The Losing Role (24 page)

“Smitty won’t like it.”

“Tough. I’m his superior, and I believe in
constructive punishment. You know what he wanted to do when I first
suspected you might be a German? Strip you naked and send you out
into the woods.”

“He must be ashamed of Germans. Of being one.”

“I suppose so. Your wars keep wrecking it for them
back in the states. In our eyes you used to be something special. A
little too literal and formal, but a classy folk. Now you’re
looking far worse. You’re either Prussian Nazis or these poor
refugees stripped of all dignity . . .” As Slaipe spoke he stood,
the Colt in one hand, and moved around the table to Max. Max stood
with hands up and Slaipe frisked him, slowly and thoroughly.

“So I’ve discovered,” Max said.

“This isn’t a stalemate, mind you. You’re done. I
just don’t see any point in playing jail warden.” Slaipe emptied
Max’s tommy clip and ammo bag and rummaged through Max’s
knapsacks.

Max was still standing, though Slaipe had let him
lower his hands. “How do you know I don’t have a weapon stashed
somewhere?” Max said.

“Because you just mentioned it. There’s that and the
fact that you could have tried it earlier and didn’t. Plus, I can
tell you’re not stupid. It would get you nowhere.”

Perhaps there was another way to get to America, Max
thought. He could provide intelligence to the Americans. Other
captured Germans were doing it. He didn’t know much, but he had
fought the Russians, who the Americans were sure to face someday.
It didn’t have to be so bad. A few days of interrogation and then a
modest sentence back in America. “You’re not stupid either, Captain
Slaipe,” he said.

“Thanks. Now, why don’t you take a seat?” Max sat.
Slaipe sat across from him and topped off their glasses. “So. A few
questions, if you don’t mind. You mentioned being in America. About
discovering things.”

Max told Slaipe everything. He told him his real
name, Max Kaspar. He revealed his stage name of Maximilian von
Kaspar and he and the captain shared a laugh over that. Max told
the American more than he’d probably told even Felix Menning.
America chewed him up, he admitted, because he didn’t adapt. He’d
been too rigid. You have to be a chameleon to make it, but he
wouldn’t turn the right color. He couldn’t get the roles because of
that. Worst of all, he’d made a grave mistake by leaving America in
’39. If he could only have a second chance, knowing what he did
now, then he would make it right. That was why he went on the
mission. It wasn’t to defeat Americans. It certainly wasn’t to kill
American generals. Odd as it sounded, it was for freedom. To make a
new start.

Captain Slaipe said he believed Max. He had worked
with émigré artists’ relief organizations in New York State. They
might have even run into each other before the war, he said. So he
understood Max’s plight. Max had not been a persecuted German, that
was his problem. He hadn’t fit in. Wrong place at the wrong
time.

“Yes, yes, that’s it exactly,” Max said. “You
understand it better than my agent.” He had dropped the casual
American bit—the carefree speech, the ready smiles and the hanging
of his arms and legs off every ledge in sight. He even let his
accent slip. “And then to think that such a crude and silly secret
mission would help me come back to America? This was my little
plan,
Herr Kapitän
—cross over the Meuse. And how close I
was. But what a fool I am, too.”

Slaipe was frowning. He didn’t seem to enjoy the
real Max. “Well, here’s a bitter pill for you,” he said. “You can’t
go back. You can’t because that part of your life is already gone
and you can’t bring it back. Even if there wasn’t a war on. You’re
a different person now. We all are. The Meuse is more than just a
river, Kaspar. No, the main thing now is, to make this right. For
what you have done. All of you. And that’s not about place. It’s
about deeds.”

Deeds? Max didn’t want to hear it. All his life he’d
been preached to about proper deeds, conduct, performances. He was
tired. He just needed to think.

“Yes, I understand, captain,” he muttered.

Annette had left out a second bedroll, in the corner
across from young Martin. Justine’s blanket sat on top, neatly
folded. Max heaved himself up, shuffled over, and unrolled his new
roost. “Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’d like to retire. And
then I will think about what you say.”

“Of course, of course. But first I’m afraid I have
more details to go over.”

Max nodded, wearily, and sat up, his back to the
rough old bricks. Slaipe had a notebook out on the table, and a
fine Parker pen. Max knew what Slaipe needed now—intelligence, the
nuts and bolts. He told the captain about his jeep team and about
Felix Menning, and even Zoock. Still, he left out Rattner and the
incident with the MPs.

“All right. What about Malmedy?” Slaipe said.

“What about it? We were never there. You think I
could do something like that?”

“They’ll think you were involved. You’re SS,
officially.”

“I discarded my tunic. I was never in the SS. They
made me wear it. Said we wouldn’t be shot as spies if we wore them
underneath.”

Slaipe nodded along. He probably knew all this.
“Doesn’t matter. It’s in your sector,” he said. He scribbled notes
and stared at them, for what seemed like minutes. “So, let’s go
over this. This sailor, Zoock. If he’s as clever—and harmless—as
you say, and his American English that good, he might be the only
one who could make it. Not a problem there. Now, I’ve heard of your
comrade Menning, I have to tell you.
Hauptgefreiter
Felix
Menning, right?—a.k.a. Corporal Herb Fellowes. He’s to be shot.
Firing squad. Today or tomorrow. As soon as they’re done
questioning him.”

It was a bluff. The captain was trying to spook him.
Menning would never let himself be caught. “How do you know this?”
Max blurted.

“I have a radio, remember? We do get through now and
then. They caught Menning near Spa, trying to infiltrate First
Division HQ. You’re all being shot. There’s a farmhouse, just north
of Spa. It has a good and tall stone wall for it . . .”

“The little devil,” Max grunted in German, “that
skinny goddamn juggler.” He jumped up and marched around the room,
his neck and head hot, his hands balled into fists. He kicked at
the table bench. “Why are you telling me this? I might do something
stupid now. Isn’t that right? I could. Kill you. Kill them.
Anyone.”

“No. Not you. Listen. Sit down. I saw the first of
the firing squads, you know that? On my way here. Four men—from
your Jeep Team E, I think it was. Have you seen one of these
things? How they do it? A grisly act, to be sure. They stand you up
against a post, tie your hands behind your back. Pin a little round
white piece of paper to your heart as a target. Offer you a
cigarette, if you’re not jittering too much to keep the thing in
your mouth. A priest asks you, do you have any last words? That was
the turning point. All four of those men’s heads were high until
then. Then, in an instant, three of them cracked. Vomiting,
shrieking. Crying for his mother, one of them. And the fourth?
Shouted Heil Hitler, of all things. What a sap.”

“Please, captain, get to your point.”

“My point being, none of them saw it coming—not one
of those men had a clue how this game is really played. But then
again, they were a bunch of amateurs, weren’t they? Chefs, and
dancers, and writers . . .”

Max slumped over the table. “Very well, captain. So
you want something. What is it you want?”

“That’s just the thing. I’m not sure I have any
leeway here. They’ll want your head just the same.” Slaipe tapped
his pen at the notebook, and his chin. “But I’m working on it, and
I’ll be sure to let you know if I find a way.”

As Slaipe spoke Max, out of the corner of his eye,
spotted Justine DeTrave’s immaculate blue loafers planted at the
top of the stairs. He stood. “Who’s there? We’re fine here.
Everything’s fine,” he shouted in his best American English.

Finally, Slaipe left Max alone to sleep. Max left one
candle flickering, crawled onto his bedroll, and closed his eyes,
taking deep breaths. How could he sleep? He turned on his side and
watched the young soldier, Martin. Martin snored a bit, and he
groaned at times. His eyelids twittered. His eyes opened. He
stared.

“I thought you were an
Ami
,” he said in blunt
schoolboy German.

“I am,” Max said in English.

“Weren’t you speaking German?”

“What? No. Forget it. It’s the morphine. You’re
dreaming.”

The kid blinked, twice. “You changed sides? Is that
it?”

Max sighed. “I never took sides,” he said in German.
“Not ever. Perhaps that’s my problem.”

“I never did either. So, how can we change sides
then? If we’ve never taken any?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. Now go to sleep. And
keep this our secret, clear?”

Martin nodded and turned over.

Some time later, Max woke—to fingers on his lips.
Soft, warm, lean fingers. Justine DeTrave was hovering over
him.

“Me, I become cold now,” she whispered in French.
She let loose her hair, and it tickled Max’s forehead. Even her
hair was warm. Kissing him, caressing him, and murmuring in French
she worked her way in, and down, under his borrowed old
blanket.

Twenty-Two

After, they slept. Max woke once. He had never been
so warm since being drafted. He lay on his stomach. Justine DeTrave
was snoring, lightly, like a cat purring. She had curled up behind
him, grasping at him, with one leg up around his waist and the
other tucked under him, her toes in the bend of his leg. Of course,
she’d used the same maneuver as Liselotte. If only this were
Liselotte. Together they would have worked this out. He would come
up with a grand scheme and Liselotte, ever the composed diva, would
follow it through. She’d appeal to Captain Slaipe in language he
understood. How many auditions, roles, and engagements had they
landed each other this way? She was the one who had made Hitler’s
New Germany bearable. It had been an even harder trick to pull off,
and yet she’d managed it until well into 1941.

Spring 1941. April 8. The first dark hours of a rainy
Tuesday in Hamburg. Max, in bed, heard a droning from far above.
He’d heard it many times since the Battle of Britain began—another
wave of German bombers heading for England. He rolled over, pulled
a pillow over his head. Yet the droning didn’t pass. It grew
louder, rougher. This wave was roaring low and coming their way.
Above the city, the flak bursts cracked and popped.

Max jumped from bed. The windows shook. Dust
fluttered from the ceiling. He yelled for Liselotte. She was long
gone. She’d risen well before sunrise to hit the open-air markets
down by the wharf as she so often did, to connect with the “real
folks,” as she called them. Max grabbed his dressing robe, stumbled
down the stairs and out, joining the stream of neighbors into the
new air-raid shelter two streets over, asking—shouting—again and
again had anyone seen Liselotte Auermann? No one had. They huddled
down there as the upper world boomed, rocked, hissed. People
slapped their hands over their ears and hugged children they didn’t
know. Minutes became hours. The air turned stale and hot with the
stench of sweat, worry, hungry breath. Max did his part. He’d
helped the old folks down, and when the bombing and flak ceased, he
sang for the children. His dear
Liselottchen
would have done
the same, he was certain of it. She was probably doing it for the
fishmongers’
Kinder
down in a shelter by the harbor.

Three hours later Max returned to their building.
The apartment was intact. Liselotte had not returned. Out their
window, their lovely harbor view was a hell scene. Rampant fires
and black pillars of smoke rose into the dim clouds, which
reflected red and orange and seemed to churn like hot lava. Ships
had strayed about the harbor and the water shined black, slick with
oil. The silhouettes of familiar buildings had vanished, replaced
by storms of dust; and even with his windows closed a reek of soot,
burning rubber, and what smelled like rotting meat had settled into
the room. The phone lines were down. He tuned their radio to the
BBC, not caring who heard him. London was reporting that almost 300
British bombers had hit Hamburg, the first major air raid on
Germany in retaliation for months of major German strikes suffered
in the Battle of Britain. Over in Piccadilly and on Trafalgar they
sang and danced. In his apartment, Max sat on the floor and waited.
After two hours he left a note and headed for the harbor wearing
only an overcoat over his robe and boots he borrowed from the
concierge.

On the way he checked with friends and
acquaintances, their restaurants and bars. No one had seen
Liselotte. He headed toward the smoking harbor district with his
silk handkerchief pressed to his mouth, tiptoeing around the wild
flowing streams of sewer water and oily mud. The closer he got to
the harbor, the more horrific the scenes. Firefighters had laid out
rows of corpses. He sidestepped them, looking away. When he pressed
on, climbing over rubble when he had to, he saw the corpses were
everywhere, half-buried some of them, roasted brown and purple and
black. Tiny blue flames flashed from them, and puddles of their own
melted fat began to firm up like jelly. Deep under the rubble
people screamed and moaned, their genders unintelligible. Then Max
heard gurgling sounds. Boilers had burst, leaving steaming bubbling
pools in which flesh and bone cooked, bobbing at the surface like
noodles and dumplings. Was he really seeing this? This was the war
the party fat cats wanted? Goebbels would later proclaim this
madness “Total War”? Apartments fire-bombed, the children boiled in
their own bath water? And the Allies, they called it “Strategic
Bombing”?