The Losing Role (10 page)

“Hurrah! Hurrah! Long live the Führer!” shouted the
men. They drank and beamed at their colonel. Skorzeny beamed back,
nodding, and bade them to sit. He continued:

“Before we embark, there’s one last matter to
address. Enemy uniforms. General Staff High Command West has noted
that the wearing of American uniforms could make one a spy under
the rules of war.”

Spies were shot when captured. It had always been
that way in war. Yet this had occurred to no one, it seemed—not
even Max. The men gaped at each other, murmuring.

“Bullshit!” someone yelled in English. “Let’s see
them try!” shouted another.

“That may well be, men,” Skorzeny answered in
German. “In any case, General Staff has ordered a solution.” As he
spoke, Skorzeny began pulling off the US Colonel’s garb to reveal
his SS uniform. “We wear our German uniforms underneath. Like so,
yes? In case of a fight, you simply peel off your
Ami
tops
and start shooting.”

Bullshit indeed, Max thought. To the Americans, an
SS man had to be the only thing worse than a spy. All had fallen
silent. Even Felix.

Skorzeny’s eyes found faces around the room. He
grinned. “Chins up, good old comrades. So what’s two sets of
uniforms—it’ll only keep us warmer, isn’t that right?”

“Right,” someone yelled. “Splendid solution,”
another shouted. Some more hollered, but most stayed silent. Max’s
hand was forming a fist around his glass and he wanted to pitch it
against the wall. More men were shouting now, drowning each other
out. “Brilliant,” Max blurted in English, “just genius.”

“Gentlemen,
Kameraden
, as your good Doktor
Solar, I introduce you to our bold new mission—Operation
Greif
!” Behind Skorzeny stood a large easel draped with
silk. The shouting died, and the men began to sit. Skorzeny downed
his glass, handed it to Arno the adjutant and pulled away the silk
to reveal a broad map crammed with unit symbols, dotted lines and
black and red arrows so packed together that Max had to squint to
make out their operations area. It was the dense, vast Ardennes
Forest of Belgium, a dark and cursed province and a long, long way
from America in both miles and fortunes.

Eight

That night Max tossed and sweated in his bunk until
the bedding twisted into a ball between his calves. He lay on his
back and stared at the slats of Felix’s top bunk, loathing the
hours he’d wasted worrying instead of sleeping. He’d gotten free of
the war, only to face it again as a two-timing spy? He was a double
agent of his own design. An impostor. Did he really think he could
make it back to America this way? He was not sure who was
crazier—he or his decadent friend Felix. If only he had hours—days,
no, months—to sleep. If only he could wake up somehow back in
Manhattan with Operation
Greif
and the whole war over. His
stomach pinched and gurgled. The blood pulsed hot in his veins. His
temples twinged. He never felt this bad before a first show or a
big casting call. He’d always slept well before a performance. Only
once had he been so rattled—when he made the move to New York
City.

It wasn’t the normal route, but what was?
Familie
Kaspar
emigrated from Kiel in 1928 and soon settled in
Manchester, New Hampshire, a declining industrial town. Max’s
father was a baker, his mother a seamstress—Manfred and Elise. He
had a little brother, Harry. All his
Vati
and
Mutti
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’d saved for a boat over and never
looked back. Max had stayed in Germany on a baking apprenticeship
his father had set up even though young Max was already taking
acting classes in secret and hitting every movie and play he could.
Learning songs. He reunited with his family in America when he was
eighteen, in late 1931. He could barely see New York City coming
into port because of a blinding white fog. They’d missed seeing the
Statue of Liberty. At the railing, people gathered around a man
pouring champagne. A pretty young woman handed Max a glass, and as
he drank a stray sunlight ray shot through the fog, illuminating
his golden bubbly.

“Look,” someone yelled. Men shuffled backward, their
heads jerked upward and children gaped, paralyzed. A woman fainted.
“Mountains!” someone screamed in Dutch, as others screamed in
languages Max didn’t know. “Icebergs! We’ll collide,” someone
shouted in German.

Monstrous dark shapes loomed like colossal crates
and boxes, shafts and spires piled high upon one another. The
Manhattan skyline dwarfed their mighty liner.

“All’s well, good people,” a man shouted back in
Queen’s English, “it’s just the colonies.” People laughed, shook
hands and hugged, and the champagne flowed again.

As they’d inched into port the tallest buildings
disappeared into the low clouds. Not even cathedrals could do that.
How high could they go? Max wondered. Children rushed to the
railing, pointing and calling out the names of buildings. How did
they know so much?

Mutti
and
Vati
and his little brother
Harry got him on a train straight to New Hampshire. Some who came
over at that age were able to shake much of their accent. Young
Harry already sounded like an
Ami
in English. Not Max, and
missing high school didn’t help. He gave baking a shot in
Manchester but he knew he was not meant to be a baker. He and his
father fought about it. How could Max know what he wanted? His
Vati
told him he was only a kid, and he was running from a
good solid life. He took more acting, singing and dancing classes
by night and tried out for small roles in local theater
productions. But by day it was early hours and tough dough and the
other bakers were immigrants too and spoke only German to him. To
top it off, Manchester was a burg and a burg was a burg. His only
way out was New York City.

The year was 1934. Early spring. Max and his father
had one fight too many. He hugged his crying mother and young Harry
and was out the door. Max spent his first days just walking the
streets. This wasn’t Manchester and it sure wasn’t old Deutschland.
He marveled at the massive city blocks, the vast sidewalks, the
giant billboards for gum and tires and hair tonic. Every sight was
a superlative. So many carefree and laughing people he saw! He must
have appeared the astounded immigrant, but not for long—soon he
would throw himself into their struggle, the daily round of punch
and jab and charm. This city was a country of its own and just made
for him. America had become the cradle of all that was modern, and
what could be more modern than American show biz? Dreams were life
here. The musicals promised it. Hadn’t he told everyone on the ship
it was so?

Many German writers and actors, producers, and
publishers were choosing America. Most were Jewish and had little
choice, of course. Still, if they could do it, why couldn’t he?

Six months in.

Certain realities had set in. The worst thing about
Manhattan was the subtropical heat. There was little escape from
it. People sweated and fanned each other and walked with long slow
steps, conserving energy. And yet they kept going. Bustling. The
hustling. Max tried the English-speaking theaters, but he had
little luck. All the émigrés had tried. How many accents did
Broadway need? No matter what he tried, he was an émigré. He was
neither Jew nor Communist yet all Americans assumed he was both.
And why wouldn’t they? He’d arrived on a growing wave of persecuted
émigrés. Like zombies they trundled about Manhattan with their
tired stunned pale faces and rumpled clothes.

All the while, Americans didn’t let them forget that
World War I and the Great Depression were far from over. They
yelled at Max on the street:

“All you
Yids
, nabbing all the good
jobs.”

“Go back to Heini-Land, Hitler lover.”

He took French lessons. Maybe he could pass himself
off as French? It only got him more laughs, more jabs.

His money was running out. He told himself he’d done
the right thing. Things could be worse. At least most émigrés had
their shabby rooms and menial jobs while many of the American-born
artists had to sleep on park benches. That was the downside of the
shimmering, optimistic, industrial mindset. You’re on your own,
Jack, so deal with it.

A year gone.

Max couldn’t afford Broadway shows. He almost never
made it into the grand theaters of the Great White Way, and yet he
made sure to stroll the theater district as many nights as he
could, taking it all in. Who were these people in their fur
overcoats and silken hats? Of course they were laughing. What he
hated most was waking from an afternoon nap, dazed, and then
realizing, in a dark slam of truth, where he was. The cheap
cafeterias he frequented doubled as drug stores, so Max had to eat
his greasy egg sandwich next to displays of ointments, bandages,
elixirs. And he began to resent the little differences all over,
just as he had when he came over in ’31. He started seeking out
more Germans, for the comfort. In the émigré coffeehouses they
traded complaints. Here the doors have knobs instead of handles.
How can you open the door with your hands full? Not only that, the
doors opened the “wrong” way, that is, out of the building rather
than into it. And peanut butter? Disgusting. What kind of a people
could love that brown goo? Then there were the women. They were
beautiful, to be sure, but why were they all so prim? It seemed
absurd to Max that here, in modern America, it wasn’t considered
polite to start a conversation with an attractive woman on the bus
or subway. What could be more modern and gentlemanly? Every time he
tried it he got a cold stare or a slap.

One early evening in Greenwich Village, Max was
waiting for a bus outside Haus des Kuckuck, a cheerless new cabaret
full of émigrés and outcasts hoping to recreate Weimar Berlin. What
a hopeless endeavor. Beer was served in tin pitchers. The political
jokes were ten years old. A young and nubile dancer from Bohemia
was giving it her best, but the horrible lighting refused to
cooperate. Outside, the streets had quieted for that calm time
between work and play. Max was alone out on the sidewalk. He’d
leaned against the bus stop pole as American men did but the pole
bit into his ribs. So there he stood, his feet together as if
waiting in an imaginary line, when a young woman—a “gal”—strolled
up and stood next to him.

She was smiling. She clicked her heels together. Was
she mocking his stance? Max could play along. Slowly, he turned his
head and let his eyes move up her fine leg—a “gam,” they called it,
and onward and upward, all along her splendid curves until he found
her face. She had dimples and thick red lips and blondish curls
that refused to stay under her hat. Lovely flapping eyelashes
shrouded her eyes. He said, “Beg your pardon, Miss, can you tell me
what bus you’re riding? I should very much like to join you.”

She turned to him. He added a tip of his hat. Her
eyes were sky blue with little silver flecks.
Wunderschön
.
“Well, Fritzy, aren’t you the fresh one?” she said.

“Fresh?”—like this it meant “
frech
.” Max
shrugged. “Perhaps. One must not behave like a monk.”

“Oh, so it’s frisky Fritzy, is it?”

“Actually it is Max—Max Kaspar. Although I do like
your name for me.”

“Good thing.” She held out a hand gloved in red and
said, “How do?”

Max shook her hand, once tenderly, and gave a little
bow from his waist.

“So, Max Kaspar—what did you think of the
stripper?”

“
Bitte?
What?”

She laughed. “The stripteaser—the dancer, in the
Kuckuck. Silly. If that wasn’t you I saw in there I’ll eat my
hat.”

Max smiled. “Please, you wouldn’t want to eat such a
pretty hat.” He removed his bowler and offered it to her. She
laughed again. Max flipped his hat back on. “I was in there, yes,”
he began, “but I’ve decided I must quit living that life.”

“Haven’t we all?” She sighed. “I, for one, felt
sorry for that dancer. No one can afford to live it up in a joint
like that. It’s too depressing.”

“The owner’s from Cologne,” Max said, as if this was
an excuse.

A bus was coming, turning into their street two
blocks down.

“Sure, and don’t I know it? Guy doesn’t even know
you need a liquor license. Wanna stay open? Just wait till the
bulls come in for the take. Get me?”

“Bulls?”

“The coppers.”

“Ah, as in ‘
Bullen
.’” Max wagged a finger.
“How do you know all this?”

She opened her purse and held it open for Max. “See
a check in there? I was in to pick up my first check. Supposed to
be their cigarette girl—ha! Now I got no check, and I need no check
like I need a hole in my head.” She shook her head. “What’s a gal
gonna do? Joint’s going under any day now. So I quit, see.”

“And the pig let you? What a fool.”

She tilted her head at him, and her curls bounced
and seemed to unravel down to her chin. “Ah, now ain’t that
sweet?”

Did she mean it? Max hoped. Americans spoke with so
much sarcasm, so much irony. He shrugged, smiling. “
Ach
,
what can one say?”

The bus coming was his, he saw.

“Anyway, a gal’s gotta eat,” she added.

The bus kept coming and passed Max by, so full that
men stood in the doorway. He waved his hat and cussed in German and
English. “Goddamnit all to heck! Heck, heck you!”

Her head had pulled back. She chuckled. “Hey, you
got to relax.”

“You’re right. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to
miss my bus,” he said. He offered her a cigarette, one of his last
two. She took it and he lit it.