There's a Man With a Gun Over There (30 page)

The first custom I had to learn was that Americans would shoot you if they saw you on the roads, and the Russians would shoot you if they found you in the woods. Figure that one out. It made traveling hard, but somehow I got there, to Berlin. It was late summer by then. The days had gone by as if in a dream. I had lost so much weight from the trip that I had to hold my pants up with my hand, but there I was— wasn't I?—walking into my little town holding up my pants, past the stores, the baker and butcher, and the park with its pond where I sailed my little boats; there I was, thinking the war, thank God was over, walking into my little town, looking for my parents and my sister.

Oh, I remember now. There was this military school at the outskirts of my little town. Inside a fence that looked as though it were made of old sword blades painted black, I saw these French officers in their little round caps and their capes doing marching drills. The school had been turned into a POW camp. I crept around but there wasn't a German soldier in sight. The Berlin area had become a dangerous place for soldier-age Germans by then. It seemed like the war was over. Only Hitler and his comrades didn't yet have the news.

The uniforms of these Frenchmen were ragged and filthy. Their boots were torn, coming apart, but the men had polished them somehow. They carried themselves with style, these men did. They sang as they marched. I don't know why, but for the first time in the awful war, I began to cry. Such lost beauty in the world. The Frenchmen marching round and round. I dabbed my eyes and I walked into the school yard there. French was another language I knew, and I spoke to them.

“Attention! Attention!” I yelled. “You are all free. You can go home now. Go. Go home. The war is over for you.”

They were nervous at first, but eventually they got their barrack bags and walked out. As they left, some of them clicked their heels together and saluted me. One man dropped his bag, gripped my shoulders with his hands, and kissed me on both cheeks. I hoped they would make it home. They were so elegant, but who knew what would happen to them—who knew anything back then?

44.

A
t first my house looked the same—the angels over the front door still protected us. But, on closer inspection, I saw that the bushes were filled with weeds and had grown into a tangled mess. The manicured lawn of my childhood was brown. Likely dead. The only green was a patch or two of weeds. My father had religiously stood there with a hose, watering it. I went to the door. I could see that it was ajar. The lock was broken. I pushed the door all the way open. The hallway was filled with my father's business papers; furniture was thrown around. The paintings were gone; the silverware drawer had been turned over on the counter. Empty. It was all like a dream. The back door was open, and so were many of the windows. It was a warm fall day. I expected to see my sister come down the stairs singing “La-la-lor-la.” She did that when she was happy.

I walked around and around in the house, but no one was there. No one had been there for a long time.

I finally stopped at my childhood bedroom, which for some reason had been left untouched. My framed grade school diplomas were still neatly there on the wall. The bed was made with the blanket that had my college medallion on it. I sat on the bed and saw the line of the toes of my old shoes peeking out from under the edge of the blanket. That's where my mother always kept them. I lay down and closed my eyes. I fell asleep and dreamed that I heard the
clitter
,
clitter
noise my father's push lawn mower made. I could hear the back door slam several times as my sister went in and out with her friends. I opened my eyes and suddenly saw cobwebs stretched across the ceiling of my childhood bedroom. Instead of
clitter
,
clitter
, I heard the
thud
,
thud
of artillery shells. The wind blew the back door shut.

I sat up on the bed and thought I should cry. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. I felt like I was in some absurdist theater production.

My little town was filled with children and old people and women. All the men my age had gone to the war. I limped, pretending to have been wounded. The Nazi order was crumbling by then, though its leaders called for “Total War” and put everyone in the military.
Volkssturmsoldaten
they were called. Here, you can see it in this history book of the Third Reich.

He handed the gray book out, and we passed it around.

See, on page 570—the People's Storm Soldiers. It was funny. As someone with military experience, I was made commander of fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds, along with pensioners. I should have told them my main experience was being a coward and a deserter. The guard at my war camp and that
Bürgermeister
were right—I was a traitor.

My
Volkssturmsoldaten
unit only had one weapon—an antitank gun with just one shot. We were supposed to defend the whole town with it. The children took this all so seriously. It was like playing army. Me—I'd had enough of playing army.

And look here, on page 573, Hitler shaking the hands of the boy soldiers. Children being sent to war. They weren't old enough to shave. It was almost over by then. Hitler only had months to go. Why didn't he quit? I ask you now. Why didn't he just stop and save what was left?

The Russians were slowly moving in. They brought food along. Mostly potatoes, but it was food, so I got to be friendly with them. I could speak Russian, remember. They made me a detective, gave me a police badge and some credentials. What they really wanted was a spy, and I made up a few stories to keep them happy so I could keep getting food from them.

The Russians were thugs—or maybe they were just victors. When you lose a war, you have to remember that the enemy gets your stuff. Anyway, these Russians were peasants. Indoor flush toilets fascinated them. They'd never seen anything like them. They kept shitting outside, the way they always did. You'd see them squatting in the ditches. The toilets—why, the toilets they used to wash their potatoes in.

The Russians eventually got tired of me. They didn't like my made-up stories and arrested me one day and locked me in a stadium with a bunch of other ne'er-do-wells. They intended to march us to Siberia or death, whatever came first.

For the second time in the war, a stranger saved me. I was marching with this huge fat man. At night, the guards let us sleep in the grass beside the road. First the fat man gave me his coat to use as a blanket. It was fall and getting cold. He said his fat protected him from the chill night air. Then, one evening, two or three days along the road, he told me that he would die on the march. His health was too frail, he said, so he was willing to risk his life for me. He said he would protect me while I escaped. I left him that extra coat, and he fluffed it up to make it look like I was sleeping beside him. The last sight I had of him came when I climbed up a wall and I could see him in the moonlight with this shape nested beside him like a child or a lover.

There was a ten p.m. curfew then. Anyone out after that time could be shot. Luckily, I had kept my police badge and just banged on the door of an inn yelling “Polizei! Polizei!” That badge turned out to be very handy. I decided to walk along the autobahn back to Frankfurt, and I used the badge to commandeer food and new clothing. I entered the American Sector with a German sausage under my arm.

“I have news, big news,” I said as I strolled past the MPs carrying my sausage and speaking my best English. “I've just come from the Russian Front and it's all over for the Germans. The war is over.”

Herr Engeler held up his arms like a conductor bringing the music to an end. He bowed his head. His hair fell across his face. A moment later the buzzer sounded announcing the afternoon break.

45.

F
rau Schneider could smell that something was up, and there she was, puffing on a cigarette, bent down like Groucho Marx, winding her way among the students taking their ten-minute breaks away from German. She was listening for gossip.

Herr Porzig was our next instructor.
Ach, ja
. Herr Porzig. Giant glasses that looked like goggles, his right arm gone somewhere above the elbow. A vigorous man who strode into the classroom like the tank commander he'd been in the Second World War. He strode in and shoved a couple of the desks out of the way with his good left hand. He was a powerful man.

“
Jetzt beginnen wir
,” he said.

“
Jawohl, Mein Herr
!” Renner said and saluted.

Herr Porzig grabbed Renner by the front of his shirt.

“
Und Sie, mein Freund
,” Herr Porzig said, putting his face with its big glasses right in front of Neil Renner, “
wenn Sie leben wollen, dann müssen Sie aufpassen
.”

And you, my friend, if you will live, then you must pay attention.

One day, I asked Herr Porzig about the dictionaries. The army had issued us Langenscheidt's dictionaries with their yellow plastic covers.

“
Die beste Wörterbücher sind von Cassels herausgegaben
,” Herr Porzig told us, folding his arms across his chest. He scowled and nodded his head. How could anyone possibly disagree? The best dictionaries are published by Cassels.

“Then why,” I asked in English, “doesn't the army buy us the best if they want us to fight for them?” I don't think I really cared. I just wanted to annoy him.

“
Warum
?” Herr Porzig asked, his neck getting long and longer as his head came up. Why? “
Warum, Sie fragen. Warum
?”

The neck and the head came higher and higher as if he were back in the turret. He turned back and forth, searching out the enemy.

“
Warum ist Krieg
? The war is why.”

His big glasses were like goggles, like those a tank commander wore.

“In war you give everything. You must sacrifice. It takes all you have to fight the Communists. It takes blood and bones.
Blut und Bienen. Der Krieg kommt niemals zu Ende kommt
. The war,
ja
, the war never ends.
Niemals kommt er zu einem Ende
.”

The stub of his arm went up and down. It waved back and forth like a warning of the blood and bones we would lose. He started shoving desks against the walls.
Blam
.
Blam
.

“The Communists took over everything.
Die sogenannte Volksrepublik Deutschland.
The so-called People's Republic of Germany. They took my house, my land.
Scheisse
. Shit. You give up blood and bones to win.
Blut und Knochen. Jawohl, mein Herr. Jawohl
. You must sacrifice.”

Blam
a desk went this way.
Blam
a desk went that way.
Blam
.
Blam
.
Blam.

46.

B
lam
, all right. I stayed out of the way of those desks until the bell rang.

A few days later, soldiers in the Ohio National Guard shot and killed four students during the war protests at Kent State in Ohio.
Blam. Blam. Blam. Blam
. The day after that, my orders finally came. I saved them. The orders, I mean. I wasn't thinking about the dead at Kent State back then. I was too worried about me. I hardly noticed what happened at Kent State.

I have the orders right here: “5 MAY 1970. SPECIAL ORDER NUMBER 100. PERMANENT CHANGE OF STATION. RYAN, RICHARD M., PFC, Co. C, DLIWC, Assigned to: Fourth Regt (MPC) Fort Gordon, GA 30905 to attend course 830-95B10 for approx 8 wks.”

Eighteen of us listed there for Military Police School.

“What does that mean?” Jim Eastlake asked.

“Maybe they'll send you to Kent State,” Neil Renner said and whistled one of his trilling little tunes. It sounded like bird-song. “Vietnam wasn't enough; they're starting a war against the hippies.”

As I write this, I realize now that I was passing through the famous and the horrible moments of my time on the wrong side.

“See. I told you,” my friend Tom Bamberger says.