Don't Talk to Me About the War Read online

  “You should see his office,” she says. “There is a picture of him with his rifle and uniform and another in front of a captured German tank. He looked so different when he was young, so skinny. He had hair and he even smiled in the pictures. On top of one bookcase is a helmet. He told me it’s the one he wore in the Great War.”

  We’re by our table now.

  I say, “I bet he still has his rifle, maybe even in his office.”

  Roger asks, “Who has a rifle in his office?”

  “No one,” I answer, and tell him where Beth was this morning.

  “So, you got in trouble again. You were sent to the principal’s office,” Roger says, and shakes his finger at Beth.

  Beth ignores Roger and describes the rescue at Dunkirk. Charles, Sarah, and I listen as Beth talks about the soldiers and the power of the German Army, how it so quickly conquered Poland, Denmark, Norway, and Holland, that it’s marching through Belgium and France. She describes the amazing rescue. I don’t think Roger is real interested, but he listens, too.

  After school, I walk with Beth and Sarah to Goldman’s. I don’t stay to read the newspapers. They’ll only tell me what I heard this morning. Also, I want to be home to help Mom, so she can rest and get better.

  As I walk home, I realize I’ve been smiling all day. Good news will do that.

  I have to study history for tomorrow’s test, but before that, maybe I’ll listen to the radio. The Dodgers aren’t playing this afternoon, but the Yankees are. They have a doubleheader against the Washington Senators. I’m not a Yankees fan, but they have some good ballplayers, DiMaggio and Dickey. The games are on the radio, so if Mom isn’t listening to her soap operas, maybe I can listen to the ball games.

  I greet the two old women sitting in the lobby of our building and go upstairs. I unlock the door to our apartment and hear someone crying.

  Mom!

  I rush to her.

  Mom is in the parlor, sitting in the big chair. She’s bent forward with one hand over her left eye. And she’s crying.

  “What is it, Mom?”

  “My eye,” she says through the tears. “It hurts.”

  “Does it hurt that bad?”

  Mom shakes her head. It doesn’t.

  “But I can’t see! I can’t see out of that eye! I’m half blind!”

  11

  Another Doctor

  Mom looks so weak when she’s bent over like that, so vulnerable. I drop my books and just look at her. I don’t know what to do next.

  “I fell asleep here listening to music,” Mom tells me as she sits up a bit. “When I woke up, my left eye hurt. I couldn’t see out of it.”

  I take her hand and hold it. She starts crying again.

  “You should go back to the doctor, maybe even to the hospital.” Then I say, “I’m calling Dad.”

  The telephone is on the small table by Mom’s chair, right by the radio. I lift the receiver and dial. Dad’s boss answers.

  “I need to speak to Mr. Duncan.”

  “I’m sorry. He can’t come to the phone right now. He’s with a customer.”

  “Please, tell him it’s his son and it’s an emergency.”

  What should I tell Dad? I don’t know what to say, so I give Mom the receiver.

  “I’m half blind,” she says. “Half blind! I can’t see at all out of my left eye and it hurts, but the pain is not real bad, a little like a headache. But I can’t see! I can’t see!”

  Mom listens a bit and then gives me the receiver.

  Dad tells me, “You have to take Mom to the doctor. It’s just two blocks from the store. I’ll meet you there.”

  He tells me the address.

  I’m about to hang up when Dad says, “Don’t take the train. Take a cab. You’ll have to call for one.”

  I look through the telephone directory and call for a cab. Then I take both Mom’s hands and pull her out of the chair. She doesn’t seem to mind my help now.

  As soon as we get to the stairs, Mom grabs the handrail. She walks down slowly, like an old woman, first one foot on a step, then the other, and every few steps she stops to rest. She doesn’t let go of the handrail. We reach the lobby, and I take Mom’s hand. The two old women are there, waiting for the mailman and talking as they do every afternoon, but when they see Mom and me, they’re suddenly quiet. They watch us as we walk through the lobby.

  Outside, the cab is waiting for us. We get in and I tell the driver the doctor’s address.

  This is my first ride in a cab. I sit in the back with Mom and watch as the price on the meter ticks up, higher and higher. When we finally get to the doctor’s building, the price of the ride is eighty-five cents. Mom takes a dollar from her purse and gives it to me.

  “This is for the driver,” she says. “Tell him to keep the change.”

  “Why? ”

  “The rest is a tip.”

  I give the driver the dollar and help Mom from the cab.

  Dad is standing by the curb, waiting for us. He hugs Mom. Then with one hand, he reaches around her back and holds on to her. A man in a uniform opens the door for us, and we walk into the building together.

  The lobby here is not at all like ours. This one is real big, with carpeting, a large couch, chairs, mirror, and an elevator. At the far end of the lobby are two doors with doctors’ names on them. Dad opens one of them and we enter a waiting room.

  “Have a seat,” he tells me. Then he takes Mom to a nurse sitting behind the desk. He whispers to the nurse and she leads Dad and Mom through another door.

  I’m sitting at one end of a couch and a man with a bow tie, striped shirt, tweed jacket, and white mustache that curls up at the ends is sitting opposite me. He’s watching me, making me uncomfortable. I take a magazine from the table, The Saturday Evening Post, just to have something to look at while I wait.

  “Are those your parents?” the man asks me.

  “Yes.”

  I lift the magazine in front of my face. I don’t really want to talk.

  “What’s wrong with your mother?”

  I put the magazine down and tell him, “We don’t know. That’s why we came here.”

  “Oh.”

  I know Mom couldn’t have lost sight in an eye because she’s tired. It must be something else. What’s wrong? Is she going blind? She’s never had trouble with her eyes. She doesn’t even wear eyeglasses!

  I hold my hand over my left eye and look at the magazine. I can still see. I can still read with just one eye. But if Mom lost sight in her left eye just like that, it could happen to her right eye. Then she’d be really blind. How would she shop? How would she do the laundry and prepare dinner? She wouldn’t. I’d probably have to do all that—just like Beth.

  “He’s a good doctor,” the man says. “He’ll know what’s wrong.”

  I’m not sure he’s right. Just yesterday the doctor told Mom she was tired and depressed, and today she can’t see out of one eye.

  Blind people use long white sticks and guide dogs. If Mom can’t see, she’ll spend the whole day with her programs, with Helen Trent, Mary Noble, and Ma Perkins. With no one around, how will she eat her lunch? Maybe her friends Mrs. Muir and Mrs. Taylor could help.

  Thinking of Mom like that upsets me.

  I look up. The man is still looking at me. What’s so interesting to him about a thirteen-year-old kid in a doctor’s office?

  The woman in the nurse’s uniform returns to her desk. I go to her and whisper, “What’s wrong with my mother?”

  “I don’t know. The doctor is examining her.”

  I go back to my seat and try to think of something other than Mom.

  The Dodgers.

  Fat Freddy is pitching tonight. It’s the first night game of the year at Ebbets Field, and it’s on the radio, on WOR at nine. Maybe by then we’ll be home, hopefully with good news about Mom. She probably just got something in her eye and the doctor is taking it out. That’s what’s taking him so long.

  The door behind
the nurse’s desk opens. Mom and Dad walk out with the doctor. Dad is holding on to Mom.

  “Dr. Kellerman is waiting for you,” the doctor says. “Get over there as quickly as you can.”

  Dad stops by the nurse’s desk. He reaches into his pocket.

  The doctor shakes his head. “You don’t have to pay.”

  Of course they don’t have to pay! They paid when he said mom was “just tired”! Why should they pay again when he corrects his mistake!

  I follow Dad and Mom to the door.

  “Good luck,” says a woman who has been sitting quietly in the waiting room. The man with the mustache just watches us leave the office.

  We’re in the lobby of the building now and I ask Dad, “What did the doctor say? What’s wrong with Mom?”

  “He’s not sure. He wants Mom to see another doctor, an oph . . . an oph . . .”

  “An ophthalmologist,” Mom says, “an eye doctor.”

  Once we’re outside, Dad asks me to help Mom. I take her hand as he goes to the curb. He looks up and down the street and then returns to us.

  “There are no cabs, and if we call one, we’ll have to wait.” He looks at Mom and asks, “Can you walk? It’s only a few blocks.”

  Mom nods.

  He takes Mom’s arm again. I walk behind them.

  Dad is usually very talkative, but not today.

  Mom doesn’t need help because she can’t see anything, but because she’s so upset. I don’t blame her. I hate seeing her like this, like she can no longer do anything on her own, so I look away.

  After two blocks I begin to recognize some of the stores, the Rexall Drug Store on the corner and Fancy Nancy’s Dried Fruits. And there’s the clothing store where Dad works.

  The buildings here are nicer than the ones where we live. There are awnings leading all the way to the street, so when it rains people can get into the buildings without getting wet.

  About a block from Dad’s store, as we pass one real nice building, the doorman looks at me and then quickly turns away. I think I know him, but who is he? Maybe I saw him when I visited Dad’s store.

  We keep walking for two more blocks until we come to the eye doctor’s office. The entrance is not through the lobby. It’s a bit before the awning and a few steps down. Inside, the waiting room is a lot smaller than the other doctor’s office. When we step on the mat, a bell rings, and the white door opposite the entrance opens.

  “Hello,” the man who opened the door says. “I’m Dr. Kellerman.”

  He’s a short, bald man. He’s wearing a white doctor’s jacket.

  “Are you Barbara Duncan?”

  “Yes,” Mom answers.

  “Come in.”

  Dad tells me to sit and wait. Then he and Mom follow the doctor.

  There are magazines here, too, but I don’t feel like reading them. I sit opposite the entrance and look out the window.

  It’s odd watching people walk by. This is a basement office, so when I look out, all I see are people’s feet and legs.

  A woman with shiny high-heeled brown shoes and brown stockings passes the window, and I wonder what she looks like.

  A man walks by in large workman boots and carrying a tool box. He’s walking slowly, so I think either he’s old or the box is real heavy.

  Hey, I could probably write a story like that, about someone who lives in a basement apartment and all he sees from his window are people’s feet and legs. It could be a murder mystery and the killer is caught when the main character recognizes his shoes. I bet Miss Heller would like it. I bet she’d say, “Listen to this!” lots of times.

  Mom and Dad have been in there a long time.

  I think again about that doorman. He had on a blue uniform jacket and blue captain’s-like hat. A hat! Yes! That’s who he is. It’s Mr. Simmons! He doesn’t wear that captain’s hat and jacket at Goldman’s. He must change into them when he gets to work.

  Why did he turn away?

  Maybe he’s embarrassed that he’s a doorman. After all, he told Beth and me he went to college, and he reads a lot, and he doesn’t read one of those picture newspapers. He reads The New York Times.

  At least he has a job.

  I sit there, looking out the window and hope Mr. Simmons wasn’t embarrassed. Dad has told me it’s so hard to get a good job. Maybe that’s why George is joining the navy. That’s a job.

  The white door opens and Mom and Dad walk out, followed by Dr. Kellerman. Dad is holding a small white card.

  “Remember, you have an appointment tomorrow with Dr. Yellin. He’s expecting you.”

  Another doctor!

  When we’re outside the office I ask Mom, “Does he know what’s wrong with you?”

  “Yes, he knows why I can’t see out of one eye, but he wants another doctor to examine me.”

  “Why can’t you see?”

  “I have optic neuritis. One of the nerves in my eye is inflamed.”

  Dad tells me, “It’s not permanent. He says it might take a few weeks, but Mom’s sight will come back.”

  Mom should feel good that her vision will come back.

  At the corner Dad says, “Let’s not go straight home. Let’s go to the diner. It’s just a block away.”

  Mom seems steadier. She walks without Dad’s help.

  We’re not in such a hurry now. Dad points to a real nice-looking building and tells us he sells suits to a man who lives in it. “Imagine,” Dad says, “four suits a year, and always the best we have. He always buys shirts and ties to match, too.”

  Dad has just two suits. He wears them to work. And I don’t have any. Dad says he’ll get me one when I stop growing. Until then, it’s a waste.

  The diner is bigger than Goldman’s, and fancier. There are framed pictures of kittens and flowers on the walls. We take a table near the front, and a waitress gives us each a menu.

  The waitress is an old woman, and she takes a pencil and paper from her apron pocket and asks, “What will you have?”

  Dad looks at the menu and quickly says, “Tommy, how about a hamburger on a toasted roll.”

  “Sure.”

  I look and find steak and potatoes, a roasted chicken platter, and even lamb chops on the menu. Then I see the prices and know why Dad suggested I order a hamburger. It’s a lot less expensive than the other meals.

  Mom and Dad order hamburgers, too.

  The waitress puts the pad away. I guess she can remember our order without writing it down—three hamburgers.

  Dad says, “We’ll have water with that.”

  Mom and Dad wait quietly for the food. They both look real tired.

  On the table just behind us is a young couple, and I think they’re on a date.

  That reminds me of Beth and our Thursday date. I think about her mother and remember she just went to two doctors. Tomorrow Mom will be going to her third.

  “Mom, if this eye doctor knows what’s wrong, if it’s going to get better soon, why do you have to see another doctor?”

  She looks at me, and for the first time I notice her left eye is a bit red.

  “Dr. Kellerman doesn’t know why that happened to my eye. He saw my hand shake. Then he asked me to walk around the examination room. ‘You favor your right leg,’ he said, and I told him my legs get stiff. That’s when he said I should see this other doctor. He insisted.”

  “Oh.”

  The waitress brings us the hamburgers. There’s a pickle and a few potato chips on each plate.

  “I’ll be right back with the water.”

  I lift off the top of the roll. It’s a little burnt. I put it back and bite into the hamburger. The meat is red inside. I like it cooked more.

  The waitress comes back with the water and asks, “How is everything?”

  “Fine,” Dad answers. “Thank you.”

  I eat slowly and drink plenty of water to wash the raw meat down. Between bites I ask Mom, “What kind of doctor is this next one?”

  “Dr. Yellin is a neurologist, a nerve a
nd muscle doctor.”

  I don’t ask any more questions. It just doesn’t sound good to me that Mom has to go to so many doctors.

  12

  All I Think About Is Mom

  The next morning, Dad is standing by the window with a cup of coffee. He’s still wearing pajamas. “The appointment is this afternoon, at two,” he says without turning to me. “I could go to work this morning and come back in time to take Mom, but I’m not. I’m staying home.”

  I don’t know what to say.

  “People outside are wearing jackets,” Dad tells me while I eat my breakfast. “I think it’s cool out.”

  “Okay,” I say as I get up from the table. “Good luck at the doctor,” I call to Dad as I leave.

  I walk real slowly down the steps and the few blocks to Goldman’s. So much has happened since yesterday morning. I just hope that when I tell Beth about Mom she doesn’t start talking about her mother. It’s too scary to think about the two of them together.

  I stop outside Goldman’s and look at the newspapers on the bench. The headlines are all about the war: ALLIED SEA ESCAPE, BRITISH RETREAT REACHES COAST, and TROOPS BATTLE IN STREETS OF LILLE. Looking at them you’d think nothing is happening here in the United States.

  Beth is at her regular spot. Mr. Simmons is there, too.

  “It’s an amazing rescue,” Beth says as I come to the table. “It doesn’t win the war, but without it, all might have been lost.”

  Now it feels good to talk about the war, especially when the other thing on my mind is so frightening.

  “The rescue is like in baseball,” I say, “when the other team loads the bases and no runs score. That doesn’t win the game, but it can keep you from losing.”

  Beth smiles and says, “Yes, I guess it is.”

  While we talk, Mr. Simmons keeps his head down. I don’t think he wants me to say I saw him yesterday, so I don’t.

  “Do you know how many soldiers got away?” Beth asks. “Not hundreds. Not thousands. But hundreds of thousands. They got away, but lots of them had to leave their weapons behind. We lost lots of guns and ammunition.”

  Beth gathers her books and newspapers. She says good-bye to Mr. Simmons and Mr. Goldman, and then, as we’re walking out she asks me, “Are you ready? ”