Liberated

by Steve Anderson

  “Munich’s Off Limits. Besides, it’s too mucked up, too crowded for any more refugees.”

  Katarina shrugged.

  “Permits are impossible to score. I can’t even get you one. Look, it will get better here. I got you morphine, got it right here without a problem.”

  “Yes, but what made you really come? Could it be to spite our new mayor?”

  “Spite? I told you, I do what I want.”

  “Ah, yes, your so-called S.O.P. But, did you tell your major you take from his inventory?”

  My face was growing too hot and it wasn’t this fire. Maybe I had her all wrong. Maybe the spite was all hers. She was only drawing me in just to torment one of us Amis. That was it, sure, she had her own brand of torture. I poured a glass, drank. “It’s not his inventory. Why should I tell him?”

  “And why should he tell you?” Katarina snickered. “Complicated, isn’t it? Still, wouldn’t you rather make a profit on your medicines?”

  “Who said I wasn’t? Who said I wasn’t going to charge you?”

  Katarina laughed, exposing her white teeth and pink tongue. Moving closer, she filled her glass, held it over her open mouth and, throwing her head back, emptied the glass without it touching her lips. “You won’t because you aren’t like that. I do see it, you know.”

  Her hot, sweet breath had passed over me. I stared into the fire, my hands as fists that pressed at my knees. “You don’t have to do this,” I was mumbling, “as Kompensation, I mean. If that’s what you do mean.”

  “Please. If that was the case, you’d be on your way home by now.”

  “Tell me about Little Marta,” I said.

  Katarina blew out a rope of smoke and sat upright, studying me. “You want to know?”

  “Of course.”

  “Little Marta is Jewish, of course. She’s so young, she grew up in a KZ—a concentration camp.”

  “That’s tough.”

  “You do not know tough. Have you ever seen one?”

  “No,” I had to admit. I’d made the effort to find those bombed-out zoos, but I’d never bothered to see a concentration camp. “She got a mother?”

  Katarina looked away, shaking her head.

  I drank, finished it off. “How she get here?”

  “Wandered in with a pack of ethnic German Poles. Not exactly what one expects. But what is? In this aftermath, this so-called ‘peace,’ allegiances are never what one thinks, are they?”

  “No. I’m learning that real quick.”

  Katarina moved closer. I felt all of her now, her knees and her shoulders framing me up. “Captain, what can I call you?”

  “Harry. Just Harry.”

  “Call me Katarina then. Only privately, of course. I wouldn’t want to break your regulations—‘absolutely no fraternization between occupier and occupied.’” She wagged a finger at me.

  “‘Occupier’? I prefer ‘liberator.’ You?”

  “Liberated.”

  We laughed. Touched glasses. I poured another brandy. Her eyes had locked on me. She slipped a hand around my waist. I felt her breasts against me, her sweet hot breath again. The fire painting her creamy cheekbones with oranges, yellows, pinks. She placed her head on my shoulder and I pulled her head to mine, gently, though marked by an intent that was not so natural, as if I was watching this scene from the midnight sky above. Seeing it play out, as if it was being revealed to me. My mouth found hers and I couldn’t pull away. Not a chance. I slid the overcoat from her blouse, the blouse from her shoulders. I stroked her knee, her warming thigh.

  Ten

  I LAY AWAKE IN THE DARK. I’d been having a foul and agonizing dream. In it I was driving my jeep on that road to Heimgau, my route lined with all those trees, but the tortured, half-naked corpses that were Abraham and old and young Buchholz showed at every bend I steered into, then more new corpses with each new bend, and the faster I drove and steered into more turns, more corpses would appear, skinnier and paler, piling up like all those trees cut down, the trunks of too many men and women and children to count, my relentless twisting road consumed by ever higher piles of corpses and the horror persisted until I somehow shook myself awake and back to reality where, if I just kept at it, I told myself once again, I could go to battle for those corpses just like a dogface had stormed the Normandy beaches or charged the Siegfried Line.

  I stared around my villa bedroom. The moonlight made crazy distortions on the walls with their dark wood paneling that had been slathered over the centuries with a shiny tar-like stain as if candied. This was a true Kammer, or bedroom chamber, complete with timbered ceiling and a decorative tile kiln in one corner for heat. The feel was cozy and alluring, but also cave-like at night.

  Katarina lay next to me. Not such a cave with her in here. It was June now, almost a month since the surrender. A few days had passed since I’d brought her the medicine. Since then we had met at times arranged and improvised, when she could get away. Among Heimgauers it already had become an open secret that Fräulein Buchholz and the Herr Captain were involved.

  Here in the dark, she moaned herself out of sleep and rolled over to me, nuzzling her knee between my legs. She kissed me on the ear. I lay still.

  “What is it?” she said. “The dream is come back?”

  “Yeah.” It had already woken me once that night and I’d told her about it, joking, darkly, that she should be the one having the nightmare. She had agreed, and she wasn’t joking.

  I found her hand and squeezed it. “Do you know what my real name is?” I said. “It’s Heinrich.”

  “I think I like Harry better.” She lay on her back like I was, both of us staring at the ceiling timbers so dark they glistened blue from the moonlight.

  “But I wasn’t always Harry.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” I told her about it. My family got to America in 1928. I was nine. The first couple years we spent in New York City around other immigrant Germans, and I had to learn English on my own. My dad was a baker, mom a seamstress. Manfred and Elise. All they knew of Amerika came from Karl May westerns, silent films, and letters from relatives. Yet the Great War and its aftermath had left them penniless, so they saved for a boat over and never looked back.

  “It wasn’t easy at first. Pop’s big curly mustache gave him away. He spoke no English.”

  We settled in Manchester, New Hampshire. I took to English and learned to suppress my accent by mimicking radio plays and shows. Sometimes people thought I was born Irish or Scottish. My looks helped there. I did have those freckles.

  “What did your parents think of this?” Katarina said.

  “Oh, it amused them, to a point. My father? He always told me the Americans are a good people.” I let out a sigh.

  “But?”

  “But, he also said I’d never be as good as them—in their eyes—because I am an immigrant. He said this matter-of-fact. It was simply the luck of the draw, our draw.”

  The Great Depression wasn’t kind to us. My father lost his bakery job to a local relative of the owner who needed work. Scraping by, dad got odd jobs cooking and baking for WPA construction projects coming out of the New Deal. What was the New Deal? A creative mix of policies and regulations that could do good things for the little guy, even inspire them. This was a new thing for Americans. Many wanted their government to go away. The fat cats wanted government for the people to sit down and shut up, let the barons and the corporations set the tone. They still do. “War’s not even over and there’s some who want to let people fend for themselves, no matter that the odds are stacked.”

  “So, you are like our New Deal? You personally.”

  “The soldiers did their work—now it’s time to do mine. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not naïve. Born yesterday. Stop looking at me like that. Out with it, Kat.”

  “Your Major Membre is not a New Deal.”

  “No. He definitely is not.”

  I didn’t elaborate. I hadn’t told her: I had to consider the major an accomplice, a su
spect even. I hadn’t told her about a certain CIC agent named Colonel Spanner either. What the man offered was my affair. She would see the result.

  She stroked my hair. “You have no accent in English,” she said. “You sound like an American when you speak it. I can tell.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You would be a good actor.” She chuckled.

  “You should know.”

  “Did you ever come back here? I mean, before the war?”

  “To Germany? No, but my parents came over for a summer. This was thirty-six. They took an early boat back home, horrified at what was happening here. Many of our relatives were in the SS or SA. Uncle Hansi in the Gestapo, cousin Roland the SS. Letters made it worse. My father looked like he’d lost a lung after he read my uncle—his brother—boasting about taking the Hitler Oath. Pop told me, ‘I’m never going back. From now on, we disown them. Schluss.’”

  “And then?”

  “What else? Pearl Harbor. Everything changed. America was at war with Germany. And our so-called neighbors, they knew the Kaspars had visited Germany. They called us spies behind our backs. Huns. Heinies.”

  My parents had always helped out at a German Saturday school; it was closed down. That was only the start. People turned scared, suspicious, paranoid. The authorities weren’t much better. Anyone was a threat.

  “They set up these tribunals called the Alien Control Boards. My father was hauled before one. Questioned by the FBI. Roughed up once or twice. Neighbors had denounced us, it turned out. This was about forty-two, forty-three. We had German friends who were taken away. Father of one family was sent to a camp in Texas without a real trial, evidence, nothing. Houses were abandoned. I heard of houses looted. Property seized. Some families even repatriated back here, in exchange for Americans in Germany. It’s still going on. My mother, she lived in constant fear. Pop, he stayed upbeat. By then he was baking pastries again, his love. He knew all the German immigrants, many of them Jewish by the way. Ran a route delivering pastries to elderly Germans. He’d always read the German-American papers. He’d belonged to plenty of groups, just like any German-American—or any American, for that matter. Musical society. Nature hiking club. But the local FBI gang wouldn’t quit. Accused him of passing secrets through his pastries of all things, of going off hiking just to spy on military installations.”

  “And you?”

  “I worked harder, got my head in the books, the typical hard-working immigrant, found my way into graduate school. I enrolled for the draft. I was going to show those Fed heavies. One thing led to another—boot camp, ASTP. I should have been sent to fight, but I get sent to OCS, MG School … funny old world we have got now. I can just imagine Vati und Mutti showing up here like any other German refugees. And if they did find a roof? As MG I could go and confiscate it—a Property Control requisition.” I looked to her, found her eyes. “God, you know I’ve never told anyone all this?”

  “I like that you tell me. How are things now? With your parents.”

  “As of the last letters, things have settled down. They stay away from all things German now. Pop even quit delivering his pastries.”

  Katarina kissed me on the cheek, on my eyelid, my lips. I kissed her. Then I let go, and lay back. I said: “I can tell you. I have a brother. Max. Max was older than me. He was an actor, like you.”

  “Was?”

  “Max traveled back over here on his own, in thirty-nine. He never came back. It was always tougher for Max in America. He was caught between two places. You know? Rock and a hard place. He was an Alien, not Naturalized like me. He tried New York, but Germans were streaming in by then, pros with tons of stage and film experience. It wasn’t only that. Max argued with pop about America. They fought. Max didn’t believe in the hope, in the promise that a guy could get ahead here—back home, I mean. Pop never talked to him again. No letters came, went.”

  “There were opportunities for actors here, with all the German Jews leaving.”

  “Sure. Ever hear of him?” I said. “Max Kaspar? He might have used a stage name.”

  Katarina pressed her hand to her mouth.

  “What?”

  “That’s your brother?” she said. “He was your brother?”

  “You knew him?”

  “Not quite. I knew of him. You are certainly the more serious brother.”

  “Sure. It’s not the first time I heard it.”

  “I saw him at a party or two. I don’t think he found the roles or the success he wanted, but he was one of those who really seemed to love life. Such a small, strange world this is. I’m so sorry, Harry. The last thing I heard, your brother had been conscripted into the army. But so many had. He could be alive. He could be …”

  “Don’t tell me: The Russian Front.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So you said. Don’t be. It’s not worth it.”

  “I take it you don’t think much of him.”

  “Thinking’s got little to do with it. At some point the Feds learned about Max being back over here. It only made things worse for us. They hauled Pop back in again. Kept him for days without due process. So maybe I don’t talk about Max too much.”

  “Did you ever hear from him?”

  “No. Early on there was news. One aunt wrote, word was Max was making his mark on some regional stage. He had a girlfriend, a singer. After that? War smothers a lot. We did get word that he was called up. Then another aunt got a letter through to us that they had received a Missing-In-Action notice.”

  Katarina nodded. “You could go up north sometime. Find your relatives.”

  “Absolutely not. I don’t know them and most are dead from air raids, combat, what have you. Anyway, they’re in the British Zone.”

  “You have your place here. You want to show Max.”

  “No. I aim to prove him wrong.”

  Eleven

  THE NEXT DAY WINKL RUSHED into my office with sad news to report, in confidence: Katarina’s mother had died.

  I tried all Katarina’s haunts, the train station, the family garden plot. The squares, the cellars. Not even little Marta knew where Kat had gone. I cornered Kat’s black market friends, offering all manner of goods and then threats. They would’ve been happy to tell me for a small reward, but no one had a clue. The next day was a Saturday. I resorted to driving out into the county and asking farmers, stray refugees, anyone I found, and they must have wondered at the power of a Bavarian girl to snag a Joe. It concerns an important investigation, I told them, growing a little hot under the collar, or maybe you know something I don’t, is that it? Sunday, I wanted to try to enter Munich for the day, but had no orders, nor leave, nor the faintest clue where I would go to find her there.

  On Monday morning, first thing, I found a message on top of my inbox pile: “See Me p.d.q.—Maj. Membre.”

  Major Membre had kept the mayor’s office for himself, one floor above mine. I knocked on his door and heard: “Come in, before I give you one merry wrath of …” The same old song and dance. I entered. I saluted.

  Major Membre sat behind the desk, arms folded on his chest. He grasped at the watch on his wrist like a commando in a war picture. “Now, Captain, what does p.d.q. mean?”

  “Pretty damned quick.”

  “Correct. And when I say p.d.q., I mean p.d.q. At ease.”

  I unlocked my knees, spread my feet apart, but my bitter glare on my mug wasn’t going anywhere. After my weekend, I was in no mood for his big show.

  Membre peered at me. “I know you’d like to have my job. Do things your own way. You’re trying to usurp me. Oh, don’t I know it.”

  “Usurp hell. I’m trying to help this town.”

  “Are you? So what is your duty anyhow?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Your responsibility. Your role here.”

  “Public Safety.”

  “Is it? It’s not as if a man would know, would he?”

  “Sir, just what are you talking about?”


  Knocking. At the door. Major Membre grinned at me. “Come in!”

  Uli Winkl entered along with the other town officials we’d appointed, a lineup of eight dark suits. They bowed and grimaced. Their Baron Mayor von Maulendorff was not with them. Membre went back around to his desk and sat. To his office, he’d added a tapestry, velvet curtains, and a pair of pewter candelabra. He cleared his throat, once, twice. His face had gone as pale as that porcelain he loved so much, and sweat rolled down it. His nose was running again. He pressed a hanky to it, his hand shaking. He rearranged files and carbons on his desk, looked up and said: “Two locals and an unknown were murdered here. This much we know. First tortured, to be exact, and then murdered. It happened around the day I arrived.” No one was translating this for them. I was probably the only one who understood. “Tortured means, someone was looking for something. What was it? Information? Valuables? I want to know exactly what. So I’m launching a formal investigation.”

  “That’s Public Safety’s role,” I said.

  “Silence, Captain Kaspar. I want this to be, shall we say, impartial. That’s why I’m running this one myself. Bring the Criminal Investigation Division down here if I have to.”

  I must have been snarling and I let it show. Let the bastard see it. Let them all see. “You sure about that? Bring the CID? Here? Who knows what they could find.”

  Membre’s eyebrows rose. He’d gotten the message: There was his plunder racket, for starters. Our eyes had locked. Then the major let a smile spread across his face. He could handle CID, his smug mug was telling me, all it took were a few tokens of Heimgau MG appreciation. Sure thing. Grease the wheels with gold juice. A Stradivarius violin, fine porcelain, a couple looker sisters.

  Still no one was translating. That part of the show had all been for me. His eyes still fixed on me, the major pulled a notepad from a desk drawer and a silver Parker pen. “Translate, Kaspar. Now! Who knows anything?” he said as I interpreted, repeating the part about the corpses, the torture, the major’s own “true” and “impartial” investigation. The men listened with their old stone faces. The major went on: “We and you know the identities of two of the dead. Ex-mayor, his son. The captain here believes the third man to be a former concentration camp inmate, possibly a Jew. Who can tell me more?”