Boys Life

the engine’s job required. It was the sound of a machine beating in the darkness without purpose or joy or understanding. I loved Rebel, but I hated the hollow sound of that heartbeat.
    Dr. Lezander and I sat on his front porch in the warm October afternoon light. I drank a glass of Tang and ate a slice of Mrs. Lezander’s apple cake. Dr. Lezander wore a dark blue cardigan sweater with gold buttons; the mornings had taken a chilly turn. He sat in a rocking chair, facing the golden hills, and he said, “This is beyond me. Never in my life have I seen anything like this. Never. I should write it up and send it to a journal, but I don’t think anyone would believe me.” He folded his hands together, a tawny spill of sunlight on his face. “Rebel is dead, Cory.”
    I just stared at him, an orange mustache on my upper lip.
    “Dead,” he repeated. “I don’t expect you to understand this, when I don’t. Rebel doesn’t eat. He doesn’t drink. He voids nothing. His body is not warm enough to sustain his organs. His heartbeat is… a drum, played over and over in the same tattoo without the least variation. His blood-when I can squeeze any out-is full of poisons. He is wasting away to nothing, and still he lives. Can you explain that to me, Cory?”
    Yes, I thought. I prayed Death away from him.
    But I didn’t say anything.
    “Ah, well. Mysteries, mysteries,” he said. “We come from darkness, and to darkness we must return.” He spoke this almost to himself as he rocked back and forth in his chair with his fingers interwoven. “True of men, and animals, too.”
    I didn’t like this line of thought and conversation. I didn’t like thinking about the fact that Rebel was getting skinny and his hair was falling out and he didn’t eat or drink but he lived on. I didn’t like the empty sound of his heartbeat, like a clock working in a house where no one lived anymore. To get my mind off these thoughts, I said, “My dad told me you killed a Nazi.”
    “What?” He looked at me, startled.
    “You killed a Nazi,” I repeated. “In Holland. My dad said you were close enough to see his face.”
    Dr. Lezander didn’t reply for a moment. I remembered Dad telling me not to ask the doctor about this subject, because most men who’d been in the war didn’t like to talk about killing. I had feasted on the exploits of Sgt. Rock, Sgt. Saunders, and the Gallant Men, and in my visions of heroes war was a television show adapted from a comic book.
    “Yes,” he answered. “I was that close to him.”
    “Gosh!” I said. “You must’ve been scared! I mean… I would’ve been.”
    “Oh, I was scared, all right. Very scared. He broke into our house. He had a rifle. I had a pistol. He was a young man. A teenager, actually. One of those blond, blue-eyed teenaged boys who love a parade. I shot him. He fell.” Dr. Lezander kept rocking in his chair. “I had never fired a gun before. But the Nazis were in the streets, and they were breaking into our houses, and what could I do?”
    “Were you a hero?” I asked.
    He smiled thinly; there was some pain in it. “No, not a hero. Just a survivor.” I watched his hands grip and relax on the armrests. His fingers were short and blunt, like powerful instruments. “We were all terrified of the Nazis, you know. Blitzkrieg. Brownshirt. Waffen SS. Luftwaffe. Those words struck us with pure terror. But I met a German a few years after the war was over. He had been a Nazi. He had been one of the monsters.” Dr. Lezander lifted his chin and watched a flock of birds winging south across the horizon. “He was just a man, after all. With bad teeth, body odor, and dandruff. Not a superman, only one man. I told him I’d been in Holland in 1940, when the Nazis had invaded us. He said he wasn’t there, but he asked me… for forgiveness.”
    “Did you forgive him?”
    “I did. Though I had many friends who were crushed under that boot, I forgave one of the men who wore it. Because he was a soldier, and he was following orders. That is the steel of the German character, Cory. They follow orders, even if it means walking into fire. Oh, I could have struck that man across the face. I could’ve spat on him and cursed him. I could’ve found a way to hound him until the day he died, but I am not the beast. The past is the past, and sleeping dogs should be left alone. Yes?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “And speaking of sleeping dogs, we ought to go have a look at Rebel.” He stood up, his