The Losing Role (4 page)

Three

October passed into November. In the west the
Americans entered Germany and took Aachen. This once-grand city—the
seat of Charlemagne—was reduced to rubble and thousands of Germans
surrendered after the bloody fight. In the east the Red Army kept
closing in, raping and killing German civilians along the way
according to rumors—the bitterest revenge in full blossom, while in
the south the Allies crept up from Southern France and Northern
Italy. A sinister end was nearing in Germany, and you didn’t need
the BBC to grasp it. Old men were called up and issued bazookas. On
street corners, the burghers wrung their hands and promised each
other wonder weapons that were sure to turn the black tide.

In Grafenwöhr the snow fell early and piled up—never
a pretty sight when you’re in the army. Banks of icy and rock-laden
brown snow lined the roads and the barren fields became pristine
white tracts, a quicksand that swallowed men up to their crotches.
The forests were no friend either. One nudge of the branches from
man or bird or wind made the cold whiteness reign down in piles.
Against it all, Max’s old uniform was little protection, and he
wasn’t able to score a new one. SS Lieutenant Rattner told him he’d
have no use for it soon.

As the dark days wore on, the lieutenants preached
secrecy like missionaries the gospel. No one spoke of the code name
Doktor Solar, so Max kept Captain Pielau’s blathering to himself.
The captain’s gossip habit would have to stop, Max knew. The
penalty was too high. This Doktor Solar had to be receiving orders
from the highest level. Who else could call in German soldiers from
all over the Reich? Surely the Führer was head producer, possibly
even playwright.

The script they were writing had a clever angle, Max
had to admit. The officers encouraged and even ordered the men to
speak among themselves in whatever English they knew. It was fast
becoming clear that theirs was a military operation that relied on
one cheap motif—any knowledge of American English.

The snow didn’t stall the hustle and bustle of
Grafenwöhr. Hordes of soldiers were arriving by the day, and
Captain Pielau confided in Max that they had close to 1,500 men.
The place had become a giant rehearsal for portraying US Army life.
They got US Army Field Manuals and learned American tactics, such
as how to turn when ordered, raise a weapon, march. The hardest
part was adopting the casualness with which Americans did almost
everything. Standing “at ease” in the US Army was not a less stiff
form of attention but rather slouching with your hands clasped
behind the back. Americans smiled when they talked, even when at
ease. And their speech? The hard Rs were toughest to sound out.
Only the handful raised in America had it down. The rest complained
that the
Amis
chewed on their words and the constant hard Rs
made every sentence sound like this: “Are, are, are, are . . .”

Worse still, few in camp had been near the front
lines, even fewer had seen combat, and yet their combat training
was now being rushed (a very un-German thing). It was as if the
army were sending out snipers who’d never shot a rifle before—as if
it were opening night and the actors had not memorized one line.
Yet the soldiers around Max showed the same childlike fervor as the
burghers on the street. He hadn’t seen this much frenzy since he
performed at a League of German Women rally. Even the ones raised
in America believed Germany could still win the war. Did they not
see the vast industrial might of America and her still untapped
reserves of men and spirit? America simply dwarfed Germany, Max
wanted to remind them, and that was all that mattered in the end.
Yet he held his tongue. And bided the time.

One evening they were showing a double feature with
Betty Grable and Lana Turner and the barracks was near empty. Max
reclined on his bottom bunk reading prewar American magazines,
thumbing through
Colliers
and
The New Yorker
for
mention of productions he’d auditioned for. Felix Menning was up on
his top bunk. In the far corner, a group of Luftwaffe privates was
playing cards. Apart from them, no one else was in the barracks.
Max had been wondering if this little misfit
Aussenseiter
Felix was a man he might be able to confide in? A man he could
trust? Were there even any left? He flipped the pages of a
Life
magazine, skimming the photos and ads. Americans
devoted full-page ads to hair tonic and tiny ads to typewriters,
while in Germany it was just the opposite.

He made a clucking sound with the top of his mouth.
He was sure to smile when he spoke even though Felix couldn’t see
him. “What we’re up to here? Let’s not kid ourselves. Has to be a
secret mission. Behind the lines surely. That’s some dicey stuff.
Don’t you think?”

Felix didn’t answer right off. His bed squeaked,
once. “You tell me. Sure, and then tell me about your big combat
days. Go on, Max.” Felix had never called him Max before. It had
always been
Herr
von Kaspar, with a smile or a joking bow.
He should have never told Felix about the stage name.

“If I must. I was on the
Ostfront
for six
months. Always on the front lines.”

“How many times you fire your gun? How many you
kill? Any face to face?”

“How many?” Now Max snorted a laugh. “Who was
counting? My God, we were too busy getting shot at, and bombed . .
.”

“You never killed anyone. Right? Right. So spare me
the Hitler School patronage. Your fake optimism. You think whatever
we got going here is doomed. That’s what you think. That’s why
you’re prying just now.”

“Prying? Me?” Max chuckled. Not Felix too? he
thought. A deluded child, like all the rest? Then again, the little
juggler was also an actor.

The Luftwaffe boys were still having at it, slapping
down cards and shouting. Max spoke lower. “You were never on the
front lines. I didn’t mean to question your ability, dear Felix, if
that’s what you mean. So please, temper the finger pointing. It
will only get you—us—into trouble.”

The top bunk creaked. Felix leaned over and stared
down at Max, blocking the light. Max stared up. Felix climbed down
and knelt next to Max. His small, narrow eyes locked on Max’s, and
he wagged a finger. A narrow finger. Everything about Felix was
slender, from his shoulders to his eyebrows, from his lips to his
skinny bowed legs. Even his Berlin accent was tinny. He was like
some mythical forest imp. Max stared back, blank-faced.

“Don’t give me that. I got your number,” Felix said.
“No one else here does, but I do.” He whispered now. “You don’t
believe in any of this. You don’t believe in the war.”

“
Quatsch
,” Max said, yet he had to shrug and
look away.

Felix stayed at his side. Smiling now. Not letting
Max off the hook.

Perhaps less direct was best, Max decided. He tossed
the magazine to his feet. “In America? You said you were in the
circus,” he said.

Felix looked away, first at the Luftwaffe boys, and
then at his hands hanging off his knees. “Why not, I figured. I
could ride a unicycle, juggle, play the clown, dress up like a
woman and play one even better. So I’d give it a shot. Cabarets
were closing here. Not like your time over there, eh?”

Max shrugged. “Apples and oranges.”

“So why give it all up for Germany?”

Max stared, a long time. How to answer this? With
the proven old platitudes, or something more shrewd. Before he
could respond, Felix jumped back up onto his bunk. He had to be
smiling again, the way his voice was singing. “That’s why you come
here—why you play along. To find new roles, right? After all, you
are an actor. And perhaps some new friends? From adversity comes
clarity, isn’t that the line?”

“Something like that . . .” Max rolled his eyes.
Whatever was coming after Grafenwöhr, it might just give him a way
out. And Felix was certainly giving him ideas. Had he meant to?
Could this little forest imp read his mind? Predict the future?

“And you?” Max said. “Why’d you volunteer?”

“Didn’t you know?” Felix said, adding a snicker.
“It’s to help you.”

By their second week in Grafenwöhr, the clandestine
materiel was arriving at a steady clip. Trains rolled in carrying
vehicles covered with tarps. Underneath were US Army jeeps, a few
trucks and a couple tanks, but mostly jeeps. The vehicles’ olive
drab paint and white stars were a shocking sight but one they’d
have to get used to quickly, Captain Pielau assured them.

The captain assigned Max and Felix Menning to a
warehouse that was open, on one end, to the stinging November air.
The concrete under their feet was colder than the ice on the
windows and the snow drifted in, swirling and gathering into small
white dunes that refused to melt. The warehouse had rows of long
tables, like in a beer hall. At one table, Max and Felix sorted the
American tunics that had been delivered, accidentally, with POW
triangles painted on the backs. Pielau had ordered them to try to
scrape off the paint. They scrubbed and scraped, bent over the
tables, their backs tightening up, aching. Sweat rolled down
Felix’s face despite the cold. The paint would not give way. (After
all, it was meant to stay on forever.) It was thankless work, yet
far better than cleaning up the “dog tags” of dead American
soldiers. Pielau was doing Max a good turn once again.

Captain Pielau paced the warehouse with a clipboard,
checking stocks and making notes. A couple tables over, their
Quartiermeister
, a former clothing designer (who’d worked in
New York’s Garment District), was hunched over a new shipment of
uniforms diverted from the Red Cross by no small degree of
trickery. The
Quartiermeister
called Captain Pielau over.
Pielau held up a pair of trousers, huffed at them, threw them down,
and then threw up his hands. He scratched at his clipboard and
paced the warehouse muttering. All went back to work. Max kept an
eye on the captain. Over in a corner, Pielau threw his clipboard
across the concrete floor.

He ended up at Max’s table, his jowls reddening.
“Kaspar, you know what is happening here, don’t you? Can’t you see
it?” Beside Max, Felix slowed his scraping to listen. “Those
trousers over there? All British. Here we go and swindle the Red
Cross for
Ami
uniforms, and we get British. Well, we can’t
use that, can we?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir.” Max added a smile.

“And see all that—and that?” Pielau went on, his
voice growing shrill. He pointed around the warehouse at the crates
and boxes and the tables piled with mismatched gear. Men looked up
woodenly as if they were being complained about. “And that there?
We have not nearly enough. We need belts, ammo cases, helmets, and
more overcoats. We have no helmets.”

“Helmets would be good, sir.”

Pielau slumped against the table, whispering now.
“
Mein Gott
, Kaspar, you know Doktor Solar is not going to
like this.” He glared at Felix, who resumed his scraping.

Max stepped sideways, closer to Pielau. He
whispered, “Look, you have to relax. Tell you what—go on to your
officers’ mess, get yourself a coffee with two fingers of corn
schnapps in it. That’ll make you feel better.”

“You don’t understand,” Pielau said. “I mean, what
will people think?”

Pielau often took weekend trips to Nuremberg. He had
friends and girlfriends there. If he were boasting of great things,
Max could not know about it. He gave the captain a long, hard
stare. “Sir, people are not supposed to think anything—let alone be
aware of it,” he said.

Pielau stiffened as if at attention. “You’re right
as always. Thank you.” He lit a cigarette, patted Max’s shoulder,
and strode off into the cold and gray afternoon.

Max and Felix scraped on. As they worked, four
sailors two tables over began laughing at them. The four had been
merchant sailors before the war. Their American English could be
clumsy, and thick with accent, yet they knew all the slang and
could say what they needed. Max heard them now.

One nodded at Felix and said what sounded like:
“Piece a’ chicken.” Another pointed and said, “Pantywaist.”

Felix kept scraping, but he had stopped sweating.
His forehead grew red.

Physically, the sailors were Felix’s opposite—stocky
and thick and even the wiry ones had muscle. The widest of the
four, a balding redhead with a broad smile, kept the others
laughing with new words. “A real Nancy,” he said, “that fella’s a
flit,” and what sounded like “Fag-got.”

Max glared at the sailors. “Should I translate?”

“No need,” Felix said under his breath. “What did I
tell you about the lieutenant? Same goes here.”

“Very well . . .”

Felix stopped scrubbing. He looked up at the
sailors. They laughed louder. They whistled. Felix grinned. “Hiya
boys,” he said in American English, practically shouting it.

The sailors laughed harder. They flopped their
wrists.

Felix added with a slippery lisp, “Why don’t ya come
up and see me sometime?” He put his hands on his hips and wiggled
the hips.

Others in the warehouse laughed and pointed at the
sailors, who glared back now, rattled by the implication of this.
Felix kept it up. The red-haired sailor got special treatment.
Felix blew a kiss and rubbed at his crotch. He shouted: “And who’s
that next to ya, sailor?”

Next to the red-haired one stood a sailor with
prematurely white hair. He had a discreet goatee beard. The two
stared at each other.

“Gets lonely at sea, no? So tell me, Red, how long
you been screwing the goat?”

Laughs boomed and echoed in the warehouse. The older
sailor glared at the red-haired sailor, whose face hardened. The
red-haired sailor showed Felix a fist.

Felix marched over, past the first table.