Comfort to the Enemy (2010) (4 page)

Doing what?

Taking care of mom.

You tell Teddy about Jurgen?

There was a silence. She stared at him and said after a moment, Why would I?

Brag about a guy, a German officer, escaping from a prison camp so he can be with you? Ris
k g
etting shot? What'd Teddy say, he'd like to meet him?

I haven't told him, Shemane said.

*

Wesley Sellers was in his office waiting for Carl.

Well, I put your boy Gary Marion in with the Kraut. I told him to leave his sidearm here and get it on the way out, and I'm glad I did. He wasn't in the cell two minutes he takes a swing at Jurgen. Jurgen grabs the folding chair Gary brought in and bangs him over the head with it. We had to run him to the hospital to get his scalp sewed up. Something like seventeen stitches.

Carl said, And now Gary wants to shoot him. Wesley said, I wouldn't be surprised. Say he caught him trying to escape.

Chapter
Four

Jurgen Schrenk, Escape Artist

Otto Penzler's rank was SS
Sturmbannfnhrer, or Storm Command Leader; but for th
e p ast few months, since the July 20th attempt on Hitler's life had failed, he was signing cam p d irectives and memoranda Major Otto Penzler.

Jurgen could talk to Otto. Both wer
e f
rom Cologne, Otto five years older and wit h f ive more years in the army, the Abwehr branc h o f military intelligence his first few years. Bot h w ere schooled in National Socialism and coul d t alk the Nazi talk. Otto had joined the SS, h e t old Jurgen with a straight face, to be seen as a n a ctive guardian of racial purity. Jurgen said , Not because it's elite and you like the blac k u niform. In the African desert Otto ha d c ommanded Panzers and was known among his men as the Scharfrichter, the Executioner of British tanks. At the Deep Fork camp he was a member of the Escape Committee.

This day in October Otto came into the solitary confinement room with the metal folding chair the guard had given him. Jurgen, sitting on his cot, squinted in the overhead light that came on.

I have news you won't like, Otto said, unfolding hi
s c
hair and seating himself to face Jurgen. But first, I have to ask why you don't come to the Committee with your escape plans. It upsets them.

I've told you, Jurgen said, I don't make plans. I have a place where I go under the fence.

There's a guard you take care of?

I came back the first time, he asked me how I escaped. I told him I go out for a few days, that's all, I'm not actually escaping. I gave him a service medal. I give him swastika pins and arm bands, spoons, utensils from mess kits.

Otto Penzler, also liked to wear shorts and the soft desert cap with the long peak, brought out a pack of Camels, gave one to Jurgen and lighted them. Jurgen got up from the cot to stretch and lean against the wall.

What is the news I won't like?

Rommel's dead, Otto said.

He waited for Jurgen who began to nod his head.

They killed him, Jurgen said.

They made him take poison.

But he wasn't at Wolf's Lair?

Not anywhere near it. Stauffenberg arrived with the explosive device in his briefcase. He's already lost an arm and an eye for the Fnhrer so they don't make him open the case. Huesinger was there with maps of the eastern front. Stauffenberg placed his case under the map table and excused himself, he has to make a phone call. He's outside, walking away from the conference room and the device explodes. Stauffenberg assumes the Fnhrer is dead.

Why wasn't he?

He must have moved away from the table. Rommel was named with the ones in the plot, not as an active participant but in favor of doing away with the Fnhrer. Rommel was Germany's favorite general -the reason he was offered poison and not hanged by the neck. If he accepted it he'd be given a state funeral and his family would be treated with honor and supported for life.

If he'd insisted on a trial---

He knew better. He'd be found guilty and his family would be on their own. We don't have to worry about it, Otto said, do we? The Committee wants to know why you go out.

They know why.

They would like the woman to be
German.

What is Morrissey, English, Irish? I know she isn't a Jew or a gypsy, or a Latin from Manhattan.

The only thing you do with her is go t
o b
ed?

The only thing being everything, Jurgen said. But I'm also thinking of something, an event I'd like to see happen.

Otto said, Do you know that south of McAlester, not far, is an army ammunition plant where they store bombs? The Committee wants you to blow it up. Do something for the fatherland for a change.

I can tell who strung up Willi Martz. You want me to?

"Be serious for a change."

All right, how do I get inside th
e p
lace?

You'll find a way.

Do I have to activate the bombs?

I said, see if blowing the place up is possible.

Do you remember, Jurgen said, the train ride from Norfolk, Virginia to Oklahoma? How long it took, and we're still only halfway across the country? Let's say I find a way to do it. There is a tremendous explosion at this barren expanse of land in the middle of America. My only thought about it would be, 'So what.'

I'll tell them you don't think it's feasible.

No, tell them I've been thinking about a mass escape," Jurgen said, on the Fnhrer's birthday next April. Three-hundred and sixty thousand German prisoners of war, in all the camps in America, all walk out at the same time.

Otto waited, looking at Jurgen. And do what?

Nothing, Jurgen said and moved his shoulders, rubbing his back against the wall. Or they steal cars and drive around wherever they are, honking the horns.

To what purpose?

You need a purpose? All right, first to show that we can do it, Jurgen said. And second, to let them know we have a sense of humor. Americans don't think we do.

How do you let all the camps know about the mass escape?

Announce a special celebration planned for the Fnhrer's birthday.

All the mail is censored, Otto said, and goes through our post office at Camp Hearne in Texas. How do you tell about the escape?

We bring our people at the post office into the plan, Jurgen said. They know how to slip notes into letters already passed by the censor.

They smoked their cigarettes and were quiet until Jurgen said, Why don't you come out with me sometime? I remember your girlfriend in Benghazi, the very pretty blonde Italian? I'm thinking Shemane could fix you up.

The time they finally get tired of looking stupid and shoot you, Otto said, is the time I happen to be with you.

*

Last night after seeing Shemane, Carl went back to his dad's house. He told Virgil about Gary Marion, the one who wanted to be the new hot kid, how he took a swing at Jurgen and Jurgen laid him out with a chair.

Gary wants to be like you, Virgil said, but didn't have your upbringing, learning the finer points of being a man.

They were in the kitchen so Carl used the phone there to give the operator the number.

Virgil said to Narcissa at the stove, the woman stirring tomato sauce in an iron pot, He's calling Kansas City.

Ask him he wants to stay. We having his favorite.

I think he's moved back, Virgil said, so he can call long distance and it won't cost him nothing.

Who is he calling this time?

Carl said, I want to speak to Teddy. Tell him Deputy U
. S
. Marshal Carlos Webster is waiting but won't wait too long. Understand?

Virgil said to Narcissa, He wants to talk to that gangster, Teddy Ritz. Louly said th
e w
aitresses at his club had to wear teddies, that's all, and high heels.

Carl said into the phone, Teddy?... Yeah, it's been a while. I hear you got thrown out of your job. It's what happens the guy you're working for goes to prison.

Virgil said to Narcissa, You remember Pendergast? Ran Kansas City wide open till the serious people got down on him.

Saying this while Teddy was telling Carl not to worry about him, his club was the hottest spot in town, wall to wall GIs.

Carl said, I hear you're still being nice to Shemane, and waited while Teddy decided what to tell him.

Shemane, Teddy said, I can talk to Shemane and know she's listening and gets what I'm telling her ... besides being the best ten minutes in bed I've ever had in my life. You been talking to her?

I had to question her about a German POW she's seeing.

She visits this guy?

He busts out and visits her. Spends a couple of days at her house and gives himself up. Jurgen Schrenk. She must've told you about him.

He gives himself up, Teddy said. Then what?

They put him in solitary for a week, but it doesn't stop him from busting out. Four times this year.

What's Shemane do for him?

What do you think? She comforts him. Couldn't she get locked up for that? I'm not after Shemane, I want to fin
d o ut what this Nazi's up to, Carl said, making Jurgen a Nazi to get Teddy's reaction.

One of the bad guys, uh?

He's Afrika Korps, those guys grew up Nazis. They want you to know they're tough as nails and the only reason they surrendered, their tanks ran out of gas. This Jurgen can't sit still. I keep expecting him to start blowing up oil wells or setting fire to storage tanks. I mean for the hell of it, something to do.

Impress Shemane, Teddy said, get her excited.

She thinks he's a nice guy. She says we ought to be helping the Germans fight the Bolsheviks.

Jurgen fed her that?

She needs somebody to tell her what's going on over there, the Nazis trying to get rid of the Jews, sending them to slave-labor camps. I imagine you have people over there seeing it firsthand.

Virgil said to Narcissa, You know Teddy's Jewish.

He looked over to see Carl nodding his head, listening to Teddy for several minutes before saying, Come on- you believe that? How do you know it's true? He listened again and said, What's the guy's name, Zigmund? I wish you'd let Shemane know about it -yo u s ay she pays attention to what you tell her. Give her a call and set he r s traight. She could help me find out what Jurgen's up to.

He hung up and looked over to see Virgil and Narcissa watching him.

Teddy says last year a million and a half Jews in Poland disappeared.

*

The light came on as Carl entered the solitary confinement room. He unfolded the chair saying, This is the one you hit him with? and sat down.

Jurgen pushed up from the cot. The same kind.

What did you say made him take a swing at you?

Nothing. He wanted to fight, Jurgen said. He walked in saying, 'You don't tell me where you go, I'm gonna beat the snot out of you.' Is that a popular American expression now, to beat the snot out of someone?

What did you say to him?

I told him where I go is none of his business. He kept referring to us as Krauts. 'You Krauts act like you're on vacation here. You Krauts act like you're better than us. I said 'Maybe we are. He said, 'You think you can take me?' and came toward me with the chair in front of him, folded, holding it in both hands. He pushed the chair at me, let go of it to swin g a t my face, but now I had the chair. I raised it as he threw his punch and his fist hit the metal seat. I raised it higher and brought it down on his head. I hit him with it again as he fell to the floor.

Gary said you were waiting for him and took him by surprise, Carl said. You grabbed the chair out of his hands and hit him with it.

You believe what this fellow tells you, Jurgen said, or you believe me?

It doesn't matter, Carl said. Gary's the good guy and you're the enemy. He asked you to tell him where you go when you slip out---

Or he'll beat the snot out of me. Is that a serious threat, Carl? He'll hit me until der Schleim comes out of my nose? We're all curious about where you go, Carl said, so I looked into it. I find out you spend your time with Miss Shemane Morrissey, former Kansas City call girl they say charged two hundred dollars to spend the night with her. Tell me how you first got together.

You've talked to her?

Yes, I have.

Well, I was walking along the road, she stopped her car. What difference does it make? I'm seeing her, Jurgen said, and you know I am, so there is no mystery. You want to shock me, say she was a prostitute -I know that. She told me everything, how a white slaver by the name of Teddy Ritz put her to work before he even saw her. Then when he did- she's sixteen, very attractive- she became hi s m istress. Jurgen seemed to smile saying, Teddy Ritz, the white slaver who must be a Jew. It's good, isn't it, the story of her life? She told me she could make a thousand dollars a week without breathing hard.

Carl saw her making fifty thousand a year with two weeks off. If she took a month off she'd still make forty-eight thousand.

What I want to know, Jurgen said, is why you call me a Kraut?

We call all of you Krauts. It caught on and it's how you're known. Short for sauerkraut.

Yes...?

Isn't it your national dish?

I'm not sure, Jurgen said, and asked Carl, Do you like sauerkraut?

I'll eat it if it's what we're having?

I eat it, I'm a Kraut, Jurgen said. You eat it, you remain who you are.

It doesn't have to make sense, Carl said. The Tulsa World and my dad call you Huns most of the time. You mind 'Huns'?

No, it's Kraut I don't care for.

Don't worry about it, Carl said. What I want you to tell me is how the hard-nosed Nazis have come to run the camps. Because they're mean buggers but disciplined, they do what they're told? That's why the guards prefer Nazis. Tell me why they intimidate the less Nazified ones, beat them up, go so far as to lynch them, the ones you call suicides? I want to hear what you have to say about Nazis, an d t ell me what they did with a million and a half Jews in Poland.