The Losing Role (30 page)

A vista of red roofs appeared, a steeple shooting up
from the middle of it. I passed timber-framed houses, then blocks
of stone buildings appeared and I was turning corners, my tires
thumping on cobblestone. Second stories still had white linens
hanging out as flags of surrender for US combat troops that had
never come. US Tenth Armored had bypassed this whole county as it
headed south into Austria. Today was May 8. The Unconditional
Surrender was now official, but the war’s long, unruly cessation
had left remote areas like this hanging for days, weeks even.

I entered the old city gate and drove the
Ludwigstrasse to the Domplatz—Cathedral Square. Still, I saw no
people. What sort of square didn’t have locals? This place was like
a ghost town. Were they really that spooked? Even the usual stern
faces would do.

The streets narrowed. I gave the jeep taps of gas,
coasting along. On the Stefansplatz I stopped before a rose-colored
building with arches and high gables. Here was City Hall. I stood
in the jeep, leaned on the windshield frame, and waited because
someone had to be watching. And I had to shake my head at the
irony—even disorder was orderly here.

I removed my helmet, slid on my flyboy sunglasses,
and lit up a Lucky Strike. Then, the people started showing.
Locals. Heimgauers. They kept their distance. Men crouched behind
carts and barrels. Women stood behind a fountain, hugging baskets
and purses. Boys and girls crammed back in an alley, the group
tight like a spring ready to bolt. Others watched from windows,
from behind barely parted curtains. Obedient was one thing, but why
the meek act, folks? I fought the urge to smile, to pass out smokes
and Hershey’s bars, and had to remind myself it was these very
people who had helped cause so much horror in the world.

I dropped back down in my seat and steered the jeep
into the City Hall courtyard.

A large sign stood propped against a wall:

US MILITARY GOVERNMENT HEADQUARTERS

What? How did that get there? But there it was, with
MG-issue black-on-white stencil, ready to be hung front and center.
A US Army command car and a jeep were parked here too.

My stomach had tightened up. I fought the shock with
my head, with reason. Okay, so I wasn’t the first man in. No big
deal. A few lieutenants and corporals were here sitting on their
hands waiting for me, their commanding officer. I got out, pocketed
my flyboys, brushed the road dust off my Ike jacket, and lit
another Lucky but then stomped on it, deciding that smoking was too
casual for a new CO.

I grabbed my brown leather briefcase and chromium
thermos and marched on in. The hallways were vacant, silent. More
signs stood waiting to be hung. Off Limits. Authorized MG Personnel
Only. English is the Official Administrative Language of US
Military Government. Was this some kind of prank? Some top-secret
maneuver? The town mayor’s office was on the third floor. There I
found a large white plaque on the door:

MAJOR ROBERTSON MEMBRE

MILITARY GOVERNMENT COMMANDER,

LK HEIMGAU

Who? I was CO. Munich sent me here. Surely, this was
a case of misdirected orders. I’d heard of detachments landing in
the wrong town, towns having the same name. That was it, I told
myself. This was just a matter of two sensible MG Joes hashing it
out. Taking a deep breath, I moved to knock—

A booming voice sounded from behind the door: “Who’s
there? Come in before I give you one merry wrath of hell!”

In I went. A major stood before a grand desk, this
Major Robertson Membre no doubt. I remembered to salute though I
hadn’t done it in a while, riding so close to the front.

“The signs out there. Did you see them? They’re
important,” the major said. His voice lowered to a colorless
Midwest tone. “The signs instruct, and signs clarify, and they
leave no doubt.”

“Yes, sir.”

His face was handsome in a mild and sunny way—pink
skin, plump cheeks, a mop of thick blond hair. Yet his tie was high
and tight at his fleshy neck and his uniform working overtime to
hold in heavy shoulders and a pronounced paunch, an imposing body
but one that lacked muscle. This was a man of thirty-five in the
body of a giant twelve-year-old. In this spacious mayor’s suite, he
looked out of place as if he’d locked himself in his father’s
office and refused to leave.

“At ease.” Membre peered at my trousers. That
morning, for my big entrance, I’d made sure my pleats were crisp.
“You always dress so spit-and-polish?” the major said.

“I try to, Major . . .” I wasn’t sure how to
pronounce the man’s name, I realized. Maybe it was “Mombra,” or
“Membree”? The last thing I needed was to sound un-American.

“It’s pronounced ‘Member.’ Major Robertson
Membre.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We should always give a commanding impression,”
Membre added. “We must impress upon the conquered our fortitude and
our rectitude to be sure.”

I made myself nod in approval. I wanted to roll my
eyes. Here was that brand of MG swagger that I loathed. We all had
plans for this place, but you had to show it, not preach it.

“Well, who are you, Captain?”

“Kaspar. Harry Kaspar. It seems there’s been a
mix-up. You see, I’ve been posted CO here.”

The major laughed. “What? Come now . . .”

I set my thermos on a chair and opened my briefcase,
fumbling for my orders.

The major dropped the laugh, sucking in his gut.
“Who sent you, Captain Kaspar? Who?”

“Munich Regional. I checked in there. They sent me
on.”

“Hah! Nuts. Frankfurt sent me. Pinpointed.”

His eyes fixed on me, Membre reached back and pulled
a page from the desktop—the only document there, I noticed.

I read it. I read it again. This was no prank or
secret maneuver, but rather good old army overlap, a snafu. Someone
had laid an egg. My problem was, Frankfurt Zonal overruled Munich
Regional and the major outranked me.

“Right there plain as day, in quad-rup-li-cate,” the
major said, stressing every syllable like I didn’t know what a
carbon copy was.

“Munich had held me back, something about the
situation unsettled.”

“It’s all fine now, Kaspar. They just got in, a few
hours ago.”

“They, sir?”

“Rest of the detachment. You’re one of the last to
report.”

“The last?”

“Not to worry. I won’t hold that against you.”
Membre was studying me now, eyeing my head and ears like some kind
of crank phrenologist. My freckles, green eyes, and rounded
features made me look more Anglo-Irish than anything. American
girls had always told me that. Yet they’d also said my walk was too
rigid, too precise for an American, so I’d worked on losing that
part just the same. At least I didn’t have the accent anymore.
Still, I knew what was coming. Something about me always gave it
away. “You got a shovel head for sure,” Membre said and let out a
low, rolling chuckle. “Kaspar—that a type of kraut name?”

“Kaspar was a kraut name, sir, yes.”

“You born in Germany?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t tell me you speak that awful language? Good
god. Well, I expect we’ll need heaps of translating.” Membre gave
me a single pat on the shoulder that he drew back with a snap as if
he’d touched something hot. “Now, no sore feelings, you hear? No
time for it. There’s plenty to be done and we’re as full-strength
as we’re going to get. Detachment’s out scouting trouble spots.
Looking into the electrical problem, the dead phone wires. One good
note—water will be up again soon. We sure could use a team of GIs,
someone to keep guard on things. So. A few posts are still open.
Me, I’m heading up Property Control myself, and you’ll be pleased
to know I already secured billets for the detachment. You’re all
set up in some of the finest villas in town.” Membre added a grin.
His narrow teeth were yellow and shiny as if greased, and I caught
a whiff of sweet cologne.

“Very well, sir.” My legs had gone weak, tired. I
couldn’t help admire this office suite that might have been mine.
It overlooked the square, with wide windows. Blond wood lined the
walls as bookshelves and chrome-handled cabinets. The matching desk
took up a quarter of the room, and under its glass top was a Third
Reich map of Europe, 1942.

Major Membre moved behind the desk and dropped down
in the leather chair. He set out a tidy stack of file folders,
reports, and carbon forms, his lips forming an O. “You need duty.
How old are you anyhow?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Just what I thought,” Membre said, nodding.

Sure, and he could tell my fortune too.

Membre pointed at a page. “I’m giving you Public
Safety. Any experience there?”

“Police? Not exactly. I studied public policy.” I
didn’t mention it was grad school. Let the man figure it out.

“No matter. We need you for this Public Safety
slot.”

I nodded. I was hugging my thermos and briefcase.
All I could think about was getting the heck back outside. Membre
fingered more carbons. I said: “In that case? I really should get
cracking, sir.”

“Of course. How do you mean?”

“I need to find a new police chief. Just like it
says in the MG handbook—we get things up and running as soon as
possible. Permission to leave, sir?”

“ASAP! Yes.”

“One thing I’m wondering about. The locals, they
look more spooked than most I’ve seen. Something rough happen here
at the end?”

“Ah, that’s just their way. These people, they know
a strong master when they see one.”

“We’re not exactly the Gestapo.”

Membre glared. “Of course not. Wait. Where’re you
going?”

“Back out. Scour the county,” I said, stopping in
the doorway. “There has to be one cop around here who fits the
bill.”

“Yes. Get cracking! New men is just what we
need.”

“Oh, I’m on it, sir.”

Get cracking, me and my pressed trousers. Out in the
courtyard I jumped into my jeep and stomped on the foot starter and
turned the key and steered out the way I came, squeezing the
steering wheel tighter, my shock giving way to disgust. If that
major had even read his MG backgrounders, he’d know that all the
current police were either dead or fled like the rest of those
Hitler-licking hacks and goons who’d been running the show here. A
few might slither their way back and take a stab at rebirth, but
not on my watch. That was the first thing I would tell Munich MG
when I got back there and requested a transfer. I’d been assigned
my own town and I’d demand one. This snafu was a sucker punch, a
low blow.

I cleared Heimgau and headed north on the same
country road. At my shoulder I could see, on the far horizon, a
jagged wall of marbly white—the Bavarian Alps, her highest peaks
smothered in a leaden bank of clouds. The sight should’ve been
wondrous, but my situation got me seeing those mountains, the war,
our new occupation, and my new major for what they all were—the
massive weight of centuries, dumped right onto me to sort out.

You bet I was out to prove something. It wasn’t only
that I was a born German. The thing was, I had never been in
combat. I had been spared the ordeal. Stateside, college kids with
higher IQs were kept in the Army Specialized Training Program, the
ASTP. But as the war dragged on, the War Department had to abandon
keeping the smart boys at home. In the last year the Army ended up
needing far more replacements than planned as the meat grinder
chewed up front-line units sent there for the duration, some units
suffering 150 percent casualty rates counting replacements. So ASTP
recruits were dispatched on the double overseas, right to the
replacement depots on the front line. Not me. I was not dispatched.
They say I got lucky. I instead got transferred to MG when other
young minds got thrown into the Battle of the Hürtgen, the Bulge,
the Rhine campaign. Just about every fellow I met through ASTP had
died. Meantime, most about every guy I knew from back home had
bought it in the ETO or the Pacific, and the few who had survived
the front line had fewer limbs and eyes to go around. Others had
lost their heads, I heard, including my former first lieutenant. On
his first day of combat in the Ardennes he’d stripped naked and
curled up in a ball in the cold mud. Our own phosphorus mortar
salvos found him there, the scorching white powder searing and
basting him right where he lay. My buddy Mike from my old unit had
written me about it. Then Mike bought it too. It all horrified me.
I felt so relieved I never had to see combat. I knew I would have
cracked or ran; that or I should be dead. I had it licked in MG,
they said. I tried not to see it that way. I had my own job to do,
right here. Occupation was a front line too.

I had driven deep into the woods now. And I was
coming to my senses. What if Munich MG accused me of deserting my
post? I couldn’t telephone them because the phone lines were down,
yet what kind of excuse was that? So go get the lines up and
running, they’d say. Who better to fix the mess than a
German-speaking MG Joe?

I lit up a Lucky, driving with one hand, weighing my
only option. I had to turn this jeep around. Orders were orders.
The sorry truth was, limping back to Munich might be the only thing
worse than losing the Heimgau CO post. Demotion and demerits were
the least a man got for shirking duty. Just like an egghead kraut
to ditch a raw deal, they’d say.

I steered out of a long curve and let off the gas to
turn around.

Something lay along the road up ahead. I saw three
lumps, pale and splotchy. But the lumps had limbs. I grasped at the
wheel and shifted down, slowing up. My first thought was, they were
skinny country pigs. Even after the blow I had just taken, even
considering all the horrors I’d dodged by avoiding combat, I could
not imagine anything much worse than that.