Free Secret Father by James Carroll Page A

the war," she said with exquisite abstraction.
    "And you and General Healy—?"
    Now she looked at me sharply, as if my concern had become interrogation. Nevertheless she said, "We met in 1947 and married in 1949."
    "In Berlin."
    "You know that?" Surprise transformed her face into something youthful, innocent almost.
    "I know from having read the general's official file that he was stationed in Berlin in 1949."
    She stared at me for a long moment, and I found it possible to meet her hard look. Finally she said, "I did not come here for discussing my husband or my life."
    "I understand that, Mrs. Healy. You told me to meet you here because you want me to know what you think is happening to our children."
    She nodded.
    "So why not tell me?"
    She slowly removed her gloves, then stuffed them in her pocket. When she brought her hand out, she held a nearly new pack of cigarettes, blue in color, French—not what she'd smoked in her dining room. While she readied one, I went for my lighter, but by then she had hers out. It was gold, slim, monogrammed. I took it from her, as men did in those days, and offered its flame. The cigarette drew my attention to her fingers and hands, which, I saw now, were more than chapped. They were vaguely twisted, misshapen. The nails were manicured, but there was a thickness in her knuckles, a hide-like quality to the skin that was completely unlike the rest of her. She had the hands of an overworked peasant.
    When she'd exhaled, she cast her eyes about, then led me to a bench in the shadowy lee of the chapel.
    We sat side by side, out of the wind. I became aware of being cold. My raincoat was in the car with Gerhard, who was—what, resentfully cooling his heels at the station? With my left hand, I stroked my right arm to warm myself, waiting for her to speak.
    "Thursday night, Rick and my husband fought." Her rough voice was eerily devoid of affect. "The plan had been for Rick and his friends—although not including Michael, as far as I knew—to leave for Nürburg at the end of school on Friday. Rick suddenly wanted to, you say, skip?"
    I nodded.
    "Skip his classes, to leave Wiesbaden in the morning.
Friday
morning. A day of school. I had told him no, impossible, which he seemed to accept. But when my husband came home—the general was very late that night, having been away—he said that missing a day of school was forbidden. This is what I had said, what I had thought Rick accepted. But now Rick defied my husband. At times they are very angry with each other, and they were then. My son is very much needing to be—" She stopped, more full of feeling than she had, until then, made evident.
    "Himself?" I suggested.
    She nodded. "He is a German boy living as an American. Until this year, he was in schools in England. And it is very confusing for him. Ulrich is his name, but everyone calls him Rick. Even I do. And he says that now seems wrong."
    "Why England?" I asked.
    She ignored the question, which I would remember later.
    "On Thursday night he said the name 'Rick' seems wrong to him, but he said it angrily. My husband hardly heard him, and answered that such feelings are irrelevant, but I think not. My husband will not be contradicted in an argument. Meanwhile, Rick—Ulrich—will no longer be commanded into obedience. As if a child."
    As she spoke, it was Michael's face I was seeing—
his
mouth twisted with resentment. So this kid Ulrich was the source of Michael's new rebelliousness. I felt the rush of
my
resentment again, happy to have this other family to blame.
    "My husband," she was saying, "told Rick that the Nürburg trip was off, and that instead he was confined.
Confined.
As if the boy had been brought before a military court. Confined for the weekend. As soon as school was out on Friday, yesterday, Rick was to be home and in his room. Ridiculous idea. Do you confine your son?"
    I shook my head. I couldn't even say no to him about the car this