Read The German for Free Online Page B

counter and demand an account of his behavior. The old Ernst would not have allowed such an affront.
    The old Ernst is dead, I think. He is buried in Munich in a deep, dark hole.
    On the next block, Sheriff Rabbit walks quickly from his office. He crosses the street and greets Doctor Randolph. The two men speak and then disappear into the doctor’s office. The woman in the grocery had said the sheriff believed the boy’s killer to be German, and I can’t help but wonder if there is actual evidence of this – since wounds have no nationality – or if it is simply hysteria like Weigle’s belief in Texas gypsies.
    I wander down Main Street toward Bennington Road, which will take me south to Dodd Street. As I cross the intersection on the next block, Carl Baker shouts my name. I look up to see him crossing to me, sweeping his eyes from side to side, cautious of traffic. He picks up his pace and says my name again. His face is red and his moustache glistens with sweat.
    “Carl.”
    “Ernst, have you heard?”
    I imagine he is talking about the boy. I say I have.
    “Terrible, ja ?”
    Though he has been in this country longer than I, he still speaks sloppily. His blunt “ ja ” – so common among my expatriated nationals – strikes me as lazy and insolent. But we are friends, and I know that Carl is – in most things that do not require flour, sugar, lard, yeast, and eggs – something of an idiot. But no, that word is cruel. It is better to say he is naïve. Innocent. He is a good man with pronounced intellectual limitations. He reminds me of a young soldier from Darmstadt I came to know. They share strong, trim bodies and soft eyes and lips. Carl and this boy would be nearly the same age I think, if the boy had not been beaten to death by the Communists.
    “Terrible,” I agree.
    “They say one of us did it,” Carl continues. “Gilbert from the sheriff’s office came in and told me they have proof.”
    I ask what kind of proof, and Carl shakes his head frantically. The deputy would not tell him, but Gilbert and Carl are friends, and the young man wanted to warn the baker that there could be trouble. All of this seems to upset Carl greatly and that is to be expected. Soon after America had joined the war a man had taken out his anger on Carl, so my friend understood something of irrational aggression – very little, but something. I do my best to ease his mind, but my words fall like drops of water on a heated skillet. He invites me to join him for supper, stating he thinks it best I not be alone. I decline. Though Carl is a very good person, his wife is not so good. She busies herself in indiscriminate ways while her husband works at the bakery, and though I would never break my friend’s heart by exposing her nature, neither would I endure another evening under her hungry gaze, trying my best to ignore her thinly veiled suggestions. I promise to spend time with him at the Independence Day celebration, and would try to visit the bakery soon, and then I say my good evening.
    ~ ~ ~
     
    After an early supper I walk outside to sprinkle more grain for the chickens. I feel disgust for the birds. They remind me of the filthy Chicken Farmer with his sharp nose and sinister eyes, made all the more cold and flat by the spectacles he wears. These white hens have done me no wrong and provide welcome fresh eggs, but I hate them still. Ugly creatures.
    Once the birds are fed, I cross the yard to retrieve a length of oak from which I will fashion the armrest of a chair, but when I enter the spare room with the plank in hand, I have no desire for cutting. Instead, I sand the spindles for the chair’s back, finding some calm in the repetition of movement.
    The schoolteacher, Jeffrey, knocks on my door once full dark settles. His arrival is not a surprise. The shameful memories he experienced at the mercantile have warmed him, melting inhibitions into something he can rationalize during the brief span of our meeting. He does