The Losing Role Read online

  The Losing Role

  Steve Anderson

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2010, 2014, 2015 Stephen F. Anderson

  Cover Image: Planet News/TopFoto

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Also by Steve Anderson

  Lost Kin: A Novel (Kaspar Brothers #3)

  Liberated: A Novel of Germany, 1945 (Kaspar Brothers #2)

  Under False Flags: A Novel

  The Other Oregon: A Thriller

  Double-Edged Sword

  Sitting Ducks

  www.stephenfanderson.com

  The Losing Role (Kaspar Brothers #1)

  In the last winter of World War II a failed German actor, Max Kaspar, is forced to join a desperate secret mission in which he must impersonate an enemy American officer. So Max cooks up his own fanatical plan—he’ll use his false identity to escape tyranny and war and flee to the America he’d once abandoned.

  The Losing Role is based on an actual German false flag operation during 1944's Battle of the Bulge that’s been made infamous in legend but in reality was a doomed farce. In all the tragic details and with some dark humor, this is the story of an aspiring talent who got in over his head and tried to break free.

  The Losing Role is the prequel to Liberated: A Novel of Germany, 1945—Max Kaspar is the older brother of German-American US Army captain Harry Kaspar in Liberated. The third novel in the series, Lost Kin, reunites the estranged Kaspar brothers in 1946 Munich.

  For René, of course

  One

  October 1944

  Max lay flat on his back, in the mud. The mud was cold and seeping through his wool corporal’s uniform. Why were his arms above his head? Someone must have been dragging him. Was he hit? He moved his legs. They worked, thank God—he’d still dance again one day. Fingers? All there. He could still play the piano. He felt at his stomach and chest, fingering the tin buttons, dry leather straps and coarse worn tunic, and found no blood. Lucky man.

  The night sky burst with whites and oranges. In flashes he saw the men of his unit rushing by, their mouths wide open screaming.

  He found his feet and yelled at them but couldn’t hear himself and his heart swelled with panic. Every actor needed good ears—to hear his cues, for timing, to sing any song at all. He slapped at his ears. They popped and his hearing returned to the tumult of a thousand cracks and thumps. He remembered—his unit was being bombarded for the third time that day. The show must go on here on the Eastern Front, and the Red Army was pulling out all the stops.

  Max ran. “Run, boys, run,” he yelled as the others pushed him along. He’d been lying in the middle of the road, a road exposed in all directions by vast fields. The salvos kept coming. One had a whistle to it, a real screecher. It burst at Max’s back and he kept going, the cold wind smacking his cheeks. Soon the bombs were landing behind them and Max glanced back to take it all in—the craters, the bodies and the heap of metal that had been their last working truck. Its tires burned, spitting flames. Nearby lay the tangled lumps of their last two horses. Their last screams were ringing in his ears now, and he wondered if maybe it wasn’t better not to hear. If only he could make this stop. If only he could wear silk pajamas and sip a warm cognac. If only. Napoleon’s winter retreat from Russia was a parade march compared to this. The whole German Wehrmacht was a right wreck in this sector, and his unit was only one shred of it.

  After the bombing the air had a gritty, metallic reek. Max’s thirty or so worn-out comrades trudged on with equal pace as if sharing one mind. They passed through a wood and entered a darkened town. One of the sergeants was waving them onto the main street, where the signs were a mix of German and Polish—Fleischer, Piekarnia, Einbahnstrasse. Rubble and debris clogged the side streets. The town square was too dark, too wide open, so they turned a corner and the sergeant led them into what looked like a modest church or a city hall. It was hard to tell, since its front was blackened from fire. Fatigue setting in, they staggered through the double front doors and hit the floor in the dark, toppling onto each other. The floor was soft, luckily—they had actual carpet under them. Moonlight shone through holes in the ceiling, giving them some light.

  As the men tossed their gear into piles, the women appeared from wherever they’d been hiding, their farm girl headscarves making triangle shapes in the shadows. Whispering, they found their men and curled up to them.

  Anka came to Max, her cheekbones shining blue in the moonlight. She pressed against him and squeezed his hands in hers, her grip as strong as ever (from all that milking, he guessed). These seven or so women were their only stroke of luck. They were Volksdeutsche—Eastern ethnic Germans, who simply could not and would not be left behind to the Red Army. Anka had great legs under that peasant skirt of hers. Max pulled her closer.

  She brushed dirt from his forehead. “The bombs, they knocked you down and out,” she said in her antiquated German. “Drag you along is what I tried to do.”

  “That’s my girl,” Max said. He might be pushing thirty-three years, but Anka was young and strong enough to pull him through the mud.

  As the group settled in, they lit cigarettes and passed them around while others slept, some snoring, some with eyes wide open from the exhaustion and constant terror. Someone wept. Anka pecked Max on the cheek.

  “Say, Maxi. Our horses back there—what if there’s any meat left on ‘em?”

  Always thinking, his girl. What a delight. Max stroked her straw hair. “Darling,” he whispered “the Russians could be anywhere. Lying in wait.”

  Anka grunted. “Does not matter. It’s October. So we must hoard now.”

  She was right, of course. This first real cold was harsh enough yet the truly grim conditions loomed. When Max lived in America, this time of year held so much promise. October brought the Halloween holiday, that strangely pagan dress-up Fest in a land of prudish Christians. It was his favorite holiday there. Everything seemed to remind him of America these days. The further he was taken from her, the more he wanted her. Anka, with her scrapping wiles, reminded him of New York City—and of Lucy Cage.

  Anka sat up. Her face hovered over him in shadow and the glints of her eyes darted back and forth. “You hear me? Do the bombs make you deaf? It’s good horsemeat, that.”

  “Well, I could lend you my knife,” Max said, smiling.

  “No. You go and starve if you want.” Anka shoved at his chest and stood. She lifted her skirt and scurried past the intertwined bodies for the front doors.

  What could he do? The knife line was meant to be a joke. He sat up and lit a harsh Polish cigarette.

  Others were sitting up, hunched silhouettes facing each other. “Where are we?” someone asked. “Who can tell?” replied another, and they huddled around and rubbed their hands together.

  “Maps are no good,” added a sergeant. “Could be into Poland. Prussia maybe?”

  Someone spat and said, “Screw Prussia.” Screw Hitler, this really meant.

  “Soon Old Prussia will be no more, I can tell you that much.”

  They were lost and doomed. If they didn’t die first, they’d freeze in a Soviet POW camp. Max had heard it all before. He even half believed it. Yet something told him he was going to make it, something he’d learned from his time in America. In show biz alone the Americans had a thousand proverbs about survival. “It’s not how you get knocked down,” went one, “it’s how you get up again.” Or, “Rock bottom is a PhD.” They tossed their slogans about like their penny candies, and he’d judged them silly at the time. But now? What else could he believe in?

  Max woke with a nasty kink in his
neck and a whopping headache. He must have gotten a concussion in the bombardment. In the carpeted room, the light had turned a faint purple. Morning was coming, and his Anka hadn’t returned. The sad truth of it helped kill his aching hunger pangs.

  Then, as his eyes adjusted, he saw a second set of double doors across the room. They were cracked open—through them he could make out, shining within shafts of morning light, the tops of rows of seats. This sight was all too familiar. He crawled over to the doors. Farther down, beyond the seat rows, he saw the contours of a stage.

  They were in a theater. They’d been hiding in the lobby of it. How fitting, he thought—a bomb-damaged drama house for a banished actor.

  He nudged at the sergeant sleeping next to him, but the sergeant only snorted and rolled the other way. He clambered over to another sergeant and suggested they move the group into the main hall where it was safer. The sergeant agreed and Max led them in. The holes in the ceiling had showered the hall with dust and plaster chunks, yet its gilded decor still shined. Golden harlequin monkeys served as wall sconces. A red carpet ran down the center aisle. Max strode the gradually inclining lane and gazed at the plush seats, the balcony up above, the orchestra pit before the stage. The place was damp like a barn and smelled like an outhouse, but no matter. Again he thought of New York—there they knew a stage when they saw one. The group straggled in, rubbing their eyes, and Max showed them a little bow. A private smiled, a farm girl curtsied back and Max, grinning, produced one of his last German cigarettes that he had placed in his silver holder (which he kept safe in his boot). “A fine spot we got here,” he said in American English, lighting up. “Just swellegant.”

  The Russians never came so they holed up. The sun beamed down through the punctured ceiling and lit up the gilding, and they kept the doors open so the breeze would kill the damp reek. In the afternoon, Max took the stage and sang for them. He did folk songs and they danced. He did schmaltzy songs. He took requests. He did his best at “Lili Marleen” and nailed “The Ballad of Mack the Knife.” Meanwhile, the sergeants and privates went out on forays and scored sawdusty bread, turnips, and even a stray chicken. As evening came more soldiers wandered in, having heard about the good thing they had going at the theater hall. They brought wine and a potato schnapps that wasn’t too bad. Max told them about New York City, about how much he missed the hustle, the color and the fair chances they gave you. All you needed was luck. He told them:

  “If I can confide in you? I will return there, I can tell you that.”

  No one had seen Anka. They found candles and used them as footlights. Max did Rodgers and Hart, the corniest he knew—“I Wish I Were in Love Again,” from Babes in Arms. No one got the English, but no one was complaining. To keep things lively, he trotted out his impersonation of their Commander-In-Chief, Hitler. Chaplin’s was far better, he knew, but who here had seen the great Charlie? Of course, he was taking a chance. What motif could be more taboo? Yet he gave it everything he had, and soon most of his comrades were laughing and clapping, even the Austrians and the ones who slept with their machine guns. He pranced around and shook his fists and played up the Austrian dialect. He spat and stomped.

  A private bounded in through the open double doors. “Stop, stop,” the kid yelled waving hands.

  Max halted center stage. All turned, listened. They heard vehicles. A sergeant barked at the private who pulled the doors shut. Outside, brakes screeched and engines revved. These sounded like German makes, but who could be sure? The women headed backstage while the men drew their guns and held positions behind rows of seats. Max blew out the candles, and the hall went dark. He crouched down at the rear of the stage.

  A rap on the front doors. A shout: “Open up, please, open up.”

  No one answered it. The voice sounded German, but that meant little—the Russians played impostors all the time.

  The fool kid private had not locked the double doors. The lever turned, the doors opened wide, and soldiers—German soldiers—charged in wearing shoulder flashlights that shot white beams through the darkness. Roughly twenty in number, they took up places along the walls, their machine guns aimed.

  “You can come out. You’re in good hands,” shouted an officer from the doorway. The accent was educated High German—Hanover, most likely.

  “With those guns trained on us?” Max said, chuckling. “My good fellow, show us some civility.” A flashlight hit him in the eyes, but he didn’t flinch. He’d had worse lighting.

  “Very well.” The officer waved for his men to lower their guns.

  The farm girls came out first, clasping their hands together in thanks. Max relit candles for a better look at the soldiers. They were Waffen-SS—the standard combat SS, but this was no frontline unit. At least they weren’t those Special Police bastards, or the Gestapo. Still, they had brand-new gear like those bastards. They shot smiles at the farm girls. Max pulled back, out of the light.

  “What’s the special occasion?” one of Max’s sergeants said.

  The officer who’d called them out was a captain. He strode down the aisle wearing a tailored, shiny leather overcoat. Max hadn’t seen such fine costume in a long time. The captain had a passable henchman’s look, but his jowls were flabby and his eyes too soft. He stopped halfway down, putting himself in the middle of the scene, and studied the worn, tired faces. He pulled his gloves off and slapped them in an open palm. Now that was better, Max thought.

  “So. Who’s in charge?” the captain said.

  “Maybe you could tell us?” one of Max’s other sergeants said. “Sir.”

  The captain wagged a finger. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get you right back to your regiment so you can keep up the fight.” He shook a fist and showed his teeth. “That’s right, Kameraden, we’ll push those Bolshevik bastards all the way to the Orient!”

  Such poor material—it was straight from propaganda section. Heads were down now. “‘The Orient,’ he says,” someone grunted.

  “First things first.” The captain pulled a file from his map case and read. He cleared his throat and said in a monotone, as if doing a casting call, “I am looking for a man, and his name would be . . . Kaspar, or perhaps ‘von’ Kaspar?”

  The word ‘von’ meant a noble background. The soldiers and farm girls gaped at each other. Max had never told this group his old stage name. Some were chuckling now.

  The captain eyed Max. “First name, Maximilian?”

  The group gathered nearer the stage, perhaps to protect Max, perhaps to get a closer look. The whole room was looking to him. He had sat back down, on the edge of the stage. His head felt heavy and he let it hang. This performance was over, show closed.

  “This fine fellow right here is none other than Corporal Max Kaspar.” It was one of the farm girls talking, practically shouting in her Eastern German. “Oh, you don’t recognize him now, not like this—some sorry, worn-out, aging footslogger, aye, but he was a grand performer once. The toast of New York City he was.”

  “Well, not exactly,” Max muttered, “maybe I was laying it on a little thick.”

  The captain held up a promo still from 1940 Berlin—Max in tuxedo and top hat, flanked by dancing girls.

  “That’s him! And our leaders are such good judges of talent, they went and made this man a corporal in the infantry,” added a third sergeant (using one of Max’s own favorite lines).

  “He dances! Sings! Impersonates!” It was the first sergeant, sounding like Max’s press agent. “You want it, our Kaspar has it, from opera to cabaret, drama to comedy . . .”

  The captain held up a hand. He looked to Max. “Your name is Kaspar. In New York you called yourself Maximilian von Kaspar.”

  Max let out a sigh. “True story. Too true.”

  “I must say, you’ve been harder to find than toilet paper out here.”

  “Nothing is so hard,” Max said. “So. Where are you taking me?”

  “Why, we’re taking you back where you belong. Where else?”


  They had little time to say goodbye. Max squared his shoulders, set his chin high, and strode up the aisle as the old gang lined his way. “It’s a special call from above,” said one. “Look, it could be your great comeback,” said another. They said it slowly, mechanically, the way you tell a child the trip to the dentist will be fun. They shook his hands. They hugged him. The women kissed him. One gave him the tongue. What a wench. He loved that about wenches.

  At the top of the aisle, he pivoted to face them. “It was an honor to play for you,” he said and gave a long and slow bow, one arm outstretched. No need to be too grim. After all, they were the ones who had to stay. It was the way the world worked. One day you’re down, and the next? “Breaking a leg,” as the Americans said. If he had any luck left at all.

  Outside, the captain escorted Max to the rear of a late-model Horch command car. The seats were leather and almost warm. Feeling cheeky, Max asked for a blanket, and to his surprise they gave him one. He draped it over his shoulders like a cloak. Before they sped away, rain started to fall, tapping at the fabric roof. The driver handed him a cigarette. It was a rare French Gauloises, made it all the way to the Eastern Front, rich and full of life.

  Max smoked and sat back and thought of lovely Anka. He looked out the window—and saw her. She had returned to the group, who were gathering in the doorway of the theater. She was with one of the sergeants now, inserting herself inside his overcoat, rubbing at his ribs, and laughing. It made sense, Max thought. His Anka had probably run into that SS captain and pointed him in the right direction. She could have made a play for Max, told them she just had to be with him, but she’d placed her bets on a warm sergeant and a shot at more horsemeat. Smart girl, Max thought. Sensible. Can’t teach what she’s got. The sad fact was, comebacks were a lost art these days, and his needy Anka knew it. Then again, he thought, chuckling, she should have seen him do that Rodgers and Hart number.