A Midwinter's Tale

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “Colonel Nettleton,” I said to him, “with all respect, sir, you look like an IRA gunman, maybe in Odd Man Out.”

  “My wife will tell you I’m a lot more handsome than James Mason, which shows how prejudiced a wife can be, doesn’t it? But I’m sure there are terrorists and criminals and crooked politicians in our past, though my country-club Irish parents would stoutly deny it.”

  “Country-club, is it, sir?”

  “It is. And if it weren’t for this war, I’d never met herself, who is clearly an undesirable Southie. Which just goes to show you, doesn’t it? And, Chuck O’Malley, if you call me ‘Colonel, sir’ once more, you might be needing dental attention.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The colonel had found a kindred spirit. I didn’t ask him what his encounter with the deliciously voluptuous, but socially undesirable, Mary Elizabeth Anne in London just went to show me. I knew.

  I sighed loudly, as the good April often did under similar circumstances, an Irish sigh that can be interpreted scores of different ways and almost means several things at the same time.

  The quick, affectionate glances between them and the brief touches reminded me of my parents. They would always be in love. I envied John Nettleton, not merely because he could sleep every night with such an appealing woman, but because I had little confidence that I would marry as happily.

  “There’s a lot of tit on display tonight, is there not?” I said to him in my phony Irish brogue.

  “What’s the point of hot weather if not to justify that? And wasn’t I thinking that we could do with a little more without its being gravely sinful?” he responded in an equally phony brogue.

  “Maybe even a lot more!”

  Polly arrived, reproved us for our dirty laughter, dragged John away to meet newly arrived guests, and instructed me, go eat your chocolate bars and don’t bother my husband with your fixations.

  “Fair play to you, woman of the house,” I replied, and the two went off laughing.

  I made myself invisible in a chair for a while, munched three Hershey’s bars, and devastated the supply of Coke and peanuts. All great empires probably had parties like this in the homes of their consuls and centurions—beautiful, underdressed women and handsome men, intelligent conversation, good food and wine, a teasing summer breeze, their equivalent of big-band music and dancing, a view of something like the now black canal, laced with rippling gold stripes, beneath us, and in the distance the churches and palaces of the bishop’s city sparkling pink and purple and silver, like a drawing of a magical city in an expensive child’s storybook.

  And no questions asked about the money to pay for the parties.

  But few such empires probably had parties so carefully designed to the South Boston standards of the hostess. Ideologues, fighters, boors, climbers, and drunks were banned. You didn’t have to be an intellectual, but you had to be intelligent, witty, and relaxed. Formality was absolutely forbidden to both Americans and Germans. One did not say “sir” or “Herr Hauptman” in the Nettleton apartment. By exception, we were permitted to call General Meade “general.” The men all wore sports clothes, but most had discarded their jackets.

  For Chucky O’Malley most of these rules were waived. For example I wore a neatly pressed khaki shirt and trousers, without a tie or Constabulary folderol. Well, as neatly pressed as anything of mine ever is. I also called everyone “sir” whenever possible—in defiance of mine hostess’s wishes—and called her “Polly, ma’am.”

  While there were more men than women at such parties (the wives of most of the Americans, including the general’s, were still at home, and only those who had married their wife abroad were together), no woman was permitted to come unless she was accompanied by a man (hence my responsibility to squire the mystical Brigitta) and she did not leave with someone else. Married men whose wives were home were permitted to bring a date so long as they didn’t become amorous at the party.

  I am not running a house of assignation, the woman of the house insisted firmly. Sam Carpenter, a married man, had practically raped right here in the apartment a young woman who had come as his date. He was placed under solemn interdict. So, while sexuality permeated the apartment, the purposes of the party were not frustrated by attempts at seduction.

  The buffet and wine were tasteful and expensive, the best you could get and quite possibly purchased from the black market, and the furniture in the large apartment was refined without being extravagant. There were no servants. Southies don’t do servants. As conquerors, this bunch was pretty refined. No one fed to the lions or thrown off the balcony into the canal.

  I glanced around at the two couples who were dancing on the balcony to Harry James music on the phonograph and at the rest of the group engaged in conversational murmurs—Brig and the general arguing about whether Longstreet was responsible for losing the battle on the second day at Gettysburg. Very civilized group, good-looking, cultivated, intelligent, witty, low-key.

  Where did Charles C. O’Malley fit in?

  He was the joker of course, the clown, the fool, the buffoon, the court jester, possibly a bit of a good-luck charm—and before the night was over also a bit of a Meistersinger.

  John Raven had a different analysis when I went through my general confession to him after I was back home. Chuck, he would say, you were there because Captain Polly loved you and counted on you to be the life of the party.

  She loved her husband.

  There are, as you of all people well know, many different kinds of love in the world.

  “You’re in the Constabulary, son?” the middle-aged man who was sitting next to me asked, tweedy, pipe smoking, and New England. Probably Harvard too.

  “Yes, sir. I’m the hired bard. I sing.”

  He looked at me to make sure I was kidding. “One of our men is working with you now, Rednose Clarke.”

  “Indeed, sir.” I was listening carefully.

  “Strange man. One of the best before the war. Had some problems. But he turns out to be very good at collecting people the Russians want. Seems kind of indifferent, but is relentless. Hasn’t lost one search.”

  My heart sank toward the canal. “Kind of an official bounty hunter, huh?”

  My companion raised his carefully manicured eyebrows. “You could call him that, I suppose. But these people are war criminals, you know.”

  “Can’t let them wander around then.” I sighed the good April’s sigh again. “What happens to him if he loses one search?”

  “He’ll end up permanently as an agent-in-charge in some place like Pocatello, Idaho.”

  “Poor man.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be there.”

  I prayed fervently on the spot that Rednose Clarke had been lucky and that his luck was running out. In the back of my head, a plan was taking shape. We’d need a little luck, I admitted, but more in getting the papers quickly than anything else. Slipping out of Bamberg after dark and driving the autobahn to Stuttgart at full speed ought to be easy. I had, however, never driven at full speed (no limits) on the autobahn even in daylight hours, and my driving abilities were minimal. Well, we’d have to chance it.

  I was about to ask more questions about Rednose when my hostess approached. “Chucky, would you ever sing some of your songs for us, the party needs a little lift.”

  “Yes, madame,” I said obediently.

  “Folks,” she interrupted the murmuring, “we are fortunate indeed to have with us tonight Staff Sgt. Charles C. O’Malley, the John McCormack of the Constabulary and der Meistersinger von Bamberg. He will sing a few numbers from his wide repertory of international songs.”

  “I was afraid you’d never ask, Captain Polly, ma’am. The songs are all international all right, so long as you don’t mind Irish songs.”

  She sat the piano to accompany me. She has lovely shoulders, I thought as I looked down at her. No, I wouldn’t mind someone like her in bed with me for the rest of my life. I should be so lucky.

  Now I
’m not a McCormack by light-years, but I do sing on key, have what the good April called a nice tenor voice, and possess a large repertoire of Irish songs. I also know how the Irish songs should be sung—first melancholy, then sad, then triumphant, like the way McCormack did “The Kerry Dance.” I also don’t sing Irish American kitsch such as “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” save as an encore and then only under pressure.

  “If I have to compete with Harry James’s trumpet I’ll lose, Captain Polly, ma’am.”

  Captain Polly ordered her husband to turn off the phonograph, and I began the traditional plea of Percy French that one Paddy Reilly come back to Ballyjamesduff. Two more songs—so long ago now I don’t remember what they were and I had other things to do at the end of the night than record them in the journal I was keeping. Then an encore of two songs—“Smiling Eyes” of course and then, because a demon lurks within my soul, “Clancy Lowered the Boom.” I even prefaced the latter with the comment that the Clancy I knew was a woman. Since the song has one of the most melodic choruses that anyone has ever heard, I had everyone singing by the end.

  I would tell Rosemarie in the next letter.

  “Wonderful, Chucky darling.” Captain Polly bussed me with more than her initial peck. “You’re absolutely magic.”

  Third woman in a day. Try for four?

  See what I mean? John Raven would say.

  “My agent will see you about a fee, Captain Polly, ma’am.”

  She kissed me again and then directed us to find some more steak and wine for ourselves and come back. She was easing us into a meeting of the committee of the whole, when the best conversation would be expected.

  “Is that Clancy a young woman?” mine hostess demanded as I brought back a plate for Brigie.

  “Younger than springtime and older than the mountains.”

  “She sounds interesting. . . . Chucky, you can’t eat all that caviar at one time!”

  “Wanna bet?”

  I had put aside my chocolates for other things. Once I had disposed of the caviar—which I had eaten only once at home—I could return to the semisweet chocolate.

  Such goodies might have come from the black market, but they were also available at the PX in these postwar times.

  The first subject of general conversation was the usual one: What might the Russkies be up to?

  There were some fairly brilliant strategic analyses, ranging from that they would wait till they had an atom bomb so that they might come roaring down from Erfurt and Leipzig before the next morning. Or maybe on Sunday morning. The consensus seemed to be that we would be swept away in a few hours, but that the Allied armies would hold them at the Rhine. Maybe. A civilian analyst from G-2 suggested that there was no sign of their getting ready to move, but they were tricky people.

  “What do you think, Chuck?” the general asked, knowing that I never joined in such conversations till pressed to do so.

  “I figure that they are at least as incompetent as we are, maybe a little more so because we gave up horses and mules long before they did. On that basis, I figure that all their equipment would break down halfway between here and the border and that their infantry would be too drunk, too fat, and too sick from syphilis to get any more than five miles further. It might be the first war like the 1945 World Series between Detroit and the Cubs: neither side could possibly win.”

  There was some laughter, a lot of it hollow. General Meade, who was sitting on one side of my date while I was on the other, leaned over and said in a low voice, “I think you’re probably right, son.”

  “No one wants another war,” Brigitta sighed. “Not even the Russians.”

  Then the conversation turned to the black market. The received wisdom seemed to be that it was terrible and no one could stop it and that, if you rounded up the present gang, another would take its place. General Meade lamented that it was pervasive and yet elusive. Every time we get a tip about an exchange, it dries up before our patrols can get out there. They’re pretty clever. We’ll get them eventually, but we’ve put in a lot of time so far and come up empty-handed.

  I felt that most of the dismay in the room was artificial, like a group of Chicago politicians of that era decrying graft.

  “We’re getting more and more of it out here,” John Nettleton added. “It’s like someone is taking over from all the small-time operators. Like prohibition in Chicago. What’s your considered opinion as a native Chicagoan?”

  He was talking to me because I was the only Chicago native in the room. I didn’t have an opinion, much less a considered one, but I made up a spontaneous and unrehearsed opinion as I talked and found that, after I had stopped, I believed what I had said.

  “Look,” I said, after swallowing quickly my mouthful of caviar, “we have messed up a lot in this Army of Occupation. We’re sluggish, sex-crazy, and corrupt. But, as armies of occupation go, we are a hell of a lot better than most. We’re not here for reparations, we’re not here to punish, we’re here, glory be to God, to facilitate the rebirth of authentic democracy in Germany and protect this new democracy from our friends across the border. Has an occupying army ever in history tried to do so much for the folks it has conquered? We pour in money to rehabilitate their industries and give them back their jobs; individual and groups of GIs spend a lot of time with kids, old people, the sick, the poor, trying to help them, even in some cases to get them back to church—the damn American do-good impulse again. Sure some of us exploit the locals, but more of us feel sorry for them and try to help them. Not enough perhaps, but, I tell you, folks, this is an unique conquering army and precisely because it’s American. I took Econ 101 last semester so I’m an expert on supply and demand. We put these black-market bastards out of business, sure there’ll be others, but damn it, we have to put them out of business just the same because they’re spoiling what we’re trying to do!”

  It was not bad for talk on the fly, especially since I had never believed any of it before. But now I believed and resolved that after I took care of the Wülfe problem, I’d really go after those bastards.

  There was enthusiastic but, I thought, not quite sincere applause, and we then turned to a new subject, the similarities between depression novels in the United States and in Germany. I almost fell asleep.

  Dick McQueen, in a light blue sports jacket, drifted over to me, an exquisite silver-haired German “countess” on his arm.

  “As always, Chuck,” he said, after introducing the “countess” (who for all I know may have been real), “you said it perfectly. I don’t suppose I could talk you into West Point instead of Notre Dame?”

  I kissed the countess’s hand (first time I’d ever done anything like that) and thanked her for her kind words about my vocal ability.

  “No thank you, Colonel, sir. I’m afraid I don’t have that vocation.”

  “You probably wouldn’t fit. Funny thing is that those who fit lose battles and maybe wars, and those who don’t fit turn up winners.”

  “I think Doktor Richter would not think that so odd. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlin of the Twentieth Maine, who held the Little Round Top the second day at Gettysburg, she tells me, didn’t fit at all.”

  “And didn’t go to West Point either.”

  “Bowdoin College, if the Frau Doktor is to be believed.”

  “The Army really isn’t a good life,” McQueen went on, his handsome face in a deep frown. “For some of us like General Meade and myself there is solid reason to believe in our eventual success. Others are simply not going to make it.”

  “Like Major Carpenter.”

  McQueen smiled briefly. “Perhaps. . . . In any case, for men who see this future pretty clearly, an Army of Occupation provides them with an opportunity to insure their future and take their revenge against a system which they think has been unfair. I’m not defending them, just trying to explain their mentality.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, thinking that even for men like him and the general the rewards at the top would be fleeting
and not all that great.

  I kissed the countess’s hand again. This time Captain Polly caught the act and rolled her eyes in feigned dismay.

  We were then told to get our dessert and coffee.

  I collected three plates of chocolate ice cream and a large mug of tea.

  “Would I like this Clancy person?” Polly demanded as I tried to slip by her with my horde of ice cream.

  “I dunno. My mother and sisters like her, so I suppose you might.”

  Polly beamed contentedly. They’re all matchmakers, I tell you. All of them.

  Brigitta watched with amusement as I disposed of the ice cream. I was searching for the man who had confided in me about Rednose Clarke but could not find him. Had he slipped out after delivering his message? Had I been set up? Were there plots within plots? Was I truly an innocent abroad? Should I even be here having fun while three women’s lives were at stake?

  Oh, well, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow . . . I didn’t like that one.

  Mom would have said, sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.

  Both of them I would later learn were quotes from the Scripture. Which just goes to show you.

  Anyway it was a pretty classy party for a poor shanty-Irish kid from the West Side whose eyes were popping all night, not only at the bare arms and partially bare breasts, but at the experience of what money can do for a warm evening in the summertime a long way from home.

  “Shall I get the horses for your chariot, ma’am?”

  Brig glanced at her watch. “Oh, my, is it that late? We must work tomorrow. Yes, we’d better go.”

  Yes, there was work to be done tomorrow.

  There were the usual prolonged farewells and expressions of gratitude for the party.

  “Cool, Polly,” I said, figuring she deserved a compliment. “Not many people could pull this off.”

  “Why, thank you, Chuck.” She kissed my lips. “I’m glad you liked it.”

  I managed to walk down the steps from the third floor under my own power, just barely. Let me see, that was five kisses in one night. Not bad for a rank amateur.