“I hope you didn’t use too many ration cards for this, or whatever you have?” he said.
“I did not,” she said. “We have none left.”
For a few minutes, maybe more, he didn’t think of the war. He wasn’t in a war. Though it didn’t remind him of the back-home stateside world either. That was still lost to him. This was a new place.
“A special occasion,” she said, chewing. They finished off the short loaf and few slices of salami, devouring it and speeding up to do so as if needing to catch a bus. They each took longer slugs off the bottle without taking their eyes off each other. His fingertips had found her upper thigh. She kept her hands on the table, as if hoping to fool imaginary fellow diners. He leaned across the table, and his face loomed over hers. He felt ten feet tall. He saw hesitation from her—a flicker of the eyes, looking away. When she looked back again, her mouth parted. He kissed her. She wrapped arms around him. He pulled back to get a look at her, held her face a moment in his calloused, bony, prematurely aged fingers.
They rose and met at the end of the table and kissed deeper. They tore away clothing, panting, looking for a spot. She led him to the base of a tree. Lett kept her standing.
He entered her with one arm propped against the tree, his other arm around her to protect her from the bark. She pulled him closer, her fingers searching inside his field jacket, his shirt.
The surge from him to her made him gasp, groan, hoot with relief.
She laughed, and buried her head in his chest.
They caught their breath, then put themselves back in order like two teenagers caught pawing each other at a dance. They stood back at the table. Each smiled, now more nervous than before.
“You may smoke if you want,” she said.
“I don’t smoke anymore,” he said. “I will if you want,” he added.
Something about that made her laugh, a hand over her mouth.
“My name is Heloise. Heloise Vérive,” she said. Her hands clasped behind her back and she swung her hips, as if embarrassed. “I never have done such a thing as this,” she said.
“Me neither. And I never thought I would, either.”
***
On the morning of November 10, 1944, Holger Frings was ordered to report to the FdS, the Führer der Schnellboote. He wore his Navy undress blues, the double rows of gold buttons polished, his S-boat War Badge gleaming. The S-boat flotillas’ headquarters was just up the road from his billet in Den Helder. They didn’t tell him how to get there, so he walked. His head was clear. He had quit drinking until his limbo was over, needing to stay alert for whatever they had in store for him. His resolve had been sorely tested the previous day, when he got word that Number One Schenkel had gone missing at sea. Instead of mourning in the hotel bar, he had written to Christiane again. He knew he would get no response.
Their Commander-in-Chief occupied a brown stone box of a villa. It looked like a provincial girl’s school with its tall mansard roof and ornate black iron fence tipped in gold. It had an excellent officers mess next door, Hanssen had once told Frings. Now utility vehicles and motorcycles raced in and out the front drive. A supply truck had pulled up to a side entrance. Men loaded all manner of crates and papers onto the truck, another truck waited, and a third pulled up while Frings stood before the front steps. The FdS was pulling out. The great retreat was pressing onward. On land, the Allies had rushed into Holland and pushed farther east, into the Hürtgen Forest, aiming for the Northern Rhine. Cologne lay in their sights now. Frings watched pale-faced officers and adjutants rush by and had to laugh at their eyes wide in shock. You fine fellows want to know what shock is really like? He wanted to shout it at them.
A well-groomed aide with suede gloves and an Iron Cross in manservice met Frings, and Frings wondered if he was going to face the Commander-In-Chief himself. Suede aide ushered Frings into a second-floor office. Crates stood open, half-filled or ready to be carted off. Files and charts had stacked up on a billiards table. A Korvettenkapitän strode in carrying bottles cradled in his arms like two puppies. Frings saluted with the regular military salute, hand to brim, though all military had been ordered to use the Hitler Salute exclusively after July’s assassination attempt. The Lieutenant Commander set his puppies on his desk, one by one. They were bottles of Scottish whiskey, the labels water damaged, booty from a sinking no doubt.
“At ease,” the Lieutenant Commander said. He removed his peaked cap, sat at his desk, saw the file dead center in front of him, and smiled at Frings. Frings thought the man looked familiar now, and it wasn’t just the high forehead and aquiline nose all these career-path officer types seemed to have.
“You’re Lieutenant Hanssen’s brother,” Frings said.
“I am. Reinhard Hanssen.”
Hanssen had talked a lot about his brother. Reinhard was the older one. He was the reason Frings’ boat captain had chosen the Navy.
Their smiles faded, and they bowed their heads.
“He turned into such a damn good Kommandant,” Frings said.
“He said the same of you. Said, he wouldn’t have made it so far without his Number One.”
Frings nodded. It was more like a bow.
The elder Hanssen closed the file, set it aside. “So. What are we going to do with you? There may still be punishment. The FdS only has so much control over cases like this. They could use anything they want against you. Say you have a habit of abandoning your combat post, whether it’s the flotilla or the helm. They always have choices, you see.”
“They could say I harass a certain Gauleiter and his new girlfriend, who happens to be my wife,” Frings said. If they were in control of this, surely his file contained family information.
Hanssen pursed his lips. He drummed his fingertips on the table. “I may be able to get you back out on a boat eventually, but by then? I wonder if you really want that.”
“I just want at the enemy,” Frings said.
Hanssen nodded. He reached over to an inbox and held up a page. It was a teletype.
“You speak English, yes?” Hanssen said.
“I do, sir,” Frings said.
“How much? Some measure of fluency, would you say?”
“Close enough. American and British ports, English-speaking shipmates. Did so for years.”
“Ah, yes, a former merchant mariner. That should do it. Do you have anything against being deployed on land?”
The question should have slapped Frings hard on the jaw. Burned in his ears. Fight on land? Two years, even six months ago, he would have spoken his mind. Remembered his father.
“None at all, sir,” he said.
“Fine, then. This should take care of your situation. It seems they’re looking for a special sort of volunteer. They’ll take one look at you and know just what to do, I’m sure.”
Hanssen asked Frings to sit, and handed him the page. The teleprinter had received a general order request signed by the Wehrmacht General Staff:
VERY SECRET: Officers and men who speak English are wanted for a special mission. . . . The Führer has ordered the formation of a special unit for use on the Western Front in special operations and reconnaissance . . .
The communiqué went on at length. They sought men with American dialect. When Frings finished reading, he saw Hanssen shaking his head at the mess around him. The Lieutenant Commander pushed one of the Scotch bottles to Frings’ edge of the desk. “Please do take one of these before you go, Obermaat. A memento.”
Frings was ordered to a place called Grafenwöhr, in Northern Bavaria. He meant to travel in his Navy undress but the supply master made him wear the Navy’s gray-green field uniform that left him looking like any other land rat if one didn’t look closely and see that his war eagle and insignia were gold, the buttons bore little anchors, and his left pocket his S-boat War Badge.
He left Den Helder the next morning. He was supposed to switch trains at a station outside Cologne and report to a transfer post the next day. He hitched a ride int
o the city instead.
The Cologne he knew had been destroyed by ’44. He had been back before. The last time the previous spring. He had gone to his old town street in St. Martin’s Quarter where he grew up, when working people were crammed into the quaint but dilapidated blocks down by the river just as they had been since the Middle Ages. In the 1930s, the Nazis had tried to restore the area into an “island of tradition” that mimicked their make-believe ideal of medieval glory. Those ideals of theirs had gone too far, of course, as ideals did, bringing on the Allied bombings that had returned his old neighborhood to some primeval outpost after the flood. Old St. Martin’s Church was gone. The ambitious Rheinau Harbor peninsular running parallel to the bank had been bombed into oblivion, left a junkyard and a fire hazard. Only the main cathedral and its high spires stood, along with one bridge—Hindenburg Bridge—now constantly loaded down with trains of refugees and ragtag retreating forces. He had trudged along the rubble-strewn lanes near old town like one would on an obligatory cemetery visit, and was amazed to find people still living among the ruins. He had seen little girls having a tea party with a salvaged table. A sentry passed and stopped to admire them, and patted one of the girls on the head. The sentry was an older man, in a civilian overcoat but an army-style field cap, on one sleeve a black armband with red piping and white letters for the Volkssturm, the Nazis’ new last-ditch home guard. He had a vintage Mauser from the previous war and a whistle, of all things, looking without the rifle like an aging football manager. That was probably the moment Frings had known, deep down, that the war was lost for Germany. He had never told Christiane this. By then she was already calling such doubters weaklings, cowards. Among the rubble he had wanted to shout at the little girls and the old sentry and anyone else he could grab by the collars and scream at to get out, flee now, find a different city. Cologne was fucked and would have to start all over. He had wanted to scare those little girls. Maybe it would save them. But he had only staggered onward, head down, his damp cigarette hanging from his mouth.
He would not revisit the ruins of St. Martin’s Quarter this round. He had been drinking too much of Hanssen’s scotch, already felt a lump of grief in his gut like a stone dumpling, and didn’t have much time. He found a cluster of watercraft along the river at the south end of the bombed-out Rheinauhafen peninsula, tugs and watch boats mostly. He saw no one aboard from the old days, and it left him breathing easier. He’d rather not talk about his father, or himself, or have to admit he was transferring to the land. He spoke with a kid in a leather cap like the ones the onetime street-fighting Socialists and more recently the defiant young Edelweiss Pirates probably wore, his longer hair wanting to spring out from under the brim. He manned a skiff and probably ran black market goods. Frings’ dad had probably kept an eye on the likes of him. It didn’t take Frings long to talk the kid into running him downriver. Seeing Frings’ leather peacoat, gold Navy insignia and S-boat War Badge on his tunic would have proved enough, but hearing Frings’ Kölsch dialect had cinched the deal. Frings added five marks into the bargain anyhow.
“Why can’t yoush take da train?” the kid asked when they were halfway there, keeping close to the bank, the kid knowing his way like Frings remembered.
“I’m a sailor, ain’t I?” Frings said. “Me, I don’t like da trains, even if there was one runnin’. They get bombed, see.”
“Yeah, sure do,” the kid said, nodding, steering them along.
Frings pulled his peacoat tight around him against the river cold. Supply had issued him a new holster for his service Walther p38 semiautomatic. He had never used his sidearm in any S-boat sortie, and rarely wore it. It was good to have now, though he doubted he would use it.
There were easier ways.
Königswinter lay just ahead, a modest pier with a ferry landing. Trees lined the bank before it. The kid dropped him off onto the sand there. Frings marched inland through a wood and into this village where tourists came to see the Drachenfels castle ruin. He hit a pub. One healthy pour of a fair but strong Rhine wine and a little banter with locals told him where former Gauleiter Scherenberg lived—requisitioned not some ten years ago and the most posh villa on the hill, he was told, which meant it was stolen.
Frings could see the place well before he reached it, recognizing it from his days on the river: a dense cluster of steep gray-roofed spires and phony towers in an emulation of a castle, all crammed together as if for some fancy cake. Fitting, that, Frings thought and laughed. He was glad for the scotch in him, because his heart was beating now but not like when on an S-boat run. His heart twanged, as if fingers plucked at it. He knew why. This wasn’t about Christiane anymore. The girls might see him like this. They might even see him kill a guy. If they had to see it, he only hoped he could share a few soft words with them before he did it.
He had thought about it many times. In the latest scenario, he would be able to watch the girls a while through a window, painting, reading or playing chess maybe, while Christiane brushed her hair in the mirror. Finding them safe and secluded, he’d hunt down the brown bastard in another part of his stolen castle. Maybe it could be on a top floor. Maybe Frings could make him join the Luftwaffe, take a little flight off one of his fancy turrets.
A calmness came over him as he strode up the little lane, sticking to the side of the road. A drizzle came down, put the river fuzz on him and he liked that, he knew it. He unbuttoned his peacoat, unclasped his holster, and unlatched the side safety on his loaded Walther. He slowed, assessing the target.
A wrought-iron fence stood about his height. A gate waited down the way. He kept behind a column, and looked through the bars. He saw no sign of a guard, so he climbed the fence. He kept to the perimeter, using the fence and bushes, keeping clear of any open windows.
The lump in his gut had turned to pure muscle that radiated through him, fed by adrenalin. He was meant to be here, he knew. He had so wanted this. Hanssen would want this for him. The windows were blocked with closed curtains, even on upper stories. He moved to the wall, keeping close to the cold red sandstone, inching along, looking for a way to peak in. Around back he found a patio window, saw a gap in the curtain. Crouching, he moved across the patio until he reached the gap. He looked in.
He saw white shapes, silhouettes. All was draped with sheets. What looked like a grand piano, a double chaise longue, a standing globe taller than his daughters, and in this one room more furniture total than they could probably carry on their S-boat deck.
He heard something, the crunch of feet. He backed away on his toes to the base of the patio steps, hugging a column for cover. He pulled his Walther, keeping it between his legs, both hands clenched around it for steadiness.
Something flashed in a corner of his eyes. A barrel?
He swung around aiming.
“Don’t shoot!” yelped a man. He wore work denims and might be slow judging from his misshapen, childlike face. He carried a rake, spiked with autumn leaves. A gardener?
Frings sighed, holstered his sidearm, and tried a smile.
The gardener’s mouth hung open. His eyes rolled around, taking in Frings’ odd livery.
“It’s Navy. I apologize for scaring you. I thought I heard something back here. I guess I’ve been at the front too much.”
“Uh, huh,” said the gardener.
“I’m a relative, you see,” Frings said.
“Uh, huh,” gardener repeated, and Frings wondered if he had exhausted the man’s vocabulary. “Me too,” gardener added.
“Ah,” Frings said, wondering if this man was a Scherenberg brother or son or had even belonged to the family who had truly built this place.
“I’m surprised not to find them at the house,” Frings said. “They wrote to me about coming here.”
The gardener took a big swallow, nodded, and said: “Sir, I’m sorry you didn’t receive word. They have moved to Prussia. They believe it’s safer there, for the time being.”
This gardener might as well have run him
through with his rake. The booze rushed to Frings’ head. He took a step back, almost stumbled. “Prussia. You mean Brandenburg,” he muttered.
“Yes. East of Berlin even. There’s an estate . . . Are you all right, sir? Need to sit down?”
“No, no.” Frings’ feet seemed to float. The villa whirled around his head.
He vomited on the steps. The splash forced the gardener to jump back.
“Oh, dear. I can call someone. Should I call someone?”
“No . . . No . . .”
Frings heaved till it was only strings of saliva and bile. The gardener had placed a hand on his shoulder, patting him as if burping a baby. The last of it came up tasting like that burnt saliva, which made Frings want to throw up again. The gardener didn’t seem to mind any of it.
Frings stood, finally. The gardener handed him a rag, and he wiped at his mouth. “Thank you. Did they say when they would be back?”
“They did not say, but it may well be some time. I expect not until the war is won.”
Frings almost wanted to laugh. Here on these grounds, it might as well have been 1914. Or maybe Christiane had assured him those Wonder Weapons were coming.
“Very well. Thanks again,” Frings said, and made his way out. He didn’t wait for the gardener to open the gate. He climbed back over the fence and headed back down the lane, stopping to brush his boots against high grass, to wipe off the vomit.
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