Battle Fatigue by Mark Kurlansky Page B

is so bad that even the children who had not yet been born are guilty? Maybe that is why I have to stand up for Karl. He didn’t do anything. Probably his parents didn’t do anything either. I want to stand up for him but I also don’t want to because this is the kind of thing that can turn the whole school against you. Karl’s is not the side to be on.
    I wonder what my uncle, whose whole life seems to have been shaped by killing Germans, thinks. I tell him the entire story and he says, “Do you know what the Germans drank?”
    He insists on waiting for an answer. “No,” I say.
    â€œIce wine, Joel. Wine made from ice. We moved into this Schloss and the cellar was full of this Eiswein. We drank three bottles a day. It was pretty good stuff.”
    My mother says that there is no such thing as a good German, that they are all bad. But I don’t see how that is possible. “Karl didn’t do anything,” I insist.
    â€œNo,” my mother says, “but what about his parents?”
    My father has gotten into the habit, when he wants to talk to me, of saying “Let’s go to the shelter and get some tuna.” Down we go, and we lightly stroke the roundness of the cans while we talk.
    â€œEven if the Germans didn’t do anything,” my father says, “there are times when not doing anything is a crime too.” He seems to think this is an important point, something he wants me to get. But I am wondering why we have so much tuna fish.
    I need somebody to help me, to help Karl. I write about it in my diary but, of course, a diary never answers. Mr. Bradley is younger than the World War II generation and increasingly I feel that if you want to talk through something you need to talk to people who haven’t been in World War II.
    Mr. Bradley says that I am right, that it isn’t fair. “You should have him come out for baseball this spring. Tell him that there are not going to be any Sieg Heil s on my ball field.”
    I wonder if I could talk Karl into it. Baseball is a long way off. It is still soccer season. I say to Karl—we have never really talked about it—“I think it is so unfair the way these kids treat you. You didn’t do anything. It wasn’t your parents.”
    He looks at me with his gray eyes pale as chalk.
    â€œYour parents didn’t do anything, right?”
    â€œAs a matter of fact …”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œMy Vater. ”
    â€œWhat about your vater?”
    â€œI don’t know. I never knew him. After zeh war, zey were going to put him on trial. Za Americans. For sings he did.”
    â€œWhat did he do?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Karl says. “But he killed himself. I was a baby.”
    I am quiet for a very long moment trying to think of what I can say.
    â€œYou know,” Karl says, “it’s very funny. I must tell my Mutter when I write her.”
    â€œWhat’s funny?”
    â€œIsn’t it funny zat I come to America and everyone treats me badly because I am German and zeh only one who is nice to me is za Jew. Za only Jew I’ve ever known.”
    We both smile uneasily.

    Karl never makes it to baseball season. He writes his mother and tells her the “funny” thing and suddenly Karl is packed off. His only explanation is that his mother told him he had to go back to Germany. I don’t know if she is calling him back because the other kids treat him badly or because his only friend is “the Jew.” What is his mother like?
    I have another big-hitting baseball season and I am getting a varsity letter and Tony Scaratini isn’t getting one. His response is to try to club me with a baseball bat. He takes a good swing but I move out of the way and he misses. You can never please everyone. But maybe I should stand up to him more. I do not want to be like a silent German. Since Karl left I have been thinking a lot about Germans.