Summer of My German Soldier

Charlene drops Patty off and tells her to look her up next time she is in Memphis so that she can show her around The Commercial Appeal. Patty no longer wants to be a journalist, though. Patty goes home and takes food and clothes to Anton. She brings him pants and a shirt that she gave to her father for Father’s Day the previous year. The shirt is from Oak Hall, the best store in Memphis, made of Egyptian cotton with pearl buttons dyed blue to match the shirt and with her father’s monogram on the pocket. She gave this very special shirt to her father the previous Father’s Day, but he only tossed it aside. Anton, however, silently admires the shirt. He calls Patty by her initials, PB, asking her for a little of her courage when he finds out that he is erroneously being connected to the Nazi U-boat saboteurs and that, as Patty tells him, his timing in escaping is terrible.

After Patty leaves the garage hideout, Freddy comes up to her, and they start talking. Patty muses that they are both geographically misplaced: He is a country boy who lives in the city because his father delivers milk and must be in town, and Patty is a Jewish girl in a place where there are almost no Jews. She admires Freddy for being happy just having someone sit with him; he is appreciative of the simplest things. Patty’s father drives up to the house and is enraged to see Patty with Freddy. He gets out of the car, takes his belt off, and starts whipping her. Anton runs out of the garage and Patty screams to him to leave, and he retreats back to the garage.

As Patty wakes up, she remembers how Ruth nursed her the previous night, after her father’s beating. She goes to breakfast, and Ruth reveals that she saw a man come out of the garage with the intention of intervening between Patty and her father. She asks Patty who this man is and whether he is the POW escapee, and Patty tells her the truth. She also tells Ruth that Anton likes her, and Ruth agrees because she says that she saw him risk his life for Patty.

Ruth says that she is not sure what she is going to do regarding Anton, other than make a “proper breakfast” for him. Anton comes in the house to eat and asks Patty why she was beaten so badly. Patty is not sure how to explain the cruelty of her father and tells Anton that if her father were not her father, she would not like him. Anton suggests that she ask her father why he is so adamant about her not being with Freddy, but Patty tries to explain that, for her father, asking questions is tantamount to contradicting him. He tells Patty emphatically that he does not like her father. Anton also reveals to Patty that after beating her, her father went into the garage and repeated to himself, “Nobody loves me” (133). Anton remembers his interaction with her father in the store and claims that a man who lacks humor, as her father does, is capable of cruelty. He goes further and compares her father to Hitler, suggesting that the only difference between the two men may be the amount of power they wield. He also tells her that she is both beautiful and intelligent. Ruth calls to them, and Anton panics, having forgotten that he ran out of the garage to help Patty and not having considered that anyone other than Patty saw him, but he says he is glad that he did.

Anton sits at Patty’s father’s seat in the breakfast room, and he, Ruth, and Patty talk together freely. Patty is happy having her two favorite people together, getting to know one another. While the three of them are talking, Patty’s father pulls up in the driveway. Anton apologizes for putting Ruth and Patty at risk and says he will leave that night. Patty begs Ruth to tell him to stay because it is too dangerous to leave, but she does not say anything. Patty hides Anton under her bed so that her father does not discover him.

Patty thinks about how her information regarding Anton could give her father the standing in town that he has always craved. She fantasizes that this notoriety would force her father to realize how cold he has been to her and apologize, and they would then have a wonderful relationship.

She walks Ruth partway home after dinner, and Ruth admonishes her not to go near the garage, but Patty does not heed her advice. She takes Anton money, including the money Ruth lent her, that night and begs for him to take her with him. Anton asks if she means that she loves him, and she says yes. He says he loves her, too, and will miss her in his own way. He then gives her a gold ring that has been in his family for generations and asks her to use the ring to remember that she is a person of value and that someone loved her enough to give her this ring.