A Mashup of Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941) & George Orwell (1903-1950) by James Gonda.
You cannot tell this story because many of the words are verboten. The story is almost forgotten but sometimes you remember. If you had certain words, if they were on the approved list, then you would sing the story. You would whisper it into the ears of women, of mothers. You would run through the streets and recite it over and over. Your tongue would be torn loose—it would rattle against your teeth.
The story concerns three men in a house. One is a young dandy. He laughs at everything and nothing. There is a second man with a long white beard. Self-doubt consumes him; sometimes this doubt diminishes, and he sleeps. A third man has wicked eyes and paces about the room rubbing his hands together. These men are waiting . . . .
Upstairs in the house a woman is standing with her back to a wall, in half-darkness by a window. That is the foundation of your story. Everything you will ever know is distilled in it, and the forbidden words rest at the bottom of the kettle.
You remember a fourth man came to the house, a stealthy person. Was he a government spy? Everything about him was as quiet as the sea at night. His feet made no sound on the stone floor in the room with the three men. Then the man with the wicked eyes became like a boiling liquid. He darted back and forth like a caged animal. The old grey man kept pulling his beard, infected by nervousness.
The fourth man, the mysterious one, went upstairs to the woman. Oh, how quiet the house became! How loudly the clock ticked in the parlor!
The woman upstairs craved love. That must have been the story. She hungered for love with her whole being. She wanted to create love. When the silent man came to her, she sprang forward. Her lips parted and she smiled. The silent man remained silent. In his eyes there was no rebuke, no question. His eyes were as impersonal as stars.
Meanwhile, the wicked man whined. He moved back and forth like a lost and starving dog. What did he want? The grey one tried to follow him but soon grew tired. He lay down on the floor and went to sleep, and never awoke. The dandy lay on the floor too, in his spiffy clothes. He giggled and played with his tiny black mustache. What was so funny?
There are no permitted words to explain what happened. You cannot tell the story. The silent one, the spy, may have been Death. The waiting eager woman may have been Life. Both the grey bearded man and the wicked one puzzle you. You think and think but cannot understand them. But most of the time you do not ponder them at all. You keep ruminating about the dandy who laughed throughout your story. If you could understand him, you could understand everything. You could run through the world and share a wonderful story. You would no longer be encumbered.
Why are the words under lock and key? Why are we suppressed? You have a wonderful story but cannot use the words.
I diagnosed my father’s first heart attack when I was 12. He was having crushing chest pain and felt weak as he lay on his back in bed for two days. Two weeks later he saw a cardiologist who showed him the bundle branch block on his EKG.
That summer he taught me how to drive the new LeSabre I helped him pick out. We always listened to ball games on the road. The previous year we had bet twenty-five cents a game on the 1967 World Series. He let me choose the Red Sox with Carl Yastrzemski and all his home runs. But he took my money because of Bob Gibson’s pitching for the Cardinals. He said pitching always beat hitting.
I guess we were both missing my mother in different ways. He started staying out late and sometimes drank scotch. I washed and ironed his shirts and asked him where he had been all night. A friend from the shop had a flat tire and needed help. There were many flat tires that year.
He was drinking one night and I scolded him. “My mother must be rolling over in her grave!”
He went to the silverware drawer and grabbed all the steak knives. Then he threw them in my lap and cried “Why don’t you just stick me with them?!”
Millie from Parents Without Partners crushed him by refusing his proposal. Then the red-headed divorcee down the street started making buttered mashed potatoes and fried chicken. He was gone a lot.
My feet hurt squeezing my size 9 feet into size 8 shoes the following summer. I pestered the old man for new shoes. He wanted to wait for fall but I persisted. Reluctantly he gave in and we walked out to the Buick. I noticed a scratch on the front bumper and ran my hand over it, pointing for him to look. He became furious and slapped me hard.
“Look what you just did!” He bellowed.
“Forget the shoes!” I was crying.
“Get in the car!” His face was boiling.
I was scared of his hands.
He silently drove us for the first time to the Niskayuna Police Station. He told me to follow him inside.
“What can I do with this boy?” My father asked the staring officer at the desk.
“What’s he done?”
“He’s too much for me to handle.”
“There are homes where he can be placed if that’s the case.”
We left. He had taught me a lesson, smart boy that I was.
“You heard what the police officer said, didn’t you?”
We never got the shoes that day. I began pitching an escape.
So old now it is nearly antique, its black leather scarred and pitted, with only a faint trace of its tannin smell. The name Retina is engraved across the back which opens with a lever on the left side.
Remnants of the Kodak Film label remain, stuck to the inside cover. Two knobs on the top advance and rewind. A dial counts the exposures, thirty-six in all, three more than the years of his life.
The glass in the viewfinder is cloudy. The camera’s eye is closed behind its cover; its lens and aperture remain tucked away, inside the darkness of its body, resting on their accordion-pleated bellows, silent and still.
It lies cold and heavy, like a revolver, on my palm. My hand so reminiscent of his hand, broad and pudgy-fingered. In a photo, he stands tall in his volunteer fire department uniform, my little hand resting securely in his.
Push the secret silver button hidden on the bottom of its case and the cover moves up and out, the lens and aperture and all their settings and dials slide forward making almost no sound, just a soft click and a quiet papery whoosh of unfolding.
In early 1945 I was on my Harley delivering another dispatch. The leather pouch contained a communique for two of General Patton’s units. His subordinates were coordinating his crossing of the Rhine on March 25. The General had no tolerance for SNAFUs—so, this message had to get through. I was also behind schedule (I blew a tire) and decided to take a shortcut. This was in Luxembourg near the village of Rosport-Mompach, on the Mosel River. On the other side of the river was Germany. I glided over a slight rise, traveling at a reasonable speed, and then encountered a group of Jerries. Twenty or so. I squeezed the brakes and skidded to a stop. Those guys were not the welcome wagon with homemade strudel. They scowled at me with rough, unshaven faces. They surrounded me and poked me in the chest with their rifles. Their tone was harsh, and I reminded myself that German always sounded harsh. It was pure German, by the way, and not the water-downed stuff I heard back home. I knew a few words here and there. One of the Jerries, the leader, took my sidearm—he thought he was a real tough guy. They forced me off the bike and motioned to push the machine over the bridge and onto their turf. A sign said RALINGEN – 2 KILOMETERS. This baffled me. Intel said this area was free of Krauts. So, how were these guys even here? Another German offensive? Were they forward observers? I pondered whether to run or not to run. I elected to keep pushing the bike. They led me to a farmhouse on the outskirts of town. The ground was muddy, and the air reeked of manure. My captors forced me inside and tied me to a wooden chair.
***
After D-Day my duty was to deliver messages on a motorcycle from Patton to his unit commanders. D-Day was June 6, 1944. I was 19 years old, and my official title was Dispatch Rider. Before the war, I had never ridden a cycle but saw one or two back home in Pennsylvania. I thought they were loud and obnoxious. I was also an orphan. Mom had passed in the 20s from typhoid and a mining explosion had finished dad during the Great Depression.
I am of German extraction and knew some German. Guten Tag, good day; bier, beer; Gott segne dich, God bless you. When the war came, I took the bus to the recruiting station in Pittsburgh. I signed on the dotted line: Henry C. Becker. But everyone calls me Hank. To be honest, I was not motivated by love of country to join. I’m claustrophobic and knew working in the mines would kill me like it did Dad, but in a different way. So, my motivator was fear. I also chose the army over the navy for the same reason—too many confined spaces on a ship.
Before D-Day, I had slogged through North Africa and Sicily as a foot soldier in Patton’s Second Corps. I picked up military life fast and shot to the rank of sergeant. Then while in England waiting for D-Day, I got into a pub fight. One too many biers clouded my judgment. I don’t remember why I slugged that limey prick, but the incident got me busted down to private.
I found that being a Dispatch Rider was an important and sometimes fun job. I operated six to 10 miles from the front. I worked alone and unsupervised. I usually rode through safe, unoccupied territory. Scenic landscapes fit for a postcard.
In December 1944 I transported orders that had turned thousands of troops 90 degrees. I raced at breakneck speed to get there—65 miles per hour, almost crashing on a few turns and freezing to death. I was delivering a dispatch that ordered Patton’s Third Army to turn northward. Their mission: reinforce the GIs hunkered down in Bastogne, Belgium. This was during the Battle of the Bulge. I delivered the message, and our guys went on the offensive. It satisfied me to know that my small bit helped save the day for those boys in Bastogne.
***
So, what was next for Hank Becker, bound to a hard chair in a smelly farmhouse? Will they notify the SS? Or the Gestapo? Will they find the dispatch in the courier pouch? It told everything about Patton’s whereabouts on March 25. What a prize! Old Blood & Guts was the biggest thorn in their Nazi flesh. Imagine if they shot him or blew him up—the war would take a new, dark turn.
A young fraulein was at the stove making soup. I was sure it was potato—Mom had made the same-smelling soup years ago. The potato-onion aroma transported me back to childhood, a safe and simple place. This “trip” brought some comfort. One of the soldiers said her name, Anna, and she called him Hans. They had a certain familiarity, but they were not a couple—more like sister and brother. She brought me a bowl of soup and I nodded thanks. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a sturdy, curvy frame. I thought: the Master Race got this one right.
It was impossible to fall asleep that night. The Jerries were debating some issue. I heard the word Amerikaner several times and they glared at me. It seemed they were discussing my fate. So, who was on my side and what will the outcome be? After a long time, their back-and-forth stopped, and I dozed off.
In the morning one of the Jerries jabbed me with his rifle. “Steh auf!” Get up! Mom had said those words many times, with the same stern tone. In my slumber I forgot where I was. Then memory kicked in and I was filled with dread. They led me outside, my hands still bound. I was hungry and needed to pee. The sky was gray—colorless—and the air misty. They placed me in front of two rows of soldiers. Too close for a firing squad—but what? Then the Jerry named Hans approached me with a butcher knife. His face betrayed nothing. I figured that was it, he’s gonna slit my throat and I’m gonna bleed out like a slaughtered pig. It was true what they say—your whole life does flash before you. Images flickered through my head like a newsreel. Childhood, Mom, Dad, the orphanage, boot camp, Patton, Africa, Sicily, England. Then the frau appeared in my mind’s eye—where did she come from? I cracked a little smile. Without saying a word, the Kraut took the knife and cut the cord binding my hands. Then he stepped back and dropped the blade. The other soldiers unslung their rifles and piled them onto the ground. They all looked at me and raised their hands over their heads—a mass surrender. I didn’t know what to think. seemed to be free with twenty German prisoners on my hands. How and why did this happen?
Hans tried to explain. He spoke in German with a few English words. Our conversation was confusing and convoluted. I pieced together that last night’s debate was to decide what they did next, keep fighting or surrender? One side believed that Germany was invincible. The other side thought they were dying for a lost cause. Around 3 am or so they voted to lay down their arms. They also concluded that surrendering to the Yanks was better than to the Brits. And anything was better than giving up to the Reds.
I led the Germans back into Luxembourg. The Harley became a mule, loaded with their rifles. I found the MP station and told an amazing tale of discovery, cunning, bravery, and victory. My “prisoners” backed up the story and the MPs believed everything. I also assured the powers-that-be that the dispatch was never compromised. And, to my knowledge, no other Jerries lurked in the area. They wrote me up for a Bronze Star and gave back my Sergeant’s stripes.
I took a few days of R & R before returning to motorcycle duty. Then I engineered a way to get back to the farm to check on Anna, to see how she was doing . . . .
***
After the war ended most GIs went home, but not me. I did not have a real home in the States—my parents were gone, and I was an only child. So, I stayed. I knew the area well and liked what I saw. And that included Anna, whom I courted and then married in 1946. I also helped her brother Hans and the others who had surrendered to get out of the POW camp. I wrote a letter explaining they could have killed me but didn’t—and that counted for something. I also said they were not war criminals or even true Nazis. The Army “looked into it” and before too long agreed. Hans and his buddies were set free. Hans became my best man and Anna and I went on to produce six children—four boys and two girls.
On my last visit with Mom before she passed, she told me that everything happened for a reason. And that included her early departure from Dad and me. So, a punctured tire made me late which forced me to take a shortcut. The altered route got me captured and then matched with Anna and a new life.
