Scheisshaus Luck (33 page)

The Soviets put up notices stating that no one—German or

‘‘displaced persons’’—could travel without a permit. These traveling papers could be acquired only at the Soviet provost marshal’s office in Reinsberg, which was about seven miles south of Wustrow.

We woke up early and trudged down the empty main road. We came upon two Mongol soldiers with their heads shoved under the hood of their truck. Luckily they knew squat about engines, and Michel had spent time in a garage. Not that the problem, a slipped distributor cable, needed a mechanic. Grinning from ear to ear, the Mongols were more than happy to let us hitch a ride.

Ten minutes later we were floundering in a motley throng of refugees and displaced people in Reinsberg’s marketplace. Reinsberg wasn’t much bigger than Wustrow, but they did have a bank and that was where the Soviets had set up their provost’s office.

Seeing that it would take days to receive our traveling papers if we 236

SCHEISSHAUS LUCK

waited our turn in line, I elbowed my way to the entrance where a Red Army guard was sleeping in a red velvet armchair.

‘‘
Drasvicshem, tovaritch
’’ (Good day, comrade), I blurted in my broken Russian.

The soldier, who had been snoring loudly, opened one eye.

‘‘
Trois Franzus, tovaritch
,’’ I said, pointing to Michel and Jean.

‘‘
Franzus, tovaritch
?’’ he repeated, unimpressed as he twisted the ends of his long handlebar mustache.

I slipped a few of my Austrian cigarettes into his hand. His smile revealed a row of blackened teeth.

‘‘
Da, Franzus, tovaritch, da, da
!’’

Deaf to their complaints, the guard pushed away those at the head of the line and planted us. Back on his throne, he pulled out an old edition of
Der Stu¨rmer
from his jacket pocket. He tore off a square of the newspaper and rolled a cigarette with the tobacco from the ones I had given him. All the soldiers from the Russian countryside seemed to prefer the taste of newspaper to cigarette paper, since that’s what they rolled their
makhorka
in back home.

Blissfully the guard breathed in the first puff, and slowly the corner of a swastika became smoke.

An hour later a broad-shouldered female private ushered us inside. The bank was no more than a small office with a few chairs and a well-worn desk. Sitting behind it was a Russian noncommissioned officer who looked to be in his thirties. He asked in halting German where we intended to go. From our ‘‘pajamas’’ he knew where we had been. While the officer began to fill out our traveling permits, Michel stared out the window.

‘‘If I’m not back in five minutes, wait for me at the edge of town,’’ he whispered, then ducked out.

Seeing that the officer was sympathetic to
Ha¨ftlinge
, I told him I had discovered that a ‘‘Nazi farmer’’ in Wustrow was hiding two draft horses and those beasts could make our return to France easier. The Russian smiled and wrote out a requisition on bank stationery.

As he said he would be, Michel was waiting for us at the edge PART VI | WUSTROW

237

of town. He had a Russian helmet pulled down over his ears and a bicycle hidden in a bush.

Jean pointed to the helmet. ‘‘How did you get that?’’

‘‘Simple. I saw a Russian park his bicycle in the courtyard behind the bank. He hung his helmet on the handlebars and went into a shithouse. When I got back there I could tell from the sighs he was heaving that he was going to be there for a while. Nobody blinked when I came riding out on his bicycle with this pot on my head.’’

With that Red Army helmet bobbing on his head, Michel furiously pedaled back to Wustrow with me perched on the handlebars and Jean sitting on the small luggage rack over the rear wheel. We sure got some stares from the people on the road. Hey you German fools, get a good look at the three-clown
Ha¨ftlinge
circus riding by!

The next day we all went to the Wustrow garrison, which was a small house on the southern edge of town. I showed a soldier the requisition. He acted like it was meaningless to him. I wasn’t sure if he was illiterate or couldn’t be bothered. I asked in broken Russian who was in charge. A sly smile flashed on his face, and he led me behind the house to a girl’s bicycle, which was lying on a gravel path that cut through a meadow. He pointed to a knoll and waved me on.

I walked through thigh-high grass and almost stepped on the officer in charge. He was soaking the biscuit with a stunningly beautiful Slav girl in her early twenties, who had her skirt hiked up and blouse open. I turned my back to them and profusely apologized in German. I braced myself for a Russian tongue-lashing, but all the chagrined young officer did was turn his back to me, yank up his pants, and brush the grass off his uniform.

Still on the ground half-naked, the girl laughed at our reactions, making me feel silly and immature. Holding out the requisition, I explained in German why I had come to the garrison. The girl jumped up, snatched the paper from me, and read it aloud. Her smooth pink cheeks mesmerized me. She had the most beautiful skin I had ever seen. It had been way too long since I had laid eyes 238

SCHEISSHAUS LUCK

on such a fine creature. I asked myself how that lucky son-of-a-bitch had gotten his skin against hers. His officer stripes, of course.

She gave me a smile.

‘‘Oh, don’t worry, he was all through. Your horses should come first, anyway.’’

Either something had gotten lost in the translation or the officer in Reinsberg had expedited things the best way he knew how.

The requisition read that the Wustrow garrison was to assist us in recovering ‘‘our stolen horses.’’ The girl ordered the reluctant lieutenant to confiscate the horses immediately. He nodded, and I wondered if he had accidentally put on her uniform. I thanked her profusely and again expressed my apologies.

‘‘I’ll catch up later. Anyway, he needed a breather,’’ she winked.

The officer quickly rounded up a couple soldiers and Jean, Michel, and I led our military escort to the barn where the draft horses were being kept. The farmer’s protests fell on deaf ears. The officer had only one thing on his mind and it wasn’t his duties. I couldn’t blame him.

Jean and Michel led a pair of well-kept Percherons to the country estate. We calmed the animals with a couple buckets of oats and a bale of hay. Since they were too fat to saddle, we needed to

‘‘organize’’ harnesses and a wagon. That wouldn’t be an easy task.

The Soviets had confiscated nearly every vehicle in Wustrow. We had gotten the horses and our permits quicker than expected, so we were confident that we would jump this new hurdle and be on our way home in a couple days.

‘‘
Ou nous pouvons revivre, aimer, aimer
’’ (Where we can live again and love), Michel laughed as he led the horses into the stalls.

I was holding Stella the last time I heard that refrain. I walked into the courtyard with tears welling in my eyes. I had lost almost all faith of ever holding her again.

One of us was always in the barn keeping guard over our new prized possessions. There were no secrets in such a small town, and once the farmer learned of the horses’ new home he made daily visits. He would brush their coats, hug their necks, and kiss them PART VI | WUSTROW

239

on the nose, all the while blubbering like a four-year-old. He tried to make us feel sorry for him. Without those draft horses he couldn’t work his fields, but we had no pity. One time he even offered me a smoked ham for their return. I shook my head, no.

‘‘Go break your back tilling your fields just as we broke our backs digging ditches for your glorious Fu¨hrer.’’

It would be a long and arduous trip to the French border. At least four main Germany rivers—the Hafel, the Elbe, the Weser, and the Rhine—must be crossed. No one knew if there were any bridges still standing. The rubble-filled towns might not present opportunities for ‘‘organizing’’ provisions en route. So, in between scouring the countryside for anything with wheels, we canned a sheep and fruit preserves. We lived off a stray goat that I shot while leaning out the cottage’s back window. That was the last time I fired at anything in Germany, because the Soviets posted notices forbidding the carrying of weapons. Nevertheless, Jean and Michel went off with the shotguns for a morning rabbit hunt. When I pointed out that their activities might prove dangerous, Jean replied, ‘‘Those signs don’t apply to us. We’re on the Allied side.’’

All morning I heard them sniping away in the woods. Around noon, a truck filled with soldiers rumbled up the road. Hearing the shotguns, the truck stopped. The soldiers seemed unsure of what to do. Coming out of the house, I could hear them talking. The truck turned down a trail and disappeared into the woods. When my two friends didn’t return that evening I was certain that they’d had a run-in with the soldiers.

At daybreak I followed Michel’s and Jean’s tracks to the bank of a stream, where their footprints mingled with a multitude of heavy bootprints. I walked over to the garrison, hoping that they could tell me something. The guard standing near the front door didn’t question me when I walked inside the house. Wearing ‘‘pajamas’’

was almost as good as having an authorized pass. To my surprise, the Soviet lieutenant’s stunning lovebird was sitting behind a desk in the front room. She had a white piece of cardboard pinned to her blouse with her name, Sonia and Dolmetscher, German for 240

SCHEISSHAUS LUCK

‘‘interpreter,’’ written across it. Her gorgeous smile turned to a frown when I told her why I had come.

Without hesitating she said, ‘‘I have a driver making a round trip to the provost in Reinsberg. You can catch a ride. They might have some information.’’

‘‘Can’t you call?’’ I was in no hurry to leave. Gazing at Sonia was too enjoyable.

She shook her head. ‘‘The telephone lines are still down.’’

Sonia went to an open window, barked in Russian, then handed me some paperwork for the driver. She touched my arm. ‘‘I’m sure your friends are fine.’’

The driver was a gray-haired reservist in his fifties who had worked the oil fields in the Caucasus. His deeply creased face complemented the battle-scarred Nazi amphibious car he was steering.

He drove slowly because he feared the cracked windshield might shatter in our faces. Avoiding the numerous holes left by tank and mortar shells seemed to be wearing him thin. I handed him one of my Austrian cigarettes.

‘‘
Danke Scho¨n
.’’

He parked the clunker to the side of the road so he could light his smoke. ‘‘I, too, was a prisoner in Germany,’’ he said in halting German, ‘‘but in the First World War.’’

Exhaling smoke, he released the clutch. The gears groaned and the car jerked forward. He waved his cigarette at the surrounding meadows. ‘‘This is nice country when you’re on the right side.’’

At the Red Army headquarters in Reinsberg, a plump major, his chest covered with hardware, deigned me a few moments of his precious time. Through his interpreter, who looked like a farm servant and stuttered incomprehensible German, I deciphered that the major hadn’t received a report of two Frenchmen hunting in the woods. I wanted to ask more questions, but the major turned his back to me. My time was up.

I hoped that Jean and Michel were in some Russian prison, but it was more than likely their swollen bodies were floating down the PART VI | WUSTROW

241

river. Either way, I was now alone, and my urgency to leave dissipated. I wanted my parents to know that I was alive, that I had survived, but the road home had excessive perils—too many unknowns to go it alone. If I was patient, the right traveling companions would eventually come along. So I took the whining farmer up on his offer and gave him back his horses for the smoked ham hanging in his chimney.

This page intentionally left blank

C H A P T E R 2 3

I had become friendly with a plain-spoken former truck driver whose property I crossed every time I went into town. Arthur Novak was a stocky man in his fifties. The Nazis had thrown him into Oranienburg Penitentiary, a massive prison on the outskirts of Berlin, in 1935 because of his membership in the Communist Party.

Our conversations were short but never frivolous, always touching on politics and the events of the last twelve years. When he learned of Jean and Michel’s disappearance, he invited me to stay with him.

Since I knew his political leanings, and that we had a mutual hatred for ‘‘the god with a moustache,’’ I accepted without hesitation.

Arthur owned a small lakefront cottage that he shared with his wife and seventeen-year-old niece, Trautchen, whose parents had been killed during one of the bombing raids on Berlin. I slept in the guesthouse, a converted greenhouse situated between the house and the main road. Under the bed I stored my only possessions: two knapsacks, one with my cigarettes and the other stuffed with the silverware from the loft. Although Arthur didn’t ask anything of me, I kept his table stocked with fish and asparagus.