Don't Talk to Me About the War Read online

“But soon we might be,” Beth says, “even if we don’t want it. We might be attacked or we might decide to help fight the Germans. We can’t let them take over Europe!”

  “Why? ”

  That might sound stupid to Beth, but I really want to know why she’s so upset about what’s happening thousands of miles away.

  “Because the Nazis are evil. That’s why. Don’t you know what they did to Sarah, that they chased her and her family from their home? And once they conquer Europe, we might be next.”

  Beth carefully folds the newspapers.

  Dad says fighting in a war often sounds like the right thing to do, until you do it. He was in Europe, in the Great War, and said he was in a muddy ditch most of the time. He was cold, hungry, and scared. He saw people killed.

  We leave Goldman’s, and I look at Beth. I wonder if she would be so wrapped up in this trapped soldier stuff if her mother was still alive. I bet she would be thinking more about her mom’s illness.

  As we walk past the bakery I just say it. “I’m worried about Mom.”

  Beth stops. She turns to me and asks, “Why?”

  I tell her about Mom’s shaky hand, her blurry vision, and that she drops things.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We don’t know, and we’re worried. We want her to go to a doctor, to check her out.”

  “I remember when my mom first got sick. It took a while for her to decide to see a doctor.”

  And I know what happened to Beth’s mother.

  We stop at the corner and Sarah is walking toward us. Beth looks at me. She wants to know if she could talk about Mom in front of her. I shake my head. I don’t need everyone knowing what’s happening in my house.

  Sarah joins us, and Beth tells her that the English and French bombed German-held bridges.

  “That is good,” Sarah says. “I am happy they are fighting back.”

  The sidewalk is more and more crowded the closer we get to school. Children are talking, shouting, and laughing.

  We walk into the building, and Dr. Johnson is standing there, his chest out, stomach in, and his hands on his hips. He says good morning to us, only it doesn’t sound like a greeting. It sounds more like a command, that he orders us to have a good morning.

  Yes, sir! I think. I will have a good morning, sir!

  He was a soldier in the Great War, a sergeant. That’s what my friend Charles said. Maybe that’s why he stands like that and why he’s so big on rules.

  Sarah leaves us. She walks to the right, to go to her class, and before we go to the left, Beth whispers to me, “We can talk about your mother later, on the way home if you want.”

  I nod. I want that, and not just because I like Beth. I need to talk to someone other than Dad about what’s happening at home.

  Mr. Weils is standing by the door to our homeroom. He stands real straight, too, only he’s not nearly as tall as Dr. Johnson. I sit in homeroom and think about all that’s going on, about the war, the Dodgers, and Mom. At first, I don’t hear Mr. Weils when he calls my name.

  “Duncan,” he says real loud. “Are you here or not? ”

  I raise my hand.

  “I’m here,” I answer.

  Weird. He looked at me and asked if I was here. I bet if I had answered, “No, I’m not here,” or had not said anything, he would have marked me absent.

  Mr. Weils reads a memo from Dr. Johnson. “Eating in the lunchroom is a privilege.” I know what’s coming next, stuff about not running, making sure we clean our tables—so I don’t listen. Mostly in school, I don’t listen.

  During history, I’m thinking about Mom, and Mr. Baker, my history teacher, asks me some question and I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t even know what he asked.

  “Tommy, try to stay with us,” he says.

  I try, but he’s talking about the Constitutional Convention, the one in Philadelphia in 1787, and I guess if I had been there, it would have been real interesting, but listening to Mr. Baker talk about it is boring.

  Beth is in history with me. I look at her. She smiles, and I feel better about sitting in class. The bell rings and we walk together to our lockers to get our lunch bags. Beth doesn’t say anything about my not listening in class. I guess she knows what I was thinking about.

  We sit at our usual table, and Beth takes something from her bag and gives it to me. It’s wrapped in paper. “This is for you. End pieces.”

  It’s the bread Beth baked. She even brought some for Roger and Charles. I taste it, and it’s better than what Mom buys from the bakery.

  “Thanks,” Roger says, and bites into his piece. “Just the way I like it.”

  “Yes, thanks,” Charles says real quiet.

  In the afternoon, I have trouble paying attention again, even to Miss Heller in English.

  What could be wrong with Mom? I wonder how long it was before Beth knew her mom was really sick.

  Later, after school, it’s windy and raining. It’s hard to really talk, so I go into Goldman’s with Beth. We sit by one of the tables and Beth answers all my questions.

  “It all happened so quickly to my mother,” she says. “There really wasn’t anything I could do. There wasn’t anything anyone could do.”

  “Did her hands shake? Did her vision get blurry?”

  “No, she just got weak,” Beth says. “She lost a lot of weight. She hurt.”

  “Mom never tells us she’s hurting,” I say, “just that her legs are stiff.”

  “You just have to hope she goes to a doctor soon, that he says it’s nothing serious, that she just needs to take some pill or get more rest or something.”

  We sit there for a while without talking.

  Then Beth looks at me and says, “Don’t get angry.”

  “Why would I get angry?”

  “I’m going to say something I’ve been thinking ever since you told me your mom’s hand shakes, that she drops things, and her vision is sometimes blurry.”

  Beth looks at me, takes a deep breath, and says, “During the day, while you’re at school and your dad is at work, she may be drinking. Whiskey or wine. You know, she may have a drinking problem.”

  “No.”

  “She’s home all day. She’s alone.”

  “No,” I tell Beth. “Not my mom.”

  Goldman brings us each a glass of milk.

  “Thanks,” Beth says.

  I also thank Mr. Goldman, “But I can’t pay now,” I tell him. “I don’t have money with me.”

  He smiles and says, “Don’t worry. No charge.”

  Beth and I sit quietly and drink the milk. It’s real cold, real refreshing.

  She puts down her glass. “In Buffalo there was a woman on our block who had a drinking problem, and her hands shook. She would make up all sorts of stories. You could never believe her. She said she was once a silent movie star, and she’d tilt her head to the side and say, ‘I was also a fashion model. A prince once proposed marriage to me and I said no.’

  “I asked why her hands shook and she leaned in close and whispered, ‘Coffee. I drink too much coffee. The caffeine makes me shake.’ But you know what? When she was that close to me, I could smell the whiskey.”

  I sit there and try, but I can’t imagine Mom in that big chair with a bottle of whiskey.

  “Look around,” Beth tells me. “Look in the pantry, in the back, behind things. Look for a bottle. Check the trash for an empty.”

  “You’re wrong,” I say again.

  Goldman comes and takes the empty glasses. We thank him and he smiles. He wipes the table with a towel and goes behind the counter again.

  Beth says, “Maybe I am wrong. I never met your mom.”

  “I’ll look for bottles, but I know I won’t find them. My mom is not drinking.”

  Beth walks with me to the door. She takes an afternoon paper from the bench, The New York World Telegram. The rain has mostly stopped. I say good-bye to her and Goldman and hurry home.

  When I get upstairs, before I go to
our apartment, I look in the incinerator room for empty wine or whiskey bottles. There are none, just lots of old newspapers. I take yesterday’s New York Daily Mirror, the paper Beth’s dad works on. It has a good sports section.

  NAZIS TRAP THOUSANDS! is the headline on the front page. I turn the paper over. YANKS WIN WITH 12 HITS is the headline on the back. Beneath that is a picture of Dolph Camilli of the Dodgers at the plate swinging his bat with a caption that says it’s the ninth inning and he’s getting the game-winning hit in Tuesday’s game.

  When I enter the parlor, Mom looks up. She’d been sleeping. It’s past three and there’s music playing on the radio instead of The Romance of Helen Trent.

  Mom looks at the clock on the side table.

  “Oh, my,” she says.

  I quickly turn the dial to 570, WMCA.

  I leave Mom and go to the kitchen. There’s nothing in the pantry behind the boxes of cereal and pasta. No bottle. I open the icebox. None in the vegetable bin or on the top shelf behind the milk and water.

  I bring Mom a glass of ice water and say, “I thought you might be thirsty.”

  Mom looks up at me, smiles, and says, “Thank you.”

  When I set the glass down, I lean close and take a deep breath. Mom doesn’t smell of wine or whiskey. Beth is wrong. Mom doesn’t have a drinking problem.

  But if Mom isn’t drinking, what is wrong? What’s happening to her?

  5

  Helen Trent and Ma Perkins

  I throw my books on my bed and open the Daily Mirror. There’s a map of France, Belgium, and the English Channel with dotted lines, arrows, and numbers showing where the soldiers are trapped. ALLIES PANIC! is the headline on one of the inside pages. It looks serious.

  Hey, I think. Why am I reading this? Why aren’t I reading the sports pages?

  It’s Beth. She’s gotten me interested in the war.

  I try working on my history homework, but after reading six pages, I can’t tell you one thing about it. It’s funny how I can read every word of something and not remember any of it.

  Back in the parlor, Mom is listening to Ma Perkins and folding the laundry. Ma Perkins is worried about some boy who stole a purse and is in trouble with the police. She’s always worried about something! On the radio, in the afternoon, it’s one soap opera after another. Problems, problems, problems!

  “Tommy, will you help me with the laundry? ”

  I do, and as I fold the clothes, I notice her hands are steady. When she talks, her words are clear, not slurred. Next, I help her scrape and clean carrots and potatoes for a stew and set the table. Then I see how upset she is.

  “It’s only a radio program,” I say. “Ma Perkins will talk to that boy. He’ll decide that crime doesn’t pay.”

  Mom is sitting by the table. She doesn’t answer me.

  “And don’t worry about Helen Trent. She’s always falling in love with the wrong man.”

  “It’s not that,” Mom tells me.

  “Is it your eyes? Are you real tired?”

  Mom doesn’t answer me.

  “Lots of people’s eyes hurt,” I say. “Lots of people get tired. And people fall and drop things all the time. That doesn’t mean they’re sick.”

  That’s what I say, but I don’t believe it.

  Mom tries to smile. She thanks me for helping and says I should do my homework. I go to my room, but I can’t work. I’m too worried about Mom.

  Dad comes home about six and I hurry out of my room. He has a bunch of yellow flowers—daisies, I think. He asks Mom how she feels, but she doesn’t want to talk about it.

  “Then how’s Helen?” Dad asks, and smiles.

  “She’s fine.”

  That can’t be true! Helen Trent is never fine. Is Mom lying like that woman in Buffalo? Well, not exactly. Mom didn’t say she was a silent movie star.

  Dad puts the flowers on the kitchen counter. He opens the cabinet just above the sink and looks for the vase.

  “It’s not there,” I tell him quietly. “It broke.”

  “Oh,” Dad says. He doesn’t ask how it broke. I guess he knows.

  Dad opens the icebox. There’s just a little milk left in the bottle. He pours it in a glass for me. He washes the bottle, puts in the flowers, adds some water, and sets it on the table.

  “They’re nice,” Mom says.

  At dinner, I think about Mom and Helen Trent. Mom must like the show because, like Helen, Mom is over thirty-five and doesn’t want romance to be over for her, and I don’t think it is. Sometimes, when Symphonic Strings is on the radio, she and Dad hold hands.

  Mom doesn’t eat much. Dad asks why, and she tells him she isn’t hungry.

  After dinner, Mom sits in the easy chair and rests while Dad and I do the dishes. We don’t talk. I think Dad feels like me—he doesn’t know what to say.

  We put the dishes away, and Dad and I go to the parlor to listen to the radio. The war news is good. The British, French, and Belgians are fighting back in what the reporter calls the Battle of Flanders.

  Next, there’s a report from London.

  “Just ten days ago, in his first speech to the British House of Commons as prime minister, Winston Churchill told his nation, ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.’ He said, ‘for without victory, there is no survival.’ This is a crucial time for Churchill and his people.”

  I think again about what I heard yesterday, that there’s a special bond between President Roosevelt and Churchill and wonder how long we will stay out of the fighting.

  Dad says, “Too many people here are out of work. We have to get people jobs before we can even think about another war.”

  Mom agrees. She tells me, “You’re my only child. I don’t want you to be a soldier.”

  I’m sure Beth is right, that we don’t want the Germans to take over all of Europe. I’m sure Dad is right, too, that we need jobs here more than we need war. I’m confused about all this. I don’t know what we should do. But I don’t need to decide. That’s up to President Roosevelt and all those people in Washington.

  At nine, Dad turns the dial to 660, WEAF, The Maxwell House Good News Program with Fanny Brice as Baby Snooks. She’s such a brat, but she’s funny. Her teacher asks, “If you subtract twenty-five from thirty-seven, what’s the difference?” And Snooks answers, “That’s what I say. What’s the difference? ”

  It’s funnier when you hear her say it on the radio in her squeaky baby voice. I’m sure tomorrow I’ll hear all the Snooks jokes again from Roger.

  Mom smiles when she listens to Baby Snooks.

  I change into pajamas, look again at the Daily Mirror, and wonder what part of the newspaper Beth’s dad worked on. Lying there, on my bed with the light off and my eyes closed, I picture the map and the dotted lines.

  The next morning, Mom is sitting by the window. “I looked outside,” she tells me. “It’s cloudy and might rain, so you should take your jacket.”

  Mom watches me eat breakfast, a buttered roll and a glass of milk. Then, just as I’m about to get up, she takes my hand. She holds on a bit too tight. I can feel her hand tremble.

  “I feel fine today,” she says. “Don’t worry.”

  But I do worry.

  When I get to Goldman’s and Beth sees me, she closes the newspaper she’s reading. She doesn’t talk to me about the war at all. She asks about Mom.

  “I think you’re wrong,” I say. “I didn’t find any bottles, and I smelled Mom’s breath. It didn’t smell of whiskey.”

  Beth smiles. “That’s good,” she says. “I don’t mind being wrong.”

  I help Beth fold the newspapers and tell her how I feel, that I am scared. I just wish Beth had a different family history, that she could say, “Yeah, my mother had the shakes. She was sick, too, but now she’s fine.”

  Sarah is waiting for us at the corner. The light is red.

  Sarah steps real close to Beth and says softly, “Yesterday we got a letter. It was from my aunt.”


  I lean close. I want to hear what Sarah is saying.

  “My aunt still does not know where Uncle is. She said it is good we left and that we took Yosef and Moshe.”

  “Who are Yosef and Moshe?” I ask.

  “They’re Sarah’s cousins,” Beth says. “They came here with Sarah and her family.”

  “Yes,” Sarah says. “They are little.”

  The light is green.

  “Where is your uncle?” Beth asks. “What do you think happened to him?”

  Sarah shakes her head. She doesn’t know.

  Sarah starts to cross the street and we follow her. She keeps a step or two ahead of us, I think so we can’t see how upset she is. When we get in, Sarah hurries to class.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I ask.

  “Jewish people in Europe are taken away by the Nazis. They disappear.”

  “Go on,” Dr. Johnson tells us. “Go to class.”

  At our lockers I ask Beth, “What do you mean they disappear?”

  “Some come back. Others don’t. They’re just gone.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Beth turns to me. “What don’t you understand!”

  She’s almost scolding me.

  “They take people away. All kinds of people. It happens every day.”

  That’s scary, I think, but I don’t say it.

  We get into homeroom just as the bell rings. We hurry to our seats.

  Mr. Weils is standing in the front of the room. He’s holding the attendance book.

  “Sit straight,” he tells us. “Sit tall!”

  I sit up as he checks the attendance.

  My first two classes, math and science, go by quickly. And for once, history isn’t too bad. Mr. Baker talks about Benjamin Franklin, the oldest delegate at the Constitutional Convention. He tells us about Franklin’s experiments with electricity, and that Franklin believed fresh air was good for people’s health. At night, even in the coldest weather, Franklin left a window open by his bed, and in the morning, he often took what he called an “air bath.” He sat naked in his parlor, so his whole body could bathe in air.

  I close my eyes and imagine Franklin, an old man with long hair, taking an air bath.

  Yuck!

  I think about another fat man, about Fat Freddy Fitzsimmons and the Dodgers. I hope this summer I can get to Ebbets Field and watch him pitch.