The Baue's wife lay in the graveyard across the narrow road
from his farmhouse/barn. He had three children. The daughter's
age I couldn't determine, she was a coarse, crude young woman
weighing about 170 solid pounds. Standing in her bare feet or in felt
shoes she was about five-six. When she moved, she was like a
steam-driven locomotive, with great power and much noise. When
she spoke, it was a shout. Her name, for some unfathomable reason,
was Marie.
There were two small boys. Evan, a four-year-old, was very
small, self-reliant, aggressive, selfish, and crude. He was wire, like
the Bauer. The other boy, Herman, age three, had a painful limp or,
rather, a twisted leg, which he dragged slowly as he moved. He was
irritable, seemingly a little stupid. He sometimes shouted loudly.
Herman was heavy like Marie.
There was a fifth member of the family-Grandmother. She
was old but well preserved, wore long black dresses, sat at her own
table, and was immaculate in her eating. She was a submissive
Frau. She never initiated conversation, never spoke until spoken
to--and then only briefly, with moderate animation, modulated in
tone and rather pleasant. Mostly she sat in her stiff-backed chair
silently sewing, reading, or eating.
The last member of the household was Ivan, who lived in the
Bauer'shouse. Ivan was twenty-two, a Yugoslavian prisoner of war.
He had two brothers in the village, also POWs. Ivan was likable,
husky, of medium height, well built, rather handsome, and keenly
curious about America.
On my second day in Hurlach, my Bauer, carrying a pitchfork,
motioned me to join him, and we walked a half-mile beyond the
perimeter of the village to one of his several small fields, which bordered
on other strips of cultivated land. He skipped the nomenclature
of the pitchfork and went right to work demonstrating its use
to me. He then turned and said, "]a?" I reluctantly took the pitchfork,
said, "la," and went to work spreading manure. He watched
me for a few minutes, then, rather sadly, turned and went back to
his barn in the village.
As soon as he was out of sight a feeling of exhilaration swept
over me. It was the first moment in six months that I was not either
behind barbed wire or watched by a German soldier. I was completely
alone...almost free. For two hours I puttered away at the
manure, but mainly I enjoyed the aloneness and the sunshine and
the blue Bavarian sky. It was a kind of preview of days to come.
At 10:30 Ivan came for me and we walked into the village to the
Bauer'shousefor Brotzeit-bread and a bowl of milk. After Brotzeit,
I worked around the barn with Ivan.
From the first day I gradually informed Ivan that I had not
come to the farm to work-not really-but to eat and grow strong.
Ivan laughed at first and now and then tried my way of life but kept
slipping back and working like a slave.
At 12:00 noon by the golden clocks on two sides of the church
steeple everyone in Hurlach got back to the farmhouse for Essen. At
Essen all the family sat down to eat: at my table were the Bauer,
Evan, Herman, Ivan, and I. Marie, clodhopping like a ponderous
bull, finally charged in and threw her huge body into a chair.
Grandmother sat quietly at her small personal table apart from us
by six feet. The Bauel's three cows ate away in the barn fifteen feet
from us. There was no need for music at meals, there being plenty of
other sounds. At Essenwe had sauerkraut, dry spaghetti, potatoes,
or rolls, but no butter or jam, which was frustrating, since I had
been trying for months to get those three, rolls, butter, and jam,
together.
I spoke no German; they, no English. Ivan spoke Yugoslav but
by now could communicate with the Bauer in German. One day at
Essen, Herman, age three, refused to shut up while the Bauer was
talking. His father warned him, but Herman hollered on. The Bauer
warned him again. Herman hadn't learned to talk yet; he just
shouted. The father slapped the boy across the cheek. Herman
screamed. The father said something to Herman about keeping
quiet and raised his hand to slap him again. Herman choked up. He
continued to blubber, letting a tear run down his dirty red coarse
cheeks-but he barely cried. That was my first illustration of
parental discipline German peasant style.
Herman, who with a moderate amount of manners could have
been a sweet boy, was at three developing two distinct gestures
almost similar. Which gesture came first was hard to say. Herman
would throw an arm up over his face to cover his eyes. He did this
almost instinctively when you moved or looked in his direction.
Herman never approached adults in a gentle or childish manner
but belligerently, with his arm raised in the second gesture, which
offered you the back of his hand. For a three year-old Herman was
quite strong.
Most of the afternoons I worked with Ivan, but sometimes I
accompanied the Bauer out to the fields. Once or twice I worked
with Marie planting potatoes. We cut the potatoes and planted the
eyes, of course. I found bending over time after time wearying.
Marie worked on without a stop, puffing and steaming but tireless
as an iron machine. We plowed some, and I hitched oxen to a wagon
and drove out into the fields. I was never very successful with oxen
or with plowing. We pitched hay, but I was never very successful at
that, either. We sawed wood, but I soon tired doing that. My old
skills as a goldbrick were serving me well, and I would disappear
until the Bauer discovered my absence and sent Ivan to look for
me-in the hayloft usually, searching for eggs. I became adept at
getting the egg before the hen announced her presence. Later in the
spring I got an egg back to the barracks every other day. They were
marvelous. While someone watched to see that the guards didn't
come in unexpectedly, I soft-boiled the eggs. The stealing and cooking
of eggs, or of any other food from the farms, was strictly forbidden.
The fresh eggs were the first I had eaten since North Ireland,
fifteen months before.
I always showed up around five o'clock, when we had
Brotzeit-bread, cheese, and butter (occasionally jelled meat).
Sometimes we had beer. It wasn't very strong, and there wasn't
much of it. It came as a complete surprise. At some Brotzeits it was
every man for himself, Marie included. A large pan of potatoes was
set in the center of the table, bread placed beside the potatoes, and
beer in mugs at our places. At some secret signal the boys, Marie,
the Bauer,the Yugoslav, and I went at 'em. And it was every musketeer
for himself, with spoons flashing and no plates allowed. Marie,
like a hungry sow, sopped up the potatoes and bread, somehow
drawing a watery sound from solids. (How she did that I never discovered.)
Evan and Herman's noses running, the Bauer shouting,
Ivan getting in his licks, me mine, and all the while Grandmother
sitting calmly, sedately, at her table eating.
After Brofzeit we got the cattle in, if they were out, which they
seldom were, there being little grazing land. I managed to fool
around doing some nontaxing job until Essenat seven-coffee and
bread. It was a tiring day-all those Essene and Brotzeits, all that
dodging of work, all that trying to get Ivan to slow down and stop
killing himself for the Germans.
Ivan was incurable. He was, in fact, afraid of the Bauer. Ivan
had plenty of strength in his back, but he lacked something in other
ways. He was of a single mind about the Russians. "They'Il win the
war," he said, "and then they won't cooperate." I waved him aside.
Ivan may have been in a sense a slave. He was also a realist.
