The Children's War (14 page)

“What did you mean?”

“I want you to tell me about yourself. About what you think and feel and about your history.”

“What, are you an informer?” Maria asked suspiciously.

“No, just curious,” he answered, trying not to laugh.

“Man, you’re weird.”

“Maybe, but indulge me.”

So she did. She chatted amiably enough about her life but did not seem to offer much in the way of thoughts or philosophy. It had never really occurred to her to question the status quo, and for that she was a happier person than he could ever be. She did not seem to have any interest in his history or his opinions, and he did not bother to offer up anything unsolicited. She only seemed interested in one piece of information.

“Do you have a girlfriend already?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Just be patient for a day or two. Okay?” He kissed her affectionately on the forehead and they parted.

They met the following night and he gave her the cigarettes—whole cigarettes, not just ends—that he had acquired from Frau Reusch. Her delight was genuinely charming and he felt some of his reserve slip a bit. Still, it was not so much chatting to her—her conversation was limited and already rather repetitive—as his thoughts during the day that let him warm to the idea of having sex with her. He really wanted to establish some contact with the world independent of the Reusches, and he wanted to experience something like normal life again. Yet, it was not easy to be enthusiastic about sex with a woman whom he did not love, hardly even liked, and who was not particularly physically attractive to him either.

It was, in the end, her own desires that swayed him. If nothing else, it would clearly give her pleasure; so, he allowed himself to daydream, to desire, to anticipate, and by their third meeting he was ready to end her interminable abstinence. They returned to his room and he made love to her. And it was lovemaking, for the entire time his mind was elsewhere, with someone else. He knew that she would not notice, or if she did, she would not mind for she had made it abundantly clear that she longed for the physical act, not impossible emotional complications.

Afterward she smoked one of the cigarettes he had given her and surprised him by saying, “I knew you’d be good.”

He allowed himself to enjoy the compliment—she may even have meant it seriously. He murmured something appropriately complimentary to her in return.

“What’s her name?” she asked suddenly.

He looked up at her, startled by the question. Then he realized she was not accusing him of having another girlfriend, she just wanted to know whom he was thinking about. “Allison,” he replied.

“She’s dead?”

“Yeah. Some years now. How’d you know?”

“Oh, you’re not the sort to cheat.”

He felt a sudden tightening in his chest. If only you knew, he thought.

She finished the cigarette and with it, her afterglow. She allowed herself to notice her surroundings. “Gee, you’ve got it good here.”

“I guess so.”

“I’d kill for a place like this.”

He smiled noncommittally.

“Do they hit you much?” she asked while playing with the controls on the television.

“Not at all.”

“Shit. You don’t know how lucky you are.”

“I guess not.”

“Can you get me more cigarettes?” she asked, still enamored with the television.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Why don’t you just take them from the shop?” she suggested, obviously convinced he was too simple to have thought of such a solution himself.

He shook his head without bothering to explain.

Over the weeks that followed, they met fairly regularly. Maria was virtually insatiable and he had no real problem with keeping their relationship almost entirely sexual—for one thing, when they were fucking, he had no need to think about how tedious her company was otherwise. He tried on numerous occasions to get her to talk about anything that required thought, but she brushed off his attempts with an air of impatient contempt. When he tried to tell her anything about his own thoughts and feelings, she would rapidly cut him off by yawning expansively or interrupting him with the single word
boring
drawn out in a singsong voice. So, he surrendered to the inevitable and withdrew to a level of interaction with which she could be comfortable. He satisfied her needs by providing a continuous supply of cigarettes, and she returned the favor by never commenting that he was making love to a ghost.

Usually he would meet her at night by the newspaper stand and they would stroll a bit and then return to his room. Afterward, he always insisted on walking her back home. She assumed he accompanied her because of some oldfashioned concept of chivalry, and she was, at least in part, correct. He knew that any patrolling policeman coming across a lone woman might be liable to take advantage of the situation, and he hoped his presence would deter such an ugly possibility. A more pressing motive, however, was that he wanted to prevent trouble
for both of them. He felt that her careless attitude would inevitably cause her to be caught if she were to walk back alone and that she would immediately implicate him. On the other hand, if he accompanied her, he could both help prevent them from being detected and come up with reasonable excuses if they were caught.

As they returned to her residence one humid night, he wondered if she would be offended to know that he did not really trust her to handle the journey on her own. He doubted it; she seemed completely oblivious to any such subtleties. Indeed, he had to remind her repeatedly to keep her voice down as they walked along, and he noticed, even now, she was heading straight into the light of a security lamp because—as she so often explained—it was shorter than going around. Automatically, he reached for her arm to pull her back into the safety of the shadows, but it was too late—a passing patrol had noticed.

“Halt!”

He froze, his heart pounding. He felt Maria push herself up against him as if she could melt into his shadow. The patrol approached—two boys who wore the uniform of the youth league, and a man wearing the uniform of the regular district security police. The dark green of his shirt was stained with sweat under the arms.

The policeman, aware of his responsible role, was extremely businesslike. “Your papers.”

Peter and Maria handed over their documents. The policeman perused them, then handed them to the boys to look at. They scanned the papers eagerly.

“Where are your passes?”

“We have none,
mein Herr,”
Peter answered. Maria remained in terrified silence.

“You are not permitted out without passes. Certainly not past curfew!” the policeman scolded.

“We’re sorry,
mein Herr.
We just wanted to get a breath of air. It’s so hot inside.”

As if reminded of the heat, the policeman wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “You’re Reusch’s boy, aren’t you?”

“Yes,
mein Herr.”
Though
boy
was hardly appropriate given that he was older than any of them, it was, nevertheless, the accepted term.

“And you”—the policeman indicated Maria—“you work at the bakery, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“I’ve given both of you warnings before, haven’t I?” He sounded parental in his disapproval and exasperation. Since Peter had received numerous warnings while wandering around in the daytime, he presumed that the man was correct in his case, and he assumed that the same was true for Maria. Somehow, in broad daylight, the warnings had never seemed serious, and he was therefore quite surprised that the patrolman remembered such infractions. But he had, and he narrowed
his eyes and continued, “Such blatant disregard for the law cannot go unpunished.”

Peter noticed the boys had stopped looking at the papers and were staring avidly at Maria. At the promise of punishment, their faces had lit up with anticipation. He took a calculated risk, and drawing the attention of the patrolman to the two boys with his eyes, Peter then looked directly at him and said, “Please let her return home,
mein Herr.
She’s new here and I’ve misled her. It’s my fault, punish me.”

The policeman had not failed to notice the looks in the boys’ eyes and, with ill-disguised contempt for his young charges, agreed. “All right. Go home.”

Maria stared at him wide-eyed.

“I said scram!”

She took off at a run toward the bakery. Peter watched her disappear into the darkness, then turned his attention to his own predicament.

“Now, boy, we can lock you up and bring Herr Reusch in to bail you out in the morning. Course, can’t guarantee your safety overnight,” the policeman warned him. “Or we can deal with you tonight, unofficially.”

“I know the rules of the game,” Peter agreed, then sighing, added, “Let’s get it over with now.”

The two youths were assigned to hold his arms, and then the policeman began the attack. As it progressed and Peter folded beneath the blows, the boys released his arms to join in. They did not beat him up too badly—clearly the policeman wanted to keep his apprentices under control; they mostly pummeled his stomach and jabbed their knees into his groin for good measure. As he collapsed onto the ground, they followed up with a few halfhearted kicks and then stopped.

He lay still, as his and Maria’s papers were tossed onto the ground near him, and then the patrol left, satisfied with their dispensation of justice. After a few moments, he found the strength to rise, collect the documents, and stagger home. He let himself into his room, wiped his face with a cold, wet cloth, and then curled up into his bed to try to sleep off the effects of the justice system.

The next morning, Herr Reusch failed to notice anything was amiss, but at lunchtime, as Peter lowered himself painfully into his chair, Frau Reusch was immediately suspicious.

“What’s the matter? Are you in pain?”

He shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

“What’s happened? Did you get beat up?”

He looked at her, somewhat surprised that that would be her first guess. What about stomach flu or a hangover or any other normal event? But then, beating people was normal—why should she pretend otherwise? What had started in the thirties with the public humiliation and harassment of Jews and other “enemies” had spread throughout society into a sometimes deadly, but completely normal, way of life.

In answer to her questioning look, he nodded, then looked away.

“What happened?”

“I went out for a walk at night. A patrol objected to the fact I did not have a pass.”

“Oh, my! They aren’t supposed to do that!” Frau Reusch objected. Herr Reusch maintained an interested silence.

“From my position, that’s a little difficult to explain to them,” Peter answered.

“Why were you out?” A strong implication of disapproval was in Frau Reusch’s voice. “Was it to see your girlfriend?”

“How did you know I had a girlfriend?”

“Oh, it was obvious. After all, you weren’t smoking all those cigarettes.”

He nodded. He felt oddly embarrassed by the whole incident; somehow this society had confined him to a position not unlike that of a child, and he was helpless to prevent it.