The German (9 page)

We walked to the fairgrounds, greeting various neighbors along the way. Rita Sherman caught up with us at Pine Road. Her floral print dress clutched her body so tightly I couldn’t imagine how she’d make it through the day’s heat. Her face had been powdered heavily and it reminded me of the sugar cookies waiting at home, and her lips were the color of blood. She clasped her church hat to her head and waddled rapidly, talking to Ma a mile a minute about her evening at the Lonestar Tavern and a nice gentleman she was meeting at the lake that evening so they could “trade recipes.”

Ma shot me a concerned glance and then smiled at her friend and said, “That will be nice.”

The two women spoke, and my mind drifted. I thought about Ma, the way she’d seemed particularly fidgety this morning, how she’d been in constant motion since I’d woken; but mostly I thought about my daddy, walking on ground so far away I had no real understanding of the distance. When I pictured him in battle my mind placed him into scenes from the movies, settings and situations Hollywood had created, so of course I saw him as a hero, the star of the motion picture, not one of the anonymous actors surrounding him, whose characters fell, dramatically clutching their chests as the battle raged on. In my mind war was neat and orderly, played out in shades of gray on vaguely unreal-looking fields. Nameless, faceless actors fell, but the star always lived to see his girl again, and Daddy would too.

By the time we reached the fairgrounds, the field was already swarming with people. Tents framed the north and east sides, and the odors of mesquite smoke, sausages, barbecue sauce and fried dough scented the air. Mr. Carlson’s brass band played marching songs from the bandstand, and I saw Bum’s uncle Reggie pumping his trombone with gusto as he stomped his foot on the stage. Ma and Rita sat at a bench, but I was eager to find Bum and explore the different tents. She told me to have fun and to stay out of trouble, and I promised before setting off.

Wandering over the hard packed dirt I saw friends from school, and teachers, and neighbors, and everyone smiled. I’d hoped to see Mr. Lang among the crowd, but if he was there I didn’t see him. Eventually I found Bum with his family sitting at a bench on the southwest side of the fairgrounds.

Clay Craddick, Bum’s daddy, stood behind the bench and several feet away, talking with a group of men that included Burl Jones, the barber Harvey Milton, and Deputy Walter Long. Jones seemed particularly agitated, though all of the men looked angry and perplexed like cowboys whose herd had suddenly vanished. Bum’s ma sat on the bench, holding a small umbrella above her Sunday bonnet, shielding herself from the sun. She smiled warmly as if in love with everything that crossed her line of sight. On the bench next to her, Bum’s brother Fatty, as dull faced as a cow, chomped on a piece of gum. Bum saw me and leapt from the bench, racing forward to intercept me. He’d never been proud of his family, and he kept me a good distance from them whenever he could.

“Morning, Timmy,” Mrs. Craddick said, waving languidly. “Such a nice day.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I agreed.

Bum grabbed my arm and spun me around, leading me back into the throng of Barnard’s gathered population. Behind us Burl Jones shouted, “Horseshit,” before the other men shushed him and told him to keep his tone civil.

“Daddy’s got himself all worked up,” Bum said. “All morning they’ve been talking about the men Sheriff Rabbit questioned, all those Germans, and they’re thinking they should do some questioning of their own.”

“You think they will?”

“Nah, it’s just hot air,” Bum said. “But a lot of folks are talking the same way.”

We emerged through a pack of women who had gathered in the center of the fairgrounds, and I saw Mr. Lang standing by himself next to a scraggly looking pecan tree which was wrapped in a red, white, and blue banner. It struck me as odd that he should be alone with so many people around, so I pulled Bum to a stop and suggested we go say hello, but my friend shook his head.

“Daddy told me to stay away from the Germans until they catch the killer. He told me he’d tan me good if he caught me talking to any of them, even the kids.”

So we continued to the tents along the north side of the fairgrounds and we got ourselves a lemonade, which wasn’t sweet enough. Rationing assured that most everything tasted strange – either flour bland or bitter. Still, the drink quenched our thirsts, and we were given a second glass two tents down. Girls giggled and chatted. A group of boys asked if we wanted to play tag, but we were too old for that. A boy and his grandfather flew a kite with little luck, as they failed time and again to lift the kite into the tides of wind. We ran into a gang of older boys from school who were putting together a baseball game, and though Bum wasn’t much for sports, we happily agreed to join in because we took some pride in being asked. The game didn’t last long. The day had turned sweltering, and most of us wanted to return to the celebration for a cold glass of tea or more lemonade, and then the food started coming out. Bum told me he’d promised his Ma that he’d eat supper with the family. He made a screwy face and a gagging noise at the prospect but promised to catch up with me after, so I returned to Ma and Rita, who hadn’t moved since I’d left them. Ma asked if I was having fun and if she could get me a supper plate and I said yes to both.

~ ~ ~

I walked all over looking for Bum after supper. It was mid afternoon and the fairgrounds radiated merciless heat. Lethargy seemed to have a good hold on the folks, most of whom had gathered in the tents or beneath patches of shade to shield them from the sun. Hugo Jones sat on a picnic bench, smoking a cigarette. He was a tall wiry boy with veins like maps on his forearms. Thick black hair fought against a sheen of oil and seemed about ready to spring free, and pimples like spider bites swarmed his cheeks and chin. Hugo and his buddies, Ben and Austin, were talking to three girls, and though I thought I recognized Jilly Irvine, whose uncle taught at my school, the other girls weren’t familiar at all. Ben Livingston wore a brown Stetson pushed back from his rectangular face, shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbow, and he chewed on a length of straw, looking like a cowboy from a movie: Tim Holt or a young John Wayne. The blond boy, Austin Chitwood, appeared sloppy in a dirty chambray shirt and wrinkled blue jeans. His mouth and eyes moved constantly as if he were a puppet manipulated by a palsied hand. Hugo paused in something he was saying and eyed me through a cloud of smoke, but his interest was passing, and he returned his attention to the girls.

Having all but given up on finding Bum, I followed a voice I recognized to the bandstand, where Brett Fletcher had parked his wheelchair in the shade and was telling stories to a small audience. I was surprised to find Bum sitting near the back of this gathering, as he’d never been fond of Mr. Fletcher’s stories, and he only went out to Bennet Road to hear them when I insisted.

Mr. Fletcher threw a sharp glance at me, letting me know I was in his sights. Maybe it was because of the wheelchair, or the authority that thickened his voice, but I always thought of Mr. Fletcher as old. He wasn’t. In fact, he was younger than my daddy, but he displayed an air of maturity and confidence that put him well beyond his years. Ma and Miz Rita agreed he was a handsome man. Miz Rita called him “a rugged looker,” but she’d used the same description for my neighbor Mr. Lang, and he didn’t look a thing like Mr. Fletcher.

He set into a new story. I usually liked listening to Mr. Fletcher, because the stories he told were exciting, and he threw himself into their performance, but the day was just too hot and the air too dry for me to get comfortable. As he spun a tale about his unit avenging the deaths of two village girls, who had died at the hands of “Nazi filth,” I shifted on the hard-packed dirt but couldn’t for the life of me get situated. Bum nudged me to get me to settle down, and I stretched out on my side. Not nearly soon enough, Mr. Fletcher finished his story, assuring his audience that the men who had murdered those two girls got what was coming to them, and then he worked his way into the moral of the story.

“I’m not saying all Germans are Nazis, but you can never tell, so you have to be careful. Right now, we got a boy dead, cut to pieces by a Nazi piece of filth, and I don’t want to see a one of you follow in his footsteps.”

Mr. Fletcher’s warning crawled over my skin as tangible as the day’s heat and the sweat it drew from my body. How did you avoid a monster that wore a human face? How did you identify the enemy?

July 4th 1944 – Translated from the German

The celebration is held at the fairgrounds. It is an ugly patch of field, mostly scabbed dirt and jutting wiry grasses. The train tracks run down the west side of the grounds. Stockyards squat along the southern border and the scent of manure, blood and rending meat mixes with that of locomotive oil. A sun-bleached sky hangs above, nearly white. An untalented brass band comprised of white-haired men plays patriotic noise. Marches and anthems meant to invigorate. Ladies have draped red, white and blue bunting across two tree trunks. These are not healthy trees. Insect-eaten leaves hang from narrow limbs, and their shade is insufficient on this hot day. Tents stand like an army encampment. The air is dry and blows through the tent fabric, and the barbecue pits, and over the jugs of lemonade, the children throwing balls, the women gossiping at one long table, and the men who did not go to battle. The Germans have gathered away from the others. I am a German, but I am neither with them nor separate from them. I sit at a table indifferent to the conversation of those around me. I nod when it strikes me as appropriate and smile when I realize someone has told a joke. I close my eyes when a wave of dust rises from the earth to crest over me. Fifteen meters away, my neighbor Tim is drinking lemonade with his plump friend. They have given up playing ball and instead make a show of wiping sweat from their brows as if to justify quaffing so much bittersweet drink.

Smiles lie over worried and uncomfortable expressions. The Americans are not the only ones who suppose on the identity of this killer. At the celebration, I see Germans assessing their countrymen. I see the whispers and the nods, and the shaking of heads. Such suspicion is disheartening, and while this crime has unified the Americans as such crimes will, it has divided us – from them and each other. I am reminded of Fritz Lang’s film
M
, and when I imagine this local criminal I think of a pudgy psychopath whistling a bit of Grieg’s
Peer Gynt
. I enjoyed that film very much and took the director’s last name when I came to this country, but now the suspicion and fear that film made show of engulfs me. I am similarly reminded of Peter Kürten, and Fritz Haarmann and Karl Grossman, and I can’t help but wonder if this brand of cruelty is particular to my nation. We have nurtured this Vampire of Düsseldorf and this Butcher of Hanover and who knows how many others. Do such monsters arise in Spain? In France? In America? I do not know.

I remember a bathhouse and a marble pool in which so much beauty bathed; and splashing in a refreshing lake on an overcast day before taking a strong blond man to my room. I remember full-throated prayers, shouted like orders before the firing squad silenced them.

Are these memories or lies I tell myself?

Another film occurs to me. It is
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
, and my mind fills with the flat, harsh scenery and Conrad Veidt’s flat, harsh face. Intrigued by the ideas in the film, I found myself viewing it again and again with men from my squad. My companions teased and said that with my scars – still very recent and red – I would make a fine monster for the screen. But now, over two decades later, what I remember about the film is the ending, when the hero emerges from his delusion and finds himself in a lunatic asylum, and the audience realizes that all that has come before was a fiction of his demented mind. I remember this because of the deep, dark hole, and the flakes of blood that fall from my chest like tiny leaves.

I remember this because I should be dead, and if I am not, then perhaps I am mad and nothing I see with my eyes or my memory can be trusted.

No longer comfortable under the hot sun, feeling the scorch on my neck, I cross the dried field to one of the German tents and order a glass of tea from Yvette Wagner, who smiles warmly at me and comments on the depth of my tan. I thank her and pay for the tea and carry it to one of the benches at the back. Soon others will tire of the afternoon sun and fill the various tents, but for now, I share the bench with only a few people. People I recognize as German but do not know by name. We are polite and greet one another, but I leave them to their conversations. In turn, they cast furtive glances at me, perhaps wondering if I am a murderer of children.