A Midwinter's Tale

by Andrew M. Greeley

  What was the purpose of that little skit? Damned if I know. Not all my sneaky games have purpose.

  I was ushered into General Meade’s promptly.

  “What’s up, Chuck?” He leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, a sign that he was relaxed and thinking about golf.

  “We have a pretty good lead on the Wülfe family, General, sir.”

  “Uhm.” He leaned forward. “What is it?”

  “There is a German family living over a bakery on the Untersandstrasse. A woman and two daughters. The father is apparently dead. They seem to fit the description pretty well.”

  The general’s relaxation vanished. He leaned forward intently. “We’ll have to confirm with the fingerprints.”

  The fingerprint records would always follow them. The Schultzes would have to avoid being fingerprinted for the next two years until the new German Republic (Federal Republic—Bundesstaat, it was being called) came into existence and its citizens were not subject to deportation at the whim of the occupying powers. But even now they’d be pretty safe. Despite Interpol, there was no central fingerprint file among the occupying powers, especially with the Russian zone.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What do you propose, Chuck?”

  “To organize a team to apprehend them this evening, sir, with Agent Clarke’s permission, of course.”

  “That seems reasonable,” he sighed. “I can’t say that I’m delighted at the prospect.”

  “No, sir.”

  “All right, son, carry on.”

  “Yes, sir.” I saluted and left.

  No lies. The general had not asked me why I was not planning to move on the Wülfes at once. I didn’t think he would because as a good humanitarian he would not like the smell of what we were doing. But, if he had wanted an immediate search, it would have taken me several hours to find Agent Clarke. By the time I found him, it would be too late.

  General Meade was a humane and intelligent man, sensitive to the needs of his troops, open to change, flexible enough to act on the unorthodox (but mistaken) notion that I was both a brave man and a brilliant investigator. But it would not have occurred to him to ask whether turning three women over to the Russians on the flimsiest of charges was as immoral as sending Jews to concentration camps—not as massive a cooperation in evil and surely not a cooperation in murder whose only justification was religion and ethnicity. Yet once you have crossed the border by sending one innocent person (or one person for whose guilt there is no evidence) to torture and death, you have joined the ranks of the guilty. The general would have been horrified if I had suggested that to him, and I was not about to do so. He thought of himself as a good man.

  I wondered myself whether, if I had not been personally involved, I would have refused to have anything to do with such a sin. I hope—and I still hope—that I would have refused.

  In any case, instead of confrontation about moral issues and simple humanity we would evade the problem, maybe, by one of Chuck’s slick schemes.

  At lunchtime, I drove the Buick back to the Vinehaus and packed it with all the things I would need for the trip, especially the maps and some fruit and a couple of thermoses of water. In my mailbox I found a letter from Rosemarie.

  Just what I needed now.

  I stuffed it in my pocket. I would have to answer. Rosemarie needed my letters.

  Before I drove back to the Residenz, I checked the bar at the Bambergerhof, to make sure that Rednose Clarke was not there. If he wasn’t and General Meade asked me during the afternoon why I had not yet organized the raid, I could truthfully say that I had been unable to find Agent Clarke. If I could find him at noon, then I’d need another explanation. Perhaps I shouldn’t risk a return to the Residenz, but it would help if I was seen by everyone there to be hard at work. Well, moderately hard since I was part, after all, of an army of occupation.

  The plan was too clever by half, too many cute little tricks that were the result of too much time to plan. I was worrying about the gnats and ignoring the beams.

  I inspected the bar carefully. No sign of Agent Clarke. Good.

  No, perhaps not so good. I thought about it and had another of my bright ideas. I left a note in his box. “I will report to you in the bar at six, sir. I believe we might have located the people for whom you are looking.”

  Even if he didn’t check his box, the note would serve as evidence that I had tried. I marked the fact of the note in the little black book in which I was jotting down the details of my search for the Wülfes.

  Two gumshoes trailed me back to the Residenz. What the hell was eating them? Was Sam Houston Carpenter just harassing me for the fun of it?

  The first thing I did at HQ was to type up my notes from the little black book in the form of a journal to be submitted at the end of the operation. It presented our efforts as a paragon of responsible investigation, hindered only by the bizarre behavior of Agent Clarke. There were, need I say, no lies in it.

  I rose from my desk to bring the journal to General Meade. I stopped in my tracks. That was being too eager. Save the journal for tomorrow.

  Then I turned to Rosie’s letter.

  Dear Chuck,

  I’m writing from Lake Geneva where Peggy and I are staying for a week or two under the watchful eye of Mrs. Riordan. Not that there’s all that much for her to watch. The boys up here are real drips. Peggy and I both agreed that it would be much better if you were here because we could at least fight with you and that’s always fun.

  So we swim and sail and play tennis and read. Peg is getting much better at tennis but I can still beat her. We’ll have to teach you how to play when you come home.

  Peg is reading Farrell now and loves it. She claims all the characters live in our parish too. I’m plowing through Main Street, which is dumb.

  Your description of the party at Captain Polly’s was wonderful. It did convince me that I will not try to come to Bamberg to see you. I’d be so out of place with those people. But you must be having a wonderful time showing off to them. Shame on you for eating so much caviar!

  And the nerve of that Captain Polly! How dare she wonder what I look like! DON’T show her my picture—if you have one there, which I’m sure you don’t.

  Seriously, she sounds very sweet and someone has to take care of you since your mom and Peg and I are not there.

  Whom should I read next?

  I do miss you, Chucky, though when you get home, I know we’ll keep on fighting.

  Love,

  Rosie

  How do I answer as complex and intricate a letter as that—so much said indirectly and so much more implied. I had no time. I was about to go on a mission. I put the letter aside.

  Then I knew I had to answer it.

  Dear Rosemarie,

  First of all, you would fit in all too well at one of Captain Polly’s parties. They’d forget all about the punk with the wire-brush hair that brung you. I’m glad you decided not to come here mostly because it still isn’t safe, but partly because you’d upstage me.

  As for Captain Polly being my mother, I will have to contend with a sibling soon because, amidst universal rejoicing, she has announced that an heir or heiress to the Nettleton clan is forthcoming. They’re leaving here before Christmas.

  Alas, too late comes your (I suspect insincere) prohibition against showing your picture to happy Polly. She demanded that I show her one such and I had no choice but to obey because she is my superior officer. So I did show her one of the more dazzling exercises in my photographic skill from the prom night (about which I suppose the less said the better). She was most impressed as I knew she would be. The picture was easy enough to find because it has hung in an appropriate frame in my room at the Vinehaus Messerschmitt.

  I don’t claim you as my girl because I have no right to do so. But I’ll admit that I do not deny the impression that some have that such is the case. I hung the picture for the same reason I showed it to Captain Polly. To have a picture of someo
ne like you makes me look good—as a photographer of course but for other reasons too.

  You should read Faulkner next. Then Graham Greene. The former is tough, but worth the effort. The latter is a convert who, mostly because he has never lived in a place like St. Ursula, doesn’t quite understand Catholicism.

  Shortly you will receive a pound of caviar from me—beluga, I’m told, the best. (Ask the good April, who is an expert on such matters.) I’ll tell you the story of how I got it some other time. It is, however, quite legal. Well, more or less. I’m enclosing a picture of the Biergarten Geyersworth (that’s the Schloss Geyersworth in the background). Actually the place is far more degenerate than it seems.

  I paused in my typing. I had to say something about fighting with her. I would probably survive the next eighteen hours without any trouble. But if I didn’t, should I not say something more?

  I thought of the letter I memorized up in the Bohemian Alps. It should be on the record, whatever my fears. I sighed. I didn’t want to write it, but I should.

  I sighed again and typed it in.

  As for fighting, I don’t want to fight with you anymore. It stopped being fun long ago. I’m sure we’ll argue, but no more fights.

  Maybe I’ve grown up a little here in Germany, not much, but perhaps just a little. So, I want to apologize to you for all the times I was rude or sarcastic to you. Maybe you know that it was just a silly little game that both of us played, but I was the one that kept the game going and I’m sorry. I hope we can be friends when I return.

  I thought about writing those words up in the Bohemianwald and never did work up the courage to do so.

  We’ve got an operation going now. It’s not particularly dangerous, but I’m not very brave. By the time you receive this letter it will be over, and unless you have read bad news in the press, I’ll be fine.

  Love,

  Chuck

  I sealed it and threw it in the mailbox as I left. I wished a minute later I hadn’t sent it. But then I was glad I did.

  24

  At eighteen hundred, when, I fervently hoped, the Wülfes, now Strausses, soon to be Schultzes, were packing, I walked to the Bambergerhof. Special Agent Clarke was, as I suspected, in the bar, reading Stars and Stripes. General Clay, the military governor, had testified that anti-Semitism was appearing again in Western Europe. (It had never disappeared as far as I could tell.) The English had imposed a curfew in Tel Aviv.

  “Hiyah, sport, how’s it holding up?”

  “We have found two suspect families, sir, no male in either, I’m afraid. The male is reported to be dead in both cases.”

  “That may be State’s problem when I report it back.” He sipped at his drink. “It’s no skin off my ass.”

  “Yes, sir. Do you want to arrange to investigate these two families tonight?”

  “Any special reason, sport?” He glanced at his watch. “Think they’re planning to fly the coop?”

  “No, sir. Our informants are very discreet, you can count on that.”

  Well, at least Magda and Erika weren’t planning on anything because they didn’t know what was happening.

  “Then why all the rush?”

  “Entirely up to you, sir.”

  “You got a fräulein, sport?”

  “No, sir.”

  “What about that blond kid I saw you with at the Biergarten? Great knockers.”

  “I wouldn’t describe her as my fräulein, sir.”

  “Good-looking kid like you? I don’t believe it, sport. Everyone in this asshole of the world has a fräulein. Anyway, go find yourself one and we’ll hunt down these krauts in the morning. Okay?”

  “Okeydokey, sir. What time?”

  “Ten o’clock? That too early?”

  “No, sir.”

  I thought about calling the general and informing him of the “delay.” Indeed I picked up a phone in the lobby of the Bambergerhof and then tried to put it down, my hands so wet that the phone slipped off the hook, my body shuddering as if I had been stricken with the flu.

  I commanded myself to put the phone carefully back on the hook and get the hell out of the Bambergerhof, slowly and calmly.

  The general might have ordered that we pick up the Wülfes tonight. Then where would I be? I must restrain my sudden bright impulses.

  The daimon, I would tell myself years later, is quick and resourceful as well as passionate; but he is reckless and imprudent and not to be trusted. Right?

  Right.

  I climbed into the Buick and, with a deep breath, launched on the great adventure, heart thumping, throat dry, bowels protesting.

  And was immediately blocked by a jeep at the far side of the Schönleinsplatz—Sam Houston Carpenter and three of his bully boys.

  “Who gave you the right to drive that car, punk?”

  I fought to contain my temper. “Gen. Radford Meade, sir. Here is the authorization.”

  I showed the form that Captain Nettleton had filled out above the general’s signature.

  Carpenter made a lunge for it and I pulled it back.

  “How come he gave you this beauty?”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him, sir.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “Sir, I am on an operation to which General Meade assigned me. You are interfering with my carrying out that assignment. I must ask you, sir, with all due respect, to remove your vehicle from my path.”

  “Where you going?” He lifted his fist as if he were going to strike me.

  “Sir, again with all due respect, I submit that it is not proper for you to ask me this question—unless you are prepared to make charges against me and General Meade.”

  “I’ve got a good notion to pull you in and beat it out of you.”

  “You do that, sir”—I was almost at the boiling point—“and I’ll bring charges against you. That will mean a general court-martial and your career in the Army will be over.”

  I had gone too far.

  “One more smart-ass comment from you, punk, and I’ll break your front teeth.”

  I lost it, as my grandchildren would say.

  “Look, you have been harassing me for a week, interfering with my work, hindering the missions General Meade has sent me on, following me with your incompetent gumshoes. You have done this in the absence of charges against me. Because of my concern about smooth relations between CID and Constabulary I have not complained about it. But now I’m fed up. Either you remove your vehicle from my path or I will ram into it. You, sir, will have to explain to General Meade why this happened.”

  I turned on the ignition.

  “I’ll get you, you Irish Catholic son of a bitch.”

  “I heard that too.” I eased the shift into forward and began moving.

  God or my guardian angel intervened to prevent me from calling him a fucking redneck bastard.

  I shifted into second and picked up speed. The leprechaun was in a foul mood and he didn’t care what happened.

  “Get the vehicle out of his way, idiots,” Sam Houston shouted at his flunkies.

  They moved it just in time. I was not about to slow down.

  Madness. He was harassing me. He had nothing against me. He was not in league with Agent Clarke or he would have let me ram his jeep. I had endangered everything in a temper tantrum. I was proud of myself for having called his bluff, not a good way to begin a difficult and dangerous caper.

  The Wülfes arrived at the alley behind the parish church exactly on time. Thank God I was not dealing with American Irish women, who are genetically programmed to be tardy.

  I said nothing until we were out of town and on the autobahn.

  “You’d better translate for me, Trudi. There’s an American FBI agent, obnoxiously incompetent, in Bamberg looking for you. Apparently the Russians have pushed someone in the State Department to find you and return you to their zone. I don’t know why. You’ll be safe in the French zone. There are papers in this envelope.” My left hand on the wheel of th
e Buick, not as handsome as the Rider’s horse in the Dom, I handed the large manila envelope to Trudi. “You are now Maria, Anna, and Frieda Schultz. Please God, you won’t have to change your names again. I don’t think the search is too serious. Once the American learns that your father is dead and you have escaped, he’ll probably return to America. I will drop you at the Bahnhof in Stuttgart. I don’t want to know who your friends are or where you will be. In a couple of weeks when this should have blown over, you can write me at the Vinehaus Messerschmitt and we can be in touch with one another again. You can begin your new life tomorrow morning.”

  She did not translate or respond to me for some moments. Sweating from the hot and humid August weather, we drove silently toward the setting sun.

  “You are in danger?”

  “Not really.”

  “I know that you are.”

  “Trudi,” I said impatiently, “if I were, I would tell you. I’m trying to get this done, not to be a hero.”

  Two eighteen-year-olds trying to act like adults as they played what might be a deadly game.

  “There is money here.”

  “Twenty-five hundred American dollars. It will help you not to be a burden on your friends and to begin your new life.”

  “It is your money, isn’t it?”

  “Never mind that, Trudi.”

  The noble knight must make sacrifices, must he not?

  “I will not take it.” Her voice had a hard, bitter edge. “I did not sell myself to you to escape.”

  “Did I say that you did?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “Act your age, Trudi; how are you three going to survive without money? Call it a loan.”

  “I will repay you, that I promise.” Only a novice taking her first vows could have sounded more solemn.