Page 110 of Hell to Pay
“There’s going to be a trial,” he said. “I can tell you; it’s no secret. The Allies are putting the top Nazis on trial as war criminals. It’s a whole new concept. International law, is the idea: laws for war, to be agreed on among nations, and punishment for violations. I don’t know much yet about how it will work, but it’ll be a big show.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Neither do I, exactly,” Joe said. “But the things the Nazis did … they’re really bad, Daisy. Why is your name Daisy, by the way? Isn’t that an English name?”
“My true name,” I said, “is Marguerite.” Saying even that much made me tremble. “Daisy is a nickname. A marguerite is a daisy, in France. But please don’t call me Marguerite in public,” I hurried to say. “MyKennkartesays ‘Daisy,’ and …” I stopped in confusion. Why had told him what I’d admitted to nobody else?
He didn’t push, and how glad I was of it! “It sounds like your parents must have been pretty, uh …” He stopped. “I can’t think of a way to say this that doesn’t sound crass.”
“Wealthy?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s the one.”
“Yes,” I said, “we were wealthy. Now, there’s just what you see.” I held my arms out at my sides. “Me.” Which wasn’t precisely true; there was the parure, too. But I wasn’t going to talk about the parure. That would surely be the height of folly. “But you’ve changed the subject. You were talking about the things the Nazis did.”
Joe looked down at his blade of grass again. “My unit liberated Dachau. I did the interpreting. And what really bothers me, what I can’t get out of my mind— That wasn’t the worst place. Auschwitz, Belsen, Treblinka … there were so many of them. That’s one of the things this trial is aiming to find out. Exactly what happened? How many Jews died? How many others? Whose idea was all of that, and who planned it? Things like that can’t be allowed to go unpunished, can they? And then there’s what happened in the east, in Poland and Ukraine and Russia and all the rest. The barbarism of this war, and the last one, too, like you say. The weapons are too powerful now, and the technology too advanced. We can’t march on like this, into destruction, can we?”
“No,” I said. “But?—”
He looked up again. “You can tell me. It’s a discussion, not a lecture.” He tried to smile. “Sorry. When you see something like what we saw in Dachau, it weighs on you. But I’d like to hear your point of view, too.”
“My father told me,” I said, “back in January—how long ago that seems! I was a different person then. A much younger person. Well, he said this. I have it by heart, because I wrote it down afterwards. ‘You must create a little distance, a free space in your mind where ideas can be held up to the light, examined, and weighed against a ruthless reality, which has no partisan leaning. Independence of mind is one’s most valuable possession.’”
“He must have been an extraordinary man,” Joe said quietly.
“Yes,” I said, fighting back the tears. “He was. We talked sometimes, he and Mother and I, about the war. Not a great deal, for it wasn’t safe—I was young enough to slip up too easily and say what I shouldn’t—but he had that, always. An independent mind and an uprightness of character that wouldn’t allow him to take the easy way out, even to himself.”
“You must miss him so much,” Joe said.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
“And you still haven’t told me,” Joe said, “where I’ve gone wrong. What’s the argument against what I’ve said?”
I said, taking my time to think, “I suppose it depends what the charges are. Which parts of what the Nazis did are seen as … as extraordinary, as outside the bounds. Because, yes, bombing civilians seems wrong to me, but the Americans and British so destroyed Dresden, and not just once. They came back again and again. Now, the entireAltstadt,the old city, is gone. All those beautiful places, constructed with such care—gone. Churches. Hospitals. Everything. They killed so many people, too. Innocent people. Refugees. Children. Babies. I cannot describe to you how bad it was. And the atom bombs in Japan, too—how can one justify the atom bombs?”
Joe rolled over onto his back, put his hands behind his head, and looked at the sky. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s the tricky part. What’s a war crime, and what’s just war? I suppose that’s what this trial is meant to answer. I won’t be the one finding the answers; I’m just an interpreter. But as a Jew?—”
“And not only as a Jew,” I said firmly. “As a human being, many acts of the Nazis were reprehensible. There must be a line where one can say, ‘This was wrong.’ But the German people, you know, aren’t going to like it.”
Joe laughed. “No, I don’t expect they will. But what doyouthink?”
“I think,” I said, “that I must wait and see before I decide.” The day was cooling, and I bestirred myself and began to gather up the remains of our picnic. “I’m afraid I’m not a very good conversationalist.”
“You’re a terrific conversationalist,” Joe said. “Exactly the kind I like. And hey—aren’t you going to ask me what I brought you?”
“I’m dying to,” I said with a smile, “but I don’t want to appear greedy. Did you find the soap? And Dr. Müller’s toilet paper?”
This time, Joe laughed out loud. “Who knew that the way to a girl’s heart is through soap? Or toilet paper, for that matter, because I brought some for you, too. I did find your soap—both kinds—and the cold cream. The books, too. Those, Londondidhave. I’m looking forward to our book discussion group.”
“Really?” I asked, teasing a little now. “Just you, me, and an old German scholar?”
“Really,” Joe said. “Absolutely. Hey—it’s a chance to see you, and to get to know you better. Maybe you can’t tell—I’ve been mighty subtle about it—but I like you quite a bit.”
I was sure my smile was nothing but foolish. “I may have been slightly more subtle than you,” I said, “but I hope you know that I likeyouquite a bit, too.”
“Well, that’s good,” Joe said, and we looked at each other like that, smiling. I wished he’d touch my hand again as he had in the hotel, but I didn’t know how to make him want to.
“I’m not very good at this courtship business,” I said. “If that’s what it is.”
