by Leo Litwak
“What’s your interest?”
“You are a fool and a Jew, so”—he said mockingly in Yiddish—“ich hob rachmoniss, I take pity.”
For someone so young and so displaced he was annoyingly cocksure.
THE SCHEME CAME off without my help.
Maurice secured transport and passes. He and Willy traveled each day, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon. They traveled across Saxony along routes Willy had explored as freely as if the war were over. In a couple of weeks they disposed of the cache of apparently worthless marks and converted them to stamps.
Maurice complained afterward that the stamps were so deeply discounted he had ended up with little more than a hundred dollars. It was better than nothing but he was suspicious of the accounting.
Willy pretended to be shocked. “I thought you would thank me for turning nothing into something.”
“Something for you, almost nothing for me.” Still Maurice appreciated the buccaneer spirit. He told me, admiringly, “Be careful when you deal with the kid. Like me, he don’t give a fuck.”
Willy handed me twenty dollars. “For your part.”
I had no part and didn’t want his money.
“In Münden it seems you signed the postal receipt. The money is for the loan of your name.”
I refused the money. I hadn’t rented out my name. It was stolen from me. He knew I opposed his schemes. Why did he want me involved? Was he afraid I’d report him to the MPs? Then he shouldn’t have let me in on the plan in the first place. I told him to watch out. He was a displaced person. He didn’t belong here. His days in Grossdorf were numbered. Did he have no shame?
“What shame do you want me to have?”
“You encourage the stereotype of the Jew as a money hustler.”
“I’ll tell you in three languages what I think about that. I do not give a fuck. I do not give a fuck. I do not give a fuck.” By the third repetition he was snarling.
WILLY WAS POPULAR with the GIs. He knew our pleasure and aimed to please. He provided drinks and snacks for a weekly show Maurice put on at a saloon in downtown Grossdorf. Willy brought in a local accordionist, fiddler, and drummer to back Maurice’s harmonica and singing. Willy was a source for our Pilsner beer. He crossed the Czech border to buy kegs of the light brew. He was able to pass behind Russian lines. We may have been immobilized waiting for the Russians, but not Willy.
Maurice put on his show on Friday nights, a program mostly of pop tunes, like “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” “Amapola,” “Green Eyes,” “Paper Doll,” “Frenesi,” tunes the local talent could handle.
Maurice got us all singing, even Willy, who, one night in an almost toneless but heartfelt tenor, released a German version of “J’attendrai” to accordion accompaniment, the song I’d first heard at the Moulin Rouge.
Komme zurück. Come back, I’m waiting day and night for you, come back.
I had no idea whom this entirely self-sufficient Dutch boy could be waiting for.
Maurice quickly restored the party mood after Willy’s sad song. “Enough kraut. Let’s hear something in the imperial Sprach,” and he started playing “The Music Goes ’round and ’round.”
The elderly German musicians floundered and Maurice shouted, “Halte!” and stopped them. He and his harmonica led us on.
MAURICE HAD SO LONG advertised his imminent departure that we no longer believed it would happen and it was a surprise when Special Services finally called. They wanted him for an army musical being rehearsed in Zwickau to possibly tour the Third Army theater of operations. He was to be immediately detached from the company and sent to Division Special Services.
Nagy told Maurice it would be no fun with him gone. “You weren’t good for much but you were good for laughs.”
The machine gunner, Fisher, urged him to take Nagy along when he left. “We don’t want to hear the dog howl when his master’s away.”
Maurice said he would take a Paris leave before joining the new outfit. “Want me to take a message to your girl in Paris, Doc? What was her name again?”
I hated the foxy grin, the redness of him, a slash of mustache, the flaming hair that perfectly suggested appetites on fire. He was hardly likely to defer to a buddy. It was the fault of my callow, brimming heart that he had learned the glories of Marishka. “I don’t remember.”
“It was Russian. Marishka something.”
“She didn’t have a last name.”
“What was the hotel?”
I refused to recall.
“Something to do with the future?”
“You’ll never find her there.”
“What do you want me to tell her if I find her?”
“Tell her the messenger has lymphogranuloma inguinale, blue balls for short, and to avoid him like the plague.”
Maurice left by jeep in the morning. I admired his nerve and zest and wished I could have his ease of action. But he only served himself, and that I never liked. I was depressed by the possibility that he might find Marishka.
CHAPTER 9
< THE FACTORY >
The textile factory was next to the Schloss Hartmann, separated from us by a wide lawn and a fence and a gravel driveway. It was a one-story plastered concrete brick building that extended from the street to the block behind us, the same beige color as our mansion. From the side porch we could see looms and cutting tables and shelves of material through barred windows. The factory was inoperative save for a few maintenance workers and the owner, Fräulein Hartmann, who showed up every day and walked past us, ignoring our close inspection.
She was a slim, broad-shouldered woman, in her early thirties, always dressed in a long-sleeved white blouse and black skirt, black walking shoes and dark stockings. She seemed imperious and aloof, an attitude perhaps designed to keep us away.
Her first task on arriving at the factory grounds was a menial one. She filled a long-spouted water can from a hose connection on the side of the building and watered the rows of lettuce set among flowers that bordered the factory side of the fence. It was so practiced an act I guessed she wasn’t merely doing the chore because of a labor shortage.
She never raised her eyes from her garden to look at the house where she had lived and where we were now billeted. There was a rust-colored ceramic panel set above the porch entrance that bore her family name in Gothic lettering. SCHLOSS HARTMANN. Schloss means “castle” or “manor” and the house was no doubt the most impressive in Grossdorf, but naming it “Schloss” exaggerated its elegance.
The fräulein couldn’t help knowing she was being watched, but she gave no sign she was aware of us. She didn’t shrink from our scrutiny or rush her pace when she heard Roy Jones whistle.
Her dark blond hair was cut on the bias to the base of her head, exposing a long, firm neck. She had a strong chin, a good hunk of nose—no obvious beauty, but with her shoulders squared, her focus straight ahead, she seemed regal and superior and very attractive. Looking at it from the point of view of the two or three hecklers, her attitude flaunted the true state of affairs. Her garden belonged to us, Germany belonged to us, she and every citizen of Grossdorf belonged to us. Yet here she was, well dressed, apparently well fed, walking her grounds as if nothing had changed. Up the hill, the DPs, some of whom we later learned had worked in her factory, still had found no justice. And there could be no justice till the coming of Military Government. Roy Jones didn’t care to wait.
When the fräulein passed by with her watering can, Roy yelled from the porch, “Hey, Fraulein High and Mighty, me, Roy Jones, is waiting for you in the master bedroom to say, Guten Tag.”
I warned him—jokingly—that the fräulein was officer material.
“What does that mean?”
“It means she isn’t available for enlisted men.”
“Who asked you?”
“Just for your information.”
The following morning he was waiting down by the fence when she arrived. She disregarded his Gut
en Tag and started watering. He followed along on our side of the fence.
“Let me introduce myself, Fräulein. My name is Roy Jones. I’m staying right now in what was your bedroom and I’m having a ball. Donkey shown. Let me return the favor with some advice about your garden. A big freeze is gonna get your lettuce.”
She straightened up, continued watering, and he followed along.
“And if it ain’t a big freeze it’ll be something else. Fräulein, this garden ain’t meant to grow. It’s the gardener that’s the problem. Good men died because of you.”
She walked as if he weren’t there, dunking her spout into the lettuce.
“Take my advice and don’t waste time on your goddamn garden. It ain’t going to make it. I promise you, Babe. It’s done for. The big freeze is coming. It ain’t going to make it.”
They walked out of earshot to the end of the flower border. Did he tell her about shooting German prisoners, stamping out the SS officer with the butt of his rifle, bayoneting fleeing German soldiers? Did he impress on her that he wasn’t a man to be ignored? She entered the factory without a glance of acknowledgment.
I told Roy not to bother trying to educate this woman. She probably didn’t understand English.
“She understands all right.”
“When the Russkies come they’ll make her sing a different tune.”
“I don’t need Russkies to teach her what to sing. She’ll sing ‘Dixie’ before I’m through.”
I kept my tone light and amused, close to mockery, but sufficiently ambiguous so he wouldn’t be too pissed off. I didn’t have the nerve to say, “You scare me, Roy. They ought to lock you in the stockade and throw away the key for everyone’s peace of mind.” He considered me, if not a friend, then someone to be accepted.
Late one night we were awakened by howling. Roy, in his fatigues, lit by moonlight, marched through the vegetables and flowers, goose-stepping, letting loose what passed for rebel yells.
The lieutenant came out barefoot, wearing only khaki shorts. “What the hell you doing!”
“Tending the bitch’s garden.”
“Haul your drunken ass out of there.”
Roy, in no hurry, climbed back over the fence.
The lieutenant told Sergeant George, “I want the whole platoon—everyone not on guard duty—assembled at oh-six hundred hours. We’re going to shape up before this whole outfit gets busted.”
In the early morning light we saw the damage. The lettuce was squashed. There wasn’t a flower left standing. The rows of daffodils and tulips and irises were trampled flat.
The lieutenant called us to attention and put us at ease before he would have been obliged to challenge our slovenly coming to attention. He spoke in a shout. The war wasn’t over. We still lived under military law. What had happened last night was unacceptable. We weren’t here to destroy Grossdorf. We weren’t Russkie barbarians. He ordered all drinking on the front porch of the Schloss Hartmann to cease. The beer keg would be removed. He was going to reinstitute a formal retreat and morning roll call.
We were still assembled on the front lawn, going through the charade of calisthenics, when Fräulein Hartmann arrived. She saw the ruined garden, did an about-face, and left.
She had coddled that garden, the first daily act of maintenance she performed in the regulation of her empire.
The burgomaster came on the run. “Eine Schande,” he said to me, nodding at the flowers. A shame.
I agreed. “Eine Schande.”
“Dein Offizier, bitte?”
He spent time with the lieutenant, who understood enough of the burgomaster’s English to do without a translator, and called Roy into his office and commanded him in a shout we all heard to apologize to the fräulein for destroying her garden.
“Hell no!”
“Hell yes, you mean!”
“The lady worked slaves in her factory. What’s the big deal about lettuce and flowers?” Did she think a garden balanced her sins? She was lucky it was only the garden he’d trampled. What were a few rows of flowers when we’d flattened German villages from the Sauer to the Czech border? He’d heard there wasn’t a block of Munich standing and Nuremberg was left with no identifiable address. The dead were so ordinary we passed heaps of them without noticing. “What the fuck use are flowers, anyway?”
The lieutenant warned him for his own good to stay away from the fräulein.
Willy, at the Schloss buying rations, overheard the quarrel. He was all for Roy Jones. He had small regard for the ruined garden. “She feeds her flowers better than she fed her DPs. Some of the women you met in the lager on the hill worked for the fräulein.”
Willy himself had started out at the factory as a stock boy. He was elevated to the office staff to translate instructions to a polyglot labor force of Germans, Russians, Polish, a few French, and Dutch.
I asked how well he knew her.
“I would see her every day at the plant and here at the Schloss.”
“What is she like?”
“If they had royalty in Grossdorf, Gretchen Hartmann would be the queen.”
The factory was a family business and among the Hartmanns she was more the master than any other, Willy told me. She successfully managed in hard times. When more important factories in nearby Chemnitz were shut down for lack of supply, she kept her plant going. When Allied bombing brought almost all commerce in Saxony to a halt, her Grossdorf plant was still operating. Of course, the output was army clothing—everything from winter underwear to overcoats—so the plant was especially favored by the Wehrmacht. Still, to keep it running she had not only to be very clever but concentrated and ruthless.
“When you speak about her you make her sound extraordinary.”
“I have no sympathy for the extraordinary.”
THE LIEUTENANT EVIDENTLY took some heat over the garden incident. The fräulein had friends. He gathered us again to discuss the garden incident. This time his manner was earnest and confidential. He said he wanted to talk buddy to buddy. Forget rank. We had survived the hard tests of combat together, buddies forever. When the war was over and we were back home sitting around the kitchen table, we’d tell stories about Irrel and Trier and the Siegfried line and the pillboxes and the villages and marching fire and realize that part of us would always be with the First Platoon. But we still had a mission in Grossdorf. We were responsible for its well-being. The burgomaster had told him that the factory was the largest employer in Grossdorf. The town’s eventual recovery depended on the factory. “I know it’s confusing,” he said. Germans were the enemy. The nonfraternization policy was meant to keep soldier and civilian apart. But that policy had to be balanced against our need to be in communication with the civilians who governed the town. “If anyone has a problem with the people next door, you come to me. I’m the one will deal with the problem. No one crosses that fence without my permission.”
He asked me to stay after the platoon was dismissed. He wanted me to take a message to the fräulein apologizing for the damage to the garden, inviting her to the Schloss to discuss amends. “Tell her this evening, eighteen-thirty, in my office.”
I suggested that Willy, who knew the fräulein, would be a better messenger.
“No DP carries messages for my platoon. Why’s he hanging out here, anyway? It’s time he went home.”
“I’m not sure he has a home.”
“He’s Dutch, isn’t he?”
“I don’t know if any of his people are left.”
“Let him go wherever he wants to go, but I want him out of here. He can make trouble someplace else.”
I asked what trouble Willy was making. Everyone was involved in the black market. Everyone traded PX rations.
“Come on, Leo. I’m not blind. I know what’s going on. I’m not talking K rations and cigarettes.”
An inquiry had reached Battalion and been brought to his attention by Captain Dillon concerning illegal stamp purchases. Names from our platoon had come up. The capta
in had so far blocked the investigation, pointing to the First Platoon’s outstanding combat record. No one was eager to push the inquiry, but if the captain found that a DP was behind the money laundering, he’d throw the book at all those named.
“For his sake and yours, tell Willy to clear out of Grossdorf.”
“Why for my sake?”
“Come on, Leo. I know he’s your pal.”
I delivered the lieutenant’s message to Fräulein Hartmann. When my German became tangled she said, in a haughty British accent, “You may speak English.”
It must have required a lifetime nurtured by a sense of royal prerogative to cultivate her deep contralto voice of command. I felt awe and resentment.
I told her that we wished to make amends for the damage to her garden. My officer invited her to come see him in the evening at eighteen-thirty, if she was available.
She asked the name of the officer.
“Lieutenant Klamm.”
A lieutenant? She shrugged. It was not possible for her to enter her ancestral home while it was occupied. A meeting was no doubt necessary, not only to deal with the matter of her garden, but more important to discuss the status of the factory. She invited the lieutenant to her temporary residence outside Grossdorf. “If he is prepared to see me this evening, that is fine for me also.” He could pick her up at the factory. “Inform the lieutenant I have no need for a translator.”
I TOLD LIEUTENANT KLAMM the fräulein expected him at her place. He could pick her up at the plant.
“The hell you say.” After a pause he asked, “What’s your impression?”
“She says you don’t have to bring a translator. Just the two of you. She speaks excellent English.”
“What do you make of her?”
“Formidable. Top brass.”
“Not bad-looking, would you say?”
“Pretty good-looking for a factory owner.”
“We got to do something about that damn garden.”
After retreat, the lieutenant, wearing pressed ODs, boots polished, a bottle of wine in hand, drove the jeep to the factory side of the fence. Fräulein Hartmann was waiting and climbed in. They took off and Roy Jones yelled, “See the medic when you get back!”
