Crazy in Berlin by Thomas Berger Read Free Book Online Page A

pastoral long ago forsaken; had a quiet but desperate passion for a girl who did not know they were alive or held them in sororal affection; attended day school, oppressed by a severe master and a fat bully; kept a faithful dog. Always a single sensibility, sometimes misunderstood, usually not even taken account of, by the insensate many; and in an atmosphere of mist, distant sounds, and if in the mountains, of course the silent, imperturbable snow, deceptively serene and treacherous, and on the glacier, a frozen rainbow. The stories were to be found in collections under one rubric or another but could take place in any of a variety of Central European areas at any given time under diverse political registrations: Bohemia, the Burgenland, Silesia, even Switzerland, anywhere that had a Germanic color and preferably a castle on some steep over placid water and in the foreground a cottage with a roof of straw.
    Meanwhile he was almost flunking out in his course of study in German. For one thing, it was at eight o’clock, and he was most nights up till three, reading; for another, the language as taught had no relations to the tales, being at first Herr Schmidt exchanging the time of day with his neighbor and then simple scientific excerpts for the premedical students, which the instructor decided it wouldn’t hurt the few general people to read, either. At the end of the year he just, but made it in German and the other courses, low C’s with the exception of zoology lab, where in the interests of a moody, fitful romance a girl friend had made his dissection drawings, upping him a grade.
    Simultaneous with Reinhart’s entrance into junior year in high school, the Wehrmacht had invaded Poland; at the end of the term they took France; upon his graduation, entered Russia; just before his first-year college Christmas holiday, were at war with America. By one means or another, he was aware of these events although he never read the papers. He was furthermore aware that wars were wrong and foolish and the official ways of nations, always stupid and often wicked; that propaganda, regardless of side, was an absolute lie: for example, as everyone knew, the German “atrocities” of World War I were fabrications of the British and French, who moreover did not let up in the ensuing twenty years, thereby giving Hitler some excuse for his silly ravings. Hitler held no appeal for him, having an unmistakable aroma of the tramp and no dignity, and, discounting their portrayal in Hollywood movies, the Nazis were preposterously vulgar; but opposed to the little, venomous, weak French and the British, thin and effeminate, they could hardly be assigned the exclusive evil in an intestine European quarrel over markets and territories.
    Yet when America came into the war, it was a man’s place to go soldiering, and the ideals concerned were not public ones dreamed up by journalists and pompous bores in high office but private matters. He felt himself a kind of German, yet he would cheerfully have slain the whole German army in fair combat and exposed himself to the same fate. On this principle he almost presented his person to the enlistment office early Friday morning, December 12, 1941; doubtless would have, had there been such a bureau in his little college town; but there wasn’t, and the closest city, the place he crept alone every weekend to oppose his harsh weekday regimen with whiskey and coke, was eight miles off—it was impossible to hitchhike there, enlist, and get back without missing classes.
    His second thoughts were confirmed three days later when the mincing dean told the assembled men that being educated people they could better serve by pursuing their studies with renewed vigor. It was not only his idea, he averred, but that of the Armed Forces, who as reward would commission every man to graduate. However, six weeks later, when the first fine fire had cooled and it was too late to volunteer from a position of enthusiasm, the