Liberated

by Steve Anderson

  “If you don’t mind me asking: What did you do back home?”

  Membre grinned again. “Furnishings. Fine furniture, all that goes with it. That’s the family business, you see. Membre and Sons.” I was expecting a half hour on the Membre family’s dominance of the Midwest furnishing business. Yet something made the grin seal up tight and Membre threw back his drink. “So, the Baron von Maulendorff? Why you’re really here, right?”

  “If it can help, yes.”

  “Well, I did requisition his mansion, that’s right. And now I’m giving it back to him.”

  “You’re what?”

  Floorboards creaked, from somewhere beyond the purple major. From behind an orange-red curtain along the wall. I heard a near whisper: “Herr Kapitän Kaspar? Is that you? Please listen. I’ll come out, but only for the promise that you not harm me.”

  The baron was here? My head had filled with a black heat, but what could I do? Major Membre was staring at me with pursed lips, in a near pout.

  “Oh, all right,” I said.

  The curtain parted. A cigarette in a silver holder, and then trembling fingers showed. Membre lowered his drink to admire the Baron von Maulendorff as he entered the room. The baron’s green velvet smoking jacket was cut in the Bavarian style, with darker stand-up collar and wooden buttons. “Captain Kaspar, let me introduce our very honored guest, the Baron Friedrich-Faustino—”

  “Know who he is, Major. I’m the one caught him breaking curfew.”

  “Very well, Captain. But that’s behind us now.”

  I didn’t like where this was going and Maulendorff could see it. He pushed back his longish hair with a flat hand and tried a nervous chuckle. “Yes, well, I must say I understand your anger,” he said to me in German.

  “Keep it in English—it’s the Official Language of Military Government.”

  “Please, Captain,” Membre said.

  The baron was sweating again. He wiped at his face with a handkerchief, but the sweat had already soaked his silk yellow ascot, making it look like a soggy crepe. Let him sweat, I thought, and downed my whiskey. I went behind the bar, poured another.

  Membre spoke: “Listen, Frankfurt HQ prefers that certain traditional, conservative elements of German society be well treated. You know that. The clergy are a big help in some towns, as you know. We don’t have that luxury here, unfortunately. But we do have a committed Catholic personage here in the baron. So, as long as said individuals were not in the party, which the baron was not, you can consider him vetted.”

  The baron looked to Membre, who nodded. The baron said, as if reciting a script, “It is our Stunde Null, after all—our Hour Zero, where everything restarts from nothing. And with the Bolsheviks, er, Communists in the East, who else can bring stability to a future Germany? Or to an independent Bavaria. God willing.”

  I nodded, drank, and stared from behind the bar. In their getups, the two looked like a duo from Hollywood’s latest screwball comedy. All right, fine. So bring on the big show.

  “Still, that is not why I’m here,” the baron said.

  Membre nodded. “No, it’s not. Come along, Captain.”

  Major Membre left the baron waiting there and led me into what he called his “second office,” a spare rectangle of a room with clean white walls and glossy gray floor, its paint job so new I could smell it. The room looked more like a mock Bauhaus workshop than a library. During the day the broad windows gave a splendid view of the stream called the Heimbach that ran along the rear of castle hill, Membre said, stirring his drink with his gem finger (though his glass had a stir stick). Tonight there was no view, no twinkling current. The windows formed huge black squares, sucking any little warmth from the room, and the sterile modern caged light fixtures above cast sharp lines on our faces. The major had a purple love seat and half-opened crates of whiskey and cognac clustered in the middle of the room. On a black steel desk sat two phones.

  One of the phones rang, rattling the metal desktop. Membre lunged for it and barked into the receiver: “Heimgau here … It’s late, this better be good … Ah. Evening, sir. That’s fine, just fine. Bibles? Can you be more specific, General—sir.” Membre rolling his eyes for me. “Well, what century? More bibles in the 1700s than people think … Yes, please do that … Sir. Bye now.”

  I guessed this helped explain the four heavy trucks out in the courtyard, not to mention all the fine houses the major had slapped with Off-Limits signs. Of course, some MG detachments used their all-powerful status to trade, acquire, and move the goods and spoils of war. Every soldier, every unit did it to a degree, from the lowliest Joe to the shiniest four-star. I couldn’t blame them. Some had damn good reasons. Some had been fighting men, and had seen friends die. Other soldiers were Jewish. I wasn’t a fool. The trick was in keeping the business civil, discreet. Not like this. Not like a bazaar. The worst of it was, the major had two of the town’s five working phone lines – phones that could be used to badger the Red Cross or, at the least, swap some of this plunder for foodstuffs.

  “So,” Membre began, but the phone rang again. “Heimgau here … Why yes! Wooden mangers? How nice. Lots of artisan stuff here, we have a long tradition of handiwork … And clocks? Like cuckoo clocks? Sure, I can get you those … just send a truck and I’ll take care of you … No, thank you.” He set down the receiver, beaming. “That was one of Patton’s adjutants.”

  “Impressive.”

  “Yes. Oh, yes,” Membre said.

  Two men with neat gray beards rushed in lugging either ends of a small crate. They were refugees—probably forced laborers from the East—and took little notice of me despite my captain’s uniform. They whispered to the major in broken, warbling English and produced a set of silver chalices from the crate. “I just love fine things,” Membre said and rambled on about loving fine things till spit gathered at the edges of his mouth, his lips greasy like he’d just eaten a pork sandwich. “It’s from the Schatzkammer itself—that’s the castle’s treasure chamber,” he told me.

  “I know what the word means.”

  “I know. I know that. Know how much these are worth? These men are about to tell me.”

  “I don’t. Look, sir, I get the picture. What you want to show me. Think I even get why. But—”

  Both phones rang. The major’s two appointed art experts rubbed their hands together, eyeing me. Membre stared at them, at the phones, at me. “Suddenly it’s a rush,” he said. “All right, just, wait back there with the baron. Get acquainted. I got a real treat for you. But remember, our baron’s Off Limits too,” he said and lunged for both phones at once.

  Major Membre was feeling generous with his newfound racket, and I guess I should’ve been flattered. Yet all I wanted was the pack of Lucky Strikes I’d left on that faux deco bar. Then I was out of there.

  I marched back through the sitting room. The bar was cleared off. The Baron von Maulendorff was tiptoeing my way. I whirled around. “What? Where are my smokes?”

  The baron reached out and pretended to produce my pack from behind my ear like some warmed-over roadhouse magician. I snatched the pack and checked it was still full. And then? I don’t know, maybe it was the absurdity of this tin-crown, old-hat aristo that made me not smack that cornball grin off his face (it definitely wasn’t his charm). I might’ve even smiled back. He might have produced another bow. The next thing I knew I was hunkering down with the man in two matching yellow damask chairs. Crystal glasses sat on a silver tray on a gilded table. The baron poured me more whiskey, flailing away now like a hurried maître d’.

  “Don’t you even want to know what happened to your cart?” I said.

  “No. That is yours now.”

  “Suit yourself.” At least the baron hadn’t tried to ridicule my handgun skills.

  “Listen, we don’t have time for chat,” the baron said in more direct German. He was close to whispering. “You are a German, yes?”

  “No.”

  The baron’s hand pressed on his chest.
“Excuse me—German-American. Thus, the sour look? You don’t want people to know. It must have been complicated back home.”

  “It’s tough all over, see.”

  “But not for you here? If you want it that way. That’s why your major wants you on-board. You have the fluent language and the ambition to go with it. That’s what he is thinking. You come from nothing, am I correct?”

  I set down my glass. “Enough about me.”

  “As you wish. I just want you to know that I respect you. Your Military Government is in a very admirable position, I must say. A long, nasty war brings more than one glorious estate sale, no? And you MG men can be the middlemen for some ‘real shiny brass,’ as you call it. It’s much like your gangster movies. If the US Army was the mob, the Military Government would be the front and the fence. Yes?” The baron only now noticed that I’d set down my glass. “Ah. But of course, the US Army is not the mob, is it?”

  “No, it’s not. You’re talking about the major. I’m not the major.”

  “No, you’re not he. So I’ll be direct.” The baron stopped to listen, stole a look around. Whispered: “Have you heard about any, shall we say, stray freight trains about?”

  “No. Stray how? That’s a vague question.”

  The baron took a quick drink. “I’m taking quite a chance here, understand.”

  “So don’t take it.”

  “It is said there are more trains. There could be one near here. Many did embark in the last days. All you needed was undamaged tracks and a locomotive.”

  Colonel Spanner certainly would not like this. Anything Off Limits to me certainly was to this displaced manor swell. So I spoke louder: “You don’t want the major to know. I get you. So how you know I won’t tell him?”

  “You won’t. You despise him, if I may be so bold. I would too, if I were you.”

  The baron had stretched his mouth tight, ready for that smack now. Instead, I lifted my drink and stood and walked around the room as if stretching my legs. I checked the door, the hallway, the curtain from behind which the baron had appeared. Behind it was a door that I opened to find an older, narrower, darker hallway. We were alone. I sat, faced the baron. “You want info. So do I. So I’m going to give you one chance. What about those corpses? The tortured bodies. My mere mention of them made you run from me that night.”

  The baron held up a finger. “I ran because it was curfew.”

  “Because I wasn’t willing to cut a deal with you. So you go and find a much better deal with someone else. The major. Now your partner, by the looks of it.”

  “You pulled a pistol on me.”

  “I drew after you ran. And I didn’t shoot, did I? No, I just mention corpses and you ran—”

  “My God!” The baron pressed fingers to his lips. “You do, don’t you?”

  “I do what? Out with it.”

  “You suspect the major?”

  “What? I didn’t say that. I just want to get to the bottom of this.”

  The baron was smarter than he looked. I couldn’t imagine one of ours doing what I saw on that road. And yet I had to consider the major a suspect, just like everyone else. If I didn’t, it wouldn’t be justice I was after. No one should be excluded. That was a Democracy with the big D.

  The baron nodded, muttering, “Well, yes, I suppose it is possible.” He got up and paced the room. He checked the window, which I’d forgotten to do. He came back and said: “I do know something happened. One hears things. But I honestly don’t know how it came to pass.”

  “Then I don’t know of any train.”

  “Please, Herr Kaspar, I’m telling you all I know.” The baron stared into the table, his eyes racing, reflecting the glisten of the gilding. I waited. I had all the time for this, a full pack of Luckies’ worth at least. “I do know this: The major was in town then,” he added.

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw him. In town. Yes. He was here at least two days before you.”

  “Two?” The major had told me he’d come in the same day. Or had he? No, no, it was the detachment that arrived the same day. Membre never mentioned when he arrived.

  We heard footsteps. Coming down the hallway.

  The baron spoke fast: “What I would do, I were you? Pursue any survivors. Gain their trust. Small town, this is. Word gets around; someone must’ve seen more, must know more.”

  “Survivors of what? Is that why all were so spooked when I got here? This place was a ghost town.”

  “Spooked, as you call it? The citizens? Oh, perhaps so, yes …”

  The footsteps neared the doorway.

  And the baron let out a big fake laugh, slapped me on the knee for the major to see.

  Only it wasn’t Major Membre. We heard voices—giggling female voices. Two Fräuleins entered clinging to each other, smiling taut smiles. Their skirts were tight, the blouses loose, and their thick blond curls wavy and curled under, making them look more like swing-band singers than Bavarian farm girls. They were sisters. I’d seen them around town already. How could a man miss them?

  “Ah, the girls.” The baron stood and heaved out another bow. “Allow me to introduce the esteemed Public Safety Officer of your town, Captain Kaspar.” He added to me in English from the side of his mouth, “They hope to make their way to Vienna—to live with their aunt—and all they need are the right papers,” and the girls nodded along, knowing not the words but surely the plan. He said to the girls in Heimgau German: “Bärbel and, what’s your name?”

  “Brigitta.” The sisters giggled again. Lips shined in the light. A smell like fresh berries had filled the room.

  The baron whispered to me: “Lost their parents but not as young as they look.”

  Major Membre returned. He’d changed into a white seersucker suit with black string tie. He was humming “Mairzy Doats,” of all the tunes. His refugee minions dropped off a large picnic basket and hurried off, their eyes lowered, and the major, still humming, laid out the basket’s contents on the gold table—three bottles of ‘37 Mosel Gewürztraminer, Allgäuer cheese, a chain of sausages and two oval loaves of grainy bread. The sisters were clapping and hopping in place.

  Even to me it smelled glorious. This was what Germany was supposed to smell like. “Not even we can get chow like this,” I muttered.

  “I told you. Did I tell you?” Membre grinned. He filled glasses, taking care not to splash any, and did so all over his wrist and cuff. “Why don’t you speak some of your Deutsch with the girls? It’s okay. I told them about you.”

  Suddenly the smell went a little rancid. “About me? What about me, Major?”

  Membre shrugged, the ends of his tie dipping into his wine glass. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I consider you as American as I am.”

  I turned away to watch Brigitta and Bärbel. They gulped the wine straight from the bottle, tore at bread and inhaled hunks of sausage, gasped at the tastes, and groped at each other’s fleshy arms between swallows. It was lusty, like one of those rich and glowing Rubens paintings with a heroic name: Teutonic Virgins Submit To Gluttony Before Battle, or something. Bärbel rubbed the baron’s shoulders. Brigitta filled my glass. She gazed into me, cradling the wine bottle low with both hands, her warm green eyes controlling mine. I looked away, trying to recall Colonel Spanner’s words, those MG handbooks, my own damn vows. These people were our enemy only a month ago. Swoop on in, take advantage, and they’ll return the deed in spades.

  I asked Brigitta if maybe she wouldn’t be better off filling up the Herr Major’s glass. Membre seemed to understand. He spat a laugh: “You don’t think one of them is for me, do you? I’m CO. My God, man, how would it look?”

  “My fair maidens, do you have need of a nest for resting your weary selves so deserving of comfort?” the baron was saying to Bärbel now in elaborate, centuries-old High German. “Verily, you must remove yourselves to my mansion one fine day, consider this my most unconditional invitation …”

  Mansion? A hot rush had filled my head. “N
o, wait. Wait one minute.”

  The baron and the Gretchens turned to me. Membre set down his near-empty glass with care as if it was full to the brim. “What is it, Captain? Are you ill?”

  I barked at Membre: “You said, ‘honored guest’.”

  Membre raised an eyebrow. “Son, I don’t follow you.”

  “When I first got here, you introduced Maulendorff here as your ‘very honored guest.’ What’s he honored for?” I stood, my arms cocked taut at my sides.

  Membre held a smile. He showed it to the baron and the sisters. He tugged at his string tie and said, “Well, you’ve forced my hand, haven’t you? I was going to post the announcement next week, but I don’t see any harm in announcing it to you now.” Membre held out his glass to the baron. “Ladies and gentleman, allow me to introduce the new mayor of Heimgau—”

  My legs hurtled me to the door and my hands wanted to be fists. So much for the washed-up noble. The major’s partner in plunder becomes the mayor? It was balls-out cronyism already, a rotten old game. I kicked a chair out of my way.

  “Oh, sit back down, Captain,” Membre said. “You should feel honored. I showed you my little side business because I’d like you to play a part. Heck, play quarterback, you want. You have the skills for it. Don’t you see that? You know that’s why you’re here. Why I invited you here. We’re cohorts.”

  Cohorts? In cahoots? Membre could take his skills and choke on them. I turned to them, the doorway at my shoulders. “What about the case? What about that?”

  “Case? Ah, yes, your murders,” the major said, stroking his lips with two fingers. “Tell you what. Show me some corpses and we’ll take it from there. That’s a fine start.”