Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout

Author:Elizabeth Strout [Strout, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2021-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Inside the library we saw a staircase that wound its way up and also a checkout counter, and a couple of people were in there, a young woman and an old man, they were both reading newspapers. It had a very nice feel to it, the way a library should feel in a small town. The librarian looked up at us. She was maybe in her mid-fifties, and she had hair that was almost without color, and by that I mean just a very pale brown—she must have been blond in her youth—and her eyes were not big or small, what I mean is she looked very neutral, but she was pleasant and she said to us almost immediately, “Is there anything I can help you with?” So perhaps she knew we were from out of town.

I said, “We’re visiting because my husband’s father was a German POW who came here to work in the potato fields. Do you have anything on that?”

And she watched us, and then she came around from behind her desk and said, “Yes, we do.” She brought us over to a corner of the main room devoted to the German POW experience, and I saw William’s face moving with emotion when he saw this. There were pieces of artwork on the wall in that corner that had been painted by some of the German POWs. And there were old magazines opened to articles about the POWs, and also a book that was slender.

“My name is Phyllis,” the woman said, and William shook her hand, which I thought seemed to surprise her. She asked his name and he told her and then she turned to me and asked me my name and I murmured, “Lucy Barton.” “Well, you have yourselves a look,” Phyllis said, and she pulled up two armchairs nearby for us to sit in and we thanked her.

There was a shelf of old photographs, and as I peered at one I said, “William! Here he is!” The photograph gave the names of four men who were shown kneeling on the ground. One was smiling, and the rest were not. Wilhelm Gerhardt was on the end of the group. He was not smiling. His cap was not on straight and he looked at the camera with a serious look, almost a Screw You look, I thought. William took the photograph and kept staring at it; I watched his face as he looked at it. And then I looked away.

When I looked back, William was still gazing at the photograph; he finally turned his face to me and said, “It’s him, Lucy.” Then he added in a quieter tone, “It’s my father.” I looked again at the photograph, and I was struck—again—with the look on William’s father’s face. All the men seemed thin, but William’s father’s brow was dark and his eyes were dark and he seemed to carry within himself a small disdainfulness.

Phyllis was still standing behind us and she said, “We’re very proud of how they were treated when they were here.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.