From First to Last: A Teacher’s Tale
Third Period: Into the Slaughterhouse
For Second Period of a Teacher’s Tale, please see:
I placed my floating garden in the teachers’ lounge atop a paper cutter that collected discarded lesson plans. Contrary to Aristianna’s remark, the flowers did not make the room appear more full.
Meanwhile, my 11th graders were collecting in room 3. We had a double period, intended to be the final seminar on Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. Prior its reading, we discussed Wilfred Owen’s Dulce Et Decorem Est and watched the climactic ending of the film Dresden. We recited the political facts of the carpet-bombing campaign, but were unable to reach a satisfying conclusion about the human toll. I was hoping Vonnegut’s narrative would fill the void. I refilled my tea for the occasion.
Entering room 3, I suppressed an anxiety peculiar to English teachers. We had another book on our hands. I had read it a few times already. Could I restrain my rehearsed impressions? Dismiss the anticipated disappointment that the book would not mean so much to them? Or that they could not stomach its deconstruction? Did I have the strength to dig in?
There were no structured worksheets to lean on, nothing to fill the hour but reflections which often had to be dredged up from the base of students’ bellies.
How to start from nothing, when it appears you have so much to say?
“Sir!” Hakeem said at sight of me. “Make them stop!”
Hakeem was engaged in a wrestling hold with his best friend Krzystof. I continued to my desk and dropped my bag heavily to the top. Pawel was behind Hakeem, trying to retrieve his iPad.
“It’s not fair sir. Two on one!”
“That’s right. We’re tag-teaming him sir,” Krzystof said slyly.
“Come on, let go!” Hakeem said.
“Just be a good boy and give Pawel back his iPad,” I said.
“He has revealing pictures sir. A sex tape. They’re going to blackmail me sir.”
“A sex tape? I don’t believe it.”
“Oh ho, did you hear that Hakeem? Mr. Krasner doesn’t think you are capable of a sex tape.”
“I’m capable sir. I’m definitely capable!”
Hakeem’s attention dipped and Pawel had his iPad again. Krzystof pinioned Hakeem by the arms while Pawel inspected his screen.
“Alright, alright,” he said. “If you’re going to be so sensitive.”
“I have a right to privacy,” Hakeem continued. “Seriously sir, he’s like the school paparazzi.”
Pawel smiled wickedly with the glow of his iPad reflected in his face.
“Should I ask?”
“Don’t ask sir,” Wiki said. She sat with her friend Monika in the front row. They defused the boys’ volatile energy.
The bell rang. 3rd period was under way.
“Can everyone sit down please?”
Krzystof released Hakeem. The two fell into their seats in the back row. Pawel concentrated on his screen while Hakeem looked over his shoulder.
“There better not be duplicates.”
“Don’t worry, don’t worry.”
I remained willingly in the dark.
“Pawel caught Hakeem in the toilets sir,” Krzystof offered.
“Was he alone?”
“Sir! Of course I was alone.”
“Then what’s the fuss?”
“Let’s just say the pictures are somewhat compromising,” Krzystof explained.
“He had his pants down,” Pawel said.
The girls made wide oval faces.
“You see sir. A man can’t even pee in peace here.”
“Pee? But you had your pants down!” Krzystof said.
“I prefer to sit.”
The girls now had to hold their sides.
“We need a security policy sir. It’s bad enough that I had to use the toilets.”
“What’s wrong with the toilets?” I asked.
“They’re awful sir,” Wiki said. “We have to share them with the 4th and 5th graders. They leave toilet paper all over the place.”
“That’s nothing compared to the boys,” Hakeem said. “You can’t even lock the door. You have to hold it shut with one hand while you’re sitting there.”
“There, all gone,” Pawel said. “Happy?”
“Let me see.”
They inspected Pawel’s iPad while I contemplated just how I would steer this silliness towards Billy Pilgrim, the extraterrestrial sages of Tralfamadore, the serious matters of war and death, carpet-bombing, inhumanity….
The door opened. It was Filip. He moved like a ragged shadow towards his spot in the far corner and held the same facial expression he had in the metro this morning, turning over a series of interlinking thoughts.
“Billy Pilgrim,” I cracked. Filip dropped to his chair and placed his bag on the table, as a pillow.
“Can we start now? Is everyone here?”
Krzystof sensed my impatience and sat upright in his corner opposite Filip. He tugged on Hakeem to compel his allegiance. Hakeem turned away from Pawel’s iPad.
“I will check this later. They better not appear on Facebook.”
“Pawel?”
“Yes sir,” he said with eyes downcast.
I waited.
“Okay sir, one moment.”
He shut down the tablet and gave his attention to me. Wiki and Monika sat with their knees towards each other, still wearing sleepy expressions. It was 10:20. Maja, the last of the seven, sat by the door, concealed by her bulky jacket.
“Did you do your homework?”
Krzystof, Hakeem, Wiki and Monika opened up their notebooks. The others just changed their positions.
“It’s a great book sir,” Krzystof opened. “Strange, but great.”
“I don’t think we’ve read anything like this,” Hakeem said.
“You were expecting something else?”
“For a war book, yea.”
“Is it a war book?”
The question didn’t catch hold.
“What’s so odd about the book Krzystof?”
“You mean besides the fact that Billy Pilgrim is transported back and forth to another planet?”
“Yea, besides that. That’s a rather thick subplot. But maybe we could just start with the details you chose. The small stuff.”
Their assignment was to collect Vonnegut’s five most absurd details. The absurdity could have been due the placement of the details or their inherent power given the overall context of the war. Our previous seminar covered the first three chapters but never got far off the ground. I deemed it a failure. Therefore, I had given them two weeks to read the book at their leisure and complete a more simplified task. I never got around the checking it.
“Okay,” Krzystof said while inspecting his notebook, “to start with, how about the picture of the girl with the horse.”
“That’s what you chose? I could have guessed,” Wiki said disapprovingly.
“Do you have a better image in mind?” I asked. “What stuck out for you?”
“Um,” she skimmed through her notebook. “Well, that did stick out I have to say.”
“Then let’s stop there a moment.”
I stood up and sensed an entryway. Time to uncap the marker.
“Why is the picture valuable? What does it have to do with war?”
“It was a picture of a woman f-ing a horse sir,” Krzystof said more explicitly.
“What?” Pawel ejaculated.
Filip snapped out of his funk.
“There was a picture of a horse fucking a woman?” he asked sleepily.
“Filip!” Wiki scolded.
I held my head in my hands. Krzystof could barely contain his breathing, doubled over in laughter.
“It’s the woman, doing….a horse!” Krsystof said. “Not….the other way around!”
“Listen,” I asserted myself, “let’s try and get off the adolescent humor for a second. The book is about a serious topic. It is about war, and everything in the book, no matter how random or lightly spoken, is heavy. Vonnegut lived through the Dresden bombings. He didn’t write about the slaughterhouse. He wrote from inside of it. His writing may be funny and odd, but it comes from a source of weariness. It comes from the direct experience of war. We shouldn’t laugh at that, should we?”
They considered my remarks.
“But he does want us to laugh,” Krzystof said.
“Why?”
“Well, maybe it’s the only possible way to deal with the reality of war.”
“Do you think it’s a better method than Owen’s?”
They had already forgotten the poem.
“Winfred Owen. Dulce Et Decorem Est. Do you remember? It expressed its own distinct war details, like mustard gas and soldiers coughing up their lungs. Hold on — ”
I searched for the poem in my teacher’s bible. It was always best to read from the sources, to give the discussion some footholds. Without them, the students attempted to walk on air.
“Okay, I’ve got it. It might help if you found your copies.”
I let them file through their binders of randomly placed handouts, some from English, others from math, and yet others without a clear source.
“Forget it. Just listen.”
I read over them at first, but slowly they tempered at the words.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .”
“I don’t think one method is better than the other,” Krzystof said after a pause. “But maybe it’s more startling to read something funny, or light. Because this, I mean the poem, is what we expect to hear about war. It’s horrifying.”
“And Vonnegut? Is his account any less horrifying?”
“I don’t know. Not at first. It’s not as dramatic.”
“But does Vonnegut also include disturbing details?”
“Yea, of course.”
“Like what?”
“Like the hanging Pole. Because he banged a German girl.”
“What?!” Pawel again swiveled in his seat.
“Pawel, you did the read the book right?”
“Of course, I mean, some if it…”
“Sorry sir. He was found having sex with a German girl,” Krzystof continued. “So the Germans hanged him. They probably didn’t even give him enough time to put his pants back on.”
Wiki sighed.
“And is this funny?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t say that. It’s horrible. But it’s not really about war.”
“No?”
“Well, it is. But it’s not about battles and bullets flying and men dying for their country.”
“Oh, I see. That seems to be the straight account. Patriotic. But Vonnegut is going for something else, right?”
“It’s more about what we don’t really notice,” Hakeem spoke up. “I mean, we don’t think about what soldiers go through day to day. About what they carry in their pockets.”
“Or how they pass the time. That dull time between battles,” Krzystof said. “And carpet-bombings.”
“Maybe today they’d carry around sex tapes,” Pawel added cheerfully.
The girls expressed their grievance.
“Well, he’s got a point, doesn’t he?” I said.
“What point?” Krzystof asked.
“I wasn’t expecting this theme. But it appears that pornography and war share a lot in common.”
They chewed on the thought.
“Oh, I get it,” Krzystof said first. “Porn’s for everyone. I mean, whether you’re a high or low character, everyone watches porn.”
“Speak for yourself,” Wiki rebutted.
“Okay, I’m speaking for boys. Porn’s like the common denominator.”
“The lowest common denominator,” I clarified. “And so’s war.”
The girls considered.
“You could even say that war is a kind of pornography,” I continued. “A pornography of the soul. That’s something you get from Vonnegut’s account. Maybe even Owen’s too.”
We remained quiet.
“Let’s do this — this was your homework right? Let’s make a list of the war details you captured. Let’s talk a little about them, paraphrase the context, and then maybe we can discuss how humor differs from straight writing. And how it can be considered serious. Even the most serious form of writing.”
I wrote “Into the Slaughterhouse” on the board and underneath began with the first entry: “porn pic — a woman and a horse”. Be sure to erase that later, I thought.
“What else do you recall about the photo? Why is it mentioned?”
“One of the soldiers keeps it with him,” Krzystof said. “Weary.”
“An appropriate name. Roland Weary.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And?”
“Do we really have to say more? I mean we all know what such pictures are for. It’s just part of the day to day reality. Some soldiers carry around porn in their jackets. Others carry around bibles.”
“For the same reason?”
They considered the apparent paradox.
“Wasn’t there also a bible on him?” Monika asked.
“Yea, a bulletproof bible,” Krzystof replied.
I wrote “bulletproof bible” underneath “porn pic”.
“There was a bible on him?” Hakeem asked. “I don’t remember that.”
“It was Derby wasn’t it?” Wiki said.
“No, it was Weary!” Krzystof said. “He carried both. The German officers searched him and found both, the picture of a woman with a horse and a bulletproof bible.”
“It raises an interesting question,” I said. “Do they serve the same purpose?”
“In a way yes and in a way no,” Krzystof replied. “I mean, the picture is similar to a shot of vodka. It’s just a way for soldiers to escape reality. It’s no different from boys in a frat house. They’re bored, they do boy things.”
“So what’s the bible for?”
“The bible is not escape.”
“No?”
“Well, we can get into that. Actually, I thought it was just issued to him by the army. Part of his survival kit. But I don’t think a soldier would use it as escape. Maybe he is. I don’t know.”
“You can’t compare pornography with the bible sir!” Wiki jumped in.
“Why not? Vonnegut places them side by side along with many other details, like a hanging Pole, shining officer’s boots, Adam and Eve reflected in polished leather. Many seemingly random things.”
“Because he wants us to think about it.”
“Think about what?”
“I don’t know. How crazy war is.”
“It is hard to define, isn’t it. Vonnegut doesn’t seem to be placing any particular emphasis on these details. There’s no clear sense of drama or tragedy as in Owen poem, right? He’s not glorifying war or death, nor writing with some preconceived ideals. He’s just putting everything in there, side by side, separated by his pet phrase.”
“His pet phrase?”
“You know, his catch-all phrase that links all the details, like a comma. Or a sigh.”
“So it goes…” Krzystof picked up.
“So it goes. This is Vonnegut’s voice. They hanged him in the morning without giving him the opportunity to put his pants on….so it goes.”
I stopped myself short, sensing I had overstepped.
“Let’s not move too far ahead,” I adjusted. “Wiki, finish your thoughts about the bible. You were getting angry.”
“I’m not angry,” she restarted. “I forgot what I was saying…”
“Pornogr — “
“Oh, right. I wanted to say that you can’t put pornography and religion in the same category. And vodka. Think about the soldier in his bunker during a quiet moment between the gunshots. The bible is not there for…for whatever it is you guys do. It’s there for protection. He’s holding onto his faith.”
“And the photo?”
“That has nothing to do with faith sir.”
“And yet it is one soldier carrying both, right? That seems to place pornography and religion in the same category.”
“But it’s not.”
“What does it say if it is? That in the reality of war, a soldier carries both. Side by side.”
“I don’t know,” Wiki struggled.
“Do you really think the bible is going to protect him?” Krzystof questioned her.
“I think he thinks it will. I think that kind of belief is pretty valuable in war.”
“Right, and the next moment the guy’s boots are taken and exchanged for rags, and he’s sent on a death march in the snow that eventually kills him. And his bulletproof bible is taken by the soldier who killed him!”
Wiki was troubled and could not form a reply.
“Plenty of guys with faith died and plenty of guys with no faith survived,” Krzystof finished proudly.
Then I asked him: “If you had to choose between the picture and the bible, what would you choose?”
“Some choice! Hm. I wouldn’t carry around a picture of a girl with a horse, I can tell you that!” he said. “But I wouldn’t carry around the bible either.”
“What would you carry around?”
“Probably a mirror,” Wiki said, trying to inflict damage.
“It’s a hard question sir,” Krzystof deflected. “It makes me think of the fighter pilots in World War II. You know, Poland had an elite Air Force. We had one squadron that claimed the highest number of kills during the Battle of Britain. Not many people know that. I watched a documentary on it and I remember how all the airmen just before take-off were shown with some sort of lucky charm in the cockpit. They were smiling, confident. Most of them kissed pictures of their girlfriends or wives. But some had charms, symbols. Most had crosses.”
“But no women with horses…”
“No! That was an American!”
“Oh, I see…still, it seems there is a choice between something of the earth and something of heaven.”
There was a lovely pause.
“I’d choose a picture of my girlfriend,” Hakeem jumped in.
“You don’t have a girlfriend!” Krzystof chided.
“Well, I’d get one. I’d get one fast. And I’d carry that picture around.”
“What about a bulletproof Quran?” I asked.
“That’s kind of sacred sir.” He took some time to think, then added, “But you know, I think I’d be more inspired by a girl.”
“More inspired by a girl than God?”
“Yea,” he said.
“Well, me too,” Filip said from the corner, seated upright. He was getting interested. “A girl gives you something to live for. Religion just gives you something to die for.”
“Oh.”
“Wait a minute,” Monika turned sharply. “That’s not true.”
“Sure it is. That’s what Christianity is.”
We waited for Filip to assemble his words.
“Isn’t the author mocking religion?” he asked. “This guy, what’s his name, Weary?”
“Yes…”
“This Weary is searched and the two things closest to his body are a bible and porn. It makes you think. They’re both kind of basic needs.”
“Masturbation and God?”
I was about to write it on the board, but thought better of it.
“I bet the author was an atheist. He probably knows that the soldier keeps the bible because he’s worried that if he is killed, he might not go to heaven. It’s like old people who are getting closer to death. Suddenly, they start going to church. But are they religious? And does it matter?”
Monika stammered.
“I disagree,” she said. “I think the soldier feels stronger having the bible with him. And his strength will help him to survive. I think the soldier with a bible has a lot more strength than a soldier with a pornographic picture.”
“But it’s the same soldier!” Krzystof repeated ahead of me.
The girls looked at each other for encouragement.
“Vonnegut lived through this,” I restated. “He’s not making stuff up at random. Even the Tralfamadorians come from authentic experience.”
We were not ready, however, for the subplot of time travel and Tralfamadorian philosophy. Fortunately, nobody fed this direction.
“Strength doesn’t matter at all,” Krzystof carried on. “I think survival is a matter of chance. I think that’s what Vonnegut is saying. Look at Billy Pilgrim. He’s the most pathetic soldier you could imagine. And he survives.”
“We’ll get to Billy Pilgrim,” I said. “But I was just thinking about what Filip said. How war reduces each soldier to his basic needs, his basic character. What is most essential in us? If you were reduced in this way, what would you carry close to your breast?”
They thought collectively.
“A knife,” Krzystof said.
“A knife? Like Weary’s?”
I turned to the board and added Weary’s knife to the list.
“Can you say more about the knife?”
“Weary’s? He was in love with his knife.”
“What made it special?”
“It had three sides. When it cut, it left a wound that could not heal itself. It was more than a weapon. He wanted to torture people with it. He was a sadist.”
“And that’s what you’d be reduced to?”
“No, I didn’t day that. I think Weary is suffering from post traumatic stress or something. He’s just dreaming about death and glory. But you mentioned survival and I would want a knife, because I want something I can use.”
“So no picture.”
“No picture.”
“I’d bring the pornography,” Filip said jarringly.
“Filip, really?”
“Sure, and you probably would too. At least I’m honest.”
Monika shook her head.
“Do you really think you’d become closer to God in war? Think about it.”
He spoke with more animation.
“Every day might be your last. Every moment a bomb might drop. You’ve seen friends get their arms and legs blown off. You’re hungry. You’re being chased, hunted. Don’t you think your needs would be for food, shelter and sex?”
“So you’d masturbate your final hours away?” Krzystof challenged.
“Well, I’d prefer the real thing. I’m just saying if your life has become like, perverted, you’d become perverted too.”
I hurried to capture his quote on the board.
“What about your girlfriend?” I asked while scribbling.
“What girlfriend?”
“I mean, if you still had a girlfriend. Would you keep a picture of her in your jacket? Or would you still prefer the porn?”
He turned it over in his mind.
“The thing is sir, I don’t know what I would become in these conditions. Sure, right now in this classroom I would say my girlfriend. That’s what any normal person would say. But wouldn’t I change in war? Would I be strong enough to remain normal? It takes a lot of strength. And I’m just being honest. How do any of us know for sure what we would become?”
The girls reconsidered his remarks. It was an eloquent speech on behalf of the ignoble.
“Sir,” Wiki finally formed her argument. “What about Derby? The school teacher.”
“Aha…”
“He carried around a letter for his wife.”
“That’s right. And?”
I added “love letter” to our list. Just under “instrument of torture”.
“And this shows that not everyone is turned into an animal. Not everyone carries around a brutal knife or a picture of a horse. I mean, like you guys said, that was only one guy. One guy! Weary. What about Derby? He carried around a letter for his wife. He carried love close to his heart.”
“Boys?”
“I don’t remember that,” Krzystof said.
Filip had no response.
“I agree with Wiki,” Monika said, suddenly cheered. “Some people would turn to love. And even faith.”
“Even if all the evidence says that faith will not be rewarded? You remember what happened to Derby?”
She processed the question.
“Now I remember…” Krzystof said.
“Hold on — let Monika say.”
“Well, it was very sad for me,” she said in her soft but firm voice. “They shot him. The German officers shot him for some stupid reason.”
“Do you remember the reason?”
“I think he took something. From the rubble. A souvenir.”
“When did they shoot him?”
“Right after the bombing sir. He survived the bombing.”
“And was shot right after. For taking a teapot.”
There was a long silence.
“Sir,” Hakeem said. “Can I ask you something? What would you bring?”
“Me?”
“In your survival kit.”
“Probably a picture of his dog,” Krzystof joked.
“Ohhh,” Wiki said empathetically, “that’s sweet.”
“Mr. Krasner needs to find a girlfriend, so he can carry her picture around.”
“Or a Jewish star.”
I let them pile on.
“Right. And my diamonds.”
We laughed as we always did at the onset of vulnerability. In itself, this was pitch perfect interpretation of Vonnegut’s novel.
“Wait a minute,” Maja said quietly. For a moment I thought she was coming to my defense. It was her first remark of the class. “Didn’t Billy carry around a diamond?”
“Good morning Maja. You’re awake?”
“Of course sir.”
“That’s right! He did have a diamond!”
“He was Jewish? Sir, Billy Pilgrim was a Jew?” Hakeem asked. “Is that why you chose the book?”
“How is it that no matter the book, we always end up talking about Jews?”
“And sex,” Filip added.
“We’re being reduced to our basic needs sir…”
“It would be appropriate,” I considered, “for the Jew to appear somewhere in this tapestry. An unarmed clown in silver slippers.”
“But Billy survives World War II,” Krzystof asserted dryly.
I felt some wind pass through the room. Even the curtains moved.
“Listen, this would be a good place to turn. Can we talk about our reluctant hero? Krzystof called him pathetic earlier. What makes him so?”
“Because he is pathetic.”
“Details please. Give me details or give me death!”
“Okay,” he chuckled. “The slippers. He wore slippers.”
“What kind of slippers?”
“Cinderella slippers.”
“Billy Pilgrim is Cinderella? I thought he was a Jew,” Pawel asked sincerely.
The boys bent over again and pounded the desks.
“Everything is just an irony sir,” Krzystof spoke through his teeth. Pawel waited patiently for his answer. “He’s not a princess. And this is not a fairy tale. He’s in the middle of a war and he should be wearing boots, but he’s got slippers.”
I wrote “Cinderella slippers” underneath Derby’s “love letter”.
“Say more. Why does he wear them?”
“Because he lost his boots. Or Weary lost his. No, that’s a different detail. We should make that one separate. Weary had his boots taken from him by the German soldiers and had to walk miles in the snow until his feet were like mush.”
“So would you like me to distinguish their shoes? Are shoes important?”
I wrote “mush-feet” to the side of “Cinderella’s slippers”.
“Shoes are incredibly important,” Krzystof continued. “Or we should say boots are. A good pair of boots will keep you alive, while a poor set can actually kill you. Boots are more important than bibles.”
The girls sighed at his oppressive pragmatism.
I noticed a pattern was emerging. Porn pics and bibles. Girls and gods. Knives and love letters. Boots and slippers. Boots and bibles. Each detail the students recalled formed part of a contrary pair. I captured them on the board with arrows drawing their union. Like brides and grooms.
“I still don’t understand sir,” Pawel spoke again. “Why does Billy wear slippers? Isn’t he a soldier?”
“Oh Pawel. It’s like you come to us from your own planet. A Tralfamadorian. Is Billy a soldier?” I asked.
“He’s not a soldier? He’s in the war.”
“So what. Does that make him a soldier? Would it make you a soldier if I suddenly put a gun in your hand and sent you off to Germany?”
“Well…”
“I remember why he had them,” Wiki said. “It had to do with the performance of Cinderella. With the British soldiers. There was a performance and Billy ended up with the slippers.”
“Can you explain the context of the play?”
“I have no idea.”
“It was to keep morale up,” Krzystof said. “They’re all POWs. They’re waiting for the war to end or to be shot. The British soldiers want to keep morale up. They make the Americans look like idiots.”
“How do you mean?”
He perked up in his chair.
“The Americans lack discipline,” he said. “They’re lazy and disorganized. They look like crap, they don’t take care of themselves. And they turn on each other, which I found interesting. You would never hear about Polish soldiers turning on each other in the middle of war.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I’m sure.”
“You don’t think war demoralizes soldiers, no matter what side?”
“Sir, no offence, but the Poles did not turn on each other in World War II. They knew who the enemy was. The Americans, they’re just a collection of individuals. Weary wants to kill Billy. Lazarro wants to kill Billy. They don’t know who their leader is. They blame each other instead of banding together. The British soldiers know how to keep their spirits up.”
“So Billy Pilgrim is in the book to serve as the the de facto leader of the American idiots?”
“No, no. I don’t mean that. I think Billy is just a misfit. A clown. He doesn’t belong in any army. He doesn’t belong in war.”
“Who does?”
“Well, that’s a good question.”
I checked my watch. Ten minutes to the bell. I had to get to the last contrary.
“We should talk about that diamond now. Maja?”
“Huh?”
“You mentioned Billy’s diamond. You’re thinking of the jacket lining.”
“Oh yea.”
“What about the jacket lining?” Wiki asked.
“Billy’s jacket,” Krzystof said. “It’s more like a costume. It was patched together from different sections of older jackets.”
“Wasn’t part of it fur?” Monika asked.
“And silk.”
“Makes sense doesn’t it?” I asked rhetorically. “Fine silk sewn into fur.”
I wrote “silk-fur jacket” on the board.
“I think it was pieced together from the jackets of dead soldiers,” Maja said. “Because in the jacket lining there were two lumps.”
“Oh, I remember!” Wiki said. “The teeth. That was strange.”
“Why should teeth be strange? They’re important. Just like boots.”
“It’s just something you don’t expect! A soldier walking around with teeth sewn into his lining.”
“Well, this is his survival kit. And they’re dentures. Not ordinary dentures. I think Vonnegut called them obscene. They were made from silver. There was still food left in them.”
She looked at me.
“The dentures were sewn into the lining. They weren’t being kept in order to use, only to save for after the war. They had value. Where do you think they came from? What happened to the owner of the teeth?”
“He probably got his face blown off,” Krzystof said. “Or maybe the dentures were carved out of the guy’s mouth while he was still living. Like the gold teeth of Jews. The Germans collected mounds of that stuff.”
“Ohhhh…” Wiki said.
“Dentures are pretty important sir,” Hakeem added. “A man can’t live without teeth.”
“Or boots.”
“And spoons,” Maja said.
“Spoons?”
“You remember,” she said suddenly lively. “The spoons were needed for the syrup.”
“The syrup?”
“Wait a second,” Wiki said, “we’re moving around too fast.”
I was busy capturing all the pairs on the board.
“Minerally enriched syrup,” Krzystof continued. “They produced it in the Dresden factory. It was for pregnant women. But when the POWs discovered it, it was like gold. Whoever worked there tried to eat it in secret. But you had to have a spoon. So they hid them, probably because if the spoons were discovered, they would be shot.”
“This is lunacy,” Filip said.
“It’s war.”
“Sir,” Maja said. “We haven’t finished with the diamond!”
“Right!” I said, hoping the bell wouldn’t ring. “Go ahead.”
“On the other side of the jacket lining there was another lump. And it was fit with a diamond. Billy was holding onto that for his wife. He got this jacket made from the jackets of dead soldiers and it had a diamond in it.”
“Somebody’s life savings,” Krzystof said sarcastically. “It’s all about chance sir. Billy’s the most pathetic soldier, but he ends up with a jacket that has a fortune in it. A diamond for his wife. Meanwhile, Derby, a good man and a father, is shot just when you think the war has ended. For taking a teapot! Everything’s just chance. There’s no reason to anything!”
“Look at our list class,” I said while paraphrasing the denture-diamond contrary. “Look at how war reduces man, to syrup and diamonds…”
“Porn and religion…”
“Sex and death…”
“Boots and spoons...”
“Love letters and torture…”
“Pregnant women and knives...”
“Animal skins...”
“And silk.”
“It’s like, war just makes everything equal,” Maja spoke with a wondrous tone. “I mean it makes everything equally valuable, and valueless.”
“Oh! That’s brilliant!”
I wrote Maja’s line at the top of the board. At last, we found our lesson objective.
“I’d go further sir,” Krzystof said. “I’d say it makes everyone equally valuable, and valueless.”
“Yes. True,” I said. “Billy and Derby. The Brits and the Americans.”
“The Germans and the Jews?”
We hung on the question. The curtains swayed in a breeze.
“Wow. I didn’t expect to arrive at that reconciliation.” I checked my phone quickly. Still more time. “Listen class, what does it say about war that everything and everyone, no matter how opposed, no matter how high or low, is equally valuable and valueless?”
Krzystof swallowed and digested first.
“It says that the world is turned upside down,” he said. “It’s like the hanging Pole. It’s tragic, but really it’s upside down. It’s death where there should be life.”
“The hanging Pole. Very nice to refind him. We kind of left him, hanging.”
The joke was a little too dark.
“Sorry. But if war is absurd, it seems absurd humor is called for. Right?”
I studied their tilted expressions. The book had caught on. It was large in our collective hands. We had entered its consciousness.
“I still think it’s just plain brutal,” Wiki reasserted. “It’s Weary and his knife. Some people like war. Men like war.”
“Not Billy. Can we place Weary and Billy side by side, just like the porn pic and the bible?”
“Ugh,” she could not contain her aggravation. “Everything goes with its opposite!”
“Killers and pacifists?”
“So it goes!”
“What’s a pacifist sir?” Pawel asked, coherently.
“It’s someone who does not believe in war, does not believe in acts of aggression. Or who is incapable of such acts.”
“Sir,” Hakeem asked, “are you a pacifist?”
“Yea sir. Are you Billy Pilgrim?”
“Back to the Jewish jokes?”
“No sir, really.”
I placed the marker down.
“With my Cinderella slippers? It’s hard to say. You know, the war I’m most familiar with is Vietnam. We had a full-scale draft for that war. The boys who fought were not soldiers. They were kids like you, with peach fuzz on their chins. Given a gun and trained to kill. Some must have been like Billy Pilgrim. Most.”
“So you are Billy sir?”
“Could you be trained to kill?”
“It’s in everyone’s nature sir,” Krzystof said.
“Is it?”
I looked to Wiki. Her wide open eyes told everything, equally valuable and valueless.
BRRRRRRRNNNNNNNNNNG!!!
The students responded instinctively to the bell, shaking off whatever spell we were under. Some turned to their iPhones, others the windows. The hallway gathered up a steam. I lingered by my mess of a board. Did it add up to anything? A final solution? Where did I want to go with these paradoxes?
My initial teacher anxiety was replaced with a new one — now that we had waded through to the middle of the book, how to finish? What shore did I wish to reach? I sat at my desk and wrote feverishly in my notebook. The students waltzed out the door and stayed there throughout the break.
For Fourth Period of A Teacher’s Tale, please see:
