Slaipe nodded, slowly. Smitty was still, his eyes locked on Justine.
Her gun was the deadly accurate new StG 44—the “thousand-hole punch,” they’d called it in the East. Justine shouted in French: “Now! Give him your guns.”
Smitty turned to fire. He got off one burst. Justine shot and sprayed the alcove. Smitty tumbled back, down the steps. Slaipe slumped.
Max jumped up. “Idiot, stop, what are you doing?”
The recoil had knocked Justine back and she sat with her legs spread out, squinting through the driving flakes. Holes riddled the alcove, plaster everywhere. Smitty lay out in the snow, on his back. Slaipe, heaving breaths, raised his arms.
“No, no,” Max muttered.
Justine stood. “Back inside, all of you! Grab the guns,” she shouted to Max.
Smitty’s tommy lay on the bottom stair and Slaipe’s loose at his feet. Blood ran from Slaipe’s upper arm. He stared up at Max. He kicked his tommy over to Max’s feet.
“Hurry,” Justine shouted.
“Captain, it’s probably best I take your pistol, but slowly,” Max said. Had he said this? Was this happening? It sounded like a line from a script.
With his good arm Slaipe opened his holster, and Max pulled out the Colt.
Out in the snow, Smitty’s chest had stopped moving. Steam rose from rips in his tunic but none from his mouth. Red surged out from his back, seeping into the snow.
“By the book,” Slaipe groaned, and turned to head back up the steps.
Annette and Old Henry helped each other up. They screamed at Justine in rapid French and German. Annette spat.
“Go then! On your own. To hell with you! I don’t care,” Justine screamed back, her voice breaking now, and Annette and Old Henry ran out into the blizzard holding hands.
Back down in the cellar. Justine kept the StG 44 on Slaipe, who sat at the table, patiently, his hands in his lap. His wound was a graze, from a ricochet, and he’d torn off strips of blanket and wrapped his arm. Max pulled on his warmest gear—overcoat, scarf, wool beanie, helmet, and Martin’s leather gloves on his trembling hands. He kept Slaipe’s tommy aimed at the floor.
Justine’s eyes filled with tears. Rather than lower her gun to wipe her eyes, she let the tears roll down her face. They twinkled in the candlelight.
“Where did you get that weapon?” Slaipe said to her, in French.
Justine looked to Max. Max nodded. “Jean-Marie,” she said. “He left it for me. He said he would be back. He hasn’t come back.”
“And that’s your brother?” Max said. Justine nodded. “Where is he?”
“Légion Wallonie—the Walloon SS.” Justine sniffled.
It was like talking to a child. Max had made love to this child. She was ridiculous. He was pathetic. “Go on,” he said, his voice rising.
“Eastern Front. ‘Somewhere in the north’—that’s all Jean-Marie said.”
A bitter taste rose in Max’s throat, like hot mustard. “Then he won’t be coming back, will he?” he blurted, grimacing. He knew it was cruel. He meant it to be. For the first time in his life, he’d wanted to be. “He’s dead already,” he added.
Justine gaped. Her chin quivered.
“And the radio?” Slaipe said. “Where is that now?”
Justine scowled at Slaipe. Her tears had stopped, and she grinned. “What do you think, you fool capitaine? I shot it full of holes, didn’t I? That damned thing.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Slaipe said.
Only a ridiculous child would do such a thing. Max closed his eyes to it, and felt his fingers, chest, and whole body hardening up, like the metal of Slaipe’s tommy gun tight in his hands. “Are you that stupid?” he shouted at her.
Justine gasped, a shocked laugh. “Stop that nonsense, lover, mon dieu, screw your head back on why don’t you?”
Max moved closer, a crazy grin spreading on his face. He couldn’t stop it. It was like water, or an oily ooze. Oil in a machine. It went where it wanted.
Justine stepped back, raising her gun. “Lover? Dearest, what are you doing—”
Max’s right arm thrust up. The butt of the tommy struck her jaw. She let out a squeak as she dropped, and the StG 44 clattered away and clanged against the wall. She lay flat on her back, her lips bulging with blood. She was out. Maybe she was dead. He did not care. He turned to Slaipe:
“Captain. I have one request—give me a few minutes head start, will you?”
Slaipe stared, thinking. Slowly, he reached in a pocket and pulled out his pipe, which he placed on the table. “All right. That’s all you’ll have now, I’m afraid.”
“It’s all I’ve ever had, it seems.” Max was backing away. He set Slaipe’s Colt out on the floor. “Thank you, Mister Slaipe,” he stuttered, “I, you know, I was hoping we could have met in Manhattan one day, say, a drink at the Plaza, perhaps, or the 21 Club would have been swell . . .”
Slaipe was nodding now, but not smiling. Max was backing up the steps. He set down the tommy, carefully, as if the thing was blown of glass, and he sprinted up and out.
Twenty-Five
Max ran out the front doors and down the steps. The snow had stopped. The last of the flurries shrouded Sergeant Smitty’s corpse. Only his clenched hand and the toes of his boots poked out of the freezing white. Max trudged across the villa grounds through waist-high drifts of powder, focusing on his escape and trying not to think at all. One thought plagued him—he’d forgotten Young Martin Widmer’s letter. Smitty had tossed it on the floor of the kitchen. How could he write to the kid’s mother now?
He entered the woods, kept going. His boots crunched at icy snow and underbrush and he hopped over fallen trees and trickling streams. What a fool I am, he thought. How could someone who can memorize lines and sing songs and sway audiences, someone with an uncanny gift for American accent, prove so stupid? He shouldn’t have entered the villa. He never should have auditioned for Special Unit Pielau, but then again it was never his choice. He was better off on the Russian Front. The forest grew thicker, darker. He headed downhill, ducking for the low hanging branches, and a jagged trail sent him into a tight rocky ravine, the stones slathered with wet moss. He only hoped Annette and Old Henry made it. The last thing he wanted was to find them frozen, hugging each other. That he could not take. And what was Slaipe doing? Still sitting there, smoking his pipe? Making his way back? Burying Smitty? Or Justine? Max had saved the captain’s life, possibly. Yet how much did it count? It was only one life saved, from so many lost.
Level land again. Melting snow fell from branches in wet slaps. Sunlight shot through the trees, white like stage light. Max tilted his head back and saw, up through the intertwined limbs, a crisp and wide blue sky. The weather really was clearing, just as Slaipe had promised. He heard the drone of Allied bombers up high, their white exhaust trails streaking across the blue sky.
He pressed on, his hunger gnawing, an aching hole. He checked his watch. Two o’clock in the afternoon. In two or three hours it would be dark. He needed more light. The forest edged a road. He headed out into the open lane, squinting and blinking at the sun. A grinding roar rattled his bones—a plane was passing above. He dropped to the road and peered up. The plane was an American spotter, a recon plane, flying so low its shadow blocked the sun. On the horizon it pulled up to come back around. Stumbling to his feet, Max sprinted back into the trees and dropped behind a wet trunk, straining to catch his breath.
With the weather clearing, who knew who was watching him? He sat still and could hear the battles raging again, far away. The Americans would be counterattacking in all sectors, Slaipe had said. This very sector might have been retaken. He could be spotted, stopped by anyone. He stood and his knees shook, weakening from hunger.
Keeping to the edge of the forest, Max followed the road. He reached a junction. He sat within the trees, waiting and watching. American jeeps and trucks passed through heading one way, then the other. Then it was the Germans’ turn—a few ragtag units on
the run. Sometimes a vehicle would stop and soldiers got out, shared a cigarette, threw up their hands and slogged onward. Max could have—should have?—gone out to any of them. He would rather wait for darkness. For anonymity.
Across the junction stood an inn. Bullet holes riddled a wall, and fire had scorched a window. Beyond the inn stood a couple houses and barns. As dusk fell, the traffic stopped. The inn’s lights never came on, nor did those of the houses and barns. Darkness came. The air carried a hard chill, from the clear sky and the stars out shining. Crouching low, Max made his way across the junction, went into the inn and found the place deserted. All was in German here though he was still on the Belgian side of the border. A sign read: “Zimmer Frei”—Vacancy. An ad for a local ale promised “Die Erfrischung!”—Refreshment! He passed into the kitchen and used his field flashlight sparingly, clicking it on and off to take stock. On the floor, in a bucket, he found chunks of bread. In a cupboard, a sack with two sausages, and two tall bottles of homemade cider. Was he lucky? There was a day when he would have thought so.
He carried his meager plunder on to the barn at the farthest edge of this dead village. Inside he found a patch of dry ground, where he sat. The bread had mold, he could smell it in the dark, but he easily picked it off. The sausages were cooked but slimy so he wiped them good with his sleeve. He kept the cider bottles between his legs—to take the chill off them. He popped the porcelain cap off a bottle, drank. The cider had chunks of apple and a thick sweetness that coated his throat.
Moonlight shined through the windows, through the breaks in the old roof, and his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Hanging on one wall, he saw, were a farmer’s clothes—floppy brimmed hat, peasant shirt, overalls, long denim jacket. A thick pullover. He crawled over to gather this up. A large carpetbag lay there too, so he stuffed the clothes in it and dragged the bag back to his spot. He sat there like a caveman in his cave, his legs crossed, hugging his carpetbag.
He drank more of the cider. It warmed him and numbed him and, to his amazement, like a man who suffered a terrible accident and lived to tell about it, he began to see how fortunate he still was. He was still in one piece. He could still sing. He could still act. Love a woman. Couldn’t he? Speak in three languages. Walk and run and dance. What was so horrible about a genial man? He wasn’t a caveman here. He was a monk and a pilgrim, who’d wandered far and wide and was finally seeing the light. A holy man. It wasn’t that he’d taken things too far. He’d not taken them far enough.
He drank, lay back, and closed his eyes, and he dreamed of singing for a dance hall full of beautiful young women. The most remarkable part was that he dreamed it was after the war.
Footsteps. Voices? Hushed American voices. Max sat up, silently, and watched two men enter the dark barn. The moonlight glistened blue on their skin—they were black American soldiers. One was large and thick—big-boned, the Americans called it, the kind who could serve in the infantry for three years and never lose the heft while the other was small and wiry, like the horse jockey who could eat pie all day and gain no pounds. Like Max they had bags and satchels strung over their shoulders. Their rifles hung upside down on their backs, worn and ignored, as if they were field shovels the two hoped they’d never have to use.
Max cleared his throat. “Evening,” he said in English. “Or is it morning?”
The two started, but they didn’t run. They faced the darkness, from where Max’s voice had come, and let their eyes adjust. Like Max, these two had learned somewhere that patience was an old friend.
“Mind we shine a light?” the small one said, in a tinny voice.
“I don’t mind.”
The light flashed on, off, maybe two seconds. The small one sighed, and they trudged over and sat facing Max—not close to him, but near enough to speak softly. They pulled off their bags and satchels. Max could smell the road on them. This was what he must smell like—all sweat and grease, dirt and smoke.
He held out his bottle. “Care for some apple juice? It’s the hard variety.”
The small one grinned shiny white teeth. He took the bottle and handed it to the big one, who drank from it with both massive hands. They studied Max as best as they could, the moonlight glinting in their eyes.
“You lost?” the small one said.
Max shook his head.
“You quit this scene?” the small one said.
“He done gone over the hill,” added the big one, his voice all slops and clicks, as if he were chewing. “That right, mister?”
“Do you mean, have I gone AWOL? Yes, I have. After a fashion.”
The two shared a glance. “Us too,” said the small one. “It can’t hurt to tell.”
“Never going back neither,” added the big one. “Copacetic? What’s there for us? So we hang our hats in Paris. We can play and they like us playing.”
Smiling, the small one shoved at the big one.
“You play music. That’s swell. Horns, is it?”
The big one nodded. “Skins, that’s me,” added the small one.
“Skins—that’s drums, I take it.” Max could have gone on like this for hours. They had no idea. His English was that perfect now. He might have fooled them all the way to Paris. The sad irony of this made him chuckle. “Funny thing, fellas—I’m a singer. Mostly done acting though. Gave it a shot in New York. Tough there, a rat race. Still, I got some gigs.”
“Don’t say? We could use a singer. Couldn’t we?” The small one chuckled and the big one joined in. “Small problem though—you aren’t no brother.” They laughed together, snorting and shaking their heads.
“No, I’m not. I’m a kraut.”
The small one scrambled to his feet. The big one fumbled for his rifle.
Max waved a hand. “Please, please. I’m not that kind of kraut. Look at me.”
Their field light flashed on, off. “You’re not an American?”
“Nope.”
“Not in the army?”
“Not in your army, I’m afraid.”
“But, that uniform?”
“It’s all I have to wear.” Max shrugged. “Listen. Please. You, sit, and you—why don’t you let that carbine down? OK? Have some cider, and I’ll tell you about it.”
The big one held up a hand. “How come you speak so good English? American-style, too. You’re one of them krauts was raised in America, goes back to fight for Hitler? Man, that’s a jiveass move.”
Max laughed. “Something like that.” The two nodded, and crossed their legs, and Max passed around the bottle. He pulled out his pack of Chesterfields and passed those around. He kept his story simple. Once the Ardennes offensive started, he’d gone AWOL. Soon he scored some GI fatigues. He’d only wanted to get back to America, to make a new way for himself. No matter what he tried, he told them, a black cloud had followed him. The DeTrave Villa was supposed to be the start of his big break, but it proved to be just another knockdown. This would not stop him. He knew there was something—someone—out there for him. He had a hand on his heart, and the bottle in his other hand. As they listened the two black soldiers nodded, slowly. He told them about Liselotte, and the big one squeezed his eyes shut, in pain. Still, Max didn’t tell them about the mission. I helped kill one of your brothers, he might have confessed. Lynched him. He had already realized something: Somewhere, right now, wasn’t someone doing the very same to one of his innocent kin? On the Eastern Front, surely. No, that part of his life would vanish, he had decided, and the only one who could bring it back was Captain Aubrey Slaipe. He’d been thinking this for hours. He had realized he would be singing the same old sorry tune if he made it back to America, or even to Paris. There would only be more sellouts, more compromises. It wasn’t the direction he had been running—it was the running itself.
The small one scooted closer. The big one followed. “Here’s the thing, Jack. We’re going to start over, you know? Just like you probably want to. Remake ourselves. And in a whole new place. Won’t matter if we’re Negro, not
as much anyways.”
“Paris is worth it,” Max said. “For the right guy, it is.”
“Bet you know Paris, by the looks of you. You got that chauncey look. Chasing the ladies.”
“Well, yes, I have chased a skirt or two. I had.”
He kicked off his GI boots and his GI trousers, and separated out the farmer’s clothes from his carpetbag.
“What, it’s not for you?” said the big one.
“I’m afraid not,” Max said.
The two stared. “You’re not going where I think you’re going?” said the small one.
Max nodded. “I am.”
“You one brave mother,” blurted the big one.
“Oh, I’m hardly that.” Max tossed off his tunic and pulled on the peasant shirt.
“Crazy, more like.” The small one’s forehead wrinkled up. He lifted the bottle to drink. He put it back down. “We were in Aachen. We know. Where you’re heading? It’s crazy. Hopeless. Won’t be nothing left. Cities are piles, just smoking. Folks starving. All those poor children. You all going to get the whip. Sure won’t be much singing to be had.”
The big one slapped at his knee. “Don’t agree.” He leaned toward Max. “Sure it’s no good, at first. But then? All told? Just the thing for a kraut knows American. Long as you didn’t run with Hitler, you’ll be okay. You just have to have the hope.”
“I’m afraid you both may be right,” Max muttered. He pulled out his cigarettes. He only had a couple left. They shared one. The big one hummed as he smoked. Max didn’t know the tune. He choked back some more cider. It had been so easy to talk in the dark. Now the sun was coming up, painting the horizon pink and filling the barn with a strange, gray-orange light. Max saw their faces much better. The big one had drooping, sleepy eyes and a silver tooth. The small one, a pointy chin and hooked nose. Both had beard growth. Any alert MP would spot them for what they were, and it would only get tougher the farther west they ventured.
The Losing Role Page 21