The Losing Role (23 page)

Max chuckled, stalling. Why was Slaipe telling him
this? What was his game? Was there even a game? Max lowered his
binoculars. It was getting too dark to see even with the naked eye.
Yet he kept his back to the captain. Anything but face him.

“And you want to know why?” Slaipe continued. “About
two months ago, the German High Command, in its infinite wisdom,
sent out a Wehrmacht-wide request for English speakers—and for
volunteers at that.”

“They what? Idiots. They might as well have sent
you—us—a letter.”

“Exactly. We intercepted it, of course. And what
does that tell you, this request? Germans were desperate for the
qualified English speakers. Still, they were lucky if they found
enough to fill a few jeeps, I’m guessing. I know I wouldn’t
volunteer, but that’s beside the point . . . They probably got few
true soldiers. Ended up with English teachers, writers, artists,
most likely. Few of whom are capable of assassinating a general,
let alone a fly.”

Max had trouble breathing, and he started to wheeze
and shake. “I’m sure it’s true,” he muttered. “They’re hopeless.
Has-beens. Washed-up. Yet I wonder, Captain . . .” He started to
ask what happened to the fake GIs who were caught, but his stomach
burned and swelled in waves. He steadied himself on the rampart’s
edge.

“Price?”

Max couldn’t swallow or feel his throat, a cold
sweat smeared his lower lip and forehead and a hot flow gushed up
and out his mouth, right over the edge.

“All right, get it all out, all right,” Slaipe was
saying, a hand on Max’s shoulder.

Max hugged the rampart and heaved again, the steam
rising, and again, not even bothering to wipe his mouth.

“Sorry to shake you up,” Slaipe said when Max had
finished. “Go on downstairs. I’ll take over.”

“All right. Yes. Thank you . . .”

Max scrambled down the ladder and stumbled through
the house. Down in the cellar he stripped to his SS tunic, tore the
thing off and threw it into the oven’s fire and slammed the doors
shut. He was alone here. No one could challenge him. He only hoped
the foul wool didn’t pollute the chimney’s smoke—how sick and
horrid it probably reeked, if one had the nose for it.

December 23. The next day. In the morning Max
overheard Smitty reporting to Slaipe that the clouds above the
Ardennes were starting to break. In their secluded valley, however,
the same dim gray weather persisted, a stubborn pocket of snow
flurries and chilling wind. Max stood outside and could hear
American airplanes beyond the clouds, spotting the reckless German
advances and seeking new targets. The American counterattacks would
soon be launched just as Slaipe predicted. Max went back down to
the cellar and sipped his coffee. He could not flee, not yet.
Timing was everything now. It was true he had shed his SS tunic,
but if he fled and was caught in an American uniform—amid the fury
of an American counter—he was certain to be found a spy to be shot
on site. And if he stayed? His only hope was that one big break.
He’d certainly paid his dues.

In the afternoon, as he was pulling on his gloves
and overcoat to relieve Smitty from watch, he heard yelling and
stomping upstairs. He grabbed his tommy, threw on his helmet, and
rushed up the stone steps.

In the foyer stood a small old man. A half-conscious
German soldier leaned on his shoulder. Slaipe and Smitty had tommy
guns on the two, but the old man was more concerned about getting
the soldier off his shoulder. He yelled and they yelled, a clash of
languages. Justine was there, shouting for Annette.

“Everyone—calm yourselves,” Max shouted and helped
the German soldier off the old man. The soldier was heavy, so Max
set him down on a linen-covered sofa in the next room, which made
Justine swear in French and throw up her arms. The soldier was
regular army, not Waffen-SS, and so young he could have been Hitler
Youth. He was wet and muddy, and bleeding from a chest wound that
was dressed with ragged scarves.

Slaipe and Smitty searched the old man in the foyer,
and Justine hurried off to find Annette. Max had Armagnac in his
canteen. He let the soldier smell it and his eyes fluttered open,
glaring wide as they focused on Max’s American uniform. “I am
surrendered, okay? No problem,” he said in thickly accented
English, and wheezed and coughed with a horrid screech that smelled
even worse. He continued in rapid German: “
Komme aus Freiburg .
. . In der Ecke, nahe der Schweiz . . . Mein Name ist Widmer—Martin
Widmer . . .
”

He was from Freiburg, he’d said, from down in the
corner of Germany near Switzerland. His name was Martin Widmer. Max
shrugged as if he didn’t understand. “You surrender. I accept. No
problem,” he said in English, pointing and gesturing.

Yet young Martin wouldn’t quit with the life story.
He had wanted to go into seminary, he said, but the war came. Then
he’d wanted a French girl, but they shipped him out too soon.

If only Max could speak to him in German—he’d tell
him to shut his trap. “It’s okay, okay, it’s okay,” he said,
chanting it, and finally Martin passed out.

Annette rushed past Max. Max followed her to the
foyer. She squealed something in French dialect and lunged at the
small old man, hugging him with so much force he stumbled back. He
wore a worn tweed cap that was too big for him and a fur-lined
overcoat that reached his ankles, reminding Max of an overage
paperboy. Justine, smiling now, told Slaipe the story: This was
Annette’s husband,
Alter Heini
—Old Henry. He was from the
borderlands between Belgium and Germany, just east of here, and
belonged to the ten percent of Belgians who spoke German.

“More German? Jesus, we’re surrounded,” Smitty
blurted to Slaipe, who could only grimace. The surprise arrival had
shaken them. They kept their tommys raised and, despite Annette’s
protests, led old Henry into the kitchen and had him sit up on the
counter, like a child. Max stood just beyond the doorway, listening
and peeking in as Smitty interrogated and translated and Slaipe
paced back and forth. Old Henry stammered with fear but told them
what he could. He’d walked straight from Waimes, the nearest
village to the east, where he’d been working for another family.
He’d passed no recognizable front lines on the way, only a few
Germans and a few
Amis
—all of them lost, hungry, in shock.
He found the wounded German in the forest and couldn’t let him die.
He didn’t mean any harm.

“Please, please,” he said in clanging Belgian
German, clasping his hands together. “I only wanted to see my dear
wife for Christmas, you understand?”

“Understand,” Slaipe said in rough German.

Max stood in the doorway, showing himself.

“
In der Patsche sitz’ ich nun. Sie sprechen
Deutsch, oder?
” Old Henry said to Max, rubbing at his little
hands—“I’m in the soup here. Don’t you speak German?”

“Uh-uh,” Max said, shaking his head.

Smitty glared at Max, aiming his tommy. “What are
you doing here? Huh? What?”

“I, I thought I could help—” Max remembered he was a
lieutenant. He straightened. “Sergeant, remember whom you’re
speaking to. I don’t care if you’re CIC or, or . . . Ike’s son—you
respect the rank.”

Smitty lowered his tommy. “Sorry, Lieutenant, sir.
It’s the nerves.” He gave a half-salute.

Max’s presence seemed to have the reverse effect on
Slaipe. He stopped pacing, and he set his tommy on a counter.
“Point well taken, Price. But I think what the sergeant meant was,
one of us should be up on watch. Who knows who might have followed.
So, why don’t you go up in the tower? All right? One of us will
relieve you.”

Smitty relieved Max hours later, well after dark, and
took great and humble care to apologize once more. Down in the
cellar they’d put Martin, the wounded German, on Max’s bedroll. The
young soldier was sleeping, on his back. Slaipe sat at the
table.

“Evening,” Max said. Slaipe nodded. As Max pulled
off gear and set down his tommy, Slaipe poured him an Armagnac. Max
sat opposite the captain. They drank, saying nothing.

Slaipe set down his glass. “Annette and Old Henry
are down the hall in their room. Reunited. I’m happy for them.”

“Me too. And Ms. DeTrave?”

“Up in her room. Sleeping, I hope.” Slaipe shook his
head at Martin. The young soldier’s peach fuzz glowed in the
candlelight. “Poor kid, keeps muttering German. It’s a decent
language I’ve always thought, German. Solid, Latin-style rules.
Logical. No room for ambiguity. Not like English at all.” Slaipe
lifted his glass in an imaginary toast. His eyes were glazed over.
He might be drunk, Max realized. “Wish I could say something to
that kid,” he added.

“It seems you know a lot about languages,” Max said,
lifting his glass.

“Even when I don’t know them?” Slaipe chuckled.
“Maybe we could teach the kid English, me and you. God knows he’s
going to need it if he survives this. They’re all going to need
it.”

“You don’t think he’d try something? Become
desperate?”

“And what then? Where would he go? No, kid’s going
nowhere—couldn’t if he wanted to. I gave him what I had left of an
ampule.”

Ampule—Max had never heard such an English word. He
nodded.

“Tough wound,” Slaipe said. “Near the lungs. And no
medic in sight.” He drank.

Max drank. Annette had left jerky sticks and bread
on the table, but for the first time in days—weeks—he didn’t feel
hunger. Slaipe refilled Max’s glass, even though it was still
half-full. Then the captain crouched over before the oven and began
to build a fire, clumsily, rocking back and forth.

“Annette would not approve of a fire so late,” Max
said, and they shared a mischievous smile.

Slaipe got a good fire going. It cracked and popped
behind the oven doors, and Slaipe sat back down. He gazed at
Martin, sleeping down on the bedroll.

The Armagnac had loosened Max up. Feeling the
warmth, he unbuttoned his overcoat. “You’re not so tough, CIC,” he
said to Slaipe. “You made that fire for the kid Martin over there.
That kraut.”

Slaipe slapped at his chest. “Got me. I’m really
just a soft touch. Then again, it’s not as if the kid’s Waffen-SS,
is he?”

Max smiled. They stared at the oven, as if they
could see the fire. Slaipe nodded toward Martin. “They’re forcing
my hand, you know—Old Henry and his soldier boy. Yours too.”

Forcing one’s hand—Max guessed it was a poker term.
He chuckled, and he shook his head. “Sure, sure,” he mumbled.

“You don’t know what I’m talking about,” Slaipe
said.

“Come again?”

“Come again? Don’t you think you’re overplaying it a
bit? I mean, really.”

Max opened his mouth, but nothing came out. “How’s
that?” he said finally.

“The whole mediocre Yank act. You’re no more a
Babbitt than I am.”

Max didn’t know Babbitt either. He stared. He raised
his eyebrows. He drank.

“That first day here, you didn’t even salute me.
Taking it a little far, don’t you think? Even for an
Ami
.”

Dread and shock were working its way up Max’s chest
and neck, a rolling shudder that sent him into a shrill giggle. “A
what? What? Hey, I was just happy to see you guys.”

Slaipe was frowning, his lower lip jutting out. He
had one arm down low, under the table. Max was sure Slaipe had his
Colt aimed on him.

“That wasn’t the only thing that tipped me off,”
Slaipe said. “That first day, you referred to our ‘insignia
badges.’ It’s called ‘unit insignia’ in American English. In this
man’s army.”

“What? No, I’ve heard lots of Joes say badge—”

“And, how could you have heard—only heard—about
krauts in American uniform, if you hadn’t been behind American
lines yet? If you hadn’t seen any. You couldn’t have known.”

Max hardened his jaw. “Look. Captain. This is silly,
and quite frankly it’s beginning to insult me. You’ve had too much
to drink. Perhaps—dare I say, you’ve been out in the field too
long.”

“Oh, of that, you can be sure.” Slaipe stared, into
Max’s eyes. Max let him. He didn’t blink. Finally, Slaipe said,
“You were thinking of the word ‘
Abzeichen
,’ weren’t you? Did
I pronounce it right? The German word for insignia, Smitty tells
me, but it’s most often translated as ‘badge.’ I’ve noticed about
five other examples, not to mention the variations in accent. I
used to teach linguistics, you see, in another age. Another
life.”

“Thus the interest,” Max said. He placed his hands
flat on the table so the captain could see them. Slowly, he reached
for the bottle of Armagnac.

“An ampule is a vial of morphine, by the way. You’ve
done a fine job, don’t get me wrong. I especially like the way you
handled Smitty in the kitchen earlier. For a while you even had me,
let’s say, misdirected. I knew there was something funny about you.
But I thought maybe you were only light in your loafers.”

Max wanted to laugh at that—Felix would have loved
it. He could only grimace. “I’m not that way,” he said.

“Of course not. Ms. DeTrave can see that. And so I
see it.”

They sat still a while, saying nothing. Thinking.
Max had nothing more to offer. No line. No gesture or prop.
Nothing. He shrugged once. Slaipe sighed.

“I’m an actor, you see,” Max said.

“I figured it was something like that.”

“You don’t need that pistol.”

“I didn’t think I would. You showed me that up in
the tower yesterday. Retching like that—such disgust—is no acting
job. That’s why I’m letting Smitty stay up there now. Still, I had
to be sure you’d react like a wise man, which you are.”

“I’m not going to fight this, captain. Lock me in a
room if you want, but you don’t have to worry about me.”

“No. We’ll keep the ammo away from you. You can keep
your empty tommy for pride—a provisional souvenir. How’s that?”
Slaipe attached a sad smile.