September 12: Resi North, My Brother's Birthday, Important and Loved

And then it developed that Campbell was not going to go unanswered after all.  Poor old Derby, the doomed high school teacher, lumbered to his feet for what was probably the finest moment in his life.  There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces.  One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.  But old Derby was a character now.

His stance was that of a punch-drunk fighter.  His head was down.  His fists were out front, waiting for information and battle plan.  Derby raised his head, called Campbell a snake.  He corrected that.  He said that snakes couldn't help being snakes, and that Campbell, who could help being what he was, was something much lower than a snake or a rat--or even a blood-filled tick.  

Campbell smiled.

Derby spoke movingly of the American form of government, with freedom and justice and opportunities and fair play for all.  He said there wasn't a man there who wouldn't gladly die for those ideals.

He spoke of the brotherhood between the American and the Russian people, and how those two nations were going to crush the disease of Nazism, which wanted to infect the whole world.

The air-raid sirens of Dresden howled mournfully.  

The Americans and their guards and Campbell took shelter in an echoing meat locker which was hollowed in living rock under the slaughterhouse.  There was an iron staircase with iron doors at the top and bottom.

Down in the locker were a few cattle and sheep and pigs and horses hanging from iron hooks.  So it goes.  The locker had empty hooks for thousands more.  It was naturally cool.  There was no refrigeration.  There was candlelight.  The locker was whitewashed and smelled of carbolic acid.  There were benches along the wall.  The Americans went to these, brushing away flakes of whitewash before they sat down.

Howard W. Campbell, Jr., remained standing, like the guards.  He talked to the guards in excellent German.  He had written many popular German plays and poems in his time, and had married a famous German actress named Resi North.  She was dead now, had been killed while entertaining troops in the Crimea.  So it goes.

There's a lot of death in this passage.  The whole meat locker is meant to hold dead things.  Cattle.  Sheep.  Pigs.  Horses.  Everyone in the meat locker--the Americans, the guards, Howard W. Campbell, Jr.--are hiding from death.  And, at the end, we find out that Campbell's wife is dead, a casualty of war. 

Today is my brother Kevin's birthday.  He's been dead for three years now.  He was a good guy.  Worked hard all his life.  Unfortunately, he didn't take care of his health.  Ignored his diabetes.  Chose to spend his money on cigarettes instead of insulin.  He paid the price for those choices.  So it goes.

If you have a sibling, be thankful tonight.  Call your brother.  Text your sister.  Let them know that they're important and loved.

Saint Marty misses his brother.