Don't Talk to Me About the War Page 6

  “Okay,” Charles says, “because if there’s a problem or something—you know.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  I must really look worried. First Sarah noticed and now Charles.

  There’s Beth in a crowd coming down the front steps of the school. It’s easy to pick her out, with her long blonde hair and colorful dress. She sees us and smiles. “Sorry I’m late.”

  We walk quietly. At the corner, after we cross the street, Sarah says, “I hope everything is good.”

  “Thank you.”

  Beth and I walk to Goldman’s and I stop, but Beth doesn’t. She turns and tells me, “I’m walking home with you so you can tell me what happened at the doctor’s office.”

  “No, you like to read the afternoon papers. You want to know what happened with the soldiers.”

  “I’ll read about them later. Right now I want to know what the doctor said.”

  Beth has never been to our apartment building. I’ve never been to hers. From the outside, most buildings in the Bronx look the same—brick, a few stories high with a metal fire escape crawling up each side and usually tablecloths and laundry hanging from a few windows.

  “This is it,” I say when we come to my building. I open the door for Beth.

  Our building doesn’t have much furniture in the lobby, just a small table and two large cloth-covered chairs that I think some family left when they moved out. The chairs are worn but comfortable. We walk in and see two old women sitting, talking, and waiting for the mailman who comes in the late afternoon. One of the women, the heavy one, seems to do most of the talking.

  “Hello,” I say as we walk past.

  I always greet them, but I don’t know their names and I don’t think they know mine. Apartments are funny like that. We live in the same building but once we close our doors, we’re each in our own private worlds.

  The stairs are at the end of the lobby, on the left. They’re wide at the bottom with a curly metal handrail. Beth sits on the second step and says, “I’ll wait here.”

  I’m about to walk up, when Beth says, “Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” I say, and take her hand.

  I’m a little scared. I wonder what’s waiting for me in my private world. I let go of Beth’s hand and start up the stairs. When I reach our apartment, I unlock the door and listen. No one calls to me. No one is waiting anxiously for me to come home. Either nothing is wrong with Mom and she’s out shopping or celebrating with Dad, or Mom is so sick the doctor is still examining her, or even worse, she was rushed to the hospital.

  Mom’s raincoat is in the small front closet, so she must be home. I find her resting in the big easy chair. The radio is tuned to soft music, not to her soap operas.

  Mom hears me and opens her eyes.

  “Tommy, you’re home.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Maybe you’ll help me with dinner.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  Mom holds on to both arms of the chair, pushes herself up, and walks stiffly toward the kitchen. I follow her and stop in the dining area, by the table. The kitchen is too small for both of us. Mom takes a pot from the drawer beneath the counter, puts it in the sink, and fills it with water.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me? What did the doctor say?”

  Mom puts the pot on the stove, on one of the burners, and lights it. Then she turns to me.

  “He thinks I’m tired.”

  “That’s it! You’re just tired?”

  Mom nods. “And I might be depressed.”

  “Depressed! Why? What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong! My leg is stiff. My hand shakes. Sometimes my vision is blurry. That’s enough to make anyone depressed.”

  I think about that for a moment, but it doesn’t make sense to me. How could being depressed cause all Mom’s physical problems if it’s the problems that are making her depressed? That’s just one big nasty circle.

  “But Mom, that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I know. None of this makes any sense to me. I’ve been tired before, but that never gave me the shakes.”

  The water starts to boil. Mom opens a box of elbow noodles and pours them into the pot.

  “I’m making pasta salad. Your father likes that.”

  “I like it, too.”

  “And I’m cooking chicken, but I’ll do that later. I want it ready about six, when Dad gets home.”

  Just then I remember that Beth is waiting for me.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say, and hurry out of the apartment.

  Beth is still sitting on the second step. She’s reading our history book, studying for Wednesday’s test. She sees me coming down the stairs, closes the book, and gets up.

  I reach the lobby floor, look at Beth a moment and then tell her, “The doctor said Mom’s just tired and maybe depressed.”

  “That’s all?”

  I nod.

  “No disease?”

  I shake my head.

  “Then that’s good news,” Beth says, and hugs me. “I’m so happy for you.”

  I hold on to her and we stand like that for a bit, and then Beth steps back. I see tears in her eyes as she gathers her books. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says.

  I wipe my eyes. They’re teary, too.

  Beth leaves the building and I notice the two old women. They’re still sitting in the lobby and they’re watching me. I smile at them and then go back upstairs.

  Mom is standing by the stove, stirring the noodles. Later, while I help her clean the chicken and make the salad, she describes the doctor and his office. When she and Dad left it, they went to a coffee shop for some ice cream.

  “Dad told the man we were celebrating and he brought us each a piece of chocolate cake. ‘No charge,’ he said.”

  It must be Goldman’s. Mom doesn’t know I meet Beth there every morning.

  “Dad thinks maybe I’m depressed,” Mom says as I squeeze a lemon over the salad, “because of my radio programs. He thinks maybe all Helen Trent’s troubles and Ma Perkins’s are upsetting me. Dad told me to listen to music instead, so that’s what I did this afternoon, but I miss Helen, Mary Noble, and Ma Perkins. It’s lonely all afternoon without them.”

  Lonely without some made-up radio people! Maybe Dad is right. Maybe Mom is too wrapped up in those stories. Maybe she should sit in the park with her friends.

  “The doctor was nice. He said in winter, with less sun and the cold weather, some people get depressed. He hopes with the coming of summer, I’ll be better. He said I shouldn’t worry, just get more rest.”

  We don’t talk much after that. Mom drains the water from the pot of noodles and when she sets it on the counter to cool, I notice her right hand still shakes. She goes back to the big chair and I go to my room and do homework.

  At dinner, Dad tells Mom everything she should and should not do. He’s determined that she not work so hard. He tells her to “think happy thoughts.”

  While we wash the dishes, Dad tells me, “You can’t imagine what I was thinking this morning. I sat in the waiting room with Mom and worried about all the terrible diseases she might have.”

  Of course, I can imagine that.

  After dinner, Dad tunes the radio to Stan Lomax and the sports news.

  “New York’s three baseball teams won twice today and lost once,” Lomax reports. “The Yankees and Dodgers won. The Giants lost.”

  Yeah!

  I look at Mom. She has a faraway look in her eyes, like she isn’t even listening. I don’t think she really cares if the Dodgers win or lose, which is too bad. They’re really doing great this year. This season, I don’t think any Dodgers fans are depressed.

  Dad tunes the radio to “old people” slow classical music. I hear enough of that in school, in Music Appreciation! I like swing, the new sound. Sometimes, when I listen to it on the radio, I tap to the beat and not because I want to. I just do. And I never tap to the old stuff my parents like. I go to my room and read some history, bu
t at nine, I’m out again. I want to hear Lux Radio Theater.

  Each Monday night it takes a popular movie and makes it into an hour-long radio play, usually with some of the stars from the movie. It always begins with, “Greetings to you from Holly Woooood.” That’s how the producer of the show, Cecil B. DeMille, says it, like Holly and Wood are two separate words.

  After some talk about Lux Flakes, Mr. DeMille says, “And now the curtain goes up on act one of Vigil in the Night.”

  The first scene is in a hospital. Two sisters are nurses and one of them makes a tragic mistake and a child dies. I look at Dad. This won’t help Mom have happy thoughts.

  “It’s late,” Dad says quickly. “I’m turning this off.”

  He gets up and reaches for the radio.

  “No,” Mom tells him. “I’m not a child. I can listen to a program about nurses and a hospital. You know I look forward all week to Lux Radio Theater.”

  Dad sits again. I listen awhile longer. I usually like the Lux show but this one depresses me, not because a child dies, but because it turns into a love story between a doctor and one of the nurses. It’s too much like one of Mom’s soap operas. At the end of the first act I say good night and go to my room.

  What a good day this was! Mom isn’t really sick. And it was nice of Beth to walk me home. She seemed worried, too, about Mom, and relieved to know the doctor said she was just tired.

  She looked pretty today, in her green dress and earrings. She wears them all the time now. It felt nice to be hugged. Today, I really needed that.

  10

  Half Blind!

  Bang! A noise outside wakes me. It sounded like a car backfiring.

  I look at the clock beside my bed and realize I forgot to set the alarm. It’s late. I have to hurry. I sit up and see a note taped to the inside of my door.

  Please be quiet. Mom is sleeping.

  I hope that car didn’t wake her.

  I skip breakfast and hurry out. I’m anxious to get to Goldman’s. Then, as I’m about to enter the coffee shop, a man pushes past me. It’s Mr. Simmons. He grabs a New York Times from the bench and quickly looks through it. He drops it and grabs a Herald Tribune. He looks at the front page and says real loud, “It’s not in here.”

  People put down their cups of coffee. The shop is suddenly quiet.

  “I heard some exciting news, and it’s not in the papers.”

  I slip past him, sit beside Beth at the corner table, and listen.

  “They’re getting away,” he says all excited. “They’re getting on boats, all sorts of boats—fishing boats, rowboats, sailboats—and they’re getting away.”

  “Who’s getting away?” a woman at the table next to us asks.

  “The trapped soldiers. The Allies. It started Sunday night. There’s fighting in the air with airplanes shooting it out. Dogfights. And all these boats are taking Allied soldiers across the Channel, from Dunkirk to Dover. It was quiet and steady—an amazing rescue. At first, I don’t think the Germans knew what was happening.”

  People begin to talk. Mr. Simmons drops the Tribune on Beth’s table and sits next to me.

  “It started Sunday night, European time. That’s the afternoon here. Now it’s Tuesday. There should be something about it in the papers.”

  Mr. Goldman is standing by our table and asks, “Where did you hear this?”

  “On the radio. WEAF, on the half-hour European news program.”

  Mr. Goldman hurries behind the counter. He tunes his radio to WEAF, turns up the volume, and we hear some man singing.

  “No!” a woman calls out. “That’s the Gene and Glenn show, a half hour of songs. Try WMCA. They mix news with music.”

  The woman and others gather by the counter and Mr. Goldman turns the dial to the left. We hear music. It sounds to me like Glenn Miller’s band.

  I look at my watch.

  “Beth, we have to go.”

  “Wait,” she tells me.

  Mr. Goldman turns the dial again and finally gets some news. The announcer says, “Reports have been confirmed. In an amazing rescue, thousands of Allied soldiers have escaped capture at Dunkirk.”

  Beth leaves her seat and gets close to the counter, so I do, too.

  “They were transported from the shore at Dunkirk,” the announcer says, “across the Channel in an unlikely armada of boats of all kinds.”

  “Did you hear that?” Beth asks me.

  Of course I heard it.

  “Right now there are boats waiting on the coast of France to take whatever men can get to them, Allied soldiers who until now seemed lost to the German onslaught. This, while the enemy flies over and drops bombs on the coastline and into the water to stop the withdrawal.”

  “We really have to go,” I tell Beth again. “It’ll be in the afternoon papers.”

  We return to the corner table and fold the newspapers. Beth is especially slow this morning gathering her books. I guess she doesn’t want to leave until the bulletin ends.

  “The rescue comes along with the disappointing collapse and surrender of Belgium’s army. Stay tuned to this station for all the latest news.”

  Now we can leave.

  Beth puts the newspapers on the bench as we walk outside.

  “That’s the second bit of really good news this week,” Beth says. “First your mother and now this.”

  It does seem to be a good week.

  We’re in front of the bakery and I hear the newsie call out today’s headline about the surrender of Belgium’s army and King Leopold’s ministers, escape to England. Someone should tell him about the rescue.

  We’re almost at the corner now and Beth says, “Thursday is Memorial Day. No school. Let’s meet at Goldman’s at about noon for lunch or ice cream. We’ll celebrate.”

  “Sure.”

  I look at Beth as we continue walking. She’s wearing her white dress with pink and yellow stripes. It’s my favorite. Of course, she’s wearing earrings, too. These are small silver hoops. They look nice.

  Sarah is at the corner waiting for us. I take a few quick steps ahead, so I can tell her my news before Beth tells her about the soldiers. I tell Sarah that Mom seemed to be so sick, that her hand shook, her legs were stiff, and that yesterday she went to the doctor. That’s why I looked so worried.

  “The doctor said she just needs to rest.”

  Sarah smiles.

  “I am happy for you.”

  “And listen to this,” Beth says, and repeats the news report we heard at Goldman’s, almost word for word.

  “The soldiers are safe?” Sarah asks.

  Beth nods.

  “This is very good. It is a victory,” Sarah says.

  “Well, not really. The Allies didn’t defeat the Germans. They just got away.”

  Sarah has more questions, but Beth can’t answer most of them, so after school Sarah will go with her to Goldman’s. It’s sure to be in the afternoon papers.

  We walk up the wide steps and enter school. Dr. Johnson is standing there, as formidable as ever, and I can hardly believe what Beth does. Sarah and I are anxious to get by as quickly as we can, and Beth stops to talk.

  “Did you hear the good news?” she asks the principal.

  “Move along,” Dr. Johnson says. “Go to your homeroom.”

  He stands there with his chest out and his feet apart, as if his sergeant just said, “At ease, soldier.” Dr. Johnson’s eyes dart from side to side, checking students as they enter the building.

  “The Allied soldiers, the ones trapped by the English Channel, have been rescued.”

  Dr. Johnson looks down at Beth. There’s an odd expression on his face, one I haven’t seen before. It’s almost a smile.

  “How do you know this?”

  “I just heard it over the radio.”

  Beth starts to tell Dr. Johnson what we heard, and he’s no longer interested in the children walking by.

  “I’m going to class,” I tell Beth and Dr. Johnson.

  “Yes. Y
es,” Dr. Johnson says. “Go to class.”

  I enter our classroom and Mr. Weils tells me to go to my seat. “I’m just about to take attendance.”

  The bell rings and Mr. Weils starts.

  “Donner . . . Dorf . . . Dorfman . . . Doyle.”

  “She’s here,” I call out. “She’s in the hall talking to Dr. Johnson.”

  “Are you Beth Doyle?” Mr. Weils asks.

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Is she in this room?”

  I shake my head.

  “Then she’s absent.”

  Mr. Weils continues with the roll. When he calls out my name, I raise my hand.

  The bell rings at the end of homeroom and finally there’s Beth with Dr. Johnson. They’re standing by the door.

  “Don’t mark her late,” Dr. Johnson tells Mr. Weils. “She was with me.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mr. Weils responds.

  I look at Mr. Weils and smile. His right hand is at his side. The fingers are together and stiff—like he is ready to salute.

  Beth and I walk together toward our first-period classes. I have math. She has science.

  “Where were you? What happened?”

  “He has a radio in his office. We went there and listened to the news.”

  We are by Mrs. Dillon’s room, where I have math. Beth’s science class is down the hall.

  “You went to Dr. Johnson’s office?”

  Beth nods. “I’ll tell you more later.”

  She smiles and rushes to her science class. I enter Mrs. Dillon’s room and see her by the blackboard drawing triangles and labeling the angles and sides.

  During math, I wonder about Beth. What was she thinking when she asked me to meet her on Thursday? Are we just two friends meeting for ice cream or are we more than friends? Will it be a date? Should I pay for both ice creams?

  My next class is science, and Mr. Jacobs keeps us late, after the bell rings, so he can finish what he’s saying, only I don’t know what that is. I’m not really listening. I get to history just before the bell starting third period, too late to talk to Beth. But we do talk after class, on our way to our lockers and the cafeteria.

  “Dr. Johnson and I listened to the WHN news report,” Beth tells me. “It was the same as the one we heard in Goldman’s.”

  We’re just entering the cafeteria.