Traveling among former enemies, Part II
Cold war days in sectored Berlin.
©1988 UrbisMedia
“ Enschuldigen Sie, Enschuldigen Sie ! Bitte ” the lady is calling to me. She’s clearly asking for help. Unlike most German forms of address this doesn’t sound imperative; rather, plaintive.
I didn’t have to know what it meant. There was this old guy sprawled on his back at her feet, his tan overcoat still buttoned up, fedora bent and slightly askew. He wasn’t moving.
“Damn, “ I said under my breath, “I don’t need this.” Why did she have to pick on me. Because there’s nobody else in sight, that’s why. Here I am, minutes from having slipped away from my ‘pack’ of tourists for a leisurely stroll in this beautiful park wound around this lovely lake, and I’m going to have to earn a Boy Scout badge.
“ Enschuldigen Sie ,” she calls again, the tone more insistent. She’s kneeling beside the old guy now. He hasn’t even twitched.
Scheiss! I go over to them. “ Ich bin ein Amerikaner ,” I blurt, remembering JFK at the wall, and to interrupt her unintelligible explanation, or whatever she’s saying. But she only returns a quick glance at me.
I look at the guy and he doesn’t look very good to me. First, he’s pretty gray in the face; second, his respiration’s is shallow. I grab his pudgy wrist to check his pulse, but I really don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
“Doktor?” she asks. “Nice going Dr. Kildare,” I say to myself. Maybe she wants to know how much I’m going to bill her.
“ w rong kind,” I say, but I don’t think she understands. Maybe I just can’t find his pulse, but this guy doesn’t need a Doctor of Philosophy; he need a Doctor Doktor!
Then I notice something about myself: I don’t seem very anxious, or even all that concerned about this guy. It’s unlike me; I’m a compassionate person, and I get pretty nervous around sick or injured people. And following right on that introspection is the answer: There’s something I dislike about this guy: it’s that he looks like central casting’s idea of a concentration camp Kommandant . Heck, he’s the right age, probably late sixties to early seventies, stocky, jowly, and moon-faced, probably ruddy when it isn’t ashen. His lips are thin and his eyes would probably be shifty and mean if he wasn’t wearing an expression that reads: the Furher shot himself, the Russians are streaming through the Brandenburg Gate and raping anything that resembles a woman, and I’m disguised as a Bavarian bar maid!
He’s gurgling, too, and I can smell the beer on his stale breath, and the cigar smoke in his clothes. He just stares at me with a slightly terrified face. Maybe he thinks I’m a Russian soldier.
This is crazy; I don’t even know this guy and I’m ready to try him at Nuremberg. He might be croaking and all I can think is: What was this guy doing during WWII? Was he SS? Gestapo? What horrendous war crimes are hidden behind those terrified eyes? It is as though my mind refuses to consider any other options for his life.
I looked into the frightened eyes of his wife and I did feel compassion for her. But him, he could have slipped off to the “afterreich” and I’m not sure I would have given it a second thought. All because his appearance and age fit a stereotype that quickened images I harbored of Germans that were a montage of Movietone Newsreel footage, some George Groz and Otto Dix paintings, and “Hogan’s Heros”.
I wished for somebody to come down the footpath so that I could turn this guy over to his own people. I couldn’t get over my dislike for him, and shame I was starting to feel at my prejudice.
I had gestured to his wife to loosen his collar and tie, and now he started to come around. Color began to return to his face and his breathing picked up pace. I helped him to his feet with her assistance. He was maybe five-eight, or five-nine at most. Upright he looked more pathetic than menacing. His eyes were rheumy and still had panic in them. We plopped him on the bench and she steadied him and wiped his brow.
I walked back a few yards to where I had set down my camera bag, gestured with my hands that they should remain on the bench for awhile, then headed off down the footpath. A faint “ danke” came from the direction of the bench, but I pretended not to hear it. I was trying to get those damn newsreels out of my head.
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©2004, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 8.9.2004)