West and East twtce-2 Read online

  “Well, maybe it won’t be so bad,” Sergei said. You couldn’t get in trouble for optimism (though he did wish he could have that maybe back).

  “Maybe the Nazis will see we’re serious about this Polish business and clear out,” another flyer put in. “They’ve got their own troubles on their other frontier.”

  “We don’t, of course,” Mouradian said dryly. He was no Brontosaurus; he could contemplate wounded head and wounded tail at the same time. “Not like theirs,” the other flyer insisted.

  He wasn’t wrong. How much did being right matter, though? “They only fought for four years on two fronts last time,” Mouradian said. This wasn’t the first time he’d brought up that inconvenient truth.

  “They lost,” Sergei said. His crewmate sent him an Et tu, Brute? look.

  Before Mouradian could say anything, the other pilot ran to the conversational ball and booted it far down the pitch: “That’s right! And they’ll lose this time, too! The historical dialectic makes it inevitable.”

  The dialectic! Heavy artillery! You could blow anybody out of the water when you trotted out the dialectic. But Anastas Mouradian didn’t stay there to be blown to rhetorical smithereens. He nodded politely. “No doubt, Comrade. But how far will the cause of Socialism be set back by the conflict? How many farms and cities and little children will go up in smoke?”

  “A fine question for the fellow who aims the bombs to ask,” the pilot sneered.

  “I serve the Soviet Union,” Mouradian said. “I do try to serve the Soviet Union intelligently.”

  There was another one nobody wanted to touch. Sergei was far from sure serving the Soviet Union intelligently was what the apparatchiks who ran the country wanted. You got a command. You carried it out. You had no business wondering about it. That wasn’t your responsibility.

  But were you a man or were you a sheep? Which way were you more valuable to the state? If you were a man, weren’t you safer pretending to grow wool? Sergei knew damn well you were. How much baaing had he already done? How much more would he have to do?

  * * *

  The power to bind. The power to loose. St. Peter had it, if you took Jesus seriously. Whether you took Jesus seriously or not, Adolf Hitler had it-inside the borders of the Third Reich, anyhow. Peggy Druce found that out in a hurry.

  Once the Fuhrer said she could leave Germany, the mountains that had stood in her way for so long all at once turned into molehills. Konrad Hoppe came to her hotel room and affixed an exit visa to her passport as exactingly as if he were working with gold leaf. The scrawny Foreign Ministry official had met with her once before, to explain why she couldn’t get out. Because we don’t want you to, that’s why, was what it boiled down to.

  Peggy couldn’t resist saying, “Nice of you to change your mind.”

  Hoppe didn’t notice the sarcasm-or, if he did, he was armored against it like a battleship. “My superiors have given me my orders, Frau Druce. I follow them.”

  They’d given him different orders not so long before. He’d followed those, too. What did Jerome K. Jerome call the German attitude toward civic responsibility? Peggy smiled, remembering. Blind obedience to everything in buttons -that was it. And the Englishman, writing at the very end of the nineteenth century, had gone on to say Hitherto, the German has had the blessed fortune to be exceptionally well governed; if this continues, it will go well with him. When his troubles will begin will be when by any chance something goes wrong with the governing machine.

  Had Jerome K. Jerome had a crystal ball, or maybe one of H.G. Wells’ time machines, to look into the future and see just what would happen next? If he could see it, why couldn’t everybody else? Hell, why couldn’t anybody else? Why couldn’t the Germans see it themselves?

  Blind obedience to everything in buttons, dammit.

  She realized she’d missed some pearl of wisdom falling from Herr Hoppe’s lips. “I’m sorry?”

  “I said” -he rolled his eyes at Anglo-Saxon lightmindedness-“the train to Copenhagen departs each afternoon at half past three. Shall I secure you a Pullman berth on today’s train?”

  Now they couldn’t get rid of her fast enough. “Yes, please,” she said, and even unbent enough to add, “Thank you very much.” Then she decided to press her luck a little: “Can you send me a cab, so I can bring my suitcase along easier?” She would have gone without it-Lord, she would have gone naked if she had to!-but why not see what she could get away with?

  Konrad Hoppe didn’t even blink. “Aber naturlich. The cab will be here at half past two, precisely.” Taxis in wartime, fuel-starved Berlin were almost as scarce as Nazi big shots with Jewish wives, but the Fuhrer had ordered the machinery to give Peggy what she wanted, and Hoppe was one of those smoothly turning gears. He did say, “Please remember to be punctual.”

  “Jawohl!” Peggy said. Mussolini boasted that he made the trains in Italy run on time, but he lied. Everything in Germany ran on time. As far as Peggy could see, nobody had to make it do that; it just did. Half past two wouldn’t mean 2:29 or 2:31. It would be 2:30 on the dot. And she would be in the lobby waiting.

  “Very well, then.” Hoppe clicked his heels. “If you will excuse me, dear lady…” With a nod that was almost a bow, he made his getaway.

  I’ll make mine, too, Peggy thought, almost delirious with glee. But she had to attend to one more thing, no matter how little she wanted to. She picked up the telephone in her room. When the hotel operator asked whom she wanted to call, she sighed and said, “The American embassy, please.”

  “One moment,” the German woman said primly. It took more than a moment, but Peggy had known it would. Like every other part of civilian life, the telephone system was neglected these days. Well, all except one part of it: somebody from the Gestapo or the SD would be listening to her conversation. She was as sure of that as she was of her own name. What could you do, though?

  The embassy operator came on the line. The hotel operator put Peggy through. She gave her name and asked to speak to Constantine Jenkins. “One moment,” the embassy operator said, only in English, not German. “He may be in a meeting.”

  If he was, Peggy could get out of Berlin with a clear conscience. She laughed a sour internal laugh. Would she ever have a clear conscience again? It seemed painfully improbable, but she would have done her best here. No, it wasn’t the same thing, goddammit.

  The operator came back on the line. “I can connect you to him.”

  “Thank you,” Peggy said, not without wincing. She’d been connected to the undersecretary, all right! Hadn’t she just?

  “Hello, Mrs. Druce.” Jenkins sounded properly formal. No doubt he also knew the Nazis would be tapping the telephone lines.

  “Hi. I just wanted to let you know they’ve got a place for me on the train to Copenhagen this afternoon,” Peggy said. “And I wanted to thank you for all your help.”

  “It was my pleasure, believe me,” Jenkins answered. Did he sound all male and knowing there for a moment, or was that only Peggy reading between the lines? She couldn’t very well ask him.

  “If you hadn’t suggested that I write to the Fuhrer with my problem, I don’t know if it ever would have got fixed,” Peggy said. Not only was that true, but it reminded the lurking listeners Hitler was on her side. Can’t hurt, she thought.

  “Nothing else was working. I figured you should go straight to the top and try your luck there,” he said. Peggy found herself nodding. Blind obedience to everything in buttons, sure as hell. Jenkins spoke again, on a different note this time: “And I hope everything else is all right?”

  “Oh, yes!” Peggy said quickly. She’d got her period-and what the Germans used for pads these days was a shame and a disgrace. Wouldn’t that have been fun? She couldn’t have brought a visible sign of her shame home to Herb. But how she could have found a discreet German doctor without opening herself up to Gestapo blackmail forever was beyond her. One thing she didn’t need to worry about, anyhow. Those things made a dismayingly
short list these days.

  “Well, that’s good,” Jenkins said. “Believe me, we like to do everything we can for Americans in Germany. Too often, it’s less than we’d want. I hope everything goes very well for you, and I hope to see you again one day after everything settles down, if it ever does.”

  “Thanks again,” Peggy said. “So long.” She hung up. I hope to see you again? If that didn’t mean I hope to lay you again, what did it mean? She was damned if she’d ever get drunk with a diplomat again.

  She lugged her suitcase down the hall to the elevator at ten after two. It was heavy and clumsy. Why didn’t it have wheels and a handle with more reach? But that was a side issue. She wouldn’t be late here, not for nothin’.

  The elevator operator was a woman. A gray-haired man had had the job, but something-war work? conscription? trouble with the Gestapo ?-had pulled him away from it. The war was biting more and more people these days.

  Peggy checked out and settled down to wait. She watched traffic go by on the street outside. There wasn’t much to watch: buses, military vehicles, a doctor’s car (a placard taped to the door proclaimed what that one was).

  Right at 2:30, a taxi pulled up in front of the hotel. Peggy hauled her suitcase out onto the sidewalk. “Let me take that for you,” the driver said. His left hand was artificial, but his right arm was plenty strong. Into the trunk the suitcase went. “The train station, yes?”

  “Yes!” Peggy said. He opened the door for her, then got in himself. He used his right hand to clamp the thumb and fingers of the left onto the wheel. That left the good hand free to shift gears, and to help the other as needed.

  Maybe he saw Peggy’s eye on him, for he said, “It’s clumsy, but it works. And I’ve had plenty of practice since the last war. Only one accident in all that time, and it wasn’t my fault. The police court said so.”

  “Good for you,” Peggy said. She gave him a big tip when they got to the station. He took her suitcase out of the trunk as easily as he’d put it in, but she didn’t let him carry it to the ticket counter. Enough was enough. She could manage, and she did.

  Her ticket was waiting. She’d had paranoid fantasies that it wouldn’t be, that the Nazis were still playing cat-and-mouse games with her. But no. Here it was, in her hands. The conductor gravely examined it when she walked up to the train. “I am required to ask you to show me an exit visa,” he said.

  “Here you go.” Peggy was proud to show it off.

  “Sehr gut. Danke schon,” he said, touching the brim of his cap. “All is in order. You may board.”

  You may board! If those weren’t the three most beautiful words in the German language, Peggy didn’t know what could top them. She found her berth. It had to be the best one on the train. The Germans were laying it on thick, all right. About time, too! Peggy settled in with a sigh of pleasure.

  At 3:30-not 3:29, not 3:31-the train jerked into motion. “Yippee!” Peggy said. No one heard her. It wouldn’t have mattered if someone had. You couldn’t translate Yippee! into German. But she was on her way home at last.

  * * *

  Hans-ulrich Rudel always wondered what would happen when Colonel Steinbrenner summoned him to the tent that did duty as squadron HQ. Showing you were worried was only likely to make things worse, though. “Reporting as ordered, sir,” he said, drawing himself up to stiff attention.

  “At ease,” Steinbrenner said. “You’re not in trouble this time, Oberleutnant Rudel.”

  “Oberleutnant?” Hans-Ulrich squeaked in surprised. He’d just got promoted. “Thank you very much, sir!”

  “You’re welcome. You earned it.” Steinbrenner opened a box that sat on the card table serving as a desk. “You earned this, too.” He took out a large Iron Cross on a red-white-and-black ribbon.

  “A Ritterkreuz!” Rudel said, all breath and no voice-he was beyond even squeaking now.

  “That’s right. You’ve got the first Knight’s Cross in the squadron. Not the last, I hope, but the first. Congratulations!” Medal in hand, Colonel Steinbrenner stood up. He came up and handed it to Hans-Ulrich. “You wear it around your neck.”

  “Yes, sir. I know,” Hans-Ulrich said dazedly. Too much was happening too fast. He managed to put it on without dropping it. If you had to have a shield for your Adam’s apple, where could you find a better one?

  “I’ve got the gold pips for your shoulder straps and the new collar patches with two chickens on them, too,” Steinbrenner said. “I figured you’d rather put the Ritterkreuz on first, though.”

  “Uh, yes, sir,” Rudel managed.

  Something besides the medal sat in the box, too: a piece of paper. Unfolding it, Steinbrenner read, “‘In recognition of Lieutenant Rudel’s cleverness in suggesting the installation of antipanzer cannon on the Ju-87, and in recognition of his gallantry in personally testing the new weapons system against the enemy.’ That’s not a bad citation. No, not half bad.” He stuck out his hand.

  Hans-Ulrich shook it. “I never expected any of this,” he muttered.

  “Well, you’ve got it. Enjoy it.” Steinbrenner’s eyes twinkled. “And you get to buy everybody drinks twice-once for the promotion, and once for the Knight’s Cross.”

  “Oh, joy.” Now Hans-Ulrich’s voice sounded distinctly hollow. That was an honor he could have done without. He’d be the only sober guy at a party-no, two parties-full of rowdy drunks. They’d get rowdy on his Reichsmarks, too, and it wasn’t as if he were rolling in them.

  “You could even unbend a little yourself,” the squadron commander said. “It’s not as if you haven’t got a good excuse.”

  “I don’t care to do that, sir, thank you.” Rudel stayed within military discipline. He also stayed stubborn.

  “Well, have it your way. You’ve earned the right this time.” Colonel Steinbrenner, for once, didn’t feel like arguing or teasing.

  Hans-Ulrich could be stubborn about several things at the same time: a Renaissance man, of sorts. “You need to give Albert something, too,” he said. “If we’d got hit, he’d be roast meat just like me.”

  Steinbrenner tapped another box on the table with the nail of his index finger. “Iron Cross, First Class. Does that suit you, your Excellency?”

  Sarcasm went over Rudel’s head as often as not. This time, his ears burned. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled.

  “Well, good. Now get out of here so I can pin it on him. He’s due in”-Steinbrenner glanced at his watch-“six minutes.”

  Thus encouraged, Hans-Ulrich got. Sergeant Dieselhorst wasn’t coming yet, which was good. If he saw the Knight’s Cross, he’d figure he was in line for a medal, too. This way, it would be a surprise-and the nice kind of surprise, at that.

  Several groundcrew men walked out of a revetment where they’d been working on a damaged Stuka. As usual, their chatter was two parts technical jargon, one part filth. One of them waved to Hans-Ulrich: not much spit and polish on a working air base. The wave came to a jerky stop when he saw the new medal at Rudel’s throat. “Heilige Scheisse!” he said. “That’s a Ritterkreuz!”

  The noncoms in greasy coveralls swarmed over Hans-Ulrich, pumping his hand and pounding him on the back. Then, before he could do more than squawk, they hoisted him onto their shoulder and carried him back to the airstrip. “Look!” one of them yelled. “He’s flying!” The others thought that was so funny, they almost dropped him.

  Pilots came out of their tents to see what the fuss was about. They started yelling and beating on Hans-Ulrich, too. “You’ve got balls, you little squirt,” one of them said-he was twenty-five, a whole two years older than Rudel. “Now if you only had some brains.”

  “Hey, he thought up those antipanzer guns,” another flyer said. “Maybe he’s not as dumb as he looks.”

  “Maybe he’s not as homely as he looks, either, but I wouldn’t bet on it,” the first man said. They all laughed like lunatics. Hans-Ulrich didn’t think he was particularly homely, but nobody cared what he thought. The first flyer went on, “We ought
to find out what the French girls think.”

  Everybody cheered-everybody but Rudel. Several of the local girls could be friendly… for a price. Being friendly with them came with a price, too. Several flyers had come down with drippy faucets. The medics had some brand-new pills that could actually cure the clap, but Colonel Steinbrenner wasn’t amused any which way.

  As for Hans-Ulrich, he said, “Spare me, please.” The other Germans laughed, some of them not so good-naturedly now. What kind of pilot was he if he didn’t want to drink or to screw? It wasn’t that he didn’t have animal urges of his own, either. He did-did he ever! But he didn’t feel like wasting them on French popsies who probably smelled like garlic.

  “We weren’t asking what you thought of the girls, Rudel,” the twenty-five-year-old said. “We want to know what they’ll think of you.”

  “I don’t care.” Hans-Ulrich started to kick in earnest. “And put me down, for heaven’s sake!”

  They did, none too gently. He was just working his way through the Luftwaffe pack when Sergeant Dieselhorst came back from Steinbrenner’s headquarters tent, his new decoration prominent on the left breast of his tunic. That took some of the heat off Hans-Ulrich, because people had to congratulate-and to thump-Dieselhorst, too.

  Eventually, the two men from the Stuka crew managed to shake hands with each other. “Well, sir, here’s another fine mess you got me into,” Dieselhorst said, sounding like a Laurel and Hardy film.

  “As long as we keep getting out of them,” Rudel answered.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Dieselhorst said, and everybody cheered-not least because everybody knew Hans-Ulrich wouldn’t. The sergeant went on, “The old man told me you got promoted, too. You can watch us get plowed on your cash-twice.”

  That put the focus back on Rudel. Thanks a lot, Albert, he thought. The flyers and groundcrew men bayed like wolves, anticipating their sprees. They teased Hans-Ulrich about not joining in. “If you’re wasted, too, you won’t give a rat’s ass about what it costs,” someone said. Half a dozen men roared agreement.