Liberated

by Steve Anderson

  “Major Membre? Yes.”

  “What else did you have to do?”

  “Nothing. Oh, please. Who do you think I am?”

  “Not that you wouldn’t. Am I right? It’s no different now than before. You moved in elite circles. I never asked you about it because I’m too damned nice, or awed, head over heels, something. So I’m going to ask you now. Or don’t you remember? Maybe the booze was too rich at Reich Marshal Goering’s balls?”

  “That’s not fair,” Katarina whispered.

  “Isn’t it? It’s just my Ami innocence, that it? So what’s the answer? You weren’t a Golden Pheasant’s girl, no. You only cuddled up to them.”

  “What’s happening to you?” She turned away and slumped down on her end of the pew, her eyes wet. I made my way down and slumped next to her, listening to her sob, the sobs echoing. Why couldn’t I ease up? I only felt like more of a heel, attacking her like this, lecturing her as if in some War Department recruiting film—Why America Fights, by Harry Kaspar. Was I just sore she’d left me hanging, or was it something more?

  It was the ambition rising up in me. There was a twisted pride that came with it and it had gotten hurt.

  “My name will come up in the records,” she said. “This is the thing. The regime had its black markets too, especially among the party high society. When censorship increased and the roles became too stifling, I gave up my acting. I developed a side business. It was to help my parents and their friends at first.”

  I pulled a Lucky and my Zippo, almost forgetting I was in a church. Slid them back in my pocket.

  “The air raids came day and night. Then it was survival. There I was, a somewhat famous actress, and I had many contacts—Wehrmacht, the party, the ministries, aristocracy.” She gave me a long, hard look. “I was more than a messenger, you understand. I served the resistance in other ways.”

  “Resistance?”

  She nodded. “Of sorts, yes. I used the bedroom to gain information. Influence fates. I did that. But later, I used my wiles to stay off the meat hook.” She rose and we sat side-by-side as if riding a bus. “I wanted to help more. But I lived in such fear someone would give me away. And now? It is ironic, no? Who is left to verify my resistance activities? No one.”

  “A forger. There must be a few good ones here among all the artisans.”

  “I know many forgers. And a false Fragebogen won’t work, not with your major. This is why I had to secure that pass to Munich, as a way out. To buy time, as you say.”

  “Then I’ll call somebody. I know people.”

  “No. Too risky. You can’t trust people. You can’t trust anyone here.”

  “I can.” I wanted to tell her all about Colonel Spanner. I would, someday, when we were all in the clear. In the meantime? Katarina had said it herself: Never reveal your inventory.

  She had turned away, thinking, already in Munich.

  “Wait,” I blurted. “You said, Munich’s a ‘way out.’ What kind of way out?”

  She held up her hands, a sad smile. “A refuge. For protection. You see, it’s become personal now.”

  “Personal how?”

  “You don’t know?” Katarina sat up. “You haven’t been to City Hall?”

  “It’s Sunday. I got hangover leave.”

  “This morning Major Membre began evicting the refugees, the DPs, everyone.”

  “No. Has to be a rumor. I was just at your place, saw Little Marta.” I shook my head. It ached again. “Christ, how long was I asleep anyway?”

  “Perhaps too long. My eyes saw it happen. The Yugoslav guards are evicting everyone from my building, from other buildings.” She twisted her mouth in disgust. “The guards claim the occupants disobeyed the major’s new curfew orders. This is an outright lie, and they were told to say it. So I went to City Hall, went straight to Major Membre—”

  “To his office?”

  “I had to stick up for them. For Little Marta. She’s out on the street with the rest of them.”

  Katarina meant this as hard as it hit. I grasped at the pew before me with both hands, wanting to rip it in two like spent typing paper. “Where are they all going?”

  “The camps on the edge of town. He will fill them up till they bulge. The major says a refugee relief team is coming. Who knows? Some will probably end up in this church, on these hard pews.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I pleaded with him to stop the evictions. But he grew nastier, his arguments more petty.” She bowed her head. “And, I might have been a little harsh. I scolded him.”

  “You scolded him. In front of others.”

  “A couple of your officers were there. New Police Chief Jenke. Winkl, in the hallway. I called the major a coward. He said, ‘I’m after you, Frow-line’ in his horrible German. He threatened to ‘look into my past.’ He demanded everyone out of his office except me.”

  “What then? What then?”

  She whispered: “He said, he’d help me erase my so-called ‘Nazi past,’ if only I’d—”

  “That settles it. That son of a bitch.”

  “It’s no matter, Harry. I can go to Munich, blend in there much longer. That was my home for much of the war. I do want to help there. Find any survivors.”

  I stood but had to lean on the pew. I closed my eyes. My head swirled again, my stomach. I really should’ve eaten something.

  She held my hand. “Can you visit? At least. Say that much.”

  I nodded. I pulled her close. “I’m going to take you to my place,” I said.

  Then I remembered Major Membre and how I’d just love to bust his fat jaw. The adrenalin pumped in me, devouring my hangover. “Listen. Go to my villa. They won’t nab you there. Stay there no matter what. I’ll be there soon enough.”

  “Absolutely not. I’m coming with you—”

  “No! Go there and stay put.”

  My shouting made her step back. I left her standing at the pew, biting her lip as I stomped out the cathedral door and across the square.

  Fourteen

  I CHARGED UP THE STAIRS to Major Membre’s office, burst through the door, and kicked a chair from my path—and stopped in shock.

  Major Membre had his back to me. He stood before a short, frail man who was holding a paint palette and more narrow brushes than he had fingers. Next to him stood a canvas on an easel, the canvas so wide it blocked the windows and so tall it touched the ceiling beams.

  I had to blink. Was this real?

  The major turned to me, but trying to keep his pose—feet planted far apart, one out forcefully before the other and one arm outstretched, the fingers gesticulating as if ready to bestow mercy or pronounce sentence. He had on a red cape with white fur fringe, a gold brocade vest, a jeweled sword, and gold chain with more jewels hanging from that. It was a papal court costume, the same getup I’d seen in the town museum. The major’s other arm cradled a gold brocade headpiece that matched the vest. On his fat head, balancing atop his thick boy-hair, tottered a spiked Prussian helmet with plumes.

  The bastard was having a portrait painted? I snorted a laugh at him.

  Membre laughed back. “Well, if it ain’t ole Harry Kaspar, the town drunk. How can I—”

  “Shut your yap. Just listen.”

  Membre looked both ways, as if many others were there. Portrait painter already had his coat on; the major waved him out the door. “Well? What’s this about?”

  “I know what you’re doing. I’m not going to put up with it.”

  Membre smirked. Jewels jangling, he moved before his desk and met me face to face. The fur and brocade smelled sour, like wet dog fur. “Captain, you are well out of line. This is your commanding officer you’re talking to.”

  “Me out of line? Strictness is one thing. Germans are one thing. But threatening harmless women, kicking refugees onto the streets is another. Who are you to make things worse for those people? Don’t you think they’ve seen enough?”

  Membre chuckled, his potbelly shimmy
ing. “Fancy yourself the expert, eh? After little over a month. Still, you can’t deny that Fräulein Buchholz has a past.”

  “This is about far more than her. You know it.”

  “I know that a relief team is coming.” The major glanced at his inbox. “Just got the memo. First it’s a Red Cross truck, now it’s a real team. Yes, fortune does smile on our Heimgau.”

  Colonel Spanner must have made it happen. And this blowhard thought it was his doing. He would only take that morphine on top of the rest. He was probably stoned right now, and who knew what sick things he did when good and hopped up? I never liked the way he gathered those stray children around him like all those shiny treasures he coveted. He had the whole castle to himself for it …

  “I’m simply clearing houses in preparation,” the major added. “They’ll be heading to the camp outside of town. And from there? Repatriation. It’s the policy now. Send the foreigners home.”

  “Is it? Whose policy? Camp’s already bulging, crowded like the ones we liberated them from. You could’ve left them where they were. But you want what’s inside those houses, furniture, art, the goods in them. You need what’s inside them. Don’t you, Major? You promised your new partners a hell of a lot last night.”

  The major shook his head, clucking his tongue. “I feel sorry for you. I do. I’ve given you all manner of opportunity. Complete freedom. Yet you continue to box yourself in.”

  “Freedom? Opportunity? Why don’t you call it what it really is?”

  “Ah, now look who talks. Don’t think I don’t know.”

  “Know what?”

  “The sulfas, the morphine. Good god, man!” Membre was shouting now.

  I pulled back. Of course he had found out. Nothing got by the man. “I returned the sulfas,” I said. “The morphine helped a woman. She had tuberculosis.”

  “So put her in a sanatorium.” Membre forced out a laugh. “You don’t give a good nickel for some woman. Not even when it is someone’s mother. Truth is, she tempted you in just the right way. Isn’t that so? She being that Katarina Buchholz. So don’t kid yourself. You took the fastest route to that Gretchen’s gash.”

  “She’s not a Gretchen,” I sputtered.

  Membre shrugged again. “That all? You finished?” I said nothing. “Good. Now I do have some interesting news if you care to know. It’s about my investigation. I might be getting much closer to figuring out who did their dirty deeds on those corpses.”

  “You bastard,” I muttered. The black heat boiling away in my brain. I lunged and pinned the major to the desk, grasping at the fur of his cape. The helmet tumbled to the floor. I released my grip, stepping back.

  Membre’s eyes shined, like black marbles.

  “You talk some fine talk about morphine,” I said. “You’re stoned. I see it.”

  “Go to hell. You don’t know what you see.” Membre stepped forward and produced his riding crop from his cape. Slowly, he rested the tip of the crop on my shoulder.

  My fists had balled up. I snorted again. “Why don’t you just use your sword?”

  “How far you think you can take this? Eh? Think about it. You have no idea.”

  I said nothing. Heard nothing. My thoughts spun and my chest heaved, red-hot. I clenched the riding crop. Membre held the other end. I said: “Major, I should really knock you down so you don’t get up. I should …”

  “How far?” Membre repeated.

  And this time I heard him. I gazed around, stupidly, at all those golden crucifixes and jeweled relic chests lining the shelves behind his desk. I let go.

  Membre lowered the crop. “Wise move.”

  “I’ll come back. We will. Maybe next time you won’t be standing so well.”

  “We?” Membre shook his head, snickering. He smoothed his hair. He went behind his desk and settled back in the leather chair, which squeaked like a fart. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that, Captain. You see, I always want to know everything about the officers in my detachment and I know all about you. Your family. Suspect Aliens, that’s what they are, right? They could catch one merry wrath of hell.”

  “Then I got nothing to lose, do I?” I wanted to charge him again, but the room reeked of sweat and the major’s sweet cologne and I needed fresh air. I was drooling. I wiped it away. I stepped back. I was backing out.

  “You want it both ways, don’t you? The all-American. The kraut. But both ways doesn’t work in life, does it?”

  I bounded down the hallway, found the stairs.

  Membre laughed. He shouted after me: “Tread lightly from now on! Very lightly! Think about it. I’m untouchable, and you? My God, I’m as untouchable as you are to a local krauthead!”

  Fifteen

  I COULDN’T SHAKE THE SIGHT of Major Membre doped up in his make-believe Prussian papal costume. Incongruous it was, this crass melding of Church and State, and yet the proud and sturdy pose was familiar. It reminded me of all the majestic Otto von Bismarck statues I’d seen traveling across Germany, practically every Old Town square north of Bavaria had one. Old man Bismarck, my father had told me, had united Germany back in 1871, but the uniter was also a stubborn and cagey despot who cloaked himself in democracy and the Grand Manner. Bismarck ruled for a long, long time. In the end, his grave legacy had produced a leader like Hitler. And now look where his people had landed—exhausted, disillusioned, all out of luck.

  All the more reason to send that SOS letter. I was glad I sent it. It would settle this, all right.

  The next morning, Katarina’s last kiss had seemed rushed and her embrace rigid, but I told myself it was only her way of dealing with yet another miserable farewell all made possible by yet another gruesome little tyrant. That evening I could still smell her, sweet and warm in the folds of my sheets. By now she was somewhere deep inside Munich. Certainly she had a plan—she always had a plan—but not knowing it left me in a lather and I tried to sleep, but I tossed and turned until my sheets had twisted into a corkscrew, all damp from my sweat. I sat up and found myself staring at the antique tapestry someone had once hung to brighten this dim bedroom chamber. On the weaves of thick fabric, a contingent of European trader merchants, their sailing ship looming, offered gold trinkets to native elders in loincloths and headdresses. I could just make out the figures in the dark. The lead merchant was a plump dandy dressed fancier than even the native chiefs. It might as well be Major Membre up there, I thought; all the merchants needed were US Army uniforms and the native elders the Bavarian garb. And as I stared, this timeless tapestry made me contemplate just how things had played out with Major Membre’s trade network.

  Major Membre’s cellar powwow at the Heimgauer Hof had sealed a deal. Heimgau was to become the central source in the American Zone of Occupation. The major’s partners would keep on thriving, and he’d reap so much in-take he wouldn’t know what to do with it all. He’d pass a generous cut to Baron von Maulendorff, of course. Yet something did not add up, and it hadn’t occurred to me until now. They had so many orders to fill, but where did they score all the goods? Sure, there were always far more untraceable personal treasures to be grabbed than there were fancy museum pieces. But how many, really, were worth the effort? Could all the requisitioned houses in Heimgau county give them enough? And how did they store it? The main stocks were supposed to be up at the castle, in cellars and storerooms and chambers, but just how much could those hold?

  Something else I didn’t get. The major was employing more artisans like that portrait painter, not just locals but well-skilled refugees and expellees from the farthest reaches of war-torn Europe. I had heard Von Maulendorff say they needed the artisans for “refurbishing.” Yet how much spruce-up could a crew do? A whole lot, it seemed, since the artisans had been working well past curfew, seven nights a week, many in those chambers I didn’t know so well.

  I turned over and found my alarm clock. One a.m. I kicked off my twisted bedding, pulled on my trousers, threw on a lightweight but dark civilian coat from the closet—the previous owner
s’. A motoring cap was in there. I put that on.

  The night carried an unexpected chill for summer, but the march up to the castle warmed me up. I met no guards in the main courtyard, so I continued on through an archway that led to the second, smaller courtyard. Hearing footsteps coming my way, I stopped inside the archway and listened. It was a jaunty shuffle, not the paced gait of a bored guard. I peeked out.

  A small, wiry man had stopped before the archway. He lit a match to the cigarette in his mouth, but the wind blew it out. He scooted into the archway to try again, and his flame lit me up against the wall.

  The man’s eyes narrowed. Then he smiled. “Prosim, prosim,” he said, holding his flame for me.

  “I don’t speak what you’re speaking there,” I said in German.

  “It’s Czech,” squeaked the man.

  “Right. I don’t speak Czech.”

  “Of course not, good sir,” the Czech said, his German quaint and clumsy. He had thick eyebrows. He wore a dusty worker’s cap. He struck another match, cupping the flame. “Would you like a light? This would give me pleasure. Please.”

  I had an unlit Lucky between my lips. “Gladly.”

  The Czech bowed slightly as he lit me, looking up at me, our faces glowing. The Czech held his cigarette straight up. “This is tonight’s payment. My training wage. I only smoke half.”

  “Good thinking. You’re new here? Excuse me for not remembering. So many work here now.”

  “Yes. A great number do now. And all do such fine work.”

  “Why, yes we do. And I’m sure you do too.”

  The Czech smiled. “Oh, that I do, sir.”

  I rested a hand on the Czech’s shoulder. “Tell me, what is it you work on again?” I tapped my forehead. “With so many here now I simply forget.”

  The Czech took a deep breath. “Well, sir, what I do best is my handwork.”

  “Handwork, did you say?”

  “That’s right and all from scratch,” added the Czech.

  From scratch? I played it casual. “That’s swell, friend. What are you working on now? From scratch, I mean.”

  The Czech blurted something I couldn’t understand. He plucked the cigarette from his mouth. He frowned at it and smacked himself on the side of the head.