Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

The major grinned. “An amusing profession.”

“I haven’t played in four years,” said Segal. “Anyway, I was getting too old for the saxophone and the Germans permitted me to make a graceful exit. But imagine, for a jazz musician, the cafés are his life, his studio, his club, his places to make love, his library and place of business. If I am not free to sit down on a terrasse and have a vin blanc in Paris, I might just as well go to a concentration camp.…”

“Every man,” said the major, “to his own particular patriotism.”

“I think,” said Segal, starting to rise, “that perhaps I’d better go now.…”

“No. Sit down. I have a little time.” The German stared once more at his men. “We will arrive in Germany a half hour later, if at all. It doesn’t matter. Tell me something. Tell me about the French. We have not behaved badly in France. Yet, I feel they hate us. They hate us, most of them, almost as much as the Russians hate us.…”

“Yes,” said Segal.

“Fantastic,” said the major. “We have been most correct, within the bounds of military necessity.”

“You believe that. It’s wonderful, but you really believe it.” Segal was beginning to forget where he was, whom he was talking to, the argument rising hot within him.

“Of course I believe it.”

“And the Frenchmen who have been shot …?”

“The army had nothing to do with it. The SS, the Gestapo …”

Segal shook his head. “How many times I have heard that!” he said. “And all the dead Jews, too.”

“The army knew nothing about it,” the major said stubbornly. “I, myself, have never lifted my hand, or done one bad thing against any Jew in Germany or Poland or here in France. At this point, it is necessary to judge accurately who did what …”

“Why is it necessary?” Segal asked.

“Let us face the facts.” The major looked around him suddenly, lowered his voice. “It is very probable now that we are beaten …”

“It is probable,” Segal smiled. “It is also probable that the sun will rise sometime about six o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“A certain amount of revenge—what you call justice, will be demanded. The army has behaved in a civilized manner and that must not be forgotten.”

Segal shrugged. “I do not recall seeing the Gestapo in Paris until after the German army came in.…”

“Ah, well,” said the major, “you are not representative. You are a Jew, and naturally a little more bitter, although you seem to have done very well, I must say.”

“I’ve done very well,” said Segal. “I am still alive. It is true that my two brothers are no longer alive, and my sister is working in Poland, and my people have been wiped out of Europe, but I have done very well. I have been very clever.” He took out his wallet and showed it to the major. The Star of David was tucked in so that it could be snapped out in a moment, and there was a needle already threaded, wound round a piece of yellow cardboard right next to it. “In a tight spot,” said Segal, “I could always take out the star and put it on. It took six stitches, exactly.” His hand trembled as he closed the wallet and put it away. “Four years, major, imagine four years praying each moment you will have thirty seconds somewhere to sew in six stitches before they ask to look at your papers. I’ve done very well. I’ve always found the thirty seconds. And do you know where I slept at night, because I was clever? In the woman’s jail. So, when the Gestapo came to my house looking for me, I was comfortably locked in a cell among the whores and shoplifters. I could arrange that because my wife is Catholic and a nurse at the jail. Again, I’ve done very well. My wife decided finally she had had enough of me. I don’t blame her, it’s difficult for a woman. It’s all right for a year, two years, but then the gesture wears out, you yearn not to have the millstone around your neck. So she decided to divorce me. A very simple procedure for a Christian. You merely go to court and say, ‘My husband is a Jew,’ and that’s the end of it. We have three children, and I have not seen them for a year. Well enough. And the propaganda agencies, who also have no connection to the correct German army, also have done well. The French hate the Germans, but they have been fed the lies for four years and I think maybe they will never quite get over the lies about the Jews. The Germans have various accomplishments to their credit, and this is another one …”

“I think perhaps you’re being too pessimistic,” the major said. “People change. The world goes back to normal, people get tired of hatred and bloodshed.”

“You’re getting tired of hatred and bloodshed,” said Segal. “I can understand that, after all this time.”

“Myself,” said the major, “I never wanted it. Look at me. Fundamentally, I’m not a soldier. Come to Germany after the war and I’ll sell you a Citroen. I’m an automobile salesman, with a wife and three children, dressed in uniform.”

“Maybe,” said Segal. “Maybe … Now we will hear that from many people. Fundamentally, I am not a soldier, I am an automobile salesman, a musician, a pet-fancier, a stamp-collector, a Lutheran preacher, a schoolteacher, anything.… But in 1940 we did not hear that as you marched down the boulevards. There were no automobile salesmen then—only captains and sergeants, pilots, artillerists … Somehow, the uniform was not such an accident in 1940.”

They sat silent. A passing automobile backfired twice, and one of the sleeping soldiers screamed in his sleep, the noise echoing strangely in the sunny square. One of the other soldiers woke the sleeping man and explained to him what had happened and the sleeper sat up against a truck wheel, wiped his face nervously with his hand, went to sleep again, sitting up.

“Segal,” said the major, “after this war is over, it will be necessary to salvage Europe. We will all have to live together on the same continent. At the basis of that, there must be forgiveness. I know it is impossible to forgive everyone, but there are the millions who never did anything.…”

“Like you?”

“Like me,” said the German. “I was never a member of the Party. I lived a quiet middle-class existence with my wife and three children.”

“I am getting very tired,” Segal said, “of your wife and three children.”

The major flushed under the dust. He put his hand heavily on Segal’s wrist. “Remember,” he said, “the Americans are not yet in Paris.”

“Forgive me,” said Segal. “I believed you when you told me I could talk freely.”

The major took his hand off Segal’s wrist. “I mean it,” he said. “Go ahead. I have been thinking about these things for a long time, I might as well listen to you.”

“I’m sorry,” said Segal. “I have to go home and it’s a long walk, to the other bank.”

“If you have no objection,” said the major, “I’ll drive you there.”

“Thank you,” said Segal.

The major paid and they walked together across the square, in front of the men, who stared at them both with the same incurious, hostile expressions. They got into the major’s car and started off. Segal couldn’t help enjoying his first ride in an automobile in four years and smiled a little as they crossed the Seine, with the river blue and pleasant below them.

The major barely looked at where they were going. He sat back wearily, an aging man who had been pushed beyond the limits of his strength, his face worn and gentle now with exhaustion as they passed in front of the great statues that guard the Chambre des Députés. He took off his cap and the fresh wind blew his sparse hair in thin curls.

“I am ready to face the fact,” he said, his voice soft and almost pleading, “that there is a price to be paid for what could be called our guilt. We have lost and so we are guilty.”