Free What's In A Name by Thomas H. Cook Page B

treated well,” the old man said.
    Altman could find no way to respond to this, and so merely stared silently at the luckless fellow whose conversation was still keeping him from his sandwich, this spectral figure, pale as a ghost, a phantom so frail he appeared insubstantial, his hat trembling in his oddly shaped fingers.
    â€œThere was a bully,” the old man added.
    And indeed this unfortunate fellow did look like one of life’s perennial victims, bullied not just in the schoolyard, but no doubt forever after that, bullied on the factory floor, or in the lumberyard, bullied, as it were, by the stars above, always the one at the back of the line, the one who gets the cold soup, and even that, spilled upon him. What was the word those awful Polish Jews who’d worked in his father’s factory had had for such a creature? Ah, yes, Altman thought: schlemazel.
    â€œI’m sorry to hear it,” Altman said, “My own experience at the Realschule was quite pleasant.”
    â€œYou were smart,” the old man said.
    Altman waved his hand as if to bat away such flattery despite the fact that he quite enjoyed being remembered in such a way. But then, he had been smart, hadn’t he? In fact, he still was.
    â€œI was not smart,” the old man said.
    And so even nature had proved a bully to this poor fellow, Altman thought, proved a bully by shortchanging him in the critical matter of intelligence. He’d been shortchanged in height as well, and from the look of him, the crumpled gray hat, the threadbare jacket, he’d never known success in any venture. What an unfortunate wretch, Altman thought, and for the first time in a long time, calculated his own good fortune, born into a wealthy family, able to pursue his intellectual interests without fear of want, a man now living contentedly among his many books and manuscripts. His life, he decided, had been good.
    â€œI did not distinguish myself in my studies,” the old man said. He smiled sadly. “I have never distinguished myself.” He shrugged. “Well, maybe a little during the Great War.”
    The old man’s brown eyes were somewhat milky and the whites were faintly yellow. This is not a well man, Altman told himself. Even in health, shortchanged.
    â€œWere you in the Great War, Ziggy?” the old man asked.
    Ziggy!
    Altman had not been called Ziggy since his school days in, yes, the Realschule in Linz. His father and all his relatives had called him Ziegfried then, but after coming to America, he’d switched first to Franz, then to Franklin, and it was by this name, Franklin Altman, that he’d been known ever since: Franklin Altman on his marriage license, on his business cards, on… everything. Ziegfried, and most certainly Ziggy, had, like so many things from his past, simply disappeared.
    â€œYes, I was in the war,” Altman said proudly, despite the fact that he’d never actually seen combat. His superior intelligence had served him well in that department, too, so that he’d worked in Berlin throughout the conflict, a pampered member of the Intelligence Service who’d never so much as seen a trench or fired a rifle.
    â€œYou fought on the side of the Fatherland, of course,” the old man said.
    What an odd remark, Altman thought. Of course he’d fought—well, at least in a matter of speaking—but certainly on the German side. He looked at the old man sternly, wondered if he’d just been insulted.
    â€œOf course on the side of the Fatherland,” Altman answered with only a slight hint of offence at the question.
    â€œI was wounded twice,” the old man said, “and gassed at Ypres.”
    Altman thought of the many dead, the dreadful way they’d died: shot to ribbons, blown to bits, buried alive in the muddy expanse of No Man’s Land. “In Flanders Field the poppies grow,” he recited by way of giving homage to these fallen