German warships! Rescuing British sailors! What did it mean…
“No. It is not predictable. There is ugliness in it. It is not for young ears.”
It was the news, he meant. Unpredictable, and therefore ugly.
Nineteen years later, hearing the radio in Niley’s room murmuring and humming through the night, Rebecca would recall her father’s radio that came to be such a fixture in the household. Like a malevolent god it was, demanding attention, exerting an irresistible influence, yet unapproachable, unknowable. For as no one but Pa ever dared to sit in Pa’s chair (a finely cracked old leather chair with a hassock and a solid, almost straight back, because of Pa’s aching spine) so no one but Pa was to switch on, or even to touch, the radio.
“You hear? No one.”
He was serious. His voice quavered.
Mostly it was Herschel and August he warned. Anna, he understood would scorn to touch the radio. Rebecca he knew would never disobey.
Pa was jealous of the damn thing like it was (this was Herschel’s sniggering observation) some lady friend of his. You had to wonder what the old man was doin with it, some nights, huh?
During the day, when Pa was working in the cemetery, the radio was unprotected in the parlor. More than once Pa suddenly appeared in the house, stalking into the parlor to check the tubes at the rear of the radio: if they were hot, or even lukewarm, there would be hell to pay for somebody, usually Herschel.
The reason for such frugality was electricity doesn’t grow on trees.
And as Pa said repeatedly, grimly war news isn’t for the ears of the young.
Behind the old man’s back Herschel sputtered indignantly, “Fuck ”war newzz.“ Fuck like there ain’t other things on a radyo, like muzik an‘ jokin, it wouldna kill the old bastid to let us lissen.” Herschel was old enough to know what a radio was, he had friends in town whose families owned radios, and everybody listened to them all the time, and not just fuckin’ war newzz!
Yet, night after night, Pa shut the parlor door against them.
The more Pa drank at supper, the more firmly he shut the door against them.
Some nights, the yearning to hear the radio was so powerful, both Rebecca’s brothers whined through the door.
“C’n we lissen too, Pa?”
“We won’t talk or nothin…”
“Yeah! We won’t.”
Herschel was daring enough to rap his scraped knuckles against the door, though not too loudly. He was growing so fast his wrists protruded from his shirtsleeves, and his collar was too tight to button over his Adam’s apple. Soon, the lower half of his face would sprout wire-like hairs he would be obliged to shave off before coming to school, or be sent back home by his teacher.
Through the door they (Herschel, August, Rebecca) could hear a radio voice that rose and fell like waves, but they could not distinguish any words, for Pa kept the volume turned low. What was the voice saying? Why was “news” so important? Rebecca was too young to know what war was (“Fightin‘ like with guns, bombs, an there’s airplanes, too,” Herschel said) but Ma told her it was all happening far away in Europe: thousands of miles away. Herschel and August spoke knowingly of “Nazizz”-“Hittler”-but said they were far away, too. No one wanted the war to come to the Yoo Ess. Anyway there was the ’Lantic Ozean in-between. The war would never come to a place like Milburn with a single lock on the barge canal. “This place,” Herschel said scornfully, “the fuckin Nazizz wouldna bother with.”
Rebecca’s mother scorned the radio as what she called a toy-thing of her father’s they could not afford, yet he had bought it. He had bought it! She would never forgive him.
Month followed month in that year 1940. And in 1941. What was happening in the war-news? Pa said it was ugly, and getting uglier all the time. But the Yoo Ess was staying out of it like damn cowwards not wanting to get hurt. You’d think, if they didn’t give a damn about Poland, France, Belgium, Russia, they’d give a damn about Britain…
Ma was nervous, and began to hum loudly. Sometimes she would hiss in her hoarse, cracked voice, “”War news isn’t for the ears of the young.“”
Rebecca was confused: Pa wanted the war to come here? Was that what Pa wanted?
There were nights when, in the midst of eating supper, Pa became distracted so you knew he was thinking of the war-news in the next room. That sick-eager look in his eyes. Gradually he would cease eating and push his plate away and take swallows of his drink instead, like medicine. Sometimes his drink was beer, sometimes hard cider (purchased from the Milburn cider mill a mile away on the river, that smelled so strong when the wind blew from that direction), and sometimes whiskey. Pa’s stomach was eat out by rats he liked to say. On that damn boat from Mar-say. Lost his guts and lost his youth Pa said. This was meant to be a joke, Rebecca knew. But it seemed so sad to her! Unconsciously Pa would drift his eyes on her, not seeing her exactly but the little one, the unwanted one; the baby born after eleven hours of her mother’s labor in a filthy cabin in a filthy, docked boat in New York harbor from which the other passengers had fled. She was too young to know such a thing, yet she knew. When Pa uttered one of his jokes he laughed his snigger-laugh. Herschel would echo this laugh and, less certainly, August. But never Ma. Rebecca would not recall her mother laughing at any joke or witticism of her father’s, ever.
The worst was when Pa came into the house in a bad mood, limping and cursing, too tired to wash up after working ten, twelve hours in the cemetery and not even the promise of the war-news could liven him. At supper he chewed his food as if it pained him, or was making him ill. More and more he would drink the liquid in his glass. With a fork he pushed fatty chunks of meat off his plate onto the oilcloth covering and finally he would shove away his plate with a sigh of disgust. “Huh! Somebody must think this is a family of hogs, feeding us such swill.”
At the supper table, Rebecca’s mother stiffened. Her flushed, soft-sliding girl’s face that was pinched inside her other, older and tireder face showed no sign of hurt, nor even of hearing what Pa had said. The boys would laugh, but not Rebecca who felt the stab of pain in her mother’s heart as if it was her own.
Pa grunted he’d had enough. Shoved his chair back from the table, grabbed his bottle to take into the parlor with him, shut the door hard against his family. In his wake, there was an awkward embarrassed silence. Even Herschel, his ears reddening, stared down at his plate and gnawed his lower lip. In the parlor, you could hear a stranger’s voice: muffled, teasing-taunting. Ma rose quickly from the table and began to hum and would continue to hum, fierce as a swarm of bees, crashing pans and cutlery in the sink as she washed the dishes in water heated from the stove. Every night, now that she was a big girl and no longer a toddler, Rebecca helped Ma by drying. These were happy times for Rebecca. Without Ma giving a sign of noticing, still less of being annoyed, Rebecca could draw close against Ma’s legs, that exuded such warmth. Through her almost-shut eyes she might glance up, to see Ma peeking down at her. Was it a game? The game of Not-See, but with her mother?
Supper was over abruptly. The boys had gone out. Pa was gone into the parlor. Only Rebecca and Ma remained in the kitchen, doing dishes. From time to time Ma muttered under her breath words in that strange sibilant language the farmer’s wife had spoken at their front door, passing too swiftly for Rebecca to grasp, that she knew she was not meant to hear.
When the last dish was dried and put away, Ma said, not smiling at Rebecca, speaking in a sudden sharp voice like a woman waking from sleep, “You were wanted, Rebecca. God wanted you. And I wanted you. Never believe what that man says.”