“My life will get better? You really believe that?” I ask, even though I know what he will say—what most adults would feel they have to say when asked such a question, even though the overwhelming amount of evidence and life experience suggests that people’s lives get worse and worse until you die. Most adults just aren’t happy—that’s a fact.
But I know it will sound less like a lie coming from Herr Silverman.
“It can. If you’re willing to do the work.”
“What work?”
“Not letting the world destroy you. That’s a daily battle.”
I think about what he’s saying and I get it on some level. I wonder what Herr Silverman would look like if I followed him home from work. I bet he’d look happy—proud of the good work he did during the day. So unlike the 1970s sunglasses woman who called me a pervert and all of the other miserable train people I’ve followed. I bet he’d listen to an iPod and maybe even sing along to the music. The other passengers would look at him and wonder why the hell he’s so happy. They’d probably resent him. Maybe they’d even want to kill him.
“You don’t think I’m capable of shooting someone, do you? You never thought I’d kill myself either,” I say.
“That’s why I’m here. I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t think you were worth it.”
I look at Herr Silverman’s face for a long time—not saying anything at all.
I look so long the tension between us builds and starts to feel awkward, even if Herr Silverman doesn’t acknowledge it.
“Throw the gun in the river, Leonard. Trust in the future. Go ahead. Do it. It’s okay. Things are going to get better. You can do the work.”
Maybe because I want to rid myself of all the evidence connected to this night, maybe because I want to please Herr Silverman, maybe because it’s just fucking fun to chuck stuff into rivers, I take three quick steps toward the water and throw the P-38 like a boomerang.
I see it spin through the light of the distant city and then it disappears a few seconds before we hear it plunk into the river and sink.
I think about my grandfather executing the Nazi officer who first carried that gun.
I think about how far that gun had to travel through time and space to end up at the bottom of a Delaware River tributary.
And how stories and objects and people and pretty much everything can blink out of existence at any time.
Then I think about my fictional future daughter S and me scuba diving with Horatio the dolphin after the nuclear holocaust. S has all of these cute freckles on her face. Her eyes are gray like mine. Her hair is bobbed at her chin.
“I wonder if we’ll find my old P-38 gun,” I say to her in my fantasy.
“Why did you have a gun when you were a kid?” she replies.
“Good question,” I say, and then we both lower our masks and fall over the side of the boat into the water.
Even though I know it’s just silly fiction, the thought warms my chest—I have to admit.
“So what do we do now?” I ask.
“Anyone home at your house?” Herr Silverman says.
“No. My mom’s in New York.”
“Then you’re coming home with me.”
THIRTY-THREE
In the cab, Herr Silverman does a lot of texting with someone he calls Julius.
I can tell by the look on his face and the way he’s poking his cell phone that Julius is not cool with my coming over, but I don’t say anything about that or ask any questions, even though Herr Silverman’s facial expressions sort of make me want to jump out of the moving cab, roll to the sidewalk, run away bruised and bleeding, and take a train back to New Jersey.
I’m sort of freaked about everything I told him—like maybe it was a mistake to be honest. I’m worried he’ll never look at me the same way—he’s just being nice to my face, but then when I leave he’ll tell Julius that I sicken him. I keep telling myself that Herr Silverman isn’t like that—that he’s good and understands—but it’s hard to make myself believe in Herr Silverman 100 percent now.
When we arrive at his building, the cab fare is more than two hundred dollars, and I insist on paying with my credit card, even though Herr Silverman says I don’t have to. He’s a teacher, so I know that two hundred bucks is a lot for him.
My hand shakes when I extend the credit card through the little plastic window that separates the cab driver from the passengers, but Herr Silverman doesn’t say anything about how shaky I am.
I give the cab driver an eighty dollar tip because fuck Linda who will be paying the bill, but my hand is still shaking and you can barely read the numbers I write.
“Is this okay?” I ask as we walk up the steps, and even my voice is all over the place wobbly.
“Is what okay?”
“Having a student over to your apartment.”
“Is it okay with you?”
“Yeah, but aren’t there school policies forbidding you to do this sort of thing? I mean… I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“Well, I do believe this is an extenuating circumstance. And if you don’t tell anyone, no one will know.”
“Okay,” I say, and stick my shaky hands in my pockets.
If any other teacher had said this to me, I’d have thought they were executing some sort of perverted plan—but not Herr Silverman, I tell myself. You can trust him.
Outside his door as he puts the key in the lock, he says, “My roommate, Julius, is inside sleeping.”
I nod, because I realize that Julius is most likely Herr Silverman’s partner, and I wonder if Julius really is pissed about my taking up so much of Herr Silverman’s time and now invading their personal lives. Part of me starts to wish I weren’t here—that I didn’t even call my Holocaust teacher.
Herr Silverman keys into his apartment and loudly says, “Julius? I’m here with Leonard.”
No response.
“Come on in,” Herr Silverman says, and I follow him to a leather couch over which hangs a huge painting of a bare tree, which gets me thinking about the Japanese maple outside my English class and what an asshole I was to Mrs. Giavotella, which makes me feel depressed again.
The tree in the painting is surrounded by the decapitated heads of famous political leaders: Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Gandhi, Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill, George Washington, Adolf Hitler, Fidel Castro, Teddy Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela, Saddam Hussein, JFK, and a dozen or so more I don’t recognize. It looks like the heads have fallen from the tree like rotten fruit. And a huge red X has been painted over the entire painting—like someone stamped it with a rejection. It’s one of the strangest artworks I have ever seen.
“Have a seat,” Herr Silverman says. “I’ll be right back.”
He opens the bedroom door a crack and slips in without letting me see what’s behind—like he sort of makes a U around the door without opening it more than ten inches and then closes it quickly.
I hear whispering, and the voice that’s not Herr Silverman’s is sort of fierce like wind rushing through barren tree branches.
“This isn’t your job,” I hear Julius say a little more loudly.
“Shhhh,” Herr Silverman says. “He’ll hear you.”
And then they are silent for a minute before I hear the fierce whispering again.
Finally, the door opens ten inches, and Herr Silverman slips around once more before he shuts it closed for good.
“Your roommate is pissed that I’m here,” I say.
“He’s just tired. He has to work in the morning and he’s afraid we’ll keep him up. We’ll be quiet.”
“I heard him say this isn’t your job, and it’s not. I shouldn’t have called you. I shouldn’t have gotten you involved.”
“It’s okay,” Herr Silverman says. “I’m glad you did. You can meet Julius in the morning. He’ll be less grumpy with a full night’s rest.”
“He’s your boyfriend, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” I say, and then feel stupid for saying okay—like Herr Silverman needs my permission or something.
“Here,” Herr Silverman says and then holds out his hand.
There’s a small box in front of my face wrapped in white paper.
When I have it unwrapped and opened, it takes me a second to realize what’s inside.
It’s my grandfather’s Bronze Star, only it’s been covered with paper, painted, and then laminated. On the star is a bronze peace sign and on the ribbon are my initials written in fancy calligraphy swirls.
“If you don’t like it,” Herr Silverman says, “I can remove the tape and paper. The actual medal isn’t altered underneath. I was going to give it back to you tomorrow after class. Remember when you said you wanted to turn the negative connotation into a positive?”
I’m not entirely sure how to respond. It’s kind of corny on one hand, and on the other it’s an amazingly thoughtful present—plus it’s the only gift I will receive on my eighteenth birthday, which is almost over.
But for some reason, instead of saying “thank you” like any polite, normal person would, and maybe because I feel like it might be really important, I say, “Does Julius make you happy? I mean—do you love him? And does he love you? Is it a good relationship?”
“Why do you ask?” Herr Silverman gets this worried look on his face, like my question throws him a little.
Instead of answering his question, I say, “Did you write letters from the future Julius when you were in high school?”
“Actually, I did,” Herr Silverman says. “Metaphorically, I absolutely did.”
It makes me feel less insane to think about Herr Silverman being all confused in high school about his sexuality and writing letters from the future people in his life—the people who would understand him, and listen to him, and treat him like an equal without making him act and put on a fake mask. The people who could save him. Herr Silverman believing in those people back when he was my age, and then making it to his age, because if he’s truly happy…
I get mad at myself for thinking about all of that, because there’s still a large part of me that thinks it’s all bullshit, and if I let myself believe in the bullshit, it will just ultimately make me even more depressed when bad things happen or Herr Silverman eventually lets me down and I can’t believe in him or his philosophies anymore. But for some reason, I go ahead and pin the stupid peace medal to my shirt, right over my heart. Maybe just because Herr Silverman went to so much trouble for me tonight—maybe because I owe him this much, and it doesn’t really hurt to pin a fucking medal to my shirt.
“Looks good,” Herr Silverman says to me and then smiles.
“Thanks,” I say, and suddenly I feel so tired—like I really don’t care about anything anymore, like I’m just finished.
“I’d like to call your mother, Leonard. May I?”
“What for?”
“Well, we’re going to have a lot to sort out in the morning.”