The Birthday Present

I was born in Argentina in 1947, and lived there through my sixth year. Until my twenty-first birthday I had one strong memory that was more of a bad dream, that haunted my nights and left me feeling uneasy about the world, but it recurred less and less often as I got older.

It was December, and the summer was magnificent: most of the plants in the garden had emerald green leaves and I could lie in the grass and look up through them at the lazy azure sky. Bursts of red or yellow or pink flowers punctuated the garden like the pieces of papaya that Maria Theresa put in her hot, sausage and bean casseroles. The heavy perfume seemed intoxicating in the heat, and often when I didn’t come for supper mama would search the garden for me. In the middle of the yard was a white-washed flagstone pavilion with a low wall around it. Most of the year, from September through March, Maria Theresa served our meals outside.

Maria Theresa stayed with us in a little bungalow, next to the main house. She cooked and served. She liked having me in the kitchen, where she taught me how to cook. She would put a chair in front of the stove or the sink for me to stand on. In spite of Maria Theresa’s large white apron that she made me wear, moma could tell when I had been cooking because my dress always got dirty.

Whenever I can, I still make some of the dishes she taught me.

But in my dream I remember being excited. It was summer, and almost Christmas, and in a few weeks, on January 7, it would be my birthday. It was a magic time for me. But this was December 18. Papa, mama, Peter and I were sitting in the pavilion. Mama was worried because Manfred hadn’t come home the night before or all day. I think papa was worried too, but he kept saying that Manfred was sixteen, “he is a man, and men that age--“

“In Germany—” mama would start to say.

“But this isn’t Germany. Here young men look at the beautiful girls, and--I am sorry--I shouldn’t be vulgar.”

Dr. Hoffmann appeared. In our neighborhood, he was almost everybody’s doctor. He was tall, with gray hair, and he had a scar, “from dueling” he once explained. I must have had a crush on him, because I remember hiding from him whenever he stopped by. Then he would call me, “Mein kindchen.” and I would run to him and jump in his arms. This time he didn’t call, but took papa’s arm and led him away from us. I couldn’t hear what they said, but papa fell against the wall and Dr. Hoffmann had to help him back to the table.

“Frau Reuling.” He took mama’s hand and held it for a second almost to his lips. He looked quickly at papa then at Peter and me. “Perhaps they should not—”

“They must hear it too,” Papa whispered. “Would you?”

Dr. Hoffmann bowed to papa, “Please, forgive me, but, I must tell you that Manfred—”

“Manfred? Papa, what—”

Papa took mama’s hand. “Shhh.”

“Manfred has had an accident.”

“He is at hospital.” Mama started to stand up. “I will get—”

“No. I am sorry, but . . . it was fatal.”

My dream always blurred then—sometimes I saw myself in my Sunday clothes, sometimes mama held me and tried to explain while we both cried--but always it raced unerringly towards its horrible conclusion, where I stood looking up at Manfred’s casket, relieved that whatever was in it I couldn’t see. Then the minister came over and picked me up . . . .

Peter never forgot special days, at not least mine. He always sent me a long, soulful letter. It was through me that he and mama talked. Because of papa he never wrote to her, and papa never asked after him, even when he knew I had a letter from Peter.

Peter was twenty-three, but he had become an adult a few months before his fifteenth birthday, on the anniversary of Manfred’s accident—a year before he left home. When I came home from school that day Peter was different—quiet, withdrawn, and cynical.

Mama had made a goulash with dumplings. In the kitchen we sat at the second-hand dining room table with its peeling veneer. The foot of the leg in the back, by mama’s place, was broken off, and papa had braced it up with books. The table was rectangular, and it would have fit the kitchen better if it were turned around, but when papa tried it we kept kicking them away. So the table had to stick out, and mama always sat very still, protecting the books, afraid that she would move and cause some calamity.

Mama had to call Peter three times before he came to table. Usually we kidded him because he was there before she called.

“Papa?” mama asked, holding out her hand for his plate. “Goulash?”

“Always papa.” Peter mumbled.

“What?” mama asked. She spooned extra sauce over papa’s plate. “What is dis papa?”

Mama was curious, as though she had missed something.

Peter stared blankly at the casserole on the table.

“Tell mama,” papa said.

Peter tossed his napkin onto his empty plate.

Peter?”

Mama handed papa his dinner. “Is all right, papa.” She picked up my plate.
“Dis is a difficult night.”

“I know vat night it is,” papa said, not taking his eyes off Peter.
“But no son of mine vill act dis vay in my house.”

Mama looked at Peter, hoping that her gentle gaze would somehow resolve what she sensed no amount of talking would.

“Always, it’s--“ Peter stopped himself. Tears filled his eyes, and he looked sorrowfully at me and mama.

Mama put my plate in front of me, and she sat down. She put her hands in her lap. Without looking, I knew she had begun to twist her fingers slowly around and around each other, like an old woman with her rosary.

“Apologize for dis,” papa ordered Peter.

Peter put his hand on mama’s arm. “I’m sorry mama. I didn’t mean to disturb
your dinner.”

Papa tucked his napkin into the buttoned collar of his shirt. “Goodt. Now ve eat.”

“No. It’s not goodt! Ever since I can remember, we tip toe around to make sure that papa isn’t disturbed. Always it’s papa. Papa this . . . papa that.”

“Mama? Vat is dis?” papa yelled at mama.

“Don’t yell at her,” Peter said back.

I’ll never forget the look in Peter’s eyes. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen it again, not even when papa was really dying and Peter came home. It was a look that gave meaning to the idea of being beneath contempt.

Papa’s face got red, and as he jumped to his feet, he knocked over his coffee. He left the room, and we heard him stamping up the stairs. I think mama wanted to protect Peter because she understood what was happening, but her duty to papa and the spreading stain distracted her.

All time stopped until papa was standing in the doorway.

“Now, ve will going to da garage.” Papa’s heavy leather belt hung loosely from his clenched fist. “Now!”

Peter matched papa’s stare, but he quietly stood up and then followed papa out.

I never heard a sound from the garage.

Later, when mama and papa had gone to bed I sneaked into the kitchen and cut a piece of apple strudel and piece of cheese. I wrapped them in a damask napkin and went out to Peter.

I opened the side door of the garage, and I whispered, “Peter?” As if papa could have heard me.

I shivered in the cold. I was afraid of the garage. Neither Peter nor I ever went in it, except, like now, for punishment. It was always dark, even in the sunlight; it smelled musty and rotten; and spider webs stretched from stud to stud, to hold the garage upright. Always, their invisible, sticky, threads found any bare skin and clung to it, making us itch and scratch.

“Peter?”

At night, with moonlight piercing the clouded windows, the garage was especially cold, and it was unusually still. I saw Peter standing by the window staring out into the frosty shadows of the garden. “I brought you some strudel.”

Peter turned to me, he didn’t look hostile or angry, just empty.

“And some cheese. I wanted to bring a coat or blanket, but—”

“Papa,” he interrupted. “I know.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“But—”

“Nothing.”

Peter was never the same. His grades in school got bad; he stopped seeing his friends; and, although he never confronted papa again, dinner time was always tense.

Sometimes when he seemed in a good mood and we were alone together I would ask him about that night. But he never explained.

I came home early on my twenty-first birthday. Mama was cooking, and I went first to the kitchen to say hello, then I looked at the dining room table where she always put the mail. She knew there was a letter from Peter—it was on top—but she said nothing.

“Dear Beth,” I read, as I crumpled the envelop and sat on the sofa.

Happy birthday. Today you’re finally twenty-one. Grown up, and I’ll bet you’re real pretty. I’ve been saving to get you something special, but I couldn’t figure out what that would be, so, if you won’t think me crass, I have enclosed a postal order—don’t return it, and don’t buy anything for mama, it’s just for you. All right?

Tell mama that I am fine. I am still working at the bookstore, and I have made a few more friends here. My painting is going well, and I think maybe I will be able to get a show soon.

And, yes, I have a girl friend. You would like her, she reminds me of you. She said that I shouldn’t send you money. We kind of had a fight over it, but I don’t think she will be mad when I get home tonight. Anyway, you’re my sister, not hers.

It’s my lunch break. I had to write this here at work, so if the letter is late getting to you, you’ll understand that I got interrupted.

I don’t know if you remember many years ago, the night papa got so mad at me—it was the anniversary day of Manfred’s accident. Do you remember?

You brought me a piece of strudel I think. Did I ever thank you? Probably not. And you kept asking me what had happened. Well today I will tell you.

You were only five when Manfred died. I was seven, and to me he could have done no wrong, he was sixteen and a god. Such are older brothers. Well, some. I’ve probably been a disappointment.

Papa always told us that he had been an officer in the Wehrmacht during the war. I remember some of the boys in the neighborhood. They were all German—good Germans—whose fathers were all military heroes, at least that’s what the boys said.

On Manfred’s sixteenth birthday Papa announced that we were moving to the United States. He was real proud. There are photographs of us all toasting to the move.

A few days later, Manfred started coming home with bloody noses and split lips. I followed him around, trying to find out what had happened. He wouldn’t tell me. On the day of Manfred’s accident I was hiding behind the garden wall when papa and Manfred had a big argument.

"‘Willhelm said you were an office drudge."

"Vat you say?" Papa asked.

"Willhelm and some of the others said . . . they called you an army dog."

Papa got red in the face and he tried to talk. I could look over the wall and see. He just puffed and stammered.

"Papa?" Manfred tried to calm him. "Papa?"

“Papa stopped pacing and stared at Manfred.

“‘It’s just some boys talking. They didn’t mean anything. I—’

“‘I vas Oberinspekktor in da Schutzstaffel. I vill talk of dis no more!’

“Papa left the yard. Manfred stood there, horrified. I had no idea what any of this meant, not then. I climbed over the wall and ran to him. ‘What did papa mean?’

“‘Nothing,’ Manfred said, and he pushed me away from him.

“‘Nothing.’ He started across the yard.

“‘Can I come?’ I asked.

“‘No.’

“‘Please?’

“‘No.’

“That was the last I ever saw Manfred alive. They said that he had been playing too close to the edge and had slipped. I heard the doctor tell papa that he had probably lived at least a day, wedged into the rocks, before he died of shock and exposure.

“I know better. It wasn’t an accident. I saw his face when papa told him. But I was stunned by his death, and that overshadowed my curiosity about papa’s wartime service.

“You know how mama gets on anniversary of Manfred’s death. Well, that day I had come home early and saw mama going through some papers. She didn’t see me. But when she left to the grocery, I found the papers. Some of them were papa’s.

“Beth, he lied to us. He was no mere soldier. He was SS. And worse. I looked up Oberinspekktor. His job was to oversee the concentration camps, to see that they were efficiently killing people!

“That’s what killed Manfred. That’s why I left home. And that’s what I’ve never told you before.

“Love , Peter.”

I must have suspected papa of something like this before, but now I could no longer deny things. “Papa, I loved you,” I thought, as I wiped my eyes.

“Peter?” Mama asked. “How is he?”

I folded the letter and slipped it into my pocket. “He’s fine mama. He’s fine.”