak shone like an extra added attraction above her high forehead. And hers wasn’t an everyday pretty face. The shape of the nose, the cut of the chin, but it was more than that—more than its parts. My mother’s face was an artist’s vision of sensitivity, intelligence, and love. And so it had to be a big lie what they say about beauty being only skin deep. For if it weren’t really there why would it show?

  The problem must be me. I’ve never been what she wanted, never done what she asked. Always making my own little changes and additions. Why do I do it? Why can’t I be better? More obedient? More loving?

  I leaned over, placing my lips against hers. Those lips suddenly tightened. And there I stood, still bending over her. Ugly, naked, and alone.

  She opened her eyes. “I wish you wouldn’t bother me when I’m trying to sleep.”

  “Sorry,” I answered, letting my head fall against the window of the back seat.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” she said after a short period of quiet. “If Grandmother tries to give you money you just tell her you don’t need anything.”

  “But I do need something,” I answered, wondering if she could understand.

  She didn’t answer. She put her head back against the seat and closed her eyes again.

  “If I were a rich grandmother with plenty of money,” I said, “I would enjoy giving things to my grandchildren.” I touched her shoulder. “Could you please tell me why it’s all right for you to take things from Grandma—the mink coat, for example.”

  Her eyes shot open. “That was my birthday present.”

  At least I had her attention. “Well, then what about all that new porch furniture? That wasn’t anybody’s birthday present.”

  “That was an anniversary present—for being married to your daddy for fourteen years.”

  That wasn’t a present, I thought, more a reward. I couldn’t, at the moment, decide which one deserved the reward. Neither. Both. The only thing I could think to say was, “Oh.” Until a few moments later I thought of something else. “What if Grandma has money for Sharon. Is that O.K.?”

  “Sharon’s little,” she answered.

  My father followed Jackson Avenue eastward until he came to the old stone gates of Hein Park, mostly hidden now by a pair of weeping willows. Grandpa had told me of last winter’s ice storm, and how the elms and maples had been damaged. Only the willows remained intact. “Bending,” he had said, “beats breaking.”

  Hein Park was the greenest and most elegant residential area in the whole city. It had narrow, leafy roads which wound past fine old homes set back on limey green grass.

  I nudged Sharon. “Hey, sleepyhead, wake up.” She looked at me reproachfully, like Cinderella being disturbed while waltzing with the prince. “Come on, we’re almost there.” Her expression didn’t change for the better, but she did manage to lift her chin as I retied the ribbon bow at her neck.

  And there it was—my grandparents’ house. A twelve-room Victorian painted the whitest white with windows large enough to welcome in the sun, each with its green-and-white-striped awning sloping down like a circus tent. It would have been nice growing up in that house.

  Before we reached the front steps Grandpa was already at the door. He turned to shout over his shoulder, “Mamma, they’re here! Pearl and Harry.”

  Grandpa has every bit as much hair today as he did in the wedding picture that sits on his bedroom bureau. Now, forty years later, it has changed color, and so has his expression. Then it was—resolute. Yes, resolute. And now it’s just gentle.

  His freshly shaved face carried the aroma of Old Spice. “My oldest grandchild—already a young lady,” he said, hugging and kissing me.
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br />   From the kitchen, the warm, sweet smell of cooking—of roast turkey and carrot tsimmes.

  “How are you, Boss-man?” my father asked, without shaking hands. “Tell me when you poor folks here in Hein Park are going to be able to afford some sidewalks.” It was his favorite joke.

  Grandpa said, “Soon as my rich son-in-law lends me the money,” which happened to be his favorite answer.

  Grandma came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her flowery apron. Through the years Grandma has put on weight and now her face, while not exactly a perfect circle, is all the same quite round. Last time we were visiting, Grandpa said that he married a 90-pound girl and now he’s got a 180-pound woman. Twice what he bargained for. That was about the only time I ever saw her mad. She insisted that she didn’t weigh an ounce over 165.

  Grandma hugged and kissed us all, with the exception of my father who hurriedly brushed past her on his way to the big chair with the matching ottoman.

  Then she started worrying whether or not we were hungry. Uncle Ben and Uncle Irv weren’t coming for another hour and a half, about two o’clock. “Pearl, wouldn’t you like a nice bowl of soup now? Maybe Harry and the children would like a little something to hold them.”

  “Oh, Mother, I hope you didn’t cook one of your big starchy dinners. You know I have to watch my weight.”

  “Watch your weight at your own house. Here, when my children and grandchildren come to visit, I cook.”

  Mother agreed to a cup of coffee, and my father, after finding out that it was chicken soup with matzo balls, his favorite, relented.

  “I saw your brother, Max,” Grandpa said to my father. “He doesn’t go to many of the brotherhood meetings. He’s a nice fellow, your brother.”

  “Good as gold,” my father agreed. “And if you ever want the world to know something, just tell him. Worst blabbermouth in town.”

  Grandpa let his lips pout forward as if the thought were new and surprising. “I should worry about that? I’m too old for women. I pay my bills. I never hurt anybody. People with dark secrets should worry about Max. Me? I’m not going to worry.”

  Actually, Uncle Max wasn’t really so much of a blabbermouth as he was a rememberer. There wasn’t much that he forgot about people, especially about his family. I think that’s why my father always seems funny—a little tense—around him. Maybe he enjoys remembering what my father enjoys forgetting.

  Like the time last Yom Kippur when we were all standing around outside the Beth Zion Synagogue and one of Uncle Max’s remembrances made my father so angry that he called him, “A damn liar,” right to his face. He was telling what a hot temper my father had had when he was a boy. How he sometimes became uncontrollably mad at one of his brothers, usually Arnie. More than once, according to Uncle Max, Grandfather Bergen had to sit on his son’s bed late at night, repeating, “You will not be violent. You will not be violent!”

  Grandpa sat down next to me on the gold brocade sofa. “You been writing any more letters to the editor of the Commercial Appeal?” he asked, patting my arm.

  “Oh, no, sir, not any more. I only wrote that one because of that stupid man who wrote that the war was all President Roosevelt’s fault.”

  “Such an intelligent letter,” said Grandpa, adjusting his eyeglasses. “Most people twice your age wouldn’t have written so well.”

  I turned my head to see what my father thought of that. But he was too deep into Look magazine’s story about a soldier’s farewell to hear. And my mother was only interested in her fingernails, which she was filing with a well-used emery board. For a moment I thought I might come right out and ask her if she had liked my letter too, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to give her the impression that her opinion was all that important to me.

  The dining room table was set for fourteen with a fine damask cloth, sterling-silver flatware, and real crystal glasses, two for each setting. Grandma always served Mogen David and I couldn’t remember a time when I was too young for my own wine glass. I could always tell how grown-up Grandma considered me by how much wine she poured. When I was Sharon’s age only the bottom of the glass was covered, but when I was ten it was at the halfway mark. Last Chanukah, and I’m not exaggerating, it was three-quarters.

  At our house we have damask cloths, crystal, and sterling too, but I can’t remember my mother ever using them. Anyway, I know she’s never cooked a dinner like Grandma. Now, Ruth is a very good cook too, but it’s not the same. It’s still like eating somebody else’s food, while Grandma’s is like finally coming home.

  On the gas stove were two restaurant-sized pots, one filled with simmering golden soup and the other had kasha with noodle bows. Grandma opened the door of the oven, slid out the rack, and basted the turkey with a large metal spoon. She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel before looking me over. “My grandchildren are growing up,” she said, sighing. “And when do I see you? Why don’t you like visiting your grandmother?”

  “But I do!”

  “I ask your mother why she never brings you on the train with her, she says you’re too busy with all your friends.”

  “My mother told you that?” I asked, not believing.

  “Your mother always tells me that,” she answered.

  “Well, she’s telling a lie.”

  Grandma looked at me and then she nodded her head as if she knew just what to do about it. “Listen, next week we’ll plan a day; you take the eight o’clock morning train and we’ll spend the whole day together. I’ll buy you clothes—anything you want. We’ll have lunch together. You like the top of the Hotel Peabody, the Skyway?”

  “I just love it!” I said. “I’ve never been there but sometimes I listen to WREC; they broadcast the dinner music right from the Skyway. I’ve always wanted to go there. Will Mother go too?”

  “Well,” said Grandma, thinking it over. Suddenly she shook her head No. “Let her stay home. She’ll only tell me you don’t need a thing and somehow we’ll end up shopping for her.”

  “I can’t wait,” I said, feeling as though she had slipped into my team’s colors. Backtracking, I tried to remember exactly what it was Grandma had said about buying me anything I wanted. Did that mean only clothes?

  “Is there something wrong?”

  “Oh, no, ma’am,” I said, knowing it was those two vertical think-lines that sometimes invite themselves to my forehead that prompted her question. “It’s just that I was wondering if—I mean, if I don’t buy but one dress and if it’s not too expensive do you think it might be all right if I bought a book? You see, we don’t have a library in town except for the one at school and that’s closed for the summer.”

  Suddenly she held up her index finger. “Wait!” she ordered, leaving the room in a rush. When she returned, she was folding a ten-dollar bill in half. “Take this,” she said, “and buy some nice books and when you finish reading them, I’ll give you money to buy more.”

  Stepping backward I clasped my hands behind my back. I tried to remember why I wasn’t supposed to take the money. “Well, thanks anyway but—”

  She pulled my arm from behind my back and systematically opened my fingers one by one to place the bill in my palm. “Buy what makes you happy,” said Grandma.

  “But my mother said—”

  “Your mother!” A deep crease appeared on one side of her mouth. “This is not for your mother to know!”

  Grandma poured my mother’s coffee and set it down on the kitchen table along with a cup of matzo-ball soup for Sharon. Then she took a large blue crockery bowl and carefully ladled in the steaming broth before dropping in two fat matzo balls. At the kitchen door she called out, “Soup’s ready.” My father came at once, sat down, and finished off his soup while Sharon was still blowing on maybe the second or third spoonful.

  My mother set her coffee cup down and asked, “How is it, Harry?”

  “Not bad,” he said, accepting his second bowl.

  When I heard car doors slamming I looked at the kitchen clock—ten
minutes after two. My little cousins, Diane and Jerry, were the first to run in. As I kissed Uncle Irv I saw that everybody else had found somebody to kiss. Uncle Ben called my mother “Sis” and asked, “How’s everything?”

  Then I heard Aunt Dorothy laughing her high-pitched laugh. “Don’t kiss me, Harry. I might swoon.”

  “Come here, you beautiful thing, and kiss a real man,” said my father, “and you’ll never go back to that husband of yours.”

  Now it so happens Aunt Dorothy is no beautiful thing. Frankly speaking, she has buck teeth and good-sized pits on her cheeks, left over from her acne years. And her figure is fatless, though certainly not faultless. Sort of muscle and bone under tightly stretched skin, probably because of all the golf she plays. Two or three years ago her picture was in the Commercial Appeal when she won the Ridgeway Country Club’s women’s golf championship.

  My father led Aunt Dorothy to the window side of the living room and began whispering in her ear. Suddenly her head fell back and she laughed like a woman laughs who wants to please a man. “Oh, Harry, you’re a real card,” she said.

  It has always seemed strange to me, but women like my father. Of course, he’s forever giving them attention, telling them what a big deal they are, so beautiful and all. My Uncle Max told me that my father was the only one of the five Bergen boys who was a genuine “ladies’ man,” spending his pay on clothes and girls. I thought he was just fooling me, but later I asked Aunt Rose which one of her brothers was the most popular with the girls, and right off the bat she answered, “Your daddy. The girls were crazy about him.” But he can be very nice to other people. I’ve noticed that.

  When we all sat down at the dining room table, each place had its own small plate of chopped liver resting on a leaf of lettuce. Grandpa stood and raised his wine glass. I reached for mine, and for the first time it was completely full. Just as full as Grandpa’s or Uncle Ben’s, and if I’m not mistaken it was slightly fuller than my mother’s.