Short Stories: Five Decades

by Irwin Shaw

  “All right, Sergeant,” the voice of the Lieutenant checking the passengers. “Get on.”

  Stais waved, a little broken wave, at Whitejack standing there. “See you,” he said, “in North Carolina.”

  “Some October.” Whitejack smiled a little in the light of the floodlamps.

  The door closed and Stais sat down in the seat in front of the two Chinese.

  “I think these planes are absolutely charming,” one of the Red Cross women was saying loudly. “Don’t you?”

  The engines started and the big plane began to roll. Stais looked out of the window. A plane was landing. It came slowly into the light of the runway lamps and set down heavily, bumping wearily. Stais stared. It was a Mitchell. Stais sighed to himself. As the big C-54 wheeled at the head of the runway, then started clumsily down, Stais put the slip of paper with Arnold Whitejack written on it, and the address, in scrawling, childlike handwriting, into his pocket. And as he saw the Mitchell pull to a stop near the Operations room, he felt for the moment a little less guilty for going home.

  Retreat

  The column of trucks wound into the little square beside the Madeleine and stopped there, under the trees. They were furry with dust, the black cross almost indistinguishable even in the bright Paris sunlight under the harsh dry coat they had accumulated in the retreat from Normandy.

  The engines stopped and suddenly the square was very quiet, the drivers and the soldiers relaxing on the trucks, the people at the little tables in the cafés staring without expression at the line of vehicles, bullet-scarred and fresh from war against the trees and Greek columns of the Madeleine.

  A major at the head of the column slowly raised himself and got out of his car. He stood looking up at the Madeleine, a dusty, middle-aged figure, the uniform no longer smart, the lines of the body sagging and unmilitary. The major turned around and walked slowly toward the Café Bernard across the square, his face grimy and worn and expressionless, with the dust in heavy, theatrical lines in the creases of his face and where his goggles had been. He walked heavily, thoughtfully, past his trucks and his men, who watched him dispassionately and incuriously, as though they had known him for many years and there was nothing more to be learned from him. Some of the men got out of their trucks and lay down in the sunshine on the pavement and went to sleep, like corpses in a town where there has been a little fighting, just enough to produce several dead without doing much damage to the buildings.

  The major walked over to the little sidewalk tables of the Café Bernard, looking at the drinkers there with the same long, cold, thoughtful stare with which he had surveyed the Madeleine. The drinkers stared back with the guarded, un-dramatic faces with which they had looked at the Germans for four years.

  The major stopped in front of the table where Segal sat alone, the half-finished glass of beer in his hand. A little twist of a smile pulled momentarily at the German’s mouth as he stood there, looking at Segal, small and pinned together with desperate neatness in his five-year-old suit, his shirt stitched and cross-stitched to hold it together, his bald head shining old and clean in the bright sun.

  “Do you mind …?” The major indicated the empty chair beside Segal with a slow, heavy movement of his hand.

  Segal shrugged. “I don’t mind,” he said.

  The major sat down, spread his legs out deliberately in front of him. “Garçon,” he said, “two beers.”

  They sat in silence and the major watched his men sleeping like corpses on the Paris pavement.

  “For this drink,” the major said, in French, “I wanted to sit with a civilian.”

  The waiter brought the beers and set them down on the table and put the saucers in the middle, between them. The major absently pulled the saucers in front of him.

  “To your health,” he said. He raised his glass. Segal lifted his and they drank.

  The major drank thirstily, closing his eyes, almost finishing his glass before he put it down. He opened his eyes and licked the tiny scallop of froth from the beer off his upper lip, as he slowly turned his head, regarding the buildings around him. “A pretty city,” he said. “A very pretty city. I had to have one last drink.”

  “You’ve been at the front?” Segal asked.

  “Yes,” said the major. “I have been at the front.”

  “And you are going back?”

  “I am going back,” the Major said, “and the front is going back.” He grinned a little, sourly. “It is hard to say which precedes which.…” He finished his beer, then turned and stared at Segal. “Soon,” he said, “the Americans will be here. How do you feel about that?”

  Segal touched his face uncomfortably. “You don’t really want a Parisian to answer a question like that,” he said, “do you?”

  “No.” The major smiled. “I suppose not. Though, it’s too bad the Americans had to meddle. However, it’s too late to worry about that now.” Under the warlike dust his face now was tired and quiet and intellectual, not good-looking, but studious and reasonable, the face of a man who read after business hours and occasionally went to concerts without being pushed into it by his wife. He waved to the waiter. “Garçon, two more beers.” He turned to Segal. “You have no objections to drinking another beer with me?”

  Segal looked across at the armored vehicles, the two hundred sprawling men, the heavy machine guns mounted and pointing toward the sky. He shrugged, his meaning cynical and clear.

  “No,” said the major. “I would not dream of using the German army to force Frenchmen to drink beer with me.”

  “Since the Germans occupied Paris,” Segal said, “I haven’t drunk with one or conducted a conversation with one. Four years. As an experience, perhaps, I should not miss it. And now is the time to try it. In a little while it will no longer be possible, will it?”

  The major disregarded the jibe. He stared across at his command stretched wearily and incongruously in front of the Greek temple Paris had faithfully erected in her midst. He never seemed to be able to take his eyes off the armor and the men, as though there was a connection there, bitter and unsatisfactory and inescapable, that could never really be broken, even for a moment, in a café, over a glass of beer. “You’re a Jew,” he said quietly to Segal, “aren’t you?”

  The waiter came and put the two beers and the saucers on the table.

  Segal put his hands into his lap, to hide the trembling and the terror in the joints of the elbows and knees and the despair in all the veins of the body that the word had given rise to in him, each time, every day, since the bright summer days of 1940. He sat in silence, licking his lips, automatically and hopelessly looking for exits and doorways, alleys and subway entrances.

  The major lifted his glass. “To your health,” he said. “Come on. Drink.”

  Segal wet his lips with the beer.

  “Come on,” the major said. “You can tell me the truth. If you don’t talk, you know, it would be the easiest thing in the world to call over a sergeant and have him look at your papers.…”

  “Yes,” said Segal. “I’m a Jew.”

  “I knew it,” said the major. “That’s why I sat down.” He stared at his men with the same look of bondage, devoid of affection, devoid of warmth or loyalty or hope. “There are several questions in my mind you can answer better than anyone.”

  “What are they?” Segal asked uneasily.

  “No rush,” said the major. “They’ll wait for a minute.” He peered curiously at Segal. “You know, it’s forbidden for Jews to enter a café in France …?”

  “I know,” said Segal.

  “Also,” said the major, “all Jews are instructed to wear the yellow star on their coats.…”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t wear yours and I find you in a café in broad daylight.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re very brave.” There was a little note of irony in the major’s voice. “Is it worth it for a drink—to risk being deported?”

  Segal shrugged. �
�It isn’t for the drink,” he said. “Maybe you won’t understand, but I was born in Paris, I’ve lived all my life in the cafés, on the boulevards.”

  “What is your profession, Mr.…? Mr.…?”

  “Segal.”

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “I was a musician.”

  “Ah,” there was an involuntary little tone of respect in the German’s voice. “What instrument?”

  “The saxophone,” said Segal, “in a jazz orchestra.”

  The major grinned. “An amusing profession.”

  “I haven’t played in four years,” said Segal. “Anyway, I was getting too old for the saxophone and the Germans permitted me to make a graceful exit. But imagine, for a jazz musician, the cafés are his life, his studio, his club, his places to make love, his library and place of business. If I am not free to sit down on a terrasse and have a vin blanc in Paris, I might just as well go to a concentration camp.…”

  “Every man,” said the major, “to his own particular patriotism.”

  “I think,” said Segal, starting to rise, “that perhaps I’d better go now.…”

  “No. Sit down. I have a little time.” The German stared once more at his men. “We will arrive in Germany a half hour later, if at all. It doesn’t matter. Tell me something. Tell me about the French. We have not behaved badly in France. Yet, I feel they hate us. They hate us, most of them, almost as much as the Russians hate us.…”

  “Yes,” said Segal.

  “Fantastic,” said the major. “We have been most correct, within the bounds of military necessity.”

  “You believe that. It’s wonderful, but you really believe it.” Segal was beginning to forget where he was, whom he was talking to, the argument rising hot within him.

  “Of course I believe it.”

  “And the Frenchmen who have been shot …?”

  “The army had nothing to do with it. The SS, the Gestapo …”

  Segal shook his head. “How many times I have heard that!” he said. “And all the dead Jews, too.”

  “The army knew nothing about it,” the major said stubbornly. “I, myself, have never lifted my hand, or done one bad thing against any Jew in Germany or Poland or here in France. At this point, it is necessary to judge accurately who did what …”

  “Why is it necessary?” Segal asked.

  “Let us face the facts.” The major looked around him suddenly, lowered his voice. “It is very probable now that we are beaten …”

  “It is probable,” Segal smiled. “It is also probable that the sun will rise sometime about six o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  “A certain amount of revenge—what you call justice, will be demanded. The army has behaved in a civilized manner and that must not be forgotten.”

  Segal shrugged. “I do not recall seeing the Gestapo in Paris until after the German army came in.…”

  “Ah, well,” said the major, “you are not representative. You are a Jew, and naturally a little more bitter, although you seem to have done very well, I must say.”

  “I’ve done very well,” said Segal. “I am still alive. It is true that my two brothers are no longer alive, and my sister is working in Poland, and my people have been wiped out of Europe, but I have done very well. I have been very clever.” He took out his wallet and showed it to the major. The Star of David was tucked in so that it could be snapped out in a moment, and there was a needle already threaded, wound round a piece of yellow cardboard right next to it. “In a tight spot,” said Segal, “I could always take out the star and put it on. It took six stitches, exactly.” His hand trembled as he closed the wallet and put it away. “Four years, major, imagine four years praying each moment you will have thirty seconds somewhere to sew in six stitches before they ask to look at your papers. I’ve done very well. I’ve always found the thirty seconds. And do you know where I slept at night, because I was clever? In the woman’s jail. So, when the Gestapo came to my house looking for me, I was comfortably locked in a cell among the whores and shoplifters. I could arrange that because my wife is Catholic and a nurse at the jail. Again, I’ve done very well. My wife decided finally she had had enough of me. I don’t blame her, it’s difficult for a woman. It’s all right for a year, two years, but then the gesture wears out, you yearn not to have the millstone around your neck. So she decided to divorce me. A very simple procedure for a Christian. You merely go to court and say, ‘My husband is a Jew,’ and that’s the end of it. We have three children, and I have not seen them for a year. Well enough. And the propaganda agencies, who also have no connection to the correct German army, also have done well. The French hate the Germans, but they have been fed the lies for four years and I think maybe they will never quite get over the lies about the Jews. The Germans have various accomplishments to their credit, and this is another one …”

  “I think perhaps you’re being too pessimistic,” the major said. “People change. The world goes back to normal, people get tired of hatred and bloodshed.”

  “You’re getting tired of hatred and bloodshed,” said Segal. “I can understand that, after all this time.”

  “Myself,” said the major, “I never wanted it. Look at me. Fundamentally, I’m not a soldier. Come to Germany after the war and I’ll sell you a Citroen. I’m an automobile salesman, with a wife and three children, dressed in uniform.”

  “Maybe,” said Segal. “Maybe … Now we will hear that from many people. Fundamentally, I am not a soldier, I am an automobile salesman, a musician, a pet-fancier, a stamp-collector, a Lutheran preacher, a schoolteacher, anything.… But in 1940 we did not hear that as you marched down the boulevards. There were no automobile salesmen then—only captains and sergeants, pilots, artillerists … Somehow, the uniform was not such an accident in 1940.”

  They sat silent. A passing automobile backfired twice, and one of the sleeping soldiers screamed in his sleep, the noise echoing strangely in the sunny square. One of the other soldiers woke the sleeping man and explained to him what had happened and the sleeper sat up against a truck wheel, wiped his face nervously with his hand, went to sleep again, sitting up.

  “Segal,” said the major, “after this war is over, it will be necessary to salvage Europe. We will all have to live together on the same continent. At the basis of that, there must be forgiveness. I know it is impossible to forgive everyone, but there are the millions who never did anything.…”

  “Like you?”

  “Like me,” said the German. “I was never a member of the Party. I lived a quiet middle-class existence with my wife and three children.”

  “I am getting very tired,” Segal said, “of your wife and three children.”

  The major flushed under the dust. He put his hand heavily on Segal’s wrist. “Remember,” he said, “the Americans are not yet in Paris.”

  “Forgive me,” said Segal. “I believed you when you told me I could talk freely.”

  The major took his hand off Segal’s wrist. “I mean it,” he said. “Go ahead. I have been thinking about these things for a long time, I might as well listen to you.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Segal. “I have to go home and it’s a long walk, to the other bank.”

  “If you have no objection,” said the major, “I’ll drive you there.”

  “Thank you,” said Segal.

  The major paid and they walked together across the square, in front of the men, who stared at them both with the same incurious, hostile expressions. They got into the major’s car and started off. Segal couldn’t help enjoying his first ride in an automobile in four years and smiled a little as they crossed the Seine, with the river blue and pleasant below them.

  The major barely looked at where they were going. He sat back wearily, an aging man who had been pushed beyond the limits of his strength, his face worn and gentle now with exhaustion as they passed in front of the great statues that guard the Chambre des Députés. He took off his cap and the fresh wind blew his sparse hair in t
hin curls.

  “I am ready to face the fact,” he said, his voice soft and almost pleading, “that there is a price to be paid for what could be called our guilt. We have lost and so we are guilty.”

  Segal chuckled drily. By this time he was feeling exhilarated by the beer he had drunk, and the ride, and the sense of danger and victory that came with talking to the major in a town full of German troops.

  “Perhaps,” said the major, “even if we hadn’t lost we would be guilty. Honestly, Mr. Segal, for the last two years I have thought that. In the beginning, a man is swept up. You have no idea of the pressure that is applied when a country like Germany goes to war, to make a man join in with a whole heart, to try to succeed in the profession of soldiering. But even so, it wasn’t the older ones like me … It was the young ones, the fanatics, they were like a flood, and the rest of us were carried along. You’ve seen for yourself.…”

  “I’ve seen the young ones myself,” said Segal. “But also the older ones, sitting at the best restaurants, eating butter and steaks and white bread for four years, filling the theatres, wearing the pretty uniforms, signing orders to kill ten Frenchmen a day, twenty …”

  “Weakness,” said the major. “Self-indulgence. The human race is not composed of saints. Somewhere, forgiveness has to begin.”

  Segal leaned over and touched the driver on the shoulder. “Stop here, please,” he said in German. “I have to get off.”