Liberated Page 4

  First, though, I would have to find a way to communicate with Major Membre on the level, a challenge I feared might just require learning Mandarin Chinese. I certainly had no time for it. Late that first afternoon I met the other six MG officers, a quick introduction of hands shook, and hometowns shared. Wilks, Gerard, Ellis, and Carlson were the names I remembered, Wilks a captain and the rest lieutenants—political affairs, education and culture, quartermaster, and administration, the usual breakdown of posts with a few enlisted clerks on the way.

  Then it was on to Colonel Spanner’s GIs. As Major Membre ordered, I set up the poker that night in the Imperial Suite of the Heimgauer Hof Hotel. I had hoped Colonel Spanner would show, but he didn’t. And as it turned out, getting MG and these GIs to mix wasn’t a great move. The MG officers wanted to hear frontline combat tales from the GIs if they had any, but the dogfaces felt more like clamming up and then barking, and a fight almost broke out. After that, the GIs played alone off in a corner, their game somber, all grunts and snickers. At least Major Membre wasn’t there to foul things worse, I thought, and so I set out to patch things up. I brought in a record player, got a bottle of rye flowing.

  I got Sergeant Horton alone at an open window. Horton was pissing out the window. I didn’t reprimand him for it, because he probably expected as much from a rear-line commando like me. After he’d buttoned up, I asked him about the three corpses I found. Any information he could provide would be appreciated. It was a long shot, but wasn’t all this?

  Horton turned to me, face slack. “Who’s asking?”

  “We don’t need killers in this burg. There’s enough to deal with.”

  Horton laughed. He patted my shoulder. “Flanking maneuver. There’s a nice tactic, Cap.”

  “How you mean?”

  “Come on. You just want to know what’s in those train cars.”

  I smiled, swirling my rye. “Hey, who doesn’t want to know the score?” I said, going easy, but Horton only wandered off to rejoin his crew.

  I could have cared less about the freight cars. So why had I said that? It just came out, bubbled up from somewhere.

  At nine p.m. I left the hotel for my billet, my head fuzzy from the rye and smoke. The sun had set and curfew began, bringing a purple sky and dark streets, and I saw that my new Police Chief Winkl had already posted some signs using our MG stencils. “Non-Fraternization Rule Strictly Enforced.” “Attention: Curfew in Effect Until Six A.M. Tomorrow.” “Violators Punished to Full Extent of Martial Law.” Good man, I thought. And just how our Major Membre liked it—laying down the law with big ugly signs. I strolled on, and I turned a corner.

  I heard a rattling sound. On up the street, I saw a man lugging along a small cart. I had to follow. It was curfew, after all.

  The man crossed Cathedral Square and picked up speed, his stride both graceful and clumsy as the cart’s little steel wheels battled the cobblestones.

  “Hey, you! Stop there!” I hurried on, following him down a side street.

  A narrow alley led me to a small square surrounded by empty shops and a boarded-up pub. The man had found an arched doorway, and now pressed himself up against the dark shadowed door face first, doing his best with just about nothing.

  I crossed the square, unfastening my holster. “I see you. Come here. With hands up.”

  The man turned and, raising his hands, stepped on out. His face was pleasant enough but in the same way that a smile held for a camera was better to glance at than look at too long. Sweat soaked his face, which lent a shine to the scar along his left jowl. It was an actual dueling scar, the true mark of every blue-blooded German fraternity lad. Glossy thin mustache, black hair. He looked well fed, if not pampered, and just shy of middle age. He wore a black leather motoring jacket with fur collar and high boots, all in all looking more like a circus ringleader than the privileged German on the run he probably was.

  He shot a smile at me and pleasant wasn’t the word anymore. Gold crowns sparkled. His eyes bulged, bloodshot. He stammered in English, “Look here, mein Herr, it’s really nothing suspicious. If that is what you think.”

  “That’s what you’re thinking. I was thinking how you’re breaking curfew.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. First, allow me to …” He bowed to me, like out of some costume play, and it was all I could do not to roll my eyes. “I am a baron by title, the Baron von Maulendorff,” he said. “My family is Heimgau. Like any harmless German, I had hoped to return home, finally, but your Military Government has requisitioned my mansion. So, this curfew is a daunting prospect for me.” The so-called baron gestured toward the cart. “But, perhaps you will let me off this one time, for a small largess?”

  Fool, I was thinking. Who does he take me for? Who does he take MG for? “Tell you what. Why don’t you show me this cart of yours—the whole cart?”

  The baron sucked on his shiny teeth. He rolled his toy cart out of the doorway as if it was full of bricks. The thing was a sight up close, with cherry wood and floral carvings and a Bavarian checkered tarp that I tossed aside. I pulled out a beaded gown and a pinstriped suit and set them on the sidewalk. Bottles of Pernod, Hennessy and a dusty Vermouth. At the bottom, between two pillows, lay a porcelain figurine of a court jester. Hand painted, glowing somehow brighter than white. The jester was grasping a flute and scratching at his harlequin smock belly, and the mouth cackled in a grotesque way that made this baron’s smile look like a songbird’s.

  “Just feel its weight. Under the base you find the crossed swords painted in blue. It’s correct in every way—a Meissen, to be exact. Seventeen forties. Fine posing, excellent detail.”

  What did I expect? Silencer pistols? Secret map to some Nazi hidey-hole? I laid the jester back in the cart. “The black market’s not my game. Tell you what. Let’s trade for something else.”

  “Ah. But, what else is there?”

  “Information.”

  The baron exchanged glances with imaginary friends—one to his left, another to his right. “Continue, please.”

  I switched to German: “Yesterday I found three corpses on the Heimgauer Strasse. Not long deceased. They’d been tortured, from the looks of it.”

  The baron was watching me with softer, wearier eyes. His imaginary friends, long gone. He shook his head and, frowning, began backing up.

  “What are you doing? Hold on.”

  The baron retreated ever faster, shuffling backward. He ran off out across the square.

  “Stop! I’ll shoot!” Fumbling with my holster I drew my Colt, released the safety and cocked. The baron was sprinting, making for another side alley. I aimed for above his head. I squeezed the trigger.

  Click. Nothing. Click. I hadn’t even loaded the damn thing.

  I ran down that side alley, but only found darkness, another narrow lane that twisted on into others, and more darkness. No one. Nothing but the silence. I returned to the square and remembered the cart, which to my surprise was still there.

  Some manner of business had indeed gone down here, Winkl had told me, and now this baron mucky-muck seemed to confirm it. I lifted out the porcelain jester and took another look. It gleamed and it glistened. I had no idea what the thing was worth. I placed a Lucky on my lips and began pushing the baron’s cart back to my billet, looking not unlike one of those many sorry refugees who were soon sure to find even a backwater like Heimgau.

  When the war was still on, and I was riding southeast across Germany with the rest of the US Army’s rear end, I’d had a recurring nightmare of a daydream about the zoos of Central Europe, Germany, Bavaria, whatever city was closest to my route. What had happened to those caged-in animals during all the air raids, artillery barrages, the raging fires? Who was feeding them? Could they ever escape? Such a fate had to be the only thing worse than being in combat. The animals always had it worse. I had to know, even if the answer was that no one fed those poor creatures, their cages had remained locked tight, and they were so starved that only those very firestorms cou
ld save them from banging away at their bars until they bled and bled. I knew nothing could save them from eating their young, from gnawing away at their own scorched skin and bones. Ghastly, it was—no, evil was what it was, and not exactly a testament to mankind’s progress, but still I needed to know. Telling no one, I went and found a couple local zoos. Either I couldn’t get in or I found them empty.

  It was like that with these tortured corpses. Dead Abraham was practically shouting at me through that dark hood. He had wanted me to know. So my need to know gnawed at me over the next eight days as each new morning brought MG more crises to manage. The promised refugees began to trickle in, each weighed down by ragged clothes they wore in layers just to keep them in their possession. They pulled carts of scrawny children and the sick and they pushed wheelbarrows, buggies and bicycles laden like pack donkeys. Old men humped rucksacks and women marched in clutching rotting produce and meat scraps found on the way. Then the former forced laborers came and it wasn’t pretty. Most were young men who had their best years stolen. For every one that behaved, three had been drunk and violent for weeks and they kicked at the locals and looted even the shops that the locals themselves had already looted. Horton’s GIs were crucial here. Somehow they made order out of it and with an ease that impressed all. It helped the locals lose their scared act. They filled the squares now and all doffed their hats to us; although removing hats for us was an MG rule, I told myself these Heimgauers were people who’d do it anyway. We had some successes. We got full water up and running and most electricity. Then trucks and cars both loaned and stolen brought a wave of more refugees, many of them sent by the surrounding counties’ MGs who just couldn’t take in any more. We turned a former Hitler Youth hostel on the edge of town into a temporary camp. Talk about a mix of peoples, origins, tough luck stories. Whether Displaced Persons, Ethnic German refugees expelled from the East, or those few concentration camp victims who had wandered into Heimgau, all had to be kept together because food stocks were still dwindling. We distributed what rations we had, the DPs and refugees getting first dibs and then the locals. After four days of that, the camp overflowed and we ordered the locals to open their doors and take them in. Something like the opposite of tourism had come to Heimgau.

  I had little time to investigate the missing corpses or the Baron von Maulendorff during this time, although locals, when I pressed them, did confirm the baron was indeed an echt baron and still around too. He did have a home here. One evening I raced a jeep out to his family villa beyond the greener edge of town, a surprisingly modest two-story job with a mock tower keep at one corner. A plaque fixed to a pompous gate read, Maulendorff Palace, and above that the standard sign: “Off Limits. Property Requisitioned by United States Military Government.” So he had been telling the truth in this respect—he did not have his home anymore. Another afternoon I drove up the road to Dollendorf again and found, as I probably expected, only those broken-down workshops, the old rail line, trees and more trees, and that rocky old hill watching over it all. The rail shelter was empty.

  Back in town the hospital was holding on, for now. Soon they’d need medication and more rations. Soon we’d have to get the Red Cross to pass through here. Meanwhile, locals told me the Baron von Maulendorff was popping up everywhere in town—except wherever I was.

  On the ninth day, a Friday afternoon, I tried Major Membre in his City Hall office—for the third time that day. To no avail. The major already had a habit of coming in around noon, earliest, and today was looking like a no-show. The only thing worse than a blowhard was a loafer, I thought and started to march right on up to Membre’s castle billet. Then I spotted the boy-man major himself making his way through Old Town on foot, cutting a path through a crowd of black marketers on Cathedral Square screaming “Rowss!” and “Gay-hen see!” and whipping at the air with his riding crop. I followed. The major headed down a narrow lane, dim and crooked and one of the oldest in Old Town. Around a few corners I found him watching a group of young boys playing soccer, kicking a brown ball against the walls. I stood behind the major. He was beaming as if he’d just discovered a street paved with gems. The boys had gaunt faces with wide eyes, tattered short pants and frayed collars, lean little arms. Not exactly gems. More like feral cats.

  “Sir?” I said.

  Membre shot me a double-take but didn’t lose the blissful face. “Ah, just look at the babies, just bless their little hearts. I gave them that ball.”

  “That was good of you.” They could use more chow, I really wanted to add.

  “Yes, it’s really turning out nicely for them. Just look at them. They would make such a fine choir.”

  The soccer had stopped. The boys stared, only now understanding the importance of two of their chief liberators standing before them. A couple of them ran off. “No, no, no, don’t flee,” muttered the major. He placed his boot on top of the soccer ball and the boys gathered around him. “I American, I no understand your football,” he said in his childlike German, and they laughed and explained the rules to him, and he lowered to his knees to hear better. He waved me over. “Come on and translate, come on.”

  “I have other business, sir. With you. Those tortured men, for example.”

  Membre looked at me just as the kids had when they saw the major. He pulled his tunic down tight, marched over to me, and moaned out a sigh. “All right, all right. More sordid tales of rotting corpses, Captain?”

  “Not more. Same. And they weren’t rotting. They had just bought it, possibly same day. So it’s our responsibility.” Again, I told him about the Baron von Maulendorff, who just might know something. Though I didn’t mention pulling my gun. I hadn’t even frisked the man—some Public Safety officer I was. And again the major listened in silence, nodding at random intervals. We should send a few GIs out looking for this slick baron, I insisted. He could not hide long. “And how could he, Major? I see that you’ve requisitioned his villa.”

  Major Membre snickered. “Oh, you’re a go-getter, I give you that. That’s why I made you Public Safety.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “So that settles it. I tell you what: What are you doing tonight?” he said with a homey smile that put me back stateside but nowhere I wanted to be. “Nothing, I bet. So why don’t you come on up to my billet? What do you say, old boy?”

  Five

  I ACCEPTED THE MAJOR’S INVITATION. How else to reach a CO who was never in his office, who didn’t hear bad news, who’d given me little clue what he wanted here? I could admit I was not the same caste as most would-be MG commanders. Many had been specialists stateside. They taught anthropology, designed Crosley sedans, or headed some school district or electric company board. Others were specialists of another sort. They owed their existence to various states of wealth and power and, being products thereof, came over here to raise their stock back home. The major had to be the latter case, and his All-American roots probably went way back to the Mayflower. I knew men like that didn’t use their offices for the big moves. They made their plays in chummy rooms with smart talking and liquor flowing, and so that’s just how I would have to play him.

  I hiked up to Hohenheimgau Castle and, arriving early, strolled the main rampart wall with its wondrous view. Beyond the treetops and Old Town’s red roofs lay green valleys, a golden horizon. I let the setting spring sun warm my face. I recalled my trusty backgrounders: “Hohenheimgau Castle (ca. 1100) has a dignity not usually afforded to towns of Heimgau’s size. Locals call it a gray, mediocre mass (the “block,” some call it), but it is intact and supremely located atop Old Town’s one hill overlooking the Gothic cathedral below. Old Town with her cathedral is the heart and soul, it is said, and the castle is the head …”

  I had been up at the castle before, on my rounds. But I had only visited the parish offices, checked out Father Plant’s address, the monastery. The few officials, curates, and monks there were still in shock that their Father Plant was gone, Nazi and all. The brown father had ordered them to hide out in the county
until the surrender, and most were only now returning. In many occupied towns, the church would help keep MG afloat. Here it was a dead end.

  Which left my major. Major Membre had the joint all to himself. He had set up his new billet in the newer, rear-side wing of the castle. With its rosy paint, ornate columns, and fenestration and curly wrought iron, this new wing was like an opera house compared to the rest of the castle. Here the sun had already gone under, the sky dimmer. I passed on through a courtyard, where two US Army trucks were parked next to a couple worn German Opels with the plates removed. I entered the foyer and followed a hallway lined with antique paintings—some had been removed, leaving squares of brighter white wall. The air grew warmer and thick with the major’s sweet Paris cologne, and it led me into an eighteenth-century-style sitting room. Gold brocade walls glittered in oversized mirrors. Plush tassels dangled from flowing, satiny window treatments. Yet, in one corner stood a black and silver bar in the Art Deco style. The feel was cheap and pretentious, and I thought I smelled vanilla. Would have made a swell bordello, this place.

  “You’re early.”

  I flinched. The major stood at my back. “Evening, sir. Uh, I just came that way. How did you—”

  “I have my ways. It’s a castle, Captain. Full of trap doors, fake walls.” The major was grinning and panting slightly through his teeth, and I had the uneasy feeling that he had worked plenty hard to sneak up on me.

  “Well?” the major said, holding his arms out to the room. Only now did I notice he was wearing a purple corduroy bathrobe. It had a monogram: R.A.M.

  “Nice billet, sir.” I made my eyes wonder at the room as if I meant it.

  “First thing up here—you can lose the ‘sir.’ Whiskey? Even got ice.”

  We drank, the ice cracking and clunking and a rare pleasure, I had to admit. We made small talk. The major had on a ring with a gleaming red head the size of a walnut, and he kept grabbing at it and screwing it down tight to his knuckles. It might have been a nervous tic, but it reminded me of a doctor snapping his rubber gloves. The major asked if I thought his rings were fancy. I nodded, sure, sure. “This one goes way back to my college days,” the major said, “from the old fraternity, that kind of business; got that one from the Rotary and this one here’s from the Masonic Temple, but don’t tell anyone!”