place, me another and the girls a third,
or just split us up any other way but
where we lose you or both of us lose the
kids, what should we do?"
"What can we?"
"We could say no, stay with our
children. They're small, sick, need us.
We don't want to lose them, we can say,
lose them in both ways, and it's
always taken the two of us to handle
them."
"And be beaten down and the girls
dragged away? I don't see it. I think we

have to do what they want us to."
"We could ask graciously, civilly.
Quick, we have to come to some final
agreement. We can plead with them if
that doesn't work — get on our knees
even; anything."
Half the people have left the car. He
gets down on his knees and kisses the
girls, stands them up between Denise
and him and he hugs her and their legs
touch the children. "Should I start to
worry now, Mother?" Olivia says and
Denise says, "No, absolutely not, sweet-
heart — Daddy and I will take care of
you both."
"Come on out of there," a man shouts.
"All of you, out, out — yours isn't the
only car on the train."
Howard hands Eva to Denise, picks
up Olivia and their rucksacks. "This is
how well split the kids if it has to come
to it, okay? By weight," and she nods
and they walk out.
"All right, you," an officer says to
Howard, "bags on the platform and go
to that truck, and you, lady, go to that

truck with the children." "No," she says,
"let us stay together. Please, the older
girl —" "I said do what I say," and he
grabs Olivia to take her from Howard.
Howard pulls her back. "Stop me, and
I'll shoot you right here in the head. Just
one shot. That's all it'll take." Howard
lets him have Olivia. The officer puts
her down beside Denise. "What will hap-
pen to them?" Howard says.
"Next, come on — out with you and
down the ramp, bags over there.
Richard, get them out faster. You go
that way," to a man coming toward him
and points past Howard, "and you two,
the same truck," to two young women.
"Go, you both, what are you doing? —
with your children and to your trucks,"
he says to Denise and Howard. "No
more stalling." She stares at Howard as
she drags Olivia along. A soldier tugs at
his sleeve and he goes to the other truck.
She's helped up into hers with the girls.
Some more men and young women
climb into this truck. He can't see her
or the girls in her truck anymore. It's al-

most filled and then it's filled and it dri-
ves off. "Denise," he screams. Many men
are screaming women's names and the
names and pet names of children, and
the people in that truck, older people,
mothers, children, are screaming to the
people in his truck, and a few people on
the platform are screaming to one or the
other truck. Denise's truck disappears
behind some buildings. He can hear it
and then he can't. Then his truck's
filled and a soldier raps the back of it
with a stick and it pulls out. They'll
never get our belongings to us, he
thinks. What will the girls change into?
It makes no difference to him what he
has. They'll give him a uniform or he'll
make do. But Denise, the children.
Denise, the children. "Oh no," and he
starts sobbing. Someone pats his back.
"Fortunately, I had no one," the man
says. ❑
Excerpted from The Stories of
Stephen Dixon © 1994. Published by
Henry Holt and Co. Reprinted with per-
mission of the author.

"Life's Worthless If I'm Not Writ

S

tephen Dixon's fat new book, 'The Stories of Stephen Dixon,"
is by no means a complete collection. In it the Johns Hop-
kins writing instructor has gathered 60 of his best tales, a
mere sample of the 450 he's written.
Mr. Dixon, who has also published five novels
(a sixth, "Interstate," will be out next year), obvi
ously does not suffer from writer's block.
"Never, not for a day," he said. "I feel very un-
comfortable if I'm not writing. I feel like life is worth-
less if I'm not producing. I always start something
the day after I finish something else. It's relaxing to
my mind."
Mr. Dixon, who lives in Ruxton, Md., still uses
a manual typewriter: "I like the feel, they've served
me so far."
The 58-year-old writer grew up in New York City,
one of seven children of an Orthodox father and
a not-so-Orthodox mother. When he graduated
from New York's City College in international rela-
tions, he planned to be "a news person." After a
few years as a radio reporter, "I gave it up to write
fiction and never went back."
In retrospect, it was probably not the most fiscally sound deci-
sion. He was 25 — and his first book was not published until he was
40. He supported himself with a variety of jobs — bartender, wait-
er, bus boy, artist's model, salesman, and hardest of all, substitute
junior high school teacher ("I think I went out of my mind.")
"It was hand-to-mouth," he admitted. "I only got married after I got
the Hopkins job. I got the job in 1980, married in 1982."
His wife, Anne Frydman, with whom he has two daughters, is a
translator and scholar of Russian literature.
"Frog Made Free" (the title is a take-off on the slogan at the gate

•

PI

to Auschwitz, "Arbeit Mach Frei," 'Work Will Make You Free") was
among the short stories that appeared in his critically acclaimed
1991 novel, 'Frog," which was nominated for both the National Book
Award and the Pen/Faulkner Award. It is also Mr. Dixon's first use
of the Holocaust as subject. His in-laws, Polish Jews, were both sur-
vivors; the story is rooted in their ex-
periences. Though he found the
subject upsetting to write about, he
was astounded when he read the sto-
ry aloud at a lecture and found him-
self breaking down: "I was overcome.
I didn't know it would have that effect
on me."
Being a writing teacher "certainly
hasn't helped my writing — but it has
given me a living and time to write,"
he said. He admits that he would have
been a poor candidate for writing in-
struction: "I don't give anyone my work
except editors. Never handed it to my
t friends. I'm as vulnerable as the next
writer."
His literary favorites are Hemingway,
Kafka, Babel, O'Connor — and, above all, Chekhov, "to me, the
greatest short story writer that ever lived. His sensibility is always to
be fair. He shows ordinary people facing moral dilemmas, or in
terrible situations." Mr. Dixon, too, is drawn to such so-called real-
istic subjects, though recently he has started experimenting more
with time in his writing: His upcoming novel depicts a number of vari-
ations on a single tale, told and retold.
"Every story has to be different," said Mr. Dixon of his work. 'What's
saved me is that I haven't fallen into a pattern."

—Judy Oppenheimer

