Maybe they didn’t know that they were small fry.
All of this analysis came long after the fact. That night, with the heater making my jeep toasty warm, I was exhilarated by the feeling of total power over a pretty and gutsy girl. Whatever her parents might have done, I told myself, she was only fifteen when the war ended. She deserved a chance for a life of her own.
Had millions of other young women lost the same chance? Sure, but turning her over to the Russians would not bring a single one of them back to life, would it?
Much later when I shared my dilemma with Dr. Berman, he agreed.
And she was so pretty and so badly frightened. And I had saved her. I could hardly have been raised in the house of Vangie and April O’Malley and not have some romanticism rub off on me, could I?
The Wülfes lived in a single chilly room over a bakery (with a Madonna statue decorating the outside wall) on the Untersandstrasse, a cramped and twisted little street one block above the river. The room smelled of stale bread and sour milk, but was starkly neat. Frau Strauss embraced her daughter when we entered. They sobbed an exchange in German too rapid for me to understand.
Magda looked like Trudi’s grandmother instead of her mother, a woman who had once probably been handsome and elegant, now wasted and broken. Nor was there any doubt that the kid, younger even than Peg, who was tossing restless on the only bed in the room, had pneumonia.
“I think I can find some medicine for her in the morning. Who were the men who took your money and tried to assault you?”
“I cannot tell.” Trudi began to cry again.
“Why not?” I snapped.
“Because . . . because they will try to kill me again.”
“Look, Trudi.” I gripped her shoulders, underneath my jacket, with demanding hands. “I’m willing to help you because I think you are a brave girl and because you have the right to a life of your own. But only if you tell me the truth.”
Clark Gable? Or maybe Jimmy Stewart?
Or Stewart Granger as Scaramouch?
Can I help it if I had seen all the movies and therefore knew how men who were both heroes and gentlemen were supposed to act? Or that my father had the manners and style of those same heroic gentlemen?
She squared her shoulders, as I suspect she had done during the Hitler Jugend parades. “Very well. I will always tell you the truth.”
Far too big a promise for her to keep even if she meant it then.
She gave me the names of the men; they were orderlies at the base hospital. Were they the black-market operators for whom my cracker corporal had been searching?
“I’ll be back before noon.”
“Your coat,” she said as she slipped it from her shoulders, holding together the tattered front of her dress. “Thank you, Herr Yankee.” Her appreciative smile melted me completely, butter in a frying pan. “I will never forget your bravery or your goodness.”
“Bravery?”
My heart pounded as should the heart of the knight in shining armor who has just rescued a fair damsel. I knew that my reckless charge down that alley, armed with a flashlight and a weapon with the safety on (yes, I forgot to release it), was not bravery, but folly. What if the three men had been part of a dangerous gang that didn’t panic at the sight of a blue beret or had their own automatic weapons that they were prepared to use?
Folly or comedy?
Probably a little bit of both.
My next stop was at the Concordia where General Meade lived. My orders were to deliver the Old Fitz no matter how late. I figured that 2 A.M. wasn’t too late.
Shivering in the bitter cold, I leaned on the doorbell for five minutes before someone opened it—my old comrade-in-arms Maj. Sam Houston Carpenter.
Sam was every inch a spit-and-polish, hell-for-leather soldier. Over six feet two, rangy, slim-waisted and slim-hipped, with slicked-back black hair, cut short, and a Clark Gable–like face (until you looked closely at the weak jaw and slightly shifty eyes). His uniform was tailor-made and fitted him perfectly. He wore highly polished paratroop boots (which I would not have thought possible), the Eighty-second Airborne shoulder patch, and the only decoration on his chest were paratroop wings—as if that were the only medal that mattered. He was the kind of hero-soldier, one would have thought, that would be ideal in a film or an ad for the volunteer army or maybe West Point—the ring he wore was surely a West Point ring, was it not? Even his cologne, of which he tended to use a little too much, oozed masculinity.
“What in hell are you doing here, you fucking worthless little shit?”
Sam Houston had more than a little of the drink taken.
“I have a delivery for General Meade,” I said, lifting the carton from the sidewalk. “Personal.”
“Gimme,” he said, reaching for the precious carton. “I’ll give it to him.”
I backed off. “Sorry, sir. My orders are to deliver this to General Meade personally.”
“I said I’d take it,” he insisted, swaying slightly as he tried to pursue me down the steps.
“Who is it, Sam?” Colonel McQueen appeared at the doorway.
“This little shitface won’t give me a box for the general.”
“My orders, sir,” I said firmly, “are to deliver this material personally to General Meade.”
Colonel McQueen nodded his head. “All right, son, why don’t you come and deliver it to him personally.”
He reached out and grabbed Sam Houston’s arm because that worthy was about to plunge into a snowdrift.
Colonel McQueen ushered me into a drawing room with a thick, soft carpet and elaborate tapestries on the walls. In the middle of the room, under a single lamp, a poker game was taking place. The fourth player was a large, rawboned Irish pirate with black hair that plunged almost to his eyebrows and with a heavy scowl on his face. Doubtless Lt. Col. John Nettleton, Captain Polly’s husband. He didn’t seem pleased to see me. The other three men, I saw immediately, were woozy with the drink. John Nettleton was stone sober.
Dangerous man.
Guess which one of them was winning.
“With respect, sir,” I said to General Meade, “the delivery from Nürnberg.”
“Wonderful!” the general exclaimed heartily. “We were just running out of the last shipment. . . . You’re entitled to a bottle for bringing it in on a cold night like this.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, saluting vaguely after I had placed the carton of booze on the floor next to General Meade. “With respect, sir, I don’t drink.”
“More power to you, son,” General Meade said. “More power to you.”
“There’s two of us micks who don’t drink in this city,” John Nettleton said softly.
“Sir,” I said, trying to figure out this dangerous-looking giant.
“How was the ride, Chuck?” Colonel McQueen asked casually. “Any trouble?”
The four of them were now sitting around the poker table, looking not at their cards but at me. An atmosphere of tension, even suspicion, had suddenly descended upon them.
“Nothing much, sir. A group of MPs stopped me on the way into town. Hunting for black-market personnel, they told me. One of them went so far as to suggest, felicitously I’m sure, that I might want to provide them with one of the, ah, units in that carton. I observed that they would do well to consult you first, General, sir.”
They laughed uneasily.
“My men,” Major Carpenter insisted.
“Sir.”
“Had they found anyone?” Colonel McQueen asked lightly. “They said they had stopped one other group, but found nothing on them, sir.”
“I told you, Sam”—McQueen turned to the major—“that nothing would happen tonight. Another worthless tip.”
“It came from my best source,” Carpenter protested.
“Another leak, maybe,” Nettleton observed.
There was something wrong in the chemistry at that table. I wanted out.
“If that is all, sir?” I said to
General Meade.
“Oh, yes, Chucky, that’s all. Thank you very much. Return to your quarters and get a good night’s sleep. You’ve earned it.”
Come to think of it, I had.
“I’ll show you out.” Colonel Nettleton rose from his chair.
“That’s not necessary, sir.”
“Yes, it is.”
In the long, ornate corridor whose delicately carved molding was obvious even in the dim light, he said, “You’re the genius that works for my Mary Elizabeth?”
“Not a genius, Colonel, sir. . . . You mean Captain Polly, sir?”
He laughed proudly. “What do you think of her, Chuck?”
“She’s an extremely capable officer, Colonel, sir. And the most beautiful woman in Bamberg, indeed arguably the most beautiful this side of the Rhine.”
“I think so too,” the colonel agreed. “Take good care of her for me.”
A strange comment.
“Sir, with respect, I think Captain Polly can take care of herself.”
“None of us can take care of ourselves,” he said ominously. “We all need help. Especially in a weird place like this. . . . Be careful on that ice.”
“Yes, sir.”
There was something odd about that poker game, I told myself. But as I cautiously drove down the ice-covered streets of Bamberg along the frozen Regens River, I could hardly think about the black market. The memory of Trudi’s pliant body in my arms exorcised all suspicion of high-level corruption.
14
The next morning, I phoned the CID and gave them the names of the men at the hospital. Information received, I told them; ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.
I also stacked up on chocolate bars and cartons of cigarettes at the PX in the basement of the Residenz, next to the darkroom in which I often worked.
Then, no one being at Captain Polly’s desk, I entered the general’s inner sanctum with a copy of the receipt I had signed for the Old Fitz in Nürnberg.
Captain Polly was there, apparently dressing after she had used the general’s shower, a right conceded to her after her morning bike ride when he was not around.
I gulped as she put on her shirt.
“You should knock before you enter, Chucky,” she said, quite unperturbed by my appearance.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said with another gulp.
“And you shouldn’t stare at a woman while she’s dressing.” She buttoned up her shirt without any show of haste.
“Can’t help it, ma’am.”
“You met my guy last night?” she continued as she stuffed the shirt inside her skirt.
“Yes, ma’am, Captain Mary Beth.”
“What did you think?”
“I think if there was a woman like you waiting for me at home, I wouldn’t be wasting my time playing poker, ma’am.”
She shrugged indifferently. “Depends on whether the woman will wait for you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“John and I were almost killed by a V-1 on a street in London before D day three years ago. We both decided that life was too uncertain to take chances. So, we were married the next morning. He was pretty sure he’d die in the invasion. Tank commanders didn’t live very long. We wanted to conceive a kid while there was still time.” She smile ruefully. “No kid, alas, but he made it without a scratch.”
“Thanks be to God, ma’am.”
“He was a great tank commander, but what he’s really good at is intelligence. What you’d expect from a Boston politician, I suppose. . . . Sometimes he needs to sniff around . . .”
Was that an explanation for the poker game? At what and at whom was John Nettleton sniffing?
“I imagine he wins at those games, ma’am.”
“Of course. He gives the money to the Red Cross. His family is very rich . . .”
“Ah?”
“I’m not sure they’ll like me. I’m from South Boston, my dad is a cop.”
“With respect, ma’am, they can’t help liking you.”
“That’s what he says.” She laughed, happy again. “All you Irish men stick together.”
“We have to, ma’am.”
“Now let’s get you some work to distract your imagination from me in a bra.”
“I don’t want to be distracted, ma’am.”
She laughed again, content with herself. “Next time knock.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Before I started typing I wondered what that interlude had been about. Did Captain Polly need my reassurance that no Irish family in the world could reject her?
Who the hell was I?
A kid from a rich Irish family in Chicago?
What the hell!
Suddenly the dull weeks in Bamberg had become fraught with interesting and disturbing possibilities. I told myself that the black market was not my concern, nor official corruption. Nor John Nettleton’s “sniffing around.”
I should focus on Trudi. She was more than enough. Only much later did I understand the obvious hints at the poker party.
When I had finished my own work, in forty minutes, I walked down to the small dispensary on the floor beneath mine and asked the medic in charge of our headquarters unit for some penicillin for a friend. He raised an eyebrow, but I was so straight that he didn’t even ask who the friend was or whether she was pretty. He also instructed me on the use of a syringe. I would not have thought of asking.
The storm had blown over. It was still cold but the skies were clear and blue, a rare enough phenomenon in Bamberg in the winter. In the back of my head I realized that the photography of such a glittering winter wonderland would be spectacular. I had other things on my mind, not excluding the impossible shot of Captain Polly in her underwear.
But mostly I was thinking of the statue of the Rider in the Dom, the perfect medieval knight.
I did reflect as I climbed up the narrow stairs next to the bakery that the blue in the sky could well be called a cruel blue.
Poor little Erika was much worse than the night before, her face on fire with fever, her body twitching with ugly spasms, her high-pitched voice squealing hysterically. If the medicine did not work, she might not last the night.
Trudi was holding the sick kid’s hand, pleading with her sister not to die. Mama was at work. Too many women were waiting for jobs at the Bambergerhof. The two of them dared not miss work at the same time.
So, we injected Fleming’s wonder drug into the suffering child’s rear end, without much skill, to tell the truth. I promised I would be back after work and assured Trudi that there was nothing more to worry about.
She hugged me briefly as I left.
“I do not know your name.”
“Charles O’Malley.”
“Karl O’Malley?” She laughed. “What a funny name. Irish, no?”
“Irish American.” It was the first time I had seen her laugh. The lines of tension and fear were erased from her face, and she was a pretty girl who might have danced with me at her prom if I went to proms and if I danced.
Well, I had gone to one prom, but I didn’t want to think about that just now.
And “Karl” was a lot better than “Chucky Ducky.”
I felt as if I were only a few steps beneath the Lord Jesus. And far ahead of the damn knight in the Dom.
I was not sure, however, that Erika would be alive that evening when I returned on my way to my accounting class.
I had never seen how quickly penicillin could do its wondrous work. The little girl was sleeping peacefully, now a junior edition of Trudi, though not as pretty.
Frau Strauss was in charge and Trudi at work on the night shift. I was thanked in high-speed German.
The third night I encountered my friend Capt. Jack Berman in the darkroom.
“Guilt like Germany’s can never be expiated,” he said, renewing our argument.
Jack’s voice, like the rest of him, was gentle. A short, dark, handsome man with soft brown eyes, he generated the calm reassurance th
at you’d expect in a psychiatrist, even though his military service was in effect merely his residency.
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Everyone’s equally guilty?”
“Of course not. Some more than others.”
“You treat German patients.”
“Some of the women who were raped by the Russians. That is my work.”
“They’re not guilty?”
“They’re guilty but they are my patients.”
“Again we end up in the same place in practice if not in theory.”
“Perhaps.”
“You think you can be effective with such women.”
“Of course.”
“They haven’t got what they deserved?”
“Who am I to judge?”
For an Irish Catholic from Chicago this Talmudic (as I would later call it) argument was too confusing. I couldn’t make up my mind whether we were on the same wavelength or not.
That night I proposed a new case.
“Suppose you found out that a young woman whose family had been Nazis and herself a member of the Jugend was dying of pneumonia and could not obtain any penicillin lest her family be arrested. Would you steal some to save her life?”
He did not hesitate a second. “Of course. It would be my duty.”
“But she’s a Nazi.”
“So?”
“She’s guilty of the holocaust.”
“Who am I to judge whether she should live or die?”
“You do judge that she should live, don’t you?”
He paused. “You argue like a rabbi, Chuck.”
He stirred the fluid in which one of his architectural shots—of the baroque Jesuit church—was developing.
“So?”
“It would not be right for her to die because I refused to acknowledge our common humanity.”
“Even if you might get in trouble with the Army?”
“That should not make any difference, should it?”
“I guess not.”
He probably guessed that it was not merely a rabbinical case. However, he said nothing about that.
On the desk as I type this chapter in my comedy of errors is my famous photograph of Trudi. The picture, taken several weeks after I worked my miracle for Erika, prevents me from romanticizing either Trudi or myself. She is certainly pretty, not beautiful like my sister Peg or her despised buddy, but appealing, a wan and pale girl with uneasy eyes and tense mouth. The fascination of the picture, however, is not in her attractiveness but in the mixture of fear, determination, and hope that permeates her thin face and youthful body. The title, “Hitler Youth Two Years Later,” adds to the uncertainty. Ought you admire this sad young woman or feel sorry for her or maybe even dislike and fear her?
A Midwinter's Tale Page 17