'Tis

by Frank McCourt

  15

  When they made me supply clerk the captain didn’t tell me that twice a month on Tuesdays I’d have to bundle company bedding and take it by truck to the military laundry outside Munich. I don’t mind because it’s a day away from the caserne and I can lie on the bundles with two other supply clerks, Rappaport and Weber, and talk about civilian life. Before we leave the caserne we stop at the PX to get our monthly ration of a pound of coffee and a carton of cigarettes to sell to the Germans. Rappaport has to pick up a supply of Kotex to save his bony shoulders from the weight of the rifle when he’s on sentry duty. Weber thinks that’s funny and tells us he has three sisters but he’d be goddamned if he’d ever step up to a sales clerk and ask for Kotex. Rappaport gives a little smile and says, If you have sisters, Weber, they’re still in the rag stage.

  No one knows why we’re allowed a pound of coffee but the other supply clerks tell me I’m a lucky bastard I don’t smoke. They wish they didn’t smoke so they could sell the cigarettes to German girls for sex. Weber from Company B says a carton will get you a whole load of poontang and that makes him so excited he burns a hole with his cigarette in a bundle of Company A sheets and Rappaport, the Company A clerk on his first trip like me, tells him watch it or he’ll beat the shit out of him. Weber says, Oh, yeah? but the truck stops and Buck the driver says, Everybody out, because we’re at a secret little beer place and if we’re lucky there might be a few girls in the back room ready to do anything for a few packs from our cartons. The other men are offering me low prices for my cigarettes but Buck tells me, Don’t be a goddam fool, Mac, you’re a kid, you need to get laid too or you’ll get strange in the head.

  Buck has gray hair and medals from World War II. Everyone knows he had a battlefield commission but time and time again he drank and went wild and was busted all the way down to buck private. That’s what they say about Buck though I’m learning that no matter what anyone in the army says about anything you have to take it with a grain of salt thrown over your left shoulder. Buck reminds me of Corporal Dunphy back in Fort Dix. They were wild men, they did their bit in the war, they don’t know what to do with themselves in peacetime, they can’t be sent to Korea with their drinking, and the army is the only home they’ll have till they die.

  Buck speaks German and seems to know everyone and all kinds of secret little beer places on the road from Lenggries to Munich. There are no girls in the back room anyway and when Weber complains Buck tells him, Aw, fuck off, Weber. Why don’t you go out behind that tree and jerk off. Weber says he doesn’t have to go behind a tree. It’s a free country and he can jerk off anywhere he likes. Buck tells him, All right, Weber, all right, I don’t give a shit. Take out your pecker and wave it in the middle of the road for all I care.

  Buck tells us get back in the truck and we continue to Munich with no more stops at secret little beer places.

  Sergeants shouldn’t tell you take the laundry to a place like this without telling you what the place is. They shouldn’t tell Rappaport, especially, because he’s Jewish, and they shouldn’t wait till he looks up from the truck and screams, Oh, Christ, when he sees the name of this place on the gate, Dachau.

  What can he do but jump off the truck when Buck slows for the MP at the gate, jump from the truck and run down the Munich road screaming like a madman? Now Buck has to move the truck over and we watch while two MPs chase Rappaport, grab him, push him into the jeep and bring him back. I feel sorry for him the way he’s turned white, the way he’s shivering like one left out in the cold a long time. He keeps saying, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I can’t, I can’t, and the MPs are soft with him. One makes a phone call from the sentry box and when he returns he tells Rappaport, Okay, soldier, you don’t have to go in. You can stay with a lieutenant near here and wait till your laundry is done. Your buddies can take care of your bundles.

  While we unload the trucks I wonder about the Germans who are helping us. Were they in this place in the bad days and what do they know? Soldiers unloading other trucks joke and laugh and hit each other with bundles but the Germans work and don’t smile and I know there are dark memories in their heads. If they lived in Dachau or Munich they must have known about this place and I’d like to know what they think about when they come here every day.

  Then Buck tells me he can’t talk to them because they’re not Germans at all. They’re refugees, displaced persons, Hungarians, Yugoslavians, Czechs, Romanians. They live in camps all over Germany till someone decides what to do with them.

  When the unloading is finished Buck says it’s lunchtime and he’s heading for the mess hall. Weber, too. I can’t go to lunch until I walk around and look at this place I’ve been seeing in newspapers and newsreels since I grew up in Limerick. There are tablets with inscriptions in Hebrew and German and I’m wondering if they’re over mass graves.

  There are ovens with the doors open and I know what went in there. I saw the pictures in magazines and books and pictures are pictures but these are the ovens and I could touch them if I wanted to. I don’t know if I want to touch them but if I went away and never came back to this place with the laundry I’d say to myself, You could have touched the ovens at Dachau and you didn’t and what will you say to your children and grandchildren? I could say nothing but what good would that do me when I’m alone and saying to myself, Why didn’t you touch the ovens at Dachau?

  So I step past the tablets and touch the ovens and wonder if it’s proper to say a Catholic prayer in the presence of the Jewish dead. If I were killed by the English would I mind if the likes of Rappaport touched my tombstone and prayed in Hebrew? No, I wouldn’t mind after priests telling us that all prayers that are unselfish and not for ourselves reach God’s ears.

  Still, I can’t say the usual three Hail Marys since Jesus is mentioned and He wasn’t any way helpful to the Jews in recent times. I don’t know if it’s proper to say the Our Father touching the door of an oven but it seems harmless enough and it’s what I say hoping the Jewish dead will understand my ignorance.

  Weber is calling to me from the door of the mess hall, McCourt, McCourt, they’re closing down here. You want lunch you get your ass in here.

  I take my tray with the bowl of Hungarian goulash and bread to the table by the window where Buck and Weber are sitting but when I look out there are the ovens and I’m not much in the mood for Hungarian goulash anymore and this is the first time in my life I ever pushed food away. If they could see me in Limerick now pushing away the food they’d say I was gone mad entirely but how can you sit there eating Hungarian goulash with open ovens staring at you and thoughts of the people burned there especially the babies. Whenever newspapers show pictures of mothers and babies dying together they show how the baby is laid on the mother’s bosom in the coffin and they’re together for eternity and there’s comfort in that. But they never showed that in the pictures of Dachau or the other camps. The pictures would show babies thrown over to the side like dogs and you could see if they were buried at all it was far from their mothers’ bosoms and into eternity alone and I know sitting here that if anyone ever offers me Hungarian goulash in civilian life I’ll think of the ovens in Dachau and say, No, thanks.

  I ask Buck if there are mass graves under the tablets and he says there’s no need for mass graves when you burn everyone and that’s what they did at Dachau, the sons-of-bitches.

  Weber says, Hey, Buck, I didn’t know you were Jewish.

  No, asshole. Do you have to be Jewish to be human?

  Buck says Rappaport must be hungry and we should bring him a sandwich but Weber says that’s the most ridiculous thing he ever heard of. The lunch was goulash and how you gonna make a sandwich outa that? Buck says you can make a sandwich out of anything and if Weber wasn’t so stupid he could see that. Weber gives him the finger and says, Your mother, and Buck has to be stopped from attacking him by the duty sergeant who tells us all get out, the place is closed unless we’d like to stick around and do a little mopping.

 
Buck gets into the cab of the truck and Weber and I take a nap in the back till the laundry is ready and we load up. Rappaport is sitting by the gate reading the Stars and Stripes. I want to talk to him about the ovens and the bad things in this place but he’s still white and cold-looking.

  We’re halfway to Lenggries when Buck pulls off the main road and follows a narrow path to some kind of encampment, a place of shacks, lean-tos, old tents where small children are running barefoot in cold spring weather and grown people are sitting on the ground around fires. Buck jumps from the cab and tells us bring our coffee and cigarettes and Rappaport wants to know what for.

  To get laid, kid, to get laid. They’re not giving it away.

  Weber says, Come on, come on, they’re only DPs.

  The refugees come running, men and women, but all I can look at is the girls. They smile and pull at the coffee cans and cigarette cartons and Buck yells, Hold on, don’t let them take your stuff. Weber disappears into a shack with an old woman about thirty-five and I look around for Rappaport. He’s still in the truck, looking over the side, pale. Buck signals to one of the girls and tells me, Okay, this is your honey, Mac. Give her the cigarettes and keep the coffee and watch your wallet.

  The girl has on a ragged dress with pink flowers and there’s so little flesh on her it’s hard to tell how old she is. She takes me by the hand into a hut and it’s easy for her to be naked because there’s nothing under the dress. She lies on a pile of rags on the floor and I’m so desperate to be at her I pull my pants down around my legs where they can’t go any farther because of the boots. Her body is cold but she’s hot inside and I’m so excited I’m finished in a minute. She rolls away and goes to a corner to squat on a bucket and that makes me think of the days in Limerick when we had a bucket in the corner. She gets off the bucket, pulls her dress on, and holds out her hand.

  Cigarettes?

  I don’t know what I’m supposed to give her. Should I give her the whole carton for that one minute of excitement or should I give her a pack of twenty?

  She says it again, Cigarettes, and when I look at the bucket in the corner I give her the whole carton.

  But she’s not satisfied. Coffee?

  I tell her, No, no. No coffee, but she comes at me, opening my fly and I’m so excited we’re down on the rags again and she smiles for the first time over the riches of cigarettes and coffee and when I see her teeth I know why she doesn’t smile much.

  Buck gets back into the truck cab without a word to Rappaport and I say nothing because I think I’m ashamed of what I did. I try to tell myself I’m not ashamed, that I paid for what I got, even gave the girl my coffee. I don’t know why I should be ashamed in the presence of Rappaport. I think it’s because he had respect for the refugees and refused to take advantage of them but if that’s so why wouldn’t he show his respect and sorrow by giving them his cigarettes and coffee?

  Weber doesn’t care about Rappaport. He goes on about what a great piece of ass that was and how little he paid for it. He gave the woman only five packs and has the rest of his coffee and he can get laid in Lenggries for a week.

  Rappaport tells him he’s a moron and they trade insults till Rappaport jumps on him and they’re all over the laundry with bloody noses till Buck stops the truck and tells them cut it out and all I worry about is the blood that might be on the laundry of Company C.

  16

  The day after the Dachau laundry detail my neck swells up and the doctor tells me pack a bag, he’s sending me back to Munich, that I’ve got the mumps. He wants to know if I was near children because that’s where the mumps come from, children, and when a man gets them it could be the end of his line.

  Know what I mean, soldier?

  No, sir.

  It means you might never have kids yourself.

  I’m sent in a jeep with a driver, Corporal John Calhoun, who tells me the mumps is God’s punishment for fornicating with German women and I should take this as a sign. He stops the jeep and when he tells me kneel with him by the side of the road to beg God’s forgiveness before it’s too late I have to obey because of his two stripes. There’s froth at the corners of his mouth and I know from growing up in Limerick that’s a sure sign of lunacy and if I don’t drop to my knees with John Calhoun he might turn violent in the name of God. He raises his arms to the sky and praises God for sending me the gift of the mumps just in time to mend my ways and save my soul and he would like God to keep sending me further gentle reminders of my sinful ways, chicken pox, toothache, measles, severe headaches and pneumonia if necessary. He knows it was no accident he was chosen to drive me to Munich with my mumps. He knows the Korean War was started so that he could be drafted and sent to Germany to save my soul and the souls of all the other fornicators. He thanks God for the privilege and promises to watch over the soul of Private McCourt in the mumps ward of the Munich military hospital as long as the Lord desires. He tells the Lord he is happy to be saved, that he’s joyous, oh, joyous, indeed, and he sings a song about gathering by the river and pounds the steering wheel and drives so fast I wonder if I’ll be dead in a ditch before I’m ever cured of the mumps.

  He leads me down the hospital hall, sings his hymns, tells the world I am saved, that the Lord hath sent a sign, yeah verily, the mumps, that I am ready to repent. Praise God. He tells the admissions medic, a sergeant, that I am to be given a Bible and time for prayer and the sergeant tells him get the hell outa heah. Corporal Calhoun blesses him for that, blesses him from the bottom of his heart, promises to pray for the sergeant who is clearly on the side of the devil, tells the sergeant he’s lost but if he’ll right now drop to his knees and accept the Lord Jesus he’ll know the peace that passeth all understanding and he foams so much at the mouth his chin is snow.

  The sergeant comes from behind his desk and pushes Calhoun down the hall to the front door with Calhoun telling him, Repent, Sergeant, repent. Let us pause, brother, and pray for this Irishman touched by the Lord, touched with the mumps. Oh, let us gather by the river.

  He is still pleading and praying when the sergeant propels him into the Munich night.

  A German orderly tells me his name is Hans and takes me to a six-bed ward where I’m issued hospital pajamas and two cold bulging ice packs. When he tells me, Zis iss for your neck and zis iss for your bollez, four men in the beds chant, Zis iss for your neck and zis iss for your bollez. He smiles and places one ice pack on my neck, the other in my groin. The men lob ice packs at him for more ice and tell him, Hans, you’re so good at catching you could play baseball.

  One man in a corner bed whimpers and doesn’t throw his ice pack. Hans goes to his bed. Dimino, would you like ice?

  No, I don’t want ice. What’s the use?

  Oh, Dimino.

  Oh, Dimino, my ass. Goddam Krauts. Look what you did to me. Gave me the goddam mumps. I’ll never have kids.

  Oh, you will haf kids, Dimino.

  How would you know? My wife will think I’m a fairy.

  Oh, Dimino, you’re not a fairy, and Hans turns to the other men, Is Dimino a fairy?

  Yeah, yeah, he’s a fairy, you’re a fairy, Dimino, and he turns to the wall, sobbing.

  Hans touches his shoulder. They don’t mean it, Dimino.

  And the men chant, We mean it, we mean it. You’re a fairy, Dimino. We got swollen balls and you got swollen balls but you’re a crybaby fairy.

  And they chant till Hans pats Dimino’s shoulder again, hands him ice packs and tells him, Here, Dimino, keep your bollez cool and you will have many chiltren.

  Will I, Hans? Will I?

  Oh, you will, Dimino.

  Thanks, Hans. You’re an okay Kraut.

  Thanks, Dimino.

  Hans, you a fairy?

  Yes, Dimino.

  That why you like putting ice packs on our balls?

  No, Dimino. Iss my job.

  I don’t mind if you’re a fairy, Hans.

  Thanks you, Dimino.

  You’re welcome, Hans.

>   Another orderly pushes a book cart into the ward and I have a feast of reading. Now I can finish the book I started coming from Ireland on the ship, Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. I’d rather read F. Scott Fitzgerald or P. G. Wodehouse but Dostoyevsky is hanging over me with his story of Raskolnikov and the old woman. It makes me feel guilty all over again after the way I stole money from Mrs. Finucane in Limerick when she was dead in the chair and I wonder if I should ask for an army chaplain and confess my awful crime.