“Stop. They don’t need to hear that, not even in English. What if someone questions them?” I pulled the canvas rucksack off my back and tugged it open. “Now, gals, let’s go over this again. So. You got your meager sawdust bread and turnips in here, for effect, and the three bottles of absinthe, of course, your canteen of water.” Pulling out a vial, I held it between my thumb and forefinger to show a white powder that twinkled. “Now. This here’s what we call a Mickey Finn.”
The sisters frowned.
“It’s a strong narcotic,” the baron added.
“Chloral hydrate, to be exact. A sedative. Other words, knockout drops. They knock a man out. Freddy, over to you—you’re the expert here.”
“It goes in the absinthe,” the baron said. “Half a vial each drink is good, then mix water in the absinthe, so he really won’t notice a thing. Here’s two vials. You should only need one. Okay? Good.” He cleared his throat. “Now, darlings, he might want to frisk you. That means, you must stick these vials somewhere safe.”
Bärbel pursed her lips tight. Brigitta sighed.
“It’s the only way,” I said. “When you get there—if he doesn’t find you first, you’ll see he’s got a little campsite set up along the train tracks. Pup tent, folding chair, fire going with a bucket on a tripod for boiling, you know, much like in a Western picture.”
The baron nodded along. “Like a Karl May cowboy tale. All that’s missing is a horse.”
“And the good guy. Listen. He’s been there over a day at least”—ever since Colonel Spanner left for the Czech border—“and he’s sure to be lonely by now. And thirsty. I visited him just this morning, made sure. Probably be sitting in his canvas chair, maybe leaning on his gun too, but don’t worry; that’s so he won’t fall on his face asleep. He’ll tell you he’s a deserter. That’s what he’s supposed to do—play dum-dum. Got me? Good. Now, what do you tell him?”
Brigitta spoke. “We are also deserters. Runaways. Our parents are dead and we want to get to Vienna, to relatives—which we do—and we are sick and tired of waiting it out so we’re going to hike the way ourselves, we are, right on through the passes into the Austrian Zone. Break into climbers’ huts if we have to. Refugees try it all the time. But, we lost our way already. We don’t even know which way.” Her chin had compressed. Her eyes welled up. She was a natural.
“That’s it, good. And, you followed the tracks hoping a train might come along you could hop. Right? And you play up the poor-me bit.”
“What if he recognizes us, from town?”
“He won’t, but don’t lie, just go with it.”
“Yes. And the rest of it.” They bowed their heads, held each other’s hands.
“You might not have to do anything if you get my meaning. Just get him drinking. Loosey-goosey. Two drinks should do it. But one of you’s going to have to nuzzle and smother him a little so the other can pour in the Mickey. Can you do that? Can you?” The sisters locked eyes. They nodded together. “Swell. Just, make sure he’s comfortable, so he takes that second drink, to make damn sure.”
Brigitta’s face had hardened, and she crossed her arms. “Where will you two be?”
“Here. We can’t get too close, not till you’re sure, absolutely sure, that he’s good and crapped out. And that no one else is around.”
“Then you two run your darling little selves straight back here,” said the baron.
“And we’ll take over.” I shot a glance at the baron, and whispered in English, “This just better work.”
“It will. Certain of my lady friends—ladies of the night, that is—have used the very same mix on all manners of undesirable customers: your party pigs, nasty generals, smitten aristocrats.” The baron grimaced, perhaps having realized the allusion lay too near Katarina. “And it worked for the Gestapo, did it not? Just look at their success rate.”
“All right, all right. All we do now is, we hole up till full dark.”
I unrolled a bedroll and spread it out, and there we four sat. Flies and bees buzzed us and we took turns swatting and missing. As the last light thinned, the mosquitoes took over, whirring in our ears and we slapped at each other, sighing. I wanted a smoke. The baron wanted a drink. I wanted a drink; the baron wanted a smoke. The sisters had to pee, and then they were hungry. We gnawed on sausage and bread. We swatted. Slapped and sighed. I wanted a smoke …
The sky had gone black and the trees retreated into the blackness as evening descended. As our eyes adjusted, the tree trunks reappeared as bluish pillars, reflecting the light of a full moon. The baron’s eyes glinted with it. The girls’ blond curls gleamed. It was time.
The baron smiled for the girls, rocking on his haunches. “Now, nubile sirens, go and make your good lord baron proud.”
Bärbel snorted at him. Brigitta glared at me. I crouched close to her. “Do you think you can do it? You have to be sure.”
Brigitta stood, her face blank. Then she stroked a lock of hair, and put on a smile with it, and she curled the lock around a finger. “I am sure. I got you out the door, did I not?”
I gave Brigitta a hug. She yanked her sister to her feet, grabbed the rucksack and a blanket, and the two marched off on through the trees.
The baron and I leaned against the tree, shoulder to shoulder, saying nothing. A plane’s engine droned, far away overhead, the third plane we’d heard. “Sounds like another recon craft,” I said. Probably making fast for Spanner’s border diversion.
More waiting, less insects. I yawned. I might have fallen asleep. Trees became clearer, their ornate bark etched with purple and white moonlight, and the leaves shined like silver fishing lures. It was full night now. We had heard no shouting or gunshots—a good sign.
The baron’s head bobbed, half asleep. “Ah, nubility,” he murmured, “sweet, sweet nubility.”
We heard cracks and crunches. We lowered to the rocky ground. I drew my Colt. More cracks and crunches, then gasps and giggles, whispers. Two silhouettes appeared and growing fast—the sisters were running back to us, tripping and laughing and trying not to laugh. Their kerchiefs were off. Hair bounced and whirled. They dropped to their knees at the tree, gasping. “Oh my, oh my,” Brigitta was saying, “Vienna, here we come.” Bärbel pushed hair out of her face and beamed at me, her eyes wild. “I think he’s dead!” she blurted.
The baron started, white-faced. “Please, do not even joke about this.”
“The giant shit slob, he peed in his pants,” Bärbel said through more giggles. “Yes, it’s true, he has died of peeing his pants, an acute case of terminal urination …”
“You’re stoned, sister.” I grabbed Brigitta. “Give it to me straight.”
“We had to do it twice—both the vials—but it worked, the silly stuff, it did, and he curls up like the biggest baby I’ve ever seen there in his tiny tent, which is the tiniest tent I have really ever seen.” She burst out laughing.
“Keep quiet! And no one else was there? You’re sure?”
“No. Yes. No one. Absolutely not.”
Bärbel was on all fours. “Pup tent, doggie tent, woof woof,” she jabbered, “woof, woof, woooof.” She began to sway, back and forth. Her eyes closed. She fell hard into Brigitta.
Brigitta made a tisk-tisk sound. “Stupid cabbagehead, she took a good swig of your potion. Maybe two.”
“Sweet, sweet nubility.” The baron rolled Bärbel onto the bedroll, stroking her hair. “For you, little one, lovely Vienna is waiting.”
Sergeant Horton lay just as the sisters described—all conked out and curled up, his crotch soiled and damp and who knew what else, his tiny tent smelling like a field latrine for a regiment. His fingers still clutching Bärbel’s babushka. He wore an outfit not unlike the baron’s, suede and knickers and all, though with a feathered Tyrolean hat instead of the floppy mountaineer style. Looking like this he might’ve been Maulendorff’s idiot brother, son, something.
The baron peeked in at Horton and had to hold his nose. “Odd, I’ve never se
en this much side effect. My God, that’s such a load of side effect.”
I grabbed the baron by his shoulders, turned him around. “This is it. Head back down the road and wave the all-clear.”
I added a little bow for him, the first I’d ever done. The baron smiled. He bowed fully, bent at the waist and extending one arm holding his hat, and he trotted off into the woods.
Outside the tent, with the fire’s embers still popping, I grabbed Horton’s tommy gun and took a seat in his folding chair. I had about ten minutes to myself. The old salt mine loomed behind me, a black hole in the trees. And the ten minutes felt like sixty. So far, so good, I told myself. Chloral hydrate blocked sound, vibration, anything. A double dose like that would put even big Horton down a good ten hours or more. Yet we had a long way to go. I did. This was only the first inning of a ball game.
I heard a rumble. I ran down the rail line to the edge of the woods and hunkered down inside the rail shelter. Out in the clearing, the full moon was making those shoddy warehouses glow as if just painted and the rails glistened, two slick lines stretching out from my feet. The rumble had become roars. Headlights bounced off trees and shot my way as our trucks lumbered up the road and into the clearing they came.
I waved the first truck onto the rail line—driving on the rails left fewer tire tracks—and on through the rail shelter and into the woods the truck rolled, its tires pounding the rail ties. Men jumped out, pointing machine guns, waving more headlights our way. The rest of the trucks drove on the rails till the workshops, then they steered around and backed in among the buildings to halt in the dark, waiting their turn. All told, I counted seven large Willys and three smaller Phaenomen trucks, each sporting Red Crosses and the white stencil letters UNRRA—the United Nations Rehabilitation and Relief Administration.
A relief convoy. The perfect cover. Jews running care supplies were all but untouchable.
I now saw silhouettes along the tree line—our guards keeping watch out there. I ran back down the rails. A guard stood before the pup tent, his face rubbed dark with coal. He nodded in salute to me. Beyond I could see the salt mine’s earthen walls flickering orange and yellow from torches, like some primeval caveman’s lair. I jogged along the rails into the mine. The first truck, a big Willys, was backing up in front of the four freight cars. It halted, hushed whoops sounded out and roughly thirty men and a few women piled out the back and laid down wide plywood boards before the freight cars, to avoid making excess tracks. Others were mounting what looked like a theater curtain over the mine’s entrance, to block the light.
“The Survivors,” said a voice. I turned around. Emil, face rubbed with coal, wore black leather and watch cap and had a Schmeisser gun slung on his shoulder. He looked a foot taller like this and I wouldn’t have recognized him if he wasn’t wearing his glasses.
“Am I glad to see you.”
“And I you, Mister.”
“We did it, we conked him out and real good too,” I said but Emil had stopped listening. He was watching his crew. He walked toward them shouting directions.
I followed and wandered among them. A stout woman with a bald head passed lugging a welding torch. One man was missing thumbs. Another had a deep dent in his forehead and an eye patch. Boys without teeth. So many limps and scars I saw.
Another truck had emptied hoists on wheels, hand dollies, and a small lift truck. A blue-orange flame illuminated the front freight car, and the welding woman went to work. Sparks popped and steamed dead on the plywood. After three minutes—I timed it—one padlock was cut. Emil heaved open the door and I pushed my way through for a look.
Crates marked “Top Secret” and “Melmer” were stacked in neat blocks, the gaps filled in with piles of trunks and suitcases and bags.
We stared. Someone grunted. There was no time for eulogies. We worked hard and fast heaving the crates and cases and bags into the Willys, groaning and whispering and panting as one, four or five languages clashing and blending, heave ho, heave ho. As we labored a sprightly old man Emil called the Pigeon hurried to mark and record the stocks, climbing on the truck and train and up ladders and hopping in and out of the way, a pencil behind each ear and a clipboard around his neck; he tapped and poked and guessed at the weights, hunched over bags, and stooped inside the crates and made sure someone recorded the names painted on the cases and bags. An assistant sketched the arrangement of crates and larger trunks, much like on a movie storyboard.
The Pigeon was standing over a heavy canvas bag. He opened and closed it, opened and closed it. Tears spilled down his cheeks. Others around had bowed their heads. Inside, I saw, were marble-sized lumps of silver and gold.
“Melted tooth fillings,” Emil whispered in my ear.
“I can’t count this. How can I count all this?” the Pigeon said.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to,” Emil said.
The first freight car filled two, three trucks. And again, and again …
And in his pup tent, Horton slept on.
Emil ran up to me beaming. He wagged a thumb at the last truck, which was packed full. Brigitta and Bärbel sat up front, sleeping on each other’s shoulders. “Guns are not everything. You know what we also never had?” Emil said. “Never had enough warm clothes. Never. And bread and medicine. And of course safe passage, that’s what we really need.”
The truck fired up, the driver waved from the cab, and the last of the convoy was off and away.
Still it was dark. I headed back into the mine. The plywood and hoists, hand dollies, and lift trucks sat waiting. Only the Pigeon had stayed behind, slumped against the earthen wall with his eyes closed. I peeked back in the pup tent—still Horton slept. I dropped back in the chair there, my shoulders aching and arms trembling, but I was fighting sleep, and soon my eyes closed too …
More rumbles. My eyes popped open and I stumbled to my feet. Someone was jogging up to me—the Baron von Maulendorff. The sight of him in his silly getup made me break into a big corny grin. The baron grinned and ran right up and hugged me. He stepped back, as if he’d punched me. “Good to see you too,” I said.
The baron caught his breath, leaning on his knees. “So, we’re still here. And our patient?”
“Still sleeping in his own piss.”
Headlights flashed—the first of the Baron’s Willys trucks loomed from within the woods. The baron waved the truck on through along the rails and we followed it into the mine. A mixed refugee crowd of Displaced Persons and ethnic Germans were jumping out the back, arms hanging loose as they sized up the freight cars. The baron shook hands with the Pigeon, who showed the baron his clipboard and storyboards. The baron, much impressed, told the Pigeon he should be working in motion pictures and the Pigeon said he had, before; he’d worked with everyone in Berlin and they probably knew the same people, they decided. This made me think of my brother, but I forced the thought from my head. We had too much to do.
An ambulance drove up, squeaked to a stop and delivered more refugees, and then it backed out with a whine. Another Willys pulled in, this one whining loud, loaded down with cargo. I found the baron, eyeing it. “It’s all there? In the spec crates?”
“As you wished. All we had, and then some. Rocks and iron to fill space here and there, back in the corners. Crates are all stenciled and I got your Emil’s bags, suitcases, trunks.”
“Nice work.” Back to guarding the pup tent, I watched the baron help the refugees load the freight cars. The Pigeon moved among them, waving his clipboard and holding up storyboards here and there. Men scribbled names on the suitcases with thick yellow pencils.
One Willys truck emptied, and another …
A jeep raced in, its skinny tires whirring across the rail ties. It was Emil with the welding woman. They drove straight on through. I called a guard to the tent and jogged after them.
In the mine the refugees were standing around crates, shrugging and rubbing their faces. The loading had stopped, a truck waiting half full. In the last freight ca
r—the last one to be filled, the baron was arguing with the Pigeon over a storyboard. It was his production here, the baron shouted, and what he said goes. Emil grabbed the baron by the shoulder.
“Who the devil you think you are, man?” the baron barked at Emil, “get back over there and start lumping it like I paid you to do.”
The Pigeon stood back.
“Freddy, this is Emil Wiesenberg,” I said. “Emil, Baron Friedrich-Faustino von Maulendorff.”
“The cousin of Abraham Beckstein?” the baron said. We nodded. The baron went flush and rubbed his hands together, bowing. “Apologies, sir. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“And you,” Emil said. “But I’m afraid you must be faster.” He looked to me. “We have to be out of here within two hours. The sun will come up.”
“Well, I don’t know how I can,” the baron said. “These refugee fellows, they only work so hard, you know. The sad fact is, they don’t have as much stake in this as you—as we do.”
Emil held up two fingers, then one. “Less than two hours. That’s it.”
The baron threw up his hands. “Very well.” He marched back toward the truck, climbed onto a crate and stood and clapped his hands. “Listen to me, all of you here!” he shouted in the most common German he had.
The refugees gathered around. A few grumbled and snickered.
“You’re doing a bang-up job, you really are. But, can’t we do better? What we got here, anyway? Four freight cars? And only one left? That’s not much, boys. Ask me, that’s nothing but woman’s work!”
“Oh, it’s so heavy!” someone yelled in a high-pitched voice. They laughed. The baron laughed with them. Yet a gray-haired man at the front shouted: “This ain’t funny. My arms are just howling!” Others yelled, waving fists. The baron waved at them to hear him out. “Very well, I tell you what: Get it loaded within an hour and a half and I’ll double the payoff!”
Liberated Page 23
