Current Affairs (part 2 of 2)
a historical fiction by Matthew McAyeal
In part 1 of “Current Affairs,” Mary, upset that her copy of “Gone With the Wind” has been taken over poor grades, gripes to her friend Miriam in a soda shop as they discuss Hollywood and after-school classes. When Mary signs up for the current affairs class along with her crush George and rival Margaret, she gets drawn into a roleplaying debate, in which Mary plays Germany in a battle of wits.
"Current Affairs" is a historical fiction story set in 1939. It was previously published in "Danse Macabre", "cc&d", "The Fear of Monkeys", "Scarlet Leaf Review", "The Magazine of History & Fiction", and "Fiction on the Web".
Current Affairs (part 2)
by Matthew McAyeal
Mary didn’t really think. She just knew that she hated Margaret’s haughty voice, liked George, and noticed a common enemy.
“Hey, Russia!” she said to George. “How about we ally against Britain? We can invade Poland together and divide it in half between ourselves.”
“You can’t do that!” sneered Margaret. “Germany is fascist and Russia is communist! They would never work together!” But George was considering it.
“Sure,” he said eventually.
“Mrs. Gregory, Mary is ruining the game!” yelled Ethel. “She’s making it completely unrealistic!”
“Mary, I don’t think you understand just how opposed to communism the new Germany is,” said Margaret. “The Nazis accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being a communist, and then they put them in camps. A pact between Germany and the Soviet Union would never happen!”
“Well, it’s happening now,” replied Mary. “And you can’t do anything about it unless you want to go to war with Germany and Russia.”
“And Italy!” declared Donald. “We’re joining in too!”
“You and Germany are both supposed to be in the Anti-Comintern Pact!” yelled Ethel.
“Gee, I guess we have no choice but to surrender,” said Walter, who was playing the part of Poland.
“No, don’t you play along with their nonsense!” shrieked Margaret.
“There’s no way Poland could defeat the combined armies of Germany and the Soviet Union,” Walter explained. “Britain and France didn’t come to the rescue of Czechoslovakia, so why should I think they’ll come to the rescue of us?”
“All right, Britain and France declare war on Germany!” said Margaret, and Ethel nodded in agreement.
“What about Russia?” asked Mary. “They’re invading Poland too.”
“We declare war on Germany!” Margaret repeated, affixing Mary with a glare.
“Too late!” declared Mary. “Poland is gone!”
“This is getting too silly,” said Ethel. “I quit.”
“By ‘quit’ do you mean surrender to the German armies?” asked Mary.
“Sure, why not?” said Ethel disinterestedly.
“What?!” shouted Margaret. “Ethel, you know that France is one of the world’s great powers. They would never surrender to Germany just like that. The Maginot Line is impenetrable!”
“Why don’t you surrender too?” asked Mary, who was quite enjoying this. She really loved seeing Margaret losing her cool.
“Never!” declared Margaret. “We’ll defend our island at any cost! We’ll fight on the beaches and in the streets if we have to! And even if you could subject our island or part of it, our Empire would carry on the fight! We will never surrender to you!”
“Hey, Germany!” said Ralph suddenly. He had been talking with Clarence and Lois, but had evidently been listening to what Mary was doing with Europe.
“Yes?” said Mary. “What country are you?”
“Japan,” he said. “We’re in the, um, Anti-Comintern Pact with you. Since you control France, can we have French Indochina?”
“Sure,” said Mary gleefully. “Take Britain’s colonies too!”
“Mary, you’ve completely ruined what this exercise is supposed to be about!” Margaret snarled. “We’re supposed to be trying to find a way to achieve world peace!”
“Mrs. Gregory didn’t say anything about how we should achieve world peace, did she?” asked Mary. “World peace will be achieved once the entire world is ruled by Germany and Japan.”
“And Italy!” declared Donald. “Don’t forget Italy!”
And so, the game continued. After a while, Mary had taken over most of Europe and was moving into North Africa. But even as Margaret went on denouncing the direction of the game as stupid, she refused to surrender Britain and seemed to become ever more emotionally invested in seeing Mary’s Germany beaten.
“What about Soviet Russia?” said Margaret at one point. “Are you going to stay allied to them forever? You oppose everything they stand for! Shouldn’t you stab them in the back at some point?”
“Why should I do that?” asked Mary. “We would be at war with the British in the west and the Russians in the east. That sounds pretty pointless to me.”
Some time later, a new war broke out between the ever-expanding Japanese Empire and the United States for control of the Pacific Ocean.
“Aren’t you going to declare war on the United States?” asked Margaret, gesturing towards Clarence. “Now that they’re at war with your ally Japan?”
“I don’t think so, Britain,” said Mary. “You’re just trying to bring more countries onto your side of our dispute. It didn’t work with Soviet Russia, and me going to war with America would be even more pointless. If I do nothing, America will just stay away from Europe and focus on Japan.”
Eventually, Margaret was forced to admit that Britain wouldn’t be able to hold out against the combined forces of Germany and Russia, at least not without support from the United States. Mary was just about to launch an invasion of Canada to destroy the British government-in-exile when the class ended. As she walked out of the classroom, Mary was feeling amazed at how fast the time had flown. If this class was going to be this fun on a regular basis, it might not be such a chore after all!
As she headed out of the school building, she found Miriam dutifully waiting for her. Mary smiled, happy to see her. They usually walked home together, but she hadn’t been sure if Miriam would wait around so long after school just for that.
“I actually had a swell time!” said Mary without preamble as they turned to walk down the road together. “We played this game where Mrs. Gregory assigned each of us a country. You’ll be happy to know that I got your home country Germany and practically conquered the world!”
Mary instantly had the feeling that she had said something wrong because Miriam became very quiet. As they walked on in uncomfortable silence, Mary wondered if she should say something, but it was Miriam who spoke up first.
“Do you know why my family left Germany?” she said eventually.
“No,” said Mary, feeling very awkward about the sudden air of seriousness. Miriam took a deep breath.
“Early last November,” she began, “I was lying in my bed one night when a brick flew in through the window. I heard shouting outside. I peeked outside, and I saw our neighbors. There were people I thought were our friends, and they were throwing bricks and rocks at our house! The police were there too, but they were just standing there and letting it happen. I was scared! I ran for my parents, but the people outside broke down our door and came into our house! They started smashing all our things! I thought they were going to kill me!”
“Why would they do that?” asked Mary, slightly dazed by this story.
“Because we’re Jews, that’s why!” shouted Miriam, tears shining in her eyes. “Everyone knows that Jews aren’t real people! You can do whatever you want to us and no one will care!”
“But why would they hate Jews so much?” asked Mary, not understanding.
“They say we’re responsible for everything bad in Germany,” said Miriam. “They say it was the Jews who overthrew the Kaiser and made us lose the World War. They say it was the Jews running the banks who caused the Depression.”
“But you didn’t do any of those things!” objected Mary. “I don’t know if Jews did, but I know you certainly didn’t! You’re just a kid! Why should they take it out on you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Miriam, her voice shaking. “I’m a Jew, and we’re all the same to them. Germany was also my country. Why would I want it to be miserable? I had to live there too. My family suffered in the Depression like everybody else. Why would we do that to ourselves?”
“I don’t know,” replied Mary, unable to think of anything else to say. They walked on for a bit before Mary remembered about the recent events in Europe and decided to ask Miriam about them. “You know Germany has taken over Austria and Czechoslovakia?” she said.
“Yes,” said Miriam. “Bad news for the Jews living there. Bad news for everyone living there, but especially for the Jews. You don’t know how lucky we were to get visas to the United States. So many more of us are still trapped in Germany. We can’t live there anymore, but there’s nowhere for us to go to. Other countries don’t want to let too many of us in. They don’t care about what Germany is doing to us. They don’t want us either. No one cares about Jews.”
“I care!” said Mary. “Well, I care about you. I don’t know if I care about Jews in general…”
“I thought I had friends who cared about me in Germany,” Miriam said quietly. “They were good friends too, but the Party changed them. Now they proudly march in parades with BDM uniforms. How do I know it couldn’t happen here too? This country isn’t immune. I’ve seen the way Negroes are already treated here, and I’ve heard the kind of things Henry Ford and Father Coughlin say about Jews.”
Mary didn’t know what to say. She wanted to say that she would never abandon Miriam like that, but she wondered if Miriam’s old friends might have once said the same thing. That would make her seem even more like them. But what could she say instead? Before she could think of anything, they reached Miriam’s house.
“I’m sorry,” said Miriam as they came to a stop, “I don’t think I should have told you about that. Your life here is so far removed from what I went through in Germany, and maybe it should be that way. I don’t want to think about the past. I just want to live a normal life here with a friend like you and talk about normal things and go to movies and things like that.” She paused, but Mary didn’t say anything. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mary,” Miriam added, and she turned to walk to her house.
As Mary continued home, she was mentally hitting herself for having not replied. She should have said that she wanted their friendship to be about normal things too, but she hadn’t. Oh well, she could tell Miriam that tomorrow. But why did she seem to feel guilty? Mary told herself that what was happening to the Jews in Germany wasn’t something that concerned her, but how could she not care about that and care about Miriam at the same time?
That night, Mary lay wide-awake in bed. She tried closing her eyes several times, but she just couldn’t get to sleep. She kept imagining a brick flying in through her window. She couldn’t stop thinking of what Miriam must have felt as she ran from the angry mob invading her home. It hit Mary that Miriam had almost certainly been wearing nothing but a nightgown at the time, just as Mary was now. A few times, Mary sat up to look out her window and verify that there was no angry mob outside. Each time, she lay back down again, thinking of how stupid she was. She wasn’t Jewish, and she didn’t live in Germany, but anything seemed possible in the dark.
The next morning at breakfast, Mary continued to wonder why she had been so upset. It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard about horrible things happening to people before. Horrible things had occurred in the books she read, the radio shows she listened to, and the movies she watched. Was it because this time she knew it was something which really happened? Was it because it happened to someone she cared about? Was it because she wondered how Miriam, who had had the actual experience, could sleep at night feeling safe? Did Miriam have trouble sleeping? She seemed pretty cheerful to Mary. Did Miriam have sleeping trouble at one point and overcome it later? How did Mary not know the answer to any of these questions about her best friend?
While she was in the middle of these thoughts, Mary caught a mention of Germany on the radio. She had previously been treating the morning news as background noise like she always did, but now, for the first time in her life, she found herself actually paying attention to the news.
“Speaking before the Reichstag today,” said the radio announcer, “Chancellor Adolf Hitler responded to President Roosevelt’s peace proposal, thoroughly rejecting each and every point. During the course of the two-hour speech, Hitler further told his puppet parliament that he was no longer bound by Germany’s naval agreement with Britain or her non-aggression pact with Poland.”
A shiver went down Mary’s spine. It had all just been a game, hadn’t it? Margaret had said that Germany couldn’t invade Poland without getting into a war with Russia. Mary had gotten around that by making an alliance with Russia. Might the real Germany do the same? Mary reminded herself that Margaret seemed to find that ridiculous, and Margaret probably knew what she was talking about.
Still, the actions of their game translated to the real world would practically amount to a second World War. Mary looked around at her surroundings in the Brown dining room. The peacefulness almost pounded in her ears. She couldn’t imagine the world at war! She had been born almost seven years after the end of the World War, after all. But she had experienced the Civil War through the words of Gone with the Wind, and it seemed pretty horrible. She couldn’t imagine the sorts of war horrors she read about in Gone with the Wind happening in her actual life!
And speaking of Gone with the Wind...
“Mary,” said Mrs. Brown suddenly, “I’m sure you’ll get a passing grade once your new class is factored in. Therefore, I’ve decided to give you your book back early. I know how much it means to you.” With that, she held out Mary’s copy of Gone with the Wind. The book itself looked just as it had when Mary saw it last, as if it had never been gone.
“Oh… thanks,” said Mary dumbly as she took it in her hands. She was happy to have her book back, of course, but now all she could think about was how, if their game had been real, her actions would have been spreading horror and terror across Europe — horror and terror to people like Miriam.
* * *
As she entered her current affairs class later that day, Mary had already decided what she would do. Once again, their desks were arranged in a circle so they could wrap up their little game.
“So, Mary, you’re now in control of Europe and North Africa,” said Margaret contemptuously. “Your improbable alliance with the Soviet Union still stands. What are you going to do now, Germany?”
“Surrender,” said Mary.
“What?!”
“Germany surrenders,” Mary repeated. “The war is over—well, the war in Europe at any rate. I suppose there’s still the war with Japan.”
“Italy changes sides!” chimed in Donald.
“Well… if you’re serious about this,” said Margaret slowly, “I demand that you restore all the European countries you conquered to their previous governments.” Mary was about to answer that she would when George chimed in.
“Not so fast,” he said. “Soviet Russia is still in control of Eastern Europe, and we’ll be putting those countries under communist governments loyal to Russia. We need a buffer against the West.”
“Great, now Europe will be split in half between democracy and communism,” Margaret grumbled. “If this doesn’t lead to war, Europe will be divided, from the Baltic to the Adriatic, maybe for decades. All thanks to you, Germany. Who knows how this ‘cold war’ will turn out.”
* * *
After the class ended, Mary was walking outside the building. As on the previous day, Miriam was waiting for her, but this time she was looking rather pale and twisting her hands anxiously. Mary didn’t think that she had ever seen Miriam looking quite so upset. Mary smiled at her.
“Hello, Miriam,” she said.
Instantly, a smile broke out across Miriam’s face. She ran forward and threw her arms around Mary, holding her in a vice-like grip.
“I love you, Mary!” said Miriam. “I love you!”
It seemed natural to reply with “I love you too,” but Mary had never said those words to anyone outside her family before, and the thought of doing so felt too awkward. Instead, she slowly brought her arms up around Miriam so that their hug was no longer one-sided. She held Miriam tightly.
“Oh, Mary!” said Miriam. “I thought—I knew you would still be my friend, but—but—I never told you I was—was Jewish because of what happened with my friends in Germany. I knew it was different here, but I was scared! Then I not only told you that, but yesterday I told you about things I’d never talked about with anyone! I was just s-s-scared what would happen!”
“It’s okay,” said Mary as they came apart. “We wrapped up our game today, and the first thing I did was surrender Germany.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean for you to ruin your game on my account,” said Miriam, sounding a little guilty. “I know it’s not real.”
“No, Margaret was right,” said Mary. “I wasn’t taking it seriously.” A second after the words left her mouth, Mary was struck by the fact that she had never thought the words “Margaret was right” would flow from her lips so effortlessly, but she moved on without giving it a second thought. “I want what you want, Miriam,” she continued. “I don’t want to think about what happened to you in Germany any more than you do. I want everything to be normal.”
“Actually… Mary,” said Miriam slowly, “I’ve—I’ve thought it over, and I kind of do want to talk to you about it. I feel bad asking, but I know I’d feel better if—if I could sh-share with someone. I swear tomorrow we would go back to talking about boys and movies and normal things!”
“Okay,” said Mary right away. She didn’t know why she agreed so readily, but she knew that she meant it.
“I’m sorry if I pressured you into it!” said Miriam quickly. “I didn’t mean it like that!”
“No, I want to hear,” insisted Mary. “I can’t really know you if I don’t know what you’ve been through.” She didn’t know where those words had come from, but she knew immediately that they were right. In fact, they sounded much wiser than anything she thought her brain was capable of thinking up! “Let’s go over to your house,” she added.
With that, Mary took Miriam’s hand, and they turned to walk down the road together.
Meet the author:
Matthew McAyeal is a writer from Portland, Oregon. His short stories have been published by "Bards and Sages Quarterly," "Fantasia Divinity Magazine," "cc&d," "The Fear of Monkeys," "Danse Macabre," "Scarlet Leaf Magazine," "Bewildering Stories," "Tall Tale TV," "Fiction on the Web," "Quail Bell Magazine," and "MetaStellar." In 2008, two screenplays he wrote were semi-finalists in the Screenplay Festival.
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