Armageddon (81 page)

Colonel Carter Smith and his wife hired her as a housekeeper and governess for their three small children. At last there was a chance to eat decently and earn a few extra packs of cigarettes a week. With tobacco a medium of exchange, she could buy Herr Brueckner the services of a good doctor and bring them precious ounces of meat and butter.

In the home of Colonel Carter Smith, Hildegaard had her first true love affair. She fell in love with the children, and they with her.

Tony and Lynn Loveless jumped on Daddy as he turned into the gate and showered him with a bath of new German words. He played in the yard with them until the weariness of the day overcame him.

“Martini. I’m bushed,” he said, bussing his wife.

“Here, lover,” Judy said, pouring it from the tall mixer. She stood behind his chair, rubbed the back of his neck. He groaned.

“We knocked them over today,” Clint said. “Six hundred ground-controlled approach landings in Berlin. Crusty was so pleased he forget to chew us out at the staff meeting.”

“How many tons?”

“Over five thousand.”

“That’s wonderful.”

Clint sipped, purred his deep content as her fingers massaged magic spots.

“Clint, I found a German maid, pending your approval.”

“Speaks English?”

“Fluently.”

“Where’d you dig her up?”

“She belonged to a Colonel Carter Smith, Army people. They are being shipped out to Japan. She has an A-l recommendation. Mrs. Smith says the children are beside themselves with grief to be separated from her. She taught them German. Anyhow, she has a famous name to boot. I hear her uncle is practically the political leader of Berlin.”

Clint smiled inwardly. That would be like Judy. She still had a little of New York in her. She’d have a name to drop.

“Honey, that’s your department,” he said.

“Well, you
must
interview her. Everyone says it is important to establish that the man is the head of the house to a German.”

“Okay, okay, let’s see it”

“Fraulein Falkenstein, would you come in, please?”

Clint knocked over his martini. He cleared his throat authoritatively and asked a few questions ... to make it official.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Clint commented when she left the room.

“Lover,” Judy said, “be an angel and don’t try it or Momma will slit your throat.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” he repeated.

Ernestine opened the envelope, which, in addition to regular postage, had affixed a special “Berlin Tax” stamp issued to support the city.

My Dearest Sister Ernestine:

I must be the lucky cat who always lands on her feet. I adore my new home with the Loveless family. It has taken much of the pain away by the departure of the Smiths. My room is quite decent and comfortable. The boy is Tony, nine years old and the girl, Lynn, who is ten. They are very affectionate and well behaved, for American children.

At the end of my first week, Mrs. Loveless gave me a carton of cigarettes upon learning my responsibility to the Brueckners and she promises a bonus of a carton a week. Erna! Do you know what that means? They passed off the kindness by saying they were both trying to cut down on smoking. They are a typical American family with extreme generosity. She is the true master of the family as was Mrs. Smith, but is clever enough not to let him know it.

The Americans are strange people, but they fool you. Just when I am beginning to think Colonel Loveless is shallow-minded, he shows his genius in other ways.

I remember how Father used to treat our maids and I suppose that was what bothered me the most when I began working. Yet, I am never treated as a maid. Not the way we treated them.

I am glad to hear that Colonel O’Sullivan has found a room away from his own quarters. It will save you embarrassment. How does Uncle Ulrich look upon all of this?

I must run. Each night I read to my babies in German and I look forward to it so much. I hear them calling “Hilde” so I rush this letter to you with love.

Hilde

In downtown Wiesbaden, Die Valkyrie Club, a traditional old beer hall, had been converted into a garish, stadium-sized nightclub—Winkelmann, proprietor.

Sturdy old cement pillars were painted off-pink; sequined drums and trumpets revolved from the ceiling; purple drapes encased the band stand and special up-chuck bowls had been bought from a Luftwaffe barracks and installed in the men’s room.

Winkelmann was a decent sort of chap. No airman was cheated or mistreated within his walls. The prostitutes working out of the place had to guarantee fair play, correct prices, and no clipping or rolling.

The semiprofessionals and just plain nice kids who wanted a place to have a glass of beer and dance lent an air of respectability.

Drunks were always sent home at Winkelmann’s expense by taxi, after checking in their wallets for safekeeping.

The American authorities realized that in any military town Die Valkyrie Clubs had to exist. Actually, Winkelmann was doing them a good turn by running a trouble-free operation. All of this gave Winkelmann a great deal of pride. He took particularly good care of choice friends with his personal inner-circle stock.

Before the war he had been a poor boy who had spent his life in servitude of the arrogant Wiesbaden aristocracy, and he hated them. His coming into a position of importance paled the old Wiesbaden gentry. When Wiesbaden was Wiesbaden, bawdy houses like Die Valkyrie could never have existed! Winkelmann was a good soldier, but never a Nazi. He felt that the sponsors of the city, particularly the Rhineland industrialists, were Nazi to the core.

Nick Papas, a personal favorite, entered the tarnished portals and was led to Herr Winkelmann’s personal bar built around an oversized mock coffin with a plaster cast of a nude adorning the lid. Matches were struck on either breast.

“Hello, Nick. Was gibt’s?”

“Need a favor.”

“Of course.”

“You know Stan Kitchek?”

“Your copilot?”

“Yeah. The Looey needs a broad.”

“Send him in.”

“Stan’s a funny kid. He’s shy. Besides, he would never go for a broad on an out-and-out business deal. Something to do with his childhood training.”

“So, we’ll get him a girl who will go for car fare and cigarettes.”

“No ... I told you Stan’s funny. He’s got to feel, you know ... in love. He likes the big story, the hand-holding, the fond farewell.”

Winkelmann shook his head. “I never understand people like that. Well, it takes all kinds.”

“So, you know a broad with puppy-dog eyes and a sad story who speaks English?”

Winkelmann thought, lit up with an idea. “There’s a German restaurant two blocks down and left on the alley called Mutter Rubach’s. There’s a waitress there named Monika. I’ll give her a call and you take it from there.”

“What’s the tab?”

“For you, nothing. How about you and Captain Scott? I got three new additions to my personal stock. They just escaped in from the Russian Zone, eighteen and nineteen years old. Maybe you boys will come up to my place later and we can take some pictures and have a group therapy session.”

“Sorry ... dammit ... we got to fly the second time bloc tomorrow. After we get Stan started, maybe we’ll strafe the strasse for a quick one.”

The sudden appearance or three Amis in Mutter Rubach’s, a German sanctuary, caused the entire tone of the room to soften to a hush of suspicious whispers.

Monika was there and waiting. They played the game out. She served them. Stan thought she was very pretty. Scott said to her, my pal would like to know you better and Monika said if Stan waited in a bar down the street she would join him for a drink after she went off duty, and Stan went away happy, leaving Nick and Scott with big mugs of beer.

By now, assured that the Ami intruders were merely flyers and not counter-intelligence looking for Nazis, the place returned to normal.

A combo of accordion, piano, and drums played a medley of Viennese waltzes with the roving musician hovering over the Ami table and patronizing them. Nick winked at Scott as the accordion player finished and hoped for a tip.

“Speak English?”

The accordion player said he did, a little.

“Have a cigarette. Here, take a few for your drummer and piano player.”

“Oh, thank you, sir.”

“Keep the pack.”

Deep bows. He held the pack for the other two to see. They stood and bowed.

“What would you like us to play, sir?”

“A nice German song.”

“A polka, perhaps.”

“Naw ... I’d like to hear a good old German marching song ... like my grandpoppa played in the band in Milwaukee.”

“Sorry, sir! I don’t know any.”

Nick’s magic pocket produced another pack of cigarettes. The accordion player’s eyes bulged. He walked back to the platform, spoke rapidly to the other two to weigh the prize against the risk of playing forbidden music.

They decided to go it! The combo broke into the “Westerwald March!”

After the first three notes many of the Germans scurried from their tables, paid their checks, and hustled out of Mutter Rubach’s.

Others sat mesmerized. Nick and Scott waved friendily to them to show how much they were enjoying it and put another pack of cigarettes on the piano and the medley was now in full swing with the “Schwabenwinkel.”

Backs became ramrod; there were smiles of nostalgia on old, moustached lips; surges of pride ... beer mugs tapped the table tops in rhythm, and a few tears flowed. The musicians became carried away by their own candor and swept into a marching medley.

As the music crackled off the walls of Mutter Rubach’s and turned into a second and third chorus, voices began singing and tables were being thumped in a frenzied joy.

Scott wanted to blow a whistle when he got outside to watch them tear the place apart escaping, but Nick talked him out of it. Nick had a ’41 De Soto which he had inherited at the end of a large card game. “A little strasse strafing to round out the evening,
mein kapitan!”

“Jawohl.”

“I’ll flip you for first run.”

Scott lost the flip of the coin so he took the wheel for Nick to operate. “Where to?”

“Platter Strasse.”

It was a good arterial because it ran from the downtown area toward the Neroberg Hills, where most of the Germans lived. There would be a number of girls looking for rides home, generally.

They trailed a lone girl making her way along the street.

“Make a pass,” Nick said. The front looked okay. The girl smiled at his greeting. “Full flaps, landing gear down, cut engines. This will make nine straight kills, mein kapitan. In no time I will be a double ace.”

He left the car, gently blocked the girl’s route, and told her in fractured German that she had lovely legs which should be encased in nylons ... which he just happened to have ... and would she like a ride home?

They parted an hour later, the best of friends, without knowing each other’s name, the girl several gifts richer.

Nick took the wheel.

“What the hell were you doing up there? Making a lifetime career?”

Nick grunted a happy grunt.

Scott was bored. “I’d shack regular if I could get a place away from that cruddy BOQ and if that Crusty bastard gave me ten minutes free time. This strasse strafing is like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“I miss now and then,” Nick said, “but that’s because I’m ugly. Tell you what, Captain, let’s make it sporting. I’ll bet you a ten spot I can pick out a Schatzie you can’t connect with.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Ja oder nein?”

“It’s your ten bucks, Nick ... only, no animals.”

“Legit broad ... all the way... for ten?”

“You’ve got a bet.”

Scott checked his watch. The German movie house would be emptying. He told Nick to drive him along Rhein Strasse in the general direction of the Kurhaus, where many maids working in American homes would be passing. They checked out a half-dozen girls, passed them up ... then both of them saw her at the same time!

Click, click, click went the heels of Hildegaard Falkenstein.

“I may not even take your ten dollars,” Scott said.

“Some guys are just born lucky ...”

Nick blocked the intersection. The girl walked boldly around the front of the car looking straight ahead. Nick began to feel he might have a winner.

“Fraulein,” Scott called, “could you please help us. We’re lost.”

She answered in rapid German, which they could not understand, and continued across the street.

“Ten bucks.”

“Not yet.” Scott got out of the car, blocked her way, gathering all of his boyish innocent charm, holding his hands apart helplessly and agonizing the conversation along in German. He mumbled a few choice words about the girl’s beauty under his breath.

Hilde tried to step around him, but he wouldn’t let her pass. Behind him, he could hear Nick Papas roar.

Words like “nylons” “chocolate” “perfume” were making no impression.

Hilde grew short. “If you do not stand aside,” she said in perfect English, “I will call for the police.”

“Well ... I’ll be damned.”

“Please let me pass. I do not play with little boys.”

“Little boys! Oh honey, if you knew what you were missing, you’d cut your throat.”

“Let me by or you’ll cut your own throat.”

She stepped forward, daring him to lay a hand on her. Scott backed off. She continued down the street and turned the corner at Gustav Freytag Strasse and walked into the Loveless house.

Nick Papas laughed until the tears streamed down his grizzly cheeks.

“All right, you Greek bastard, you want to sweeten that bet?”

“Jawohl!”

“Fifty says I have her in the sack in a week.”

“A bet,” and he began laughing all over again.

Scott slowed the car before the house of Lieutenant Colonel Clinton Loveless and made a note of the address.

The flight of Big Easy Four contained a crew beset with mixed emotions:

Stan Kitchek was star-gazed by a large romance. He ran on and on about Monika. Sweet girl supporting her child and old mother. But she had never really been in love. It was happening, just like that.