Don't Talk to Me About the War (15 page)

Beth knows everything.

“Wait,” I say as we leave Goldman’s. “If he was just twenty-nine in 1934, he was born in 1905. He was only thirteen when the Great War ended, so he was never in any real battles.”

“So?” Beth asks, and I tell her what Dad said, that only someone who was in battle could know what it’s like.

“So what? Lindbergh is against us going to war and he was never in the army.”

Charles Lindbergh was the first to fly across the ocean. He did it in 1927, the year I was born. He was a real hero. My dad told me there was a big parade for him when he came home. And do you know what? My friend Charles was named for him.

That’s odd. Charles and his family think we should fight and the man he was named for thinks we shouldn’t.

We meet Sarah at the corner, and she’s more talkative now. I guess since she told me about her family, she feels more comfortable with me. She says she has something cute to tell us, something her three-year-old cousin did.

“We are listening to the news and Moshe, he looks at the radio. He goes behind it. Then he says to me, ‘Where is he? Where is the man talking?’”

I laugh. It is cute. But I couldn’t answer him. I don’t know how sounds go through those wires. Sarah said she just told him it’s a radio.

When I get home, Mom tells me that Aunt Martha visited.

“She said we should move to New Jersey. There’s an apartment near her that’s for rent.”

New Jersey! That’s a whole other state! If we moved there, I’d never see my friends.

“I told her we can’t,” Mom says. “Dad needs to be near his work.”

And I need to be near my friends, I think. But I don’t say it.

Mom is fine Monday and Tuesday. She’s had a few good days, and that’s great. On Monday after school, I walk with her to the fruit store. On Tuesday we go to the cleaners. Both days, when I meet her in the lobby, Gertrude Feiner is sitting on the folding chair and Mom and Janet are in the big comfortable chairs.

Wednesday morning I meet Beth at Goldman’s and Mr. Simmons is at her table. He points to an open newspaper,
The New York Times.
“You’ve got to read this speech,” he tells me. “Prime Minister Churchill is inspirational.”

“I can’t read it now. I have to get to school.”

“He said England would fight to the death, even alone. Now, that’s a leader! I just wish people here could have heard him.”

“To the death,” I say. “That’s strong talk.”

Beth closes her newspapers, says her good-byes, and tells me as we leave Goldman’s, “Mr. Simmons was right. It was a powerful speech.”

We meet Sarah at the corner and join the crowd of kids crossing the street and walking to school. It’s a warm day. No one is wearing a jacket. Even Sarah is not in her usual long dark skirt and top. She’s wearing a blue-and-white dress.

Of course, you know who’s standing by the entrance to school, Dr. Johnson, but he’s facing the other way. Dr. Johnson turns and sees us and smiles at me and Beth. Ever since Beth told him about the rescued soldiers, he smiles when he sees us. It’s okay with me that he knows who Beth is, but I’d rather he didn’t know me. I think it’s bad luck for a principal to know who you are.

He asks Beth, “Did you hear about Churchill’s speech? ”

“I read it in the newspaper.”

“It’s being rebroadcast at noon, lunchtime,” he tells Beth. “I’ll be in my office listening with a few teachers. Why don’t you bring your lunch and listen, too.”

“Thank you,” Beth says. “I’ll be there.”

“And bring your friend,” Dr. Johnson says.

He means me!

I don’t want to go to his office.

We walk toward our lockers and I tell Beth, “Now look what you did. I don’t want to spend lunch with him and a bunch of teachers.”

Beth smiles. “Please,” she says, and briefly touches my hand.

That does it. I say I’ll go. But all morning, through math, science, and history, I think about lunch. Eating it in Dr. Johnson’s office, even with Beth, sounds to me like a punishment.

Near the end of third period Mr. Baker returns last week’s history test, the one I studied for during math and science classes. When he says he’s giving the tests back, I’m afraid I failed. But he gives it to me, and I see I did pretty well.

The bell rings, and before I can leave my seat, Beth drops this note on my desk:
I’m going down the
hall to tell Sarah where we’ll be. She’ll tell Roger
and Charles.
I’ll
meet you at the lockers.

Roger will have fun when he hears I’m eating with Dr. Johnson. He’ll joke and say I’m in trouble.

At our lockers Beth says, “Don’t look so glum. Prime Minister Churchill is a terrific speaker. You’ll like listening to him.”

“It’s not who I’ll be listening to that bothers me. It’s where I’ll be doing the listening.”

We walk together to the main office. The woman at the front desk asks us where we’re going, and Beth tells her, “Dr. Johnson invited us to listen to the radio.”

Behind the front desk is a frosted glass door with PRINCIPAL painted on it in gold letters. Beth opens it, and we walk in.

There are lots of three-shelf bookcases against the walls with books and photographs in frames. And on top of the bookcase right by Dr. Johnson’s desk is an army helmet, the one Beth told me about. In the middle of the room is a large oval wood table with pitchers of water and juice, a stack of paper cups, and a platter of cake and cookies.

“Come in, Beth,” Dr. Johnson says. Then he looks at me and asks, “What’s your friend’s name?”

“I’m Tommy Duncan.”

Dr. Johnson reaches out and shakes my hand and says, “Hello, Tommy Duncan.”

He has a strong grip. I guess he learned to shake hands that way in the army.

There are three teachers in the room, but luckily, I’m not in any of their classes. Dr. Johnson looks at the large clock on the wall and says, “I’ll turn the radio on in a few minutes. The speech starts at noon.”

We’re all standing by the table.

“Sit down. Sit down,” Dr. Johnson tells us.

Beth and I sit together, right by the army helmet. Beth takes two cups, one for each of us, and fills them with orange juice. The teachers have started to eat, so I open my lunch bag and unwrap my sandwich. Egg salad. I don’t feel comfortable picking out the onion pieces, not in Dr. Johnson’s office, so I just bite into it.

That’s sharp! I quickly drink some juice.

The door opens and two more teachers come in, and one is Mr. Baker. He’s real friendly. Wow, am I glad I passed his test!

Dr. Johnson turns on the radio.

First, the announcer describes the scene, the British House of Commons, and Winston Churchill, who he calls rotund. Then the prime minister begins his speech.

He talks about the fighting and the trapped soldiers and says the whole of the British army “seemed about to perish upon the field.” He talks about the surrender of the Belgians and how that made it harder for the British. “The enemy attacked on all sides,” he says. Then he describes the rescue, how more than three hundred thousand men were saved from what he calls “the jaws of death.”

I look at Dr. Johnson and the teachers. They’re leaning forward and staring at the radio.

“Wars are not won by evacuations,” Churchill says. “But there was a victory inside this deliverance, which should be noted.”

I’m not too big on listening to speeches. No kid I know is. Well, maybe Beth. But I like the way Churchill talks, his accent. I feel good listening to him, that somehow the Allies—the good guys—can beat the Germans.

After about ten minutes or so, Churchill’s voice goes up a bit. I imagine as he talks he’s holding his hand up and shaking it.

He’s done talking about the past. Now he tells us what to expect.

“We shall fight on beaches; we shall fight on landing grounds; we shall fight in fields, streets and hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it is subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God’s good time the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.”

Dr. Johnson and the teachers applaud when the speech is done, so Beth and I clap, too. They talk about the speech, and I find out that when Churchill said the New World, he meant us, the United States. He expects us to join the war. I’m sure President Roosevelt heard the speech, too, and I wonder what he thinks. Does he expect us to join the war?

I wish Dad had heard Churchill. I’m sure Senator Holt did.

The teachers eat cookies and cake as they talk. Dr. Johnson says he’s sorry he’s too old to sign up and fight. Then one teacher says the bell will ring soon. He and the others get up to leave, so Beth and I get up, too.

“Don’t go yet,” Dr. Johnson tells us. “I want to show you something.”

Once the teachers have gone, Dr. Johnson points to a framed photograph on one of the bookcases and asks us if we see anyone we know. It’s a picture of a group of soldiers.

“That’s you, isn’t it? ” I ask, and point to the young soldier on the far right of the picture.

“Yes, that’s me. Do you recognize anyone else?”

Dr. Johnson was easy to pick out. I knew he would be in the picture, and Charles told me he was a sergeant, and the soldier I pointed to was clearly the one in charge. But how would I know anyone else?

Dr. Johnson smiles and points to a soldier, the second from the left, and says, “Beth, take a good look at him. Do you know who he is?”

I look at the soldier. Then I look at Beth. She shrugs.

“That’s Harold Weils, your homeroom teacher,” Dr. Johnson says, and laughs. “He was in my platoon.”

Wow!

I take a careful look and do see some resemblance to Mr. Weils. I guess every old teacher was young once, even Mr. Weils.

The soldiers in the photograph are all standing tall, with their shoulders back, at attention, just the way Mr. Weils stands in front of our room every morning when he checks the attendance.

The bell rings. I rush to clean up my place at the table.

“You don’t have to hurry,” Dr. Johnson says. “I’ll write you notes.”

He takes a pad from his desk and writes two notes, one for me and one for Beth. We thank him and walk through the main office and into the hall.

Beth rushes off. She’s anxious to get to class. I’m not. I stand there for a moment. Then I walk slowly to Miss Heller’s class. Why should I hurry? I have a note from the principal.

O
utside after school, I join Sarah by the oak tree, and she asks, “How was Mr. Churchill’s talk?”

“Great. He said the English will never surrender.”

“That is very good.”

“He made me feel that somehow, in the end, the Germans will be beaten.”

“Yes,” Sarah says. “I hope he is right and I hope soon. I hope before it is too late for some people.”

She means her uncle.

Lots of kids I know walk past and wave or say hello to me. I’ve lived in the Bronx all my life, so I know lots of kids. But no one greets Sarah. It must be difficult moving to a new country. It was nice of Beth to become her friend, and I’m sure Sarah likes walking with us to school and sitting with us at lunch.

I look at Sarah. She’s holding her leather book bag in front of her with both hands. She sees me looking at her and smiles.

“Have you heard from your aunt?” I ask.

She shakes her head and tells me, “The last letter came two weeks ago. My aunt does not know what she must do. It is difficult. The Nazis do not tell her about Uncle. She has no job. She has less money for food. People are being taken away.”

“Gee, that’s tough.”

I think about how nice it was when Beth, Sarah, and Charles offered to help me with Mom, and I want to offer to help Sarah. But what can I do?

“Sarah,” I say. “When you hear something, please let me know.”

Beth comes out of school, and as we start walking I tell her I wish my dad had listened to the radio, that it would be hard for someone to be against the war after hearing Churchill.

“The speech is in this morning’s newspaper,” she says. “Bring it home.”

Outside Goldman’s, Beth takes
The World Telegram
and
Post
off the bench, both afternoon newspapers, and a morning paper,
The New York Times
. She gives me the
Times
and says, “It’s in here.”

I follow Beth into Goldman’s and sit at her table. I open the
Times
and Churchill’s whole speech is on page six. I read parts of it. Near the end he said, “We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air.”