Stuff My Father Won’t Tell Me, Part 6

Tuesday night at shul …

“I don’t know if I can make it.  Ten o’clock sounds like it would be early enough, but I have to be downtown at my dad’s place by noon. He’s not been feeling good. Pain in his gut and he’s got this nasty boil on his back.”

Saretta, the rabbi’s wife, listened attentively as she always does.

“So then we’ll not see you at the funeral?” She wondered just to be sure. My friend's great aunt, a Holocaust survivor, had died several days before.

“I better not Saretta. I don’t want to confuse obligations and risk being late for my father.”

“Okay,” she added cheerily, “so we’ll expect good things from you about your dad and a refuah shlemya.”

“Amen, amen to that, Saretta. Thank you.”

Saretta is one of the great unsung heroes of our shul community and, by the way, that is exactly how she would have it. Seeking no kudos but always busy welcoming and hosting many guests to her home, visiting the sick at the nearby Rush North Shore hospital or simply by doing one of a myriad of “gemilus chasadim”, acts of loving kindness, the rebbitzen is the prototype of what it means to be a ‘tzaddekis”, a righteous woman.

I arrived at my dad’s place just after noon. Bobbie, my dad’s wife, had left the front door unlocked. This is one of her days to get out, be with friends and recharge her batteries. It is no simple task to be an effective caregiver. It is both a physical and emotional drain. Although my father has been steadily on the mend for several weeks since leaving the hospital, he has not felt well for the last several days.

“Oh, hi Dad, I didn’t hear you.” He glides around in his stocking feet on the slick wooden floors. “Dad, for God’s sake, where are your slippers? The floor is so slippery.”

“Naw, I’m fine with just socks,” he asserts, dismissively of my suggestion. One does not second guess my father. If socks work for him without slippers, that then is the end of that discussion.

“Have you eaten lunch yet?

"Yes Dad, thank you,” I responded, relieved that we had not become embroiled in another kashrus discussion.

“Coffee? You’ll drink coffee, right?” he inquired.

“Sounds great, Dad. Sure I’ll have some.”

“Stewarts okay?”

“Yup.”

While my father made coffee and microwaved a hotdog, I set up my laptop.

“What do you take in your coffee?” he asked from the kitchen.

“Sugar, please Dad.”

“How much?”

“One tablespoon, please.”

“One teaspoon with milk, okay?”

“Sure, thanks!” My father is hard of hearing and struggles to understand me.

“So Alan, come sit here in the kitchen. What shall we discuss today?”

“Hmmm, this is odd,” I thought, “but nice. Dad is inviting me to discuss. Wonder what’s on his mind?”

We sat opposite each other across the kitchen table. This is our thing. My dad and I have enjoyed these ideological face-offs ever since I came home from college vacation at the end of the first semester. Funny how much more we have to agree on now.

And for the next hour, we sliced through a ton of current political issues: everything from Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin to President Lincoln’s policy to prevent the expansion of slavery in the western territories. “I don’t disagree with you Dad. You’re right. President Lincoln did not act to free the slaves primarily out of moral concerns.”

"He did it,” my father continued, “to disrupt the southern economy and derail the Confederate government.” As a former American history teacher, I must tell you how impressed I was.  I cannot honestly say I have any comparable knowledge in dentistry.

“Money and power,” he loudly announced, “are the foundation of all wars.” He ranted, not necessarily incorrectly, but I chose to remain a good listener for a few minutes. I waited for an opening. My dad was getting dangerously close to some questionable generalizations. I felt like I were stalking him.

“He’s getting closer,” I thought. He serpentined back to WW2.

I felt as though my father were going to tell me the stuff I wanted to know about. What had he really done? Had he been in military intelligence fighting a secret war against the Nazis? Had he helped to liberate the camps? What? What had he done that he would not talk about?

“German mothers!” he exclaimed.

“What about “German mothers?” I responded. I knew where he was going with this.

“Don’t they cry too when their sons are killed in war?”

“Dad, you’ve got to be kidding me, right?’ I was incredulous. “Oh, and I suppose we’re to cry ‘crocodile tears’ for the Japanese mothers whose sons were shot down on December 7, 1941? Dad, the Nazis? We’re talking about murderers here? Frankly I don’t care. I don’t care about their mothers’ tears.”

“Son, war is … war is …” he looked shaken up. I closed my mouth. I hadn’t been there after all.

"I’ll tell you something,” I listened respectfully. "I lead a  squad out to reconnoiter a position, about eight men or so.”

I was all ears. He had never before mentioned something like this. “What was your rank?”

“Corporal. Corporals lead squads. We came across this quanset hut.”

“Where? Where were you?”

“Oh, frankly I don’t remember. Could have been in France, Belgium. I just don’t recall.”

“Okay, … anyway. Go on, Dad,” I encouraged him.

“Like I said, we came across this hut, must have been big enough to house a small plane, you know like a Piper Cub. I was all of twenty years old. A pisher! Imagine a twenty year-old leading eight men in what might have become a life or death situation.” I remained silent.

“Son, I’ll tell you this. Take a young man, brought up well by his parents to be decent and honest, even may have gone to Sunday school as a child … put that young man into a uniform and all the rules change. Morality goes down the toilet. He does pretty much as he wishes. So I says to my men, I says: ‘Secure the perimeter. We’re seizing the contents of the hut. You see, Alan, I had this crazy idea that there was like treasure in this hut: gold, currency, art … whatever. And it would be ours. We’d split it up. Each member of the squad would have something to take home with him should he survive the war.”

I could see my dad perking up. He smiled at this recollection though, I sensed, cautiously.

“Believe me, son,” the smile abated, “There are all kinds of crimes committed by soldiers at war: the good guys and the bad guys. Crimes against property, against civilians, women, children, you wouldn’t believe it if I told you. In my case it was greed driving me.”

“Did you know what was inside the hut?”

"Of course not, but whatever it was would be ours.”

"So you opened the door …”

“Opened the door!?” He interrupted me. “The door was like the size of two metal garage doors side by side.”

"So you blew it up with grenades, right?”

“Well I thought about it but the noise, you know, possible injury to us and damage to the contents of the hut. So I says to my buddy Bill ... have I told you about Bill Kincaid, my best buddy?”

“Yes, dad you have.” (He really had. I wasn’t humoring him.)

“I says, Bill, I says, “get the chain off the half track and hook it to the door.”

“A half track? You had a half-track?” I asked, clearly amazed.

“Yup we did, under my command,” my dad retorted, grinning. “When it was attached, I told Bill to stand clear. "Okay," I shouted to the half track driver, "let it rip." The driver stepped on the gas. The half track was spinning its tires and tracks. That door wasn’t budging. Mud and black smoke everywhere. “Give it all you got,” I shouted at the driver. “I don’t know what he did, put it into highest gear or something and gunned it.”

“Did the door give?”

“No, but the chain did, flew off the door and hit Bill smack dab on his forehead. He must have flown back ten yards.”

“Was he killed?”

“No, but I couldn’t figure out why not? I had never seen so much blood. I ran to Bill and saw the chain. Mind you son, each link of this was about three inches long and heavy! Believe that when I tell you.”

“I do. I believe you.”

“It hadn’t hit Bill straight on as I had thought but ‘kinda’ scraped the skin straight off his forehead.”

“And Bill?”

“He survived, thank God.”

“What did you do next?”

“I ordered the half track to ram the hut.”

“Oh my God. Did it work?”

“Sure did.”

“So tell me. What did you find?”

My dad paused, searching for the right words:

“Not a damn thing. Just the ground over which the hut stood.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

My dad slumped a little on the sofa bed. He looked worn out. My father is not a braggart or one of these macho-beer belly guys embellishing sixty-year old war stories. His voice had softened and begun to quiver.

“Greed, son, greed. I almost killed Bill for a treasure that turned out to be non-existent, and made myself and my squad into criminals. Criminals!”

I sat and listened as my dad’s voice reached a crescendo.

“A  criminal!” From that day forward I turned myself around. I assumed sole responsibility for myself. I could not endanger my men like I had done.”

We took a break.

“Dad, you want some water?”

“Yes, please, with ice.”

“Here you go,” I handed him the glass and glanced at the clock. Just around 4:30.

“Bobbie will be home soon,” he said.

“Yea … uh, Dad, one more thing. You up for it?”

“Shoot,” he shot back.

I grinned. “Dad … seriously. You don’t have to answer these questions, but I have been waiting to ask you at the right time. I think this is it”.

“Yea?”  he looked askance at me.

I took a breath. “Did you ever knowingly shoot or kill an enemy soldier? He took his time before answering. Was this the secret? Was it this he had not told me? You discharged your weapon, didn’t you?”

Appearing uncertain as to what he should tell me …

“Dad you don’t have to answer, really. It’s okay. I think I understand."

"Yes. I discharged my weapon son, but do I know if I ever killed an enemy soldier? No, I do not know. We would shoot but from afar. There were no guys rushin’ a machine gun nest or anything like that. Kill anybody? I … I don’t know.”

He looked troubled. His voice quivered again.

“Tissue, Dad?”

“Please.”

He lay down for a few minutes. Bobbie had just gotten back.

“How’s your dad?”

“Fine. Just had an amazing conversation.”

“Is he okay?”

“Sure. Tired, but was he ever animated. I know he enjoys it. I’ll be going home now.”

“Can you come earlier on Friday?” she asked.

“How’s ten or so?”

“Just right,” she replied on her way back to the kitchen. I peaked in on my father. He was up. “Dad, I’ll see you Friday morning.”

I ‘dunno’ but I saw something, a look on his face. Contentment, I suppose. He lay his head on his pillow. I turned to leave.

“Oh, Alan,” he sprang up. “Let’s just say I don’t remember.”