Liberated

by Steve Anderson

  “Shit, shit,” I muttered. It only now reached me that I had killed a human being.

  For Virgil Eugene Tercel, the war had finally ended. All his fingers had clawed up. His back had arched up again and froze that way as if stuck on a spike. Eyes open, the blood from his face pooling in them. I couldn’t take looking at him anymore, and I sure as hell didn’t want to deal with him when rigor mortis set in. I dragged him to the stairway, and I kicked him down the stairs. I grabbed the tommy, threw it back up into the car. I waited until the train hit the dark forest again. I forced open the door, the wind and branches rushing by, the loco steam swirling in the stairway. I heaved him up. I flung him out. He didn’t make it all the way, and I heard his body clatter against train and track as he got swallowed down and under.

  I sat there on the bloody steel steps catching my breath and shaking my head, wincing with pain, and wondering if the train was ever going to stop. I imagined forest animals dragging his parts off into the woods, for repeated feedings in relative safety. That was where he belonged. For the duration. The man would have bought it anyway if he would have stuck it out up on the line. The Ardennes and the Hürtgen were full of them, from the most sadistic killers to the smartest, kindest men who might ever have lived.

  I got back up on the bedroll, too tired to think about clearing the mess and muck. I hugged the tommy like a baby blanket. I closed my eyes.

  The next thing I knew, we were slowing. I slung the tommy, grabbed the Colt. I kicked open the stairway doors and jumped down and ran down along the cars, my leg stinging, the bruises burning in my neck and ribs. I climbed up into the cab.

  I pointed the Colt at Ushanka the stoker. His hands shot up. I frisked him, and he gazed in horror at the sight of me. The engineer had frozen up, waiting his turn. I frisked him. The man’s denim trousers were coated with coal grime and stunk of oil. In his pockets, I found two puny potatoes. I had expected grenades. We gaped at each other, the sweat streaming down our foreheads, noses, necks. Neither wanted trouble, especially from an American officer wearing combat paratrooper boots and splattered with blood and gore. They were hired to drive a train, these two.

  “Just do what I say,” I said, and they nodded and Ushanka wiped at his forehead, cheeks, and jaw as if washing with a washcloth.

  The cab was hot and cramped, the air damp and gritty. I stayed with them there. This hellish little iron cave just seemed safer now. Ushanka shoveled coal on the engineer’s command, humping the foul black chunks into the raging flame. The engineer stepped on another pedal, pulled back another lever. The engine’s clamor deafened, gauges and pipes and levers and wheels met my eyeballs at every turn, the metal scarred with chinks, gashes, cracks. Jagged hot bolts prodded my sides. The muggy soot seared my eyes.

  The engineer handed me a big canteen. I must have drank half of the water, but it only left me more thirsty. Ushanka handed me a tarnished little flask of vodka. The firewater only made me tired. He offered me spare overalls to cover my bloody deed that was all over me, but my weary limbs didn’t want to step into it. I hunkered down on the little fold-down stool they had and leaned on the tommy gun, feeling ever weaker. My adrenaline had slowed; my powers had fizzled. I’m different now, I thought. I’m like Spanner and Tercel. Like all my stateside buddies who had gone on to die in combat. Like all who survived and lived with the horror. Like all of them. I had gone through the grinder. It was only once, but that was enough.

  Ushanka leaned out a cab window. We were heading into the wood near the village of Aschendorf. Directly ahead lay a wide bank of green and brown trees. I checked my watch. It was about noon now, and the sun high in the clearing blue sky proved it. I pulled in my head and sat, letting our ride jostle me. Feeling it. These rails were far worse than the main line; they teetered and sagged under our weight and seams sounded at uneven intervals; one went Click and the next Clack or Thud, as if the rails were busting up behind us, leaving no way out.

  Katarina could be dead. Even Little Marta. I had to consider the fact. I had to steel myself. I was far from done with this. But my eyes filled with heat just thinking of Maulendorff.

  The car darkened. We had entered the wood. We emerged back into the light. I peered out. Up ahead stood that warehouse, a rectangular mass of red brick—a behemoth version of that Dachau oven building, I couldn’t help thinking.

  At the far end, I saw a car. Freddy’s woodburning BMW 327 was parked there.

  The brakes screeched and grabbed and a mighty jerk made me grasp at the handles. Then we were inching along. I tied the arms of the overalls around my neck, letting it hang like a silly cape, unslung the tommy gun, and jumped out, moving low like a crab, using the tree line as cover. Behind me, the locomotive had detached for recoupling. Ushanka was out signaling the engineer. Good men. And a good decoy. I neared the giant wood double-doors of the warehouse from the side. I knelt behind tree trunks to see if anyone came out. No one showed. The doors stayed shut.

  The locomotive moved off down a sidetrack, and suddenly I felt nostalgic for the cramped shelter of that beast. Trees loomed all around me, a massive cage of lean gnarled trunks. I had to keep moving, keep on moving. I checked the safety was off on both guns. I sprinted for the warehouse and moved along its long brick wall, alone, just me and those locked double doors a few feet away. I crouched at the corner of the building. The locomotive had come back around and was shoving the freight cars nearer with squeals and howls, crashing, hisses of steam.

  The doors slid open, to reveal a skinny GI and a burly Yugoslav, Savic. They had guns out, M1 carbines. The GI wore double-buckle combat boots but was a deserter, no doubt. Savic I’d seen in Heimgau, usually could be found shaking down elderly black marketers. My tommy trumped their peashooters, in theory, but I pulled back and crouched lower for now.

  The skinny GI went back inside, and Savic stepped out along the rails to wave the cars into the warehouse as the loco droned and pumped steam with great thunks. The four freight cars fit inside with only feet to spare. The locomotive uncoupled, chugged off.

  Savic stood alone, close to my corner. I rushed him. Savic swung around and poked his carbine at me, made a Broadway show of it. “Hands up!” he shouted.

  “Drop it!” I screamed.

  We couldn’t hear each other over the roaring loco. We kept shouting, pointing our guns.

  A great crack struck my head, my brain rung.

  All went black.

  I woke flat on the ground, one cheek in the dirt. It must have been only seconds later, maybe a minute. Waves of pain still rippled through my head like the worst funny bone. I could only see blurs and colors. I squinted to see through it. I stayed down, eyeing the double doors.

  “Ah!” My ribs burned, tensed with pain and cramp. Someone had kicked me. Writhing, I saw those double-buckle boots standing next to my head. That skinny GI stood over me. Savic was gone, back inside the warehouse. The skinny GI must have seen me and had made his way around somehow to flank me.

  His carbine barrel touched the back of my head.

  I could not believe it. This was not happening. Well, there goes, I thought. For my last moments of life I tried to see as far as I could, out past those trees lining the clearing but the woods beyond were dark, extinguished. I needed something wonderful. I looked farther, higher. On the horizon puffy clouds glowed white, streaming along the blue. There, that was something. At least I was buying it outside. I’ll be seeing you soon, Freddy.

  I felt a great bang close to me, but my ringing head only heard it as far off, like a balloon popping yards away. Something dropped next to me, a body. A head.

  The GI was staring at me, eyes open and not blinking, not anymore.

  I looked up, over. Katarina crouched in the doorway wearing that raincoat and light orange scarf, just as she had standing over me in bed so early this very morning. Her hands aimed a short-barreled pistol, elbow cocked, knees bent. I blinked and squinted. Was this happening? She peered around like some paratroop commando. I op
ened my mouth, but I didn’t know what came out.

  Something flashed by, passed behind her. I shouted. She pivoted.

  Savic had run past, trying to escape the warehouse. Blood streamed down his head, neck. He made for the trees.

  Kat fired and fired, right over my head.

  Savic went down face first, the rest of him following, crumpling, his knees up under his hips. Ass in the air. Kat fired one more to put it down.

  Twenty-Nine

  I LAY ON MY SIDE. I looked up and saw light streaming in from high windows. I heaved myself up on my elbows, but my head spun and it stung as if boiling water had been thrown on the back of my skull. I touched my hair. It was tender hot and sticky with blood. It had a bandage.

  “He’s awake, he’s awake!” I heard in German.

  A child’s voice. Little Marta. There she was in her short pants and Peter Pan collar. Little Marta was here too? Was she a ghost? What was this?

  She rushed for me. I smiled. Beyond her sat Katarina, at a table set up for a picnic. It even had a blue-white checked tablecloth. She stood. “Be gentle with him,” she said to Marta, who slowed before me, sitting on her bent knees like only kids could do. She smiled at me.

  I grinned. It hurt like hell. A rush of fear hit me. I cowered. I looked around for the tommy, my Colt, felt for the pocket knife.

  “Harry, it’s okay. It’s over.”

  “It is? That was you. That was really you.”

  “Yes,” Kat said.

  My head felt so heavy, as if I was wearing a concrete helmet. I lowered back down, feeling behind me for my bedroll. They sat with me, holding me.

  “Freddy didn’t make it,” I muttered in English.

  Katarina pulled back, glaring at me. “He was on board?”

  Little Marta looked at us, trying to make out our foreign words.

  “He was, but he was dead by the time he got there. Same treatment the others got.”

  Katarina’s head dropped to my shoulder, and she sobbed, squeezing my arm. My arm fucking killed me too, but I let her anyway.

  “What is the matter?” Little Marta said in German.

  “We lost a new friend,” I said. “He had to go away, just when we got to know him.”

  “Oh. Well, I know what that’s like. I’m so sorry,” Little Marta said, and the way she said it sounded older and wiser than Kat and I put together.

  Kat filled me in. Savic and the skinny GI, name of Gil, had been sent here by Spanner to watch over things. When Kat and Little Marta had showed up, Savic and Gil had frisked them and had them stay put till the train came. When it pulled in, Gil saw me making my move through the trees. He went around to flank me. He cold-cocked me, which put me back in my place—some soldier I was. That gave Kat just enough time to get her pistol out. When Savic backed into the warehouse, she had cracked his skull with the butt, and rushed out to me. To save my lucky life. I told her my end. Spanner had boarded the train to finish things off, and I did what I had to. I couldn’t let him do his work on Katarina or Marta. I didn’t have to tell Kat, I was lucky.

  She stood behind Little Marta, brushing the girl’s hair. “There was always the chance that Spanner would discover the switch. It was too great a gamble,” Kat said in English.

  “It wasn’t about that. He was plenty beyond caring about things we would care about.”

  “In any case. We could have had Emil’s group finish him off. Perhaps we should have.”

  “No. It wasn’t their fight. I wouldn’t have asked them to do it. It was something I had to do, me and me alone. And I almost think Spanner knew it.”

  Katarina had dragged Savic and Gil into the woods, covered them with underbrush. As for Ushanka and the engineer, they had just walked off into the woods, toward the village, looking like any other refugees. They hadn’t protested, she told me. Apparently they had already been paid, and maybe were feeling a little lucky the American colonel had not escorted them all the way to the end of the line. Maybe they would get nice and drunk in the village, meet some girls to get them cleaned up. I sure hoped so.

  Katarina had shut the big warehouse doors and locked them with keys she’d found on Savic. The freight cars stood inside with us, a black mass. The thousand-yard stare had found me, and Katarina and Little Marta waited it out. I couldn’t shake it, snap out of it. I was back on that goddamn train with the colonel. I could smell the metallic sweetness of the blood.

  “Wait,” I said. “You had a gun. How? I thought they frisked you.”

  Katarina and Little Marta smiled at each other. Marta produced her longhaired, one-armed, one-eared teddy bear named Sally, and set the stuffed beast on my lap.

  “Hi, Sally. Okay. I don’t follow.”

  Little Marta held Sally straight for Kat, who plunged a hand into the elongated hole where the arm had been. Her hand came out, grasping a black Walther automatic, the smaller PPK model, less than a pound, with a short barrel and its edges so worn they shined silver. No wonder that bear was heavier.

  “Little Marta has carried Sally with her a long time. She never told me where she got her, and I’m not about to ask.”

  Little Marta grinned at me.

  “Me, neither,” I said and pulled Marta close, aching ribs and throbbing head be damned.

  They sat me at the table, along with Sally. The BMW outside had wood fuel and even some gas left, but Kat would not take me back until they decided I was ready. Set out on the tablecloth, they had dried sausage and soft cheese and a dense rye bread. I tore into all of it. This was going to be my victory feast at the Waldorf Astoria. But my stomach rolled. I ran to vomit out the side door, gushing like a pump hose. Viscous trickles of dry heave followed, the convulsions wracking my insides. Kat and Little Marta talked about this, watching me retch, and determined my purge was a good thing. Who was I to argue?

  Thirty

  FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 1946. Midmorning, about ten a.m. I sat in my City Hall office as always, manning my basic wood desk and Underwood typewriter, that same worn Persian area rug at my feet. Still, that smell like mothballs. I shook my head at that. What can you do? It came long before me and would linger long after. I had on my GE portable, as always, and Radio Munich was playing “I’ll Buy that Dream” for the fourth time already.

  I fingered through the inbox, had the usual messages, reports, forms in carbon, nothing that couldn’t wait till Monday. A folder lay before me. Inside was my ten-page draft of the “Annual Historical Report for Landkreis Heimgau,” which I was required to send off to Frankfurt where it would be retyped, quadruplicated, and filed away. My intro was to the point:

  Military Government in Heimgau had its share of problems. Over time, however, with effective guidance and the proper reestablishment of local authority, the county and its capital appear to be adjusting to directives and conditions admirably …

  In tone it was much like all those combat units’ after-action reports from the war, glossing over the degrading horrors and near disasters. Years later people would ask a man: What did you do in the war? I was on the front line, he might say, but I’m not going to talk about it. My report took the same tack. What did you do in the occupation, Harry? I got a town up and running and boy was it rough at first, but we got through it. This didn’t exactly make things easy for historians, but that was not our problem. I read on, reaching for my good old red pencil.

  Someone was at the door, again. “Yeah, come on in …”

  “Good morning, Harry.”

  Katarina Buchholz. She stood in the doorway.

  I stood, knocking my knee on drawers. “Well. Good morning,” I muttered. She wore slacks. Her hair was short now, the bangs and fringes curled under. Her eyebrows were thicker too; she’d given up all that tweezing and penciling. Seeing her here was the last thing I expected. Katarina and I had tried to rendezvous after the train job, but it hadn’t felt the same. I told myself I’d been too busy playing CO, and that’s why I never made the trip up to Munich. She never made the trip here. I could
have written. She could have. Real phone calls were possible now, and passenger trains were back running. We had no excuses, neither of us. “You look swell,” I added. “What brings you here?”

  She leaned against the doorframe, smiling. “Why do you still wear the captain’s bars? You’re the permanent CO now. It is not major yet?”

  “Maybe soon. I’m not counting the days. Come on in. Sit, sit down.”

  Katarina sat before my desk in the same ladder-back metal chair Winkl used, same chair they all used, but it might as well have become a chaise of feather-down the way she settled into it, crossing her long legs. I placed my brogues up on the desk, played the relaxed guy, flashed her a smile. “Plenty has happened around here, Kat. And a lot hasn’t happened.”

  “Yes. So, how is Denazification going?”

  “Oh, there’s some good come of it. Most of Maulendorff’s so-called monarchists went and skipped town. Except for Police Chief Jenke. Hear about it? Ate the barrel of his SS pistol, suicide. Next morning? I have reappointed Uli Winkl police chief. I personally ‘edited’ Winkl’s Fragebogen. He won’t have any problems.”

  “Good. Things worked out.”

  I shrugged and kept on talking, anything but look at her. I recalled how, about a month after the train job, I had hired a loco and crew to bring the freight cars back from Aschendorf. I gathered the artisans’ top representatives—they had been starting to organize, with my blessing—and told them to have at it. But I had them leave the trunks, suitcases and bags bearing owners’ names in white chalk, and trucked those back to Emil and his crew. Katarina nodded, saying nothing. She knew much of this; it was my way of stalling. We both stared out the window, though I couldn’t have remembered what I saw. We listened to the radio. She said, “I like that song,” and I didn’t recognize the song or the songbird.

  I have had nightmares about killing and being killed the way I had killed a man. In other horror dreams, I could not protect anyone from being killed, as hard as I tried. Sometimes I woke screaming, sweating. These nightmares had waned, for now. So far, so good.