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The rows of tombstones stretched away for what seemed like miles, and each one
seemed like all the others. Small and unimpressive they stood one behind the
other, much as the soldiers they covered must have stood as they marched away to
war. The sun’s rays fell at such an angle that the shadow of each stone fell
at the base of the one behind it, giving the rows a much darker cast than the
aisles between them. A caretaker in U. S. Army fatigues and a field jacket moved
slowly among the markers, trimming the grass around their bases. Only a few
other people were there, and they were all American servicemen in uniform.
As I viewed these tiny monuments to the American soldiers killed in a battle
nearby, right across the German border, a quotation from Will James ran through
my mind. He’d said, “The great use of a life is to spend it for something
that outlasts it.” Those words ran inexplicably through my mind, for I
couldn’t really find the relationship between them and all these markers. The
philosophy which teaches that each man was put on the earth for a purpose was
out of place here; for it was insanity to think that the purpose on earth for
all these men had been to be mowed down like so much wheat and turned under the
soil so near where they fell, next to the country of the enemy they had died
fighting. It was crazy to believe that all these men had been born solely to be
murdered in a senseless war brought about by the power lust of a “master”
race, to be pawns in a match of global chess, to be the losers in a giant game
of musical chairs. But philosophy has no place with the dead in a cemetery, just
as it has no place with the warriors on a battlefield. It belongs instead with
the negotiators in a conference room—or with the drunks in a bar.
I drew my eyes from the depressing markers and let them rest on Helga. She
stood with the wind in her face blowing her radiant blonde hair back from her
tall, straight body. The automatic impression that she must be the female
personification of Hitler’s conception of his superior race struck me as it
always did when I looked at her. She tried a tiny smile, but I didn’t return
it. “Not many people here,” I said. “I guess your countrymen don’t
bother to come over here to look at the massacre they caused.”
Her little smile vanished. “There’s a bigger cemetery not far from here,
right across the border,” she said in the accent that sometimes I loved and
sometimes I hated. (I didn’t like it much today.) “There will be more people
there. It contains the bodies of the German soldiers killed in the same battle.
Would you like to go there? Would you like to see the all the graves from the
massacre?”
“No,” I replied curtly and turned again to look at the stones and to
think of the plea my mother had made the last time I saw her. She’d stood
before me, frail and gray and bent, as she’d been almost from the very day
she’d received the telegram; and she’d said, “Son, give me something real
to mourn. Give me something I can cry over.” She’d taken the worn and
yellowed telegram from the huge pocket of her white apron and held it out to me. “This piece of paper is not enough. I need something more,
maybe a picture of the place he fell or the grave with his name on it. I must
have something.”
And now I stood before my brother’s grave, but there was nothing here for
her. There were too many identical stones to mourn for only one. The grief felt
here must be universal. The tears shed must be for all the men who died and not
just for one. The heartache must be for all the mothers, and all the wives, and
all the children, not just for one son. No, there was nothing for her here, but
still I stood and stared. For a long time I stared and saw nothing. And Helga
stood silently behind me.
Finally I turned and began to walk away down the path toward the Mercedes
I’d rented this morning to bring us to this graveyard in France. I glanced
back at Helga. Her eyes were misty and shone a deeper blue than usual as she
followed me.
The sun behind us pushed the car rapidly along the winding, rutted road. For
a long time neither of us spoke. My mind wandered around between my brother’s
grave and my mother’s grief, and Helga seemed to be far away in her own
thoughts.
After a while though, my thoughts, which had run the gamut of the major facts
about my brother’s death and had now begun to dwell on minor details, cried to
be free, to be expressed. So I was the one who finally broke the silence.
“During the war,” I began, “we had a very special picture hanging on the
wall in our living room. It was really a very simple picture in a very plain
frame, but it held the place of honor over the couch. It was the first thing
people saw when they came into the house. Right after my brother went away to
fight, my mama took down her wedding portrait, which had hung there for
twenty-five years, and replaced it with this picture. I remember it was a lot smaller than the portrait, so she centered it in the light place that was
left on the wallpaper. After that, sometimes when I‘d come home late in the
evenings, I’d find her kneeling in front of the couch, right under the
picture, praying.
“The picture itself showed an American soldier sitting on a rock, slumped
against a dead tree. His helmet hung limply from his hand and his rifle lay
forgotten by his side. On his face was an expression that showed total fatigue,
latent horror, and complete hopelessness all at one time. The sky above his head
was black, but toward the horizon it brightened; and on the horizon, bathed in
brilliant light, stood an angel. Her hands were clasped at her chest and her
eyes looked down on the soldier. My mama naturally identified that soldier with
my brother. The prayers she offered up each evening were pleas to that angel to
keep her vigil and bring the soldier home safely.
“But one day, after the picture had received homage for over two years, the
telegram came. Mama read it through three or four times without changing the
expression on her face. Then she folded it and put it in her apron pocket.
‘Johnny won’t be coming home,’ she said. That was all. Then she returned
to her housework.
“The next morning the picture was gone, and the wedding portrait again
covered the light place on the wallpaper. After that I never saw the picture
again, and I never heard it mentioned in my home.”
I glanced over at Helga. She had been very quiet and very still all the time
I had talked. And even now she was silent, gazing ahead at the road as it rushed
at us. On her face was an expression I’d never seen before, and I did not know
what it meant.
Now the car bumped along the cobblestone street that led into the town. The
stone buildings which had stood for centuries flanked us on both sides, broken
at intervals by bombed out skeletons that came from our bombs missing their
targets in the heart of the city.
It was not long until we came to Helga’s house, and I braked the car. She
turned to me and said, “Won’t you come in—please?” I had never before
been inside her home, for I had not wanted to meet her parents. Although I had
been drawn irresistibly to Helga, despite feelings of guilt and betrayal of my brother’s memory, I had tried
all along to resist any personal ties with the German people, often to the point
of rudeness.
But this time the look in her eyes and the emphasis she placed on her
“please” told me that this time it was very important to her. So I relented,
and we entered the dimly lit hallway together. Along its course were two
darkened doors; and at its far end, I could see a thin strip of light coming
from under a third. Helga made her way to this one and grasped its handle.
Before turning it she glanced back at me and tried another of her tiny smiles.
This time there appeared to be a bit of apprehension in it. I smiled back, and
she opened the door. Following her through it, I found myself in the kitchen. At
a table against the wall, an old man looked up from his newspaper and an old
woman from her sewing.
“Mother, Father, this is Lieutenant Griggs,” Helga said. Then she turned
to me and said, “And these are my parents.” The man took his long stemmed
pipe from his mouth, hitched up his suspenders, rose, and extended his hand. I
took it. The woman nodded and smiled. I nodded and smiled.
“You are welcome here, Lieutenant. Please sit down,” said the father in
perfect English, nodding his head toward the vacant chair beside him at the
table. I sat down and looked around. Aside from the table, there were only an
ancient gas stove and a battered cabinet in the room. The wallpaper was old and
peeling in spots, and behind the stove, it was grease spattered.
Helga said something to her mother in German, and the two of them left the
room. As soon as they had gone, the father looked at me over his bifocals,
cleared his throat, and asked, “Have you been long in Germany?”
“Only nine months,” I replied.
“And how do you like our country?”
“I’m afraid I haven‘t seen very much of it.”
“But how do you like what you have seen?” he persisted.
“The country is beautiful.” I supposed he was just trying to be friendly,
but I had to strive to remain civil.
“Helga told us that you two were going driving this afternoon. Did you
enjoy yourself? What did you see?”
I could stand his attempts at idle chatter no longer. “We drove over into
France, and I saw a graveyard full of dead Americans,” I said. I paused a
moment to enjoy the look of surprise that invaded his face, “And I saw my
brother’s tombstone.”
“Oh, the war? Yes, that was unfortunate for the people of both our
countries,” he said.
“I don’t want to sound rude, sir, but the people of your country should
have thought of that before they decided to try to conquer the world.”
Before he had a chance to answer, Helga and her mother returned with a bottle
of red wine. As soon as it had been served, they joined us at the table. Helga
looked at me and smiled. Then she looked at her father; and when she saw the
expression on his face, the smile became a little uncertain. “We’ve been
discussing the war,” said the father. “I just learned that the lieutenant
lost a brother in it, and he seems to hold me responsible.”
Helga’s eyes snapped back to me. “I don’t blame you in particular, sir.
I blame all you Germans in general,” I replied. “The war was not made by my
brother or by my people, but now my brother and my people lie dead because of
it. You tell me where the responsibility lies.”
“It’s no longer a question of responsibility for the war,” he answered.
“It’s no longer a question of who made the mess. Now it’s rather a
question of what we’re going to do about the mess that has been made. The dead
are dead; they cannot be returned to life. So the living will have to clean up
the mess. The roads are ruined, they must be rebuilt. The buildings are down,
they must be put up again. But I fear the biggest damage has been done to the
people. The victors are bitter or overbearing, and the defeated are defiant or
downtrodden. Neither is good. The people too will have to be reconstructed, and
that will be the most difficult task of all.” His words were sincere, but what
right did he have to even say them?
“I suppose it’s very appropriate that you who made the mess, as you call
it, should decide who must clean it up,” I countered. “It’s all very well
and good that you should sit there after the fact and very smugly spout
generalizations about the war. But my brother’s death is not a generalization.
It’s a cold, hard fact brought about by the hunger for blood that fills your
people. I can’t help but wonder how smug, how full of philosophy you’d be in
my position.” It appeared that my long smoldering hatred had finally boiled
over in this angry tirade.
Helga put her hand on my arm. “Please,” she said, “come with me.” She
glanced at her father and then at her mother. Then she took my hand and led me
back to the door through which we’d entered the kitchen. She drew me back up
the hallway. I said, “I guess it was about time you got me away from your
father.”
She said, “Yes, but I really wanted to show you something.”
She moved toward one of the doors we’d passed earlier in the hall and
opened it. She reached inside, flipped a light switch and we entered.
A glance told me that this was their living room. In each of the far corners
stood an overstuffed chair with a small round table at its side. In the middle
of the room was a slightly larger table with a large vase of flowers in its
center. Plants grew in boxes at each of the two windows, and heavy drapes hung
at their sides. Against the left wall was a worn couch, but it held my attention
for only a second; for hanging over it was a picture. As soon as I saw it, I was
struck speechless. As unlikely as it could be, as much like the terrible plot in
a grade B movie, it was the same picture that had hung over the couch in my home
for the two years before my brother’s death. The soldier was there with his
helmet in his hand, his rifle by his side, and the same desolate expression on
his face. The brilliant angel still stood on the horizon looking down at him.
There was really only one difference. The soldier in this picture was German! I
stared at it, confused, uncomprehending, searching my soul for meaning. I found
none. I turned desperately to Helga for help. I had no capacity for words, but
my face asked the question. “You see,” she said, “I lost a brother in the
war also.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I asked.
“Forgive me for saying this, but you were too lost in your own grief. You
would not have been able to understand another’s loss. But I hoped now that
the bizarre coincidence of the pictures would serve as a bridge between our
losses.”
“But the picture—Why is the picture still there?” I gestured toward the
wall over the couch.
“We had no reason to remove it. It became a symbol of hope and love before
my brother died, and we certainly couldn’t blame it for his death. And even
though, like your mother, we identified this soldier with my brother, we did not
worship the picture. And we didn’t believe that the angel had forsaken him. We
believe that it was the will of God that he should die; and we hope that
wherever he is, the angel is still looking over him.”
I’d heard of instant conversions and miraculous awakenings; I never
believed any of it. But the obvious truth and the simple faith in her statements
made me feel a greater shame than I had ever felt before. I knew with a
gut-wrenching, overwhelming certainty that I had been wrong all along. It was
not a thing I could apologize for. A mere “I’m sorry” could not make up
for the wrongs I’d done. Moreover, I didn’t even have the courage to beg for
forgiveness. The hatred that earlier had boiled over in anger now melted in
shame. And another of my long held beliefs—that grown men don’t cry -
dissolved. I buried my face in my hands but I could not stop the tears. Helga
wrapped her arms around me like you might do to comfort a child. And it was
comforting.
When I finally raised my head, Helga’s father stood in the doorway looking
at me. He walked slowly to my side and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Shall
we have another glass of wine?” he asked.
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