Happy Birthday, Wanda June Page #10

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PAUL:

She met him at college.

HAROLD:

(startled)

College!

PAUL:

They were in the same creative

writing class.

HAROLD:

College?

PAUL:

She has a master's degree in

English literature.

HAROLD:

What a pity! Educating a beautiful

woman is like pouring honey into a

fine Swiss watch. Everything stops.

(pause)

And the doctor? He worships your

father, too?

PAUL:

He insults him all the time.

HAROLD:

(delighted)

Excellent!

PAUL:

What's good about that?

HAROLD:

It makes life spicy.

PAUL:

He doesn't do it in front of me,

but he does it with Mother.

(indicating HAROLD's portrait)

You know what he called Father one

time?

HAROLD:

No.

PAUL:

"Harold, the Patron Saint of

Taxidermy."

HAROLD:

(measuring his opponent)

What does he do--of an athletic

nature?

PAUL:

Nothing. He plays a violin in a

doctors' quartet.

HAROLD:

Aha! He has a brilliant military

record, I'm sure.

PAUL:

He was a stretcher-bearer in the

Korean War.

(pause)

Were you in a war with Father?

HAROLD:

Big ones, little ones, teeny-weeny

ones--just and otherwise.

PAUL:

Tell me some true stories about Dad.

HAROLD:

(unused to the word)

"Dad?"

(accepting it)

Dad.

(to himself)

The boy wants tales of derring-do.

Name a country.

PAUL:

England?

HAROLD:

(disgusted)

Oh hell.

PAUL:

Dad was never in England?

HAROLD:

Behind a desk for a little while.

(contemptuously)

A desk! They had him planning air

raids. A city can't flee like a

coward or fight like a man, and the

choice between fleeing and fighting

was at the core of the life of

Harold Ryan. There was only one

thing he enjoyed more than watching

someone make that choice, and that

was making the choice himself. Ask

about Spain, where he was the

youngest soldier in the Abraham

Lincoln Brigade. He was a famous

sniper. They called him "La

Picadura"--"the sting."

PAUL:

(echoing wonderingly)

"The sting."

HAROLD:

As in "Death, where is thy sting?"

He killed at least fifty men,

wounded hundreds more.

PAUL:

(slightly dismayed at

such murderousness)

"The sting."

HAROLD:

Ask about the time he and I were

parachuted into Yugoslavia to join

a guerrilla band--in the war

against the Nazis.

PAUL:

Tell me that.

HAROLD:

I saw your father fight Major

Siegfried von Konigswald, the Beast

of Yugoslavia, hand to hand.

PAUL:

(his excitement rising)

Tell me that! Tell me that!

HAROLD:

Hid by day--fought by night. At

sunset one day, your father and I,

peering through field glasses, saw

a black Mercedes draw up to a

village inn. It was escorted by

two motorcyclists and an armored

car. Out of the Mercedes stepped

one of the most hateful men in all

of history--the Beast of Yugoslavia.

PAUL:

Wow.

HAROLD:

We blacked our hands and faces. At

midnight we crept out of the forest

and into the village. The name of

the village was Mhravitch.

Remember that name!

PAUL:

Mhravitch.

HAROLD:

We came up behind a sentry, and

your father slit his throat before

he could utter a sound.

PAUL:

(involuntarily)

Uck.

HAROLD:

Don't care for cold steel? A knife

is worse than a bullet?

PAUL:

I don't know.

HAROLD:

The story gets hairier. Should I

stop?

PAUL:

Go on.

HAROLD:

We caught another Kraut alone in a

back lane. Your father choked him

to death with a length of piano

wire. Your father was quite a

virtuoso with piano wire. That's

nicer than a knife, isn't it--as

long as you don't look at the face

afterwards. The face turns a

curious shade of avocado. I must

ask the doctor why that is. At any

rate, we stole into the back of the

inn, and, with the permission of

the management, we poisoned the

wine of six Krauts who were

carousing there.

PAUL:

Where did you get the poison?

HAROLD:

We carried cyanide capsules. We

were supposed to swallow them in

case we were captured. It was your

father's opinion that the Krauts

needed them more than we did at the

time.

PAUL:

And one of them was the Beast of

Yugoslavia?

HAROLD:

The Beast was upstairs, and he came

running downstairs, for his men

were making loud farewells and last

wills and testaments--editorializing

about the hospitality they had

received. And your father said to

him in perfect German, which he had

learned in the Spanish Civil War,

"Major, something tragic seems to

have happened to your bodyguard. I

am Harold Ryan, of the United

States of America. You, I believe,

are the Beast of Yugoslavia."

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