Free Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene Page A

complaining how the First Baptist doesn’t pay her husband enough so she can buy clothes or hire a Nigra.
    From the corner closet, which I share with Sharon, I took out my light-blue middy dress. It happens to be my favorite and not only because I picked it out myself but because it has no sashes, no lace, and it isn’t pink. Within twenty strokes of the brush my hair came alive. And it’s just the right color hair too—not flashy red or dull brown, but auburn. Alive auburn.
    Standing in front of the Victory Cafe, Mr. Blakey was talking to Mr. Jackson. Mr. Henkins pulled his black Oldsmobile into a narrow space, and before he was completely out of the car he called, “Hey, did y’all hear the news?”
    “Sure did,” said Mr. Blakey. “Heard it on the radio not five minutes ago. Isn’t that something? Imagine the FBI catching those eight dirty Nazis ’fore they could do a nickel’s worth of damage.”
    “Know whether they sunk the U-boats?” asked Mr. Jackson. “Sure hope they blew them to smithereens.”
    “The radio didn’t say,” said Mr. Henkins. “But they caught all them saboteurs and that’s the important thing to remember.”
    Mr. Jackson became aware of my presence, so I just said, “Hello,” while I brushed some imaginary dust from the skirt of my middy before walking into the store. I straightened the story out in a logical sequence so I could tell it in a businesslike way to my father.
    He was leaning against the register, taking a long draw from a cigarette.
    I walked over. “I came to give you some important news.”
    “What news?” He blew out smoke along with the question.
    “The news of the landing in the middle of the night of the German U-boats. Right here on the American coastline.” I was encouraged by his head which jutted forward as though he wanted to get closer to the source of information. “Now, the Germans thought they could land saboteurs and nobody would know, but the FBI, through very secret information, found out about the scheme and captured them, all eight of them!”
    “Where did you hear that?”
    “It’s the big news. It was on the radio not five minutes ago.” Snapping on the shelf radio, he gave me a look while waiting for the tubes to warm. I tried to figure out just what the glance meant: I’m too young and/or stupid to comprehenda news bulletin; I’m deliberately lying to him; or maybe I’m just having a childhood fantasy.
    Finally the radio came on, and right away I recognized the voice of Lorenzo Jones apologizing to his wife, Belle, for buying fishing gear with money from the cookie jar. My father moved the dial—religious music. And again—a commercial for Pepto-Bismol.
    “Just wait till the twelve o’clock news,” I said, already backing away. “You’ll hear about it then.”
    My mother was busy taking ladies’ sandals from their boxes and placing them on a table where a boldly written sign stated: SPECIAL! ONLY $1.98. She worked hard in the store, you have to give her credit for that. And not just in selling or straightening up counters the way the other salesladies do but in thinking up ways “to turn a profit on the new and to get our money out of the old.” She was especially good at that because I think she likes the store better than anything else.
    Mr. Blakey came into the store, throwing my father a wave. “Harry, didya hear the news? About the Nazi saboteurs? They were planning on dynamiting the Alcoa Plant in Alcoa, Tennessee. FBI caught them with their pants down. Carrying one hundred and fifty thousand bucks in bribe money.”
    “Yeah, I heard,” answered my father. “Patricia told me all about it.”
    “Patricia told me all about it” echoed in my brain. I had done something nice for my father, and he was pleased with me and he might never again question my honesty. And maybe I had even won the right to work in the store when it wasn’t Saturday.
    Suddenly I felt greedy; I wanted my mother to be pleasedwith me too.