originally published January 17, 2008

this writing
is in the chapbook

Long Gone Blues
by Sam Martin

(a Down in the Dirt chapbook)

this chapbook is also available for sale for $3.50 (+ $1.00 shipping and handling per chapbook)

this writing is in the collection book Decrepit Remains (PDF file) download: only $9.95 (b&w pgs): paperback book $18.92 (b&w pgs):hardcover book $32.95 (color pgs): paperback book $75.45 (color pgs): hardcover book $88.45

Fittim Fee

Sam Martin

    Henry’s words were born in his brain, but matured in the back of his throat. His left mouth corner would pull back, and he’d spit the sounds out in an even stream. I rarely stood face-to-face and close-up when he spoke, often.
    He was an old Jewish man (“I’m pushing eighty.”) born in Chicago, with an older Jewish wife (“She’s pushing ninety.”) born in Argentina. His mother, born in France, had, in a strange reversal, taken Henry to Europe in the middle 1930’s to work for Jewish Release. Really, she acted as factotum and amanuensis to a French General. Henry was yet young enough to learn languages, so, luckily, he mastered the French and German vernaculars. By the time of this story, his mother was dead, and Henry was a “kid convict” in a German prison in Marseille.
    “Mon General!”
    “Speak German, Jew!”
    “Mein Fuhrer!”
    “Hah! Ya?”
    Actually, it was a mutual ruse. No one could stand before the General’s desk without having the keys to several sets of doors, and Henry had these keys, and the General had given them to him.
    “Mein Commandant! Your potatoes.”
    By the General’s own decree, every man, including he, had to pick two handfuls of potatoes each day, but the General had too little time, and too much food, so he assigned Henry a double-pick, first Henry’s, then the General’s, a half of which he gave to Henry. Today he gave his whole ration, plus a small loaf of bread, to his field hand.
    “You look like you need it. Now, Dismissed!”
    Henry executed a fake salute and a clumsy about-face, then ran from the room, and down the long hallway, pausing to unlock doors, but running between them.
    Henry had a market for the bread. Lately, on an irregular basis, one prisoner, older and feebler, was selected to grace the gallows. Henry had been self-appointed to grant the condemned a last meal. Outside, Henry lounged against the wall, near the door, as no one would question his access to the General. Sgt. Schmidt was nowhere in sight.
    (“Tsam, I shvear to you, he looked exactly like Sgt. Schultz on T. V.: too fat und too oldt to serve on de frondt.”)
    So Henry sauntered up to the old prisoner sweeping the foot path, looked down at the opened hand, then handed off the bread-baton. As he looked up, his nose almost touched Sgt. Schmidt’s rifle muzzle. Henry’s gaze switched to the iron cross on the Sgt.’s helmet.
    “Mein Gott!” Henry muttered involuntarily.
    After an eternity, Sgt. Schmidt responded,
    “Yah. Mein Gott, alzo.”, lowered his rifle, and walked away.
    Henry didn’t see the old man again until he was gone. Late one afternoon, just at sunset, Henry noticed light bouncing off something in the nearby forest. He looked around, saw nobody (even the guards were at Mess), then ran toward the object, stopping under it. The old man’s head looked abnormally large, and his neck extra long: Henry realized the old man’s body had been too light to break his neck. The glint had been a reflection off the mock medal he’d been awarded by the guards for his skill in cleaning their boots of the ubiquitous mud. Henry scouted around for a sharp rock, found one, climbed the tree, and sawed through the rope. He then scampered down, straightened the rumpled body, and laid it so the morning sun wouldn’t shine in its eyes. Then he cried.
    A week later, just as the potato harvest ended, the bombings began.
    (“Tsam, tzey bombed all around us, but I guess tzey didn’t vant to kill tze ducks along mit tze chiggins.”)
    One day, a B-17 crash-landed in the frozen potato field, but the crew survived. Armed guards quickly surrounded the plane and took the crewmen to the clinic, then to the basement.
    (“Tsam, I heard tze screams, tzo I had to get ein look.”)
    Henry used his keys to get to the basement door, banged brazenly on it, and demanded to give his last potatoes to the prisoners. A bewildered guard obliged.
    (“Tsam, tzey vere in French uniforms, and vould shpeak only French, but I shvear tzey vere Americans. One of tzem beckoned me, for potatoes, I pretended, and gave me inshtructions, which I followed to tze T. Anyhow, a few days later tzey vere executed. I heard tzey vere granted the soldier’s prerogative, to be shot by a firink squad.”)
    A week later, Henry heard music coming from the chapel, where he wasn’t welcomed. He recognized the song, “O’, Tannenbaum.” It reflected the pagan attitude of the Germans toward Christmas. Henry had watched prisoners, under heavy guard, ride a flat wagon to the woods early one morning, and return late, walking beside the wagon, now laden with green trees. The largest one, elaborately decorated, was displayed in the General’s office. One day, Henry was invited in.
    “Hey, Jew. How do you say ‘Tannenbaum’ in English?”
    Henry searched his early childhood memories, and finally responded, “Fittim Fee.”
    “Vas!?”
    “Fittim Fee.”
    “Ach! Ya?”
    On New Year’s Day, the prison camp was overrun by French underground liberators, and early the next morning, Henry witnessed the Commandant being led into the woods. He turned and looked at Henry and tried to smile. Reflected sunlight made his teeth look like they’d been tearing at raw flesh.
    Henry smiled back, and said, “Fittim Fee!”
    (Old Henry looked lost in thought.
    “What did the pilot instruct you to do, Henry?”
    “Huh? Ach! To make a tzee-on-tzee, using shticks und potatoes.” He paused. “I vondered all tzeze years vhy he vanted a shvastika in tze field.” He paused again. “Nobody effer came for tzem.”)

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