B004U2USMY EBOK

by Wallace, Michael

  He was sweating, his heart pounded. He looked out the window. The donkey jerked and tossed. The wood rail at the back of the cart had splintered from the impact. The farmer sat on his backside in the road, but appeared unhurt. He rose shakily to his feet, grabbed the reins and tried to calm his animal.

  Helmut rolled down the window. “That was close.”

  The farmer looked terrified, as much to be talking to a German—probably the first he’d ever met, this being so far into the countryside—as over the near-fatal collision. “So sorry, monsieur.” His French was so thick that Helmut could barely understand. “So very, very sorry. Please, I have a family. Do not report me, I beg you.”

  He answered in German, recklessly. “I possess the Soviet battle plans for the spring of 1943. I can deliver the full blueprints of the new British super weapon.”

  The farmer gave a confused shake of the head. “Monsieur? Je n’ai pas compris.”

  He switched to French. “I said never mind, it was my fault. I was driving too fast for the conditions of the road. If you’re all right, we can both forget this ever happened.”

  “I am fine, monsieur. Thank you, you are very kind. Thank you.”

  Helmut rolled up the window and continued into the snow. Lies. What he needed were some even more outrageous lies. The more fantastical, the better.

  “I once slept with my own mother. Josef Stalin is my godfather. Once, when I was little, I tortured a dog. I dropped it in the well and watched it try to climb out until it drowned. Did I tell you I love Jew girls? My secret desire is to father a half-Jew bastard and pass him off as fully Aryan. I will teach him to hate Jews and then, when he’s an adult, I will tell him the truth and watch him suffer.”

  As he invented lies, he modulated his voice, to make it sound as convincing as possible. He would repeat a phrase with the emphasis on different words. This time sound self-hating, this time boastful, this time as if he were confessing under torture.

  It was like practicing for a play. When the time came to step on stage, you would be ready. You would not feel stage fright and you would deliver your lines in such a convincing way that you’d forget, for a moment, that you were acting.

  He had recovered his composure by the time he reached the next road block, some twenty kilometers south of his near accident. He handed over his papers. The soldier thumbed through without comment, then said, “You are from Bavaria?”

  “Ja.”

  “My mother was from Mittenwald. Have you ever been?”

  “Of course. My wife and I have visited many times. I love the pink church. Very charming.”

  The nature of the question was not important. The important thing was for the inspector to ask a question, watch to see how the questioned individual responded. Did he look away, talk too fast? Was there something in his accent that sounded suspicious? Maybe he sounded Austrian or even had a hint of a French accent that no length of time in Germany could erase. Did he sweat? Glance over his shoulder at a bag in the back seat?

  Helmut knew all of this and he knew, too, how to defeat such simple interrogation techniques. In theory, at least.

  The soldiers were all older than Helmut; not a one looked younger than forty. The young men were on the Eastern Front, getting killed by Russians and eating boot leather, if rumors about the ferocious battle at Stalingrad had any truth to them. Another year of this war and they might as well set up recruiting offices in the retirement homes.

  The man thumbing through his papers was the oldest of the bunch. Most likely, his mother from Mittenwald was born before Bavaria had been absorbed into greater Germany. But if he was old, he didn’t look soft. Helmut suffered no illusions as to what would happen if the man discovered the true nature of his business.

  “Have a good day, Herr von Cratz. I hope your business in Tours is profitable for you and for the Reich. Heil Hitler.”

  In France, the Wehrmacht still used the traditional military salute, for the most part, and the old soldier’s zealousness caught him off guard. In his mind, he heard his wife’s irreverent joke. Heal Hitler? Is he sick?

  He’d heard this same joke once while he and Alfonse were listening illicitly to the BBC one night, but it didn’t carry the same weight since ’heil’ and ’heal’ didn’t sound exactly the same in English. Nevertheless, the major had roared with laughter as if he’d never heard the joke before.

  Helmut returned the salute. “Heil Hitler.”

  There would be another, more serious checkpoint outside Tours. Helmut continued toward it.

  He was troubled by the girl in Alfonse’s apartment. Gabriela. Was she a danger?

  There was a hint of Spanish in her accent, although Alfonse seemed blind to it. Half a million Spaniards in France when the war started—mostly Republicans and Communists. Likely, she was one of the refugees, but he wasn’t sure. It had occurred to him that the whole scene in the restaurant with Leblanc’s son could have been a farce.

  First Colonel Hoekman comes, arrests Leblanc’s son on some pretense. The restaurant hostess mounts a spirited defense. Hoekman lets her off with a warning. She goes home with Major Alfonse Ostermann. Who now trusts her. She is pretty, Alfonse is weak and talks too much. And what does she report back to the Gestapo?

  Helmut shook his head. No, that was just paranoia. She was a prostitute.

  “I am feeding information to the maquis. They are planning to bomb the Gare du Nord tomorrow night when the munitions arrive.” He licked his lips. “I would kill the Fuhrer if I could. He is a blight upon the German nation.”

  He paused after saying this last part. Considered.

  Not all of his lies were one hundred percent false.

  #

  Helmut was stopped at the bridge over the Cher near Chenonceau. To the south, the Vichy regime. Germans had recently occupied the south, but they were concentrated on the coast opposite the Americans in Algeria. Someday, everyone knew, the Germans and the Americans would lock in mortal combat, but for now the two armies glared at each other across the Mediterranean like a pair of big, mean dogs before a dogfight, wanting to go after each other’s throats, unable to do so.

  How would the Americans fight? They’d done well in North Africa, but they’d started with a huge advantage. The groundwork had been laid by their British cousins and the Vichy French had gone into full boot-licking mode as soon as the Yanks showed up with their tanks and guns. And the Germans were handicapped by that inconvenient barrier to logistics known as the Mediterranean Sea. Rommel couldn’t keep his army supplied.

  When Helmut and Alfonse were alone, the major opined often and strenuously that the Yanks had no stomach for fighting Germans on European soil. Americans preferred to let Russians die on their behalf and would keep supplying Stalin with tanks and jeeps and planes and the petrol to run them until the Russians started to win. And then the Americans and the Germans and the British would sit down over a hock and seltzer and work things out like civilized people.

  “Roosevelt, that’s a Dutch name, isn’t it?” Alfonse told him once. “And that’s just how a Dutchman would think, isn’t it? The Dutch are cunning bastards, but they’re just Germans at heart, aren’t they? This Roosevelt wants to weaken us, but he sure as hell doesn’t want to see Russians in Berlin and Paris. God, no. When it comes right down to it, the Americans will be on our side. The Brits, too. You’ll see.”

  Alfonse could be a smart man in many ways. On other occasions, he was the biggest idiot in the Reich. Seeing as the Reich was full of idiots these days, that was quite an accomplishment.

  As for the prostrate nation that had once been known as France, the center of the country was still largely ruled by the French. One wave of his papers and any French police would send Helmut on his way. This German crossing was the difficult part.

  When he reached the bridge, an SS captain ordered him from the car and took his papers. Helmut kept his briefcase tucked under his arm. A soldier walked around the car with a mirror on a pole, inspecting the underc
arriage. If something looked wrong down there, they’d soon have the car in pieces. He was counting on the contents of the briefcase to distract them from a more thorough search.

  A man with a German shepherd on a leash followed the riverbank. The dog’s breath steamed as it paused to sniff at something in a clump of grass. A light mist rose from the river. There were several stone cottages along the riverbank and they’d been turned into some sort of barracks, guarded by sand bags and machine gun nests.

  “Come with me, Herr von Cratz,” the captain said. The man led him into the nearest stone cottage, which had been converted into a guard post. A corporal with a submachine gun gave a Hitler salute as they entered.

  As Helmut expected, the money in his briefcase attracted interest. The captain took out the money and set it to one side, then ran his fingers along the interior as if looking for hidden compartments. Helmut felt his heart rate accelerate slightly. If they paid similar attention to his car, he would be in trouble. Perhaps outside they would be, perhaps at any moment a corporal would come in and whisper something in the captain’s ear. Tell him what they’d found.

  “Twenty-five thousand marks is a lot of money, Herr von Cratz.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Why not carry francs, if you are planning to cross into the Vichy zone?”

  “I arrived in Paris last night from Munich,” Helmut said. “Francs are rather hard to find in the Reich. And the reichsmark carries somewhat more weight these days than useless French paper.”

  The SS captain shut the case holding the stacks of 20 mark notes. He did not yet hand it back or order von Cratz to return to the vehicle. “And you travel alone, and by car. This is a dangerous part of the country for a lone German carrying a large sum of money. What a risk to take.”

  “If the maquis target my car, I’ll have other things to worry about than losing a few marks.”

  “Still, why not take the train and ride with other Germans?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Which are?”

  “Are my papers not in order?”

  The SS officer thumbed through them a second time. “Yes, they appear to be. But you did not answer the question.”

  “You may call headquarters if you must. But I can’t divulge the nature of my trip. Surely you understand.”

  The captain seemed to consider this. He seemed a bright young man, alert, but Helmut didn’t sense any malice. So many of these SS officers had to lord it over you, remind you that at any time they could drag you away somewhere and nobody would ever hear from you again. Maybe if more SS were like this young man. the world wouldn’t be in its current state of absolute scheisse.

  Which begged the question of why the captain was in the SS and not in the regular army. Why join up if you didn’t harbor a sadistic streak, if you didn’t enjoy power and its many uses? If you hadn’t been the kind of boy who liked to skewer frogs and light a cat’s tail on fire? Bully the little Jewish boy and all of that. Why bother?

  The captain handed him the briefcase and then the papers. “Very well, Herr von Cratz. You are free to go.” The man followed him back to the car, which sat undisturbed, to Helmut’s great relief.

  As Helmut climbed behind the wheel, the captain raised his arm. “Heil Hitler.” This was an SS officer, so of course Helmut was expecting it this time.

  “Heil Hitler,” he repeated.

  Heal Hitler? I’m not a doctor.

  Moments later he was on the south side of the river.

  He had no illusions that the arm of the Reich could not find him in so-called Free France. But at the very least, the local authorities would be deferential. They would take one look at the signatures and stamps on his papers and step meekly aside.

  #

  Ten kilometers south of the border he found the Molyneux farm. It was late morning.

  He parked at the top of the lane, so as not to get stuck in the mud, then headed to the trunk. It took a minute to pry open the secret compartment. From there, he opened the crate and took out a wad of ration coupons from on top of the main cargo. Moments later he was walking down the lane toward the farm house.

  The house was a run-down version of what he clearly remembered. The gate hinges had broken and not been repaired. The stone wall still marked the boundary of the property in its solid, eternal fashion, but the barn on the other side was faded and the doors missing. Five years ago, there had been animals everywhere: chickens, cows, goats, pigs, draft horses. Now, a single, scrawny dog barked angrily, confronted him as he stepped out of the car and then slunk off with a whimper when he sharply told it to back off.

  Two women were lifting a basket onto the porch, filled with coal scraps. They set down the basket and stared. Coals dust blackened their hands and smeared their faces. He’d passed the rail yard a few kilometers back, and they must have walked all this way, carrying the basket of gleanings.

  “Marie-Élise,” he said.

  The younger woman stared. Her breath puffed into the cold air and her breast heaved from the effort. A light, chill rain fell from the sky and dripped off the end of her hair. She was an older, thinner version of what he held in memory. But still achingly beautiful. Her green eyes were hard, like stone, but a tremble at her lip betrayed her.

  She recovered quickly. “Ah, a German. Sorry, we have nothing left to steal. Not even our wheelbarrow, as you can see.”

  He looked at the house with the broken shutters and a cracked window, unpainted, weedy and thought about how meticulously neat the Molyneaux patriarch had kept it before. “What happened here? Where is your father?”

  “Gone to Germany to work.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Him too.”

  “But he’s just a boy,” Helmut said, surprised.

  “He was fifteen when they offered him the chance to volunteer.” A note of irony as she said this last word. “They promised to send him home with a good wage when his term is up. I have doubts. You know how Germans always break their promises.”

  “Let me help with that basket.”

  “Don’t bother, we can manage.”

  “Is there something I can do?”

  “Why did you come, Helmut?”

  “I brought you something.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  The woman’s mother turned. “Marie-Élise.”

  “I don’t want it, mother. I don’t want anything this snake has to offer.”

  “But we’re desperate. We have nothing. We—”

  “Go inside, mother. Go inside now and don’t come out until he’s gone. And when I come in, never mention this visit or this man’s name again.” Marie-Élise didn’t take her eyes from Helmut’s as she said this. The gaze was so intense he had to look away.

  Madame Molyneaux nodded, then turned inside without another word.

  “I’m sorry,” he said when they were alone.

  “It has been four years. Four years without a word.”

  “The war,” he said. The words sounded even more feeble as he spoke them than they had in his head. “You know how difficult it became.”

  “You promised. You knew there would be fighting and you said you’d find a way to get me. I thought you must have been taken into the army and then what? Killed? You don’t know how much I suffered just wondering what had happened to you.”

  “So why are you so angry? Why aren’t you happy I’m alive?”

  “Because I found you. I looked, and I asked, and I paid money—money we didn’t have—and I found you. And I figured out why you never wrote or came like you promised. You got married.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “Conneries! You had a choice.”

  “It was the war. I was going to lose my business, everything. I couldn’t marry a French girl. I needed help, contacts. Loise was the daughter of a man who could—”

  “My god, I don’t want to hear her name,” she interrupted with a grimace. “Listen to you, you make it sound like you’re some J
ew, who needed to flee the country in the middle of the night. You’re a man of privilege, no doubt you and your family have prospered greatly by the war. I can tell just by looking at you and your car too. So you got married, you probably have children. Well good for you, but after everything that happened between us, everything you promised to me, everything that’s happened to me since then? Excuse me for not wishing you well.”

  “I understand,” he said. He hadn’t expected hugs and kisses and tears of joy, but he’d hoped for understanding and forgiveness. This vitriol hurt and it hurt more to think about what she must have suffered in the past few years. Look how thin she was, the pain etched on her face.

  “You don’t understand. There’s no way you could understand. Not yet. Maybe some day, when the war comes to your own country, maybe then.”

  “I brought you something.”

  “You said that already. And I said I don’t want it.”

  He reached into the pocket of his greatcoat for the ration cards, which he tried to hand to her.

  “What is this merde?” she asked.

  “You’re not blind, look.”

  “Yes, ration cards, so what?”

  “Look, this isn’t just rotting potatoes. Look at these cards, you can get milk, grain, even pork and sugar. Cooking oil! I brought enough cards for four people to live well for six months.”

  Ration cards were more valuable than money, at least for a French girl like Marie-Élise and her mother. And these were T-cards, for manual laborers, which gave extras to compensate for the heavier work load.

  She shook her head as she stared at the cards, wide-eyed. “No. Don’t do this, no.”

  “There are only two of you, it could last a year. Maybe longer, maybe the war will be over then. But you’ll have to be careful. This much food could attract attention.”

  “I don’t want your help, why won’t you listen to me?” Her voice was anguished.