Season of My Enemy, page 24
Liza nodded. “I guess you could say so.” She picked up her tea and took a sip as Fannie processed this news. Setting her cup down again, she looked squarely at Fannie. “But I’m not giving up on him. I know he’s not seeing anyone else. He might dance with a few of the regular bar floozies to try and make me jealous or mad enough to leave him be, but he doesn’t take them seriously, so I don’t either. I just don’t know what I did to make him lose interest or stop caring. Before he left, we talked about a future. You know what I mean?” Her eyes begged Fannie to understand how serious they’d been. “Now he says he’s too broken and can’t offer me anything. I don’t believe that.”
Fannie shook her head. “No. Me either.” She stood and paced to the stove where she stared at the potatoes in the pan.
“I’m sorry. I’m keeping you from your dinner.”
“No.” Fannie turned to face her again. “I just needed to move around. Liza, do you love Cal?”
Liza pinched her lips together and nodded. Tears sprang into her eyes. “Of course I love Cal. I’ve told him so a thousand times and in all my letters. He said it too. Lots of times. And he said it like he meant it, not like he just wanted kisses.” She flushed, then raised her chin. “But now …” She turned away and wrestled with her coat pocket until she produced a hankie. She dabbed her eyes and nose. “I don’t know how I’ll convince him that my feelings haven’t changed, but I will. I can’t believe that his really have stopped.”
Fannie folded her arms and leaned against the kitchen counter. “I agree. If Calvin’s broken, it’s only in spirit. He has a lot of anger at the things that happened over there. I think it’s getting better though. I hope so.”
Then Wolf strode through her thoughts, and Fannie had the panicky feeling that Calvin’s stubbornness would return with the coming season if they brought the workers back.
“Have you heard anything from Dale?” Liza jerked Fannie’s attention away from the PWs.
“No. Nothing. Maybe he’s in another camp the army hasn’t reached yet.”
“They say the condition of the prisoners is terrible.”
“Oh no!” Fannie came back to her chair and sat on the edge of it. “I hadn’t heard.”
“I haven’t seen any pictures, but the rumors I heard were that the prisoners are terribly malnourished, and they say that there are many—” She grasped Fannie’s hand. “Oh, Fannie. I shouldn’t even say what I heard.”
“Tell me. Please.”
Liza looked at Fannie with tenderness. “Well, they say that many of the prisoners died and were left unburied. Others lie in mass graves that the Nazis didn’t bother to fill. They say there were some atrocities, but I don’t know much about that. It’s only hearsay from the office,” she added as Fannie’s mouth fell open and her heart stammered.
Not Dale! Dale is coming home! She licked her lips, but when she tried to swallow, the muscles of her throat refused to comply. She shook her head, trying to shake away the shock. “It’s all right, Liza. I appreciate you telling me what you heard. I guess we’ll know the truth of it soon enough.”
“They show the latest news reels at the cinema. I’ll go and watch them with you if—if you want to find out.”
The sound of an automobile turned their attention to see Cal getting out. He wore a frown when he glanced at Liza’s car, but he didn’t slow his step.
“I say we take Calvin along too,” Fannie said. She squeezed Liza’s fingers before releasing her hand.
Calvin shucked off his coat with his back to them. “What are you doing here, Liza?” There was no warmth or welcome in his voice.
Liza straightened. “What do you think? I came to see you, of course.” She spoke a little louder than Fannie had ever heard her speak before, and it was apparently enough for Cal to understand.
He cuffed up his shirtsleeves and walked over to peer into the skillet on the stove. “Why’s that?”
“Calvin!” The anger in Liza’s voice was clear to Fannie, even if it wasn’t completely evident to her stone-hearted brother.
He turned and crossed his arms belligerently, then leaned back against the cupboard, crossing his ankles. He didn’t even come over to sit with them.
Fannie rose. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”
Neither acknowledged her, so she slipped from the room. She dodged up the stairs and closed herself in her room, but then she changed her mind and opened the door a few inches. She wouldn’t mind knowing if Calvin did anything stupid like stomping off and leaving Liza there on her own as he might be prone to doing. But she needed a distraction too, so she sat down at her desk and pulled out a sheet of paper to write to Wolf. Her pen hovered over the page for a moment. Should she tell him what she’d heard from Liza? He seemed well informed, but likely they told the prisoners at the camps about the American victories sweeping across the European continent. He might even have learned more about the prison camps there in Germany than she knew from Liza.
Dear Wolf,
We haven’t heard from Dale yet, but I’ve heard rumors.
I guess I don’t yet know if they’re true.
Liza’s words strode through her thoughts and brought a burning sensation to her chest. She laid her pen down. Malnourished. Dead. Mass graves … She pictured Dale out on the battlefield, and suddenly he was in Africa. Wolf and the PWs were shooting at him. Her heart raced at the image, and an anger she hadn’t felt in months began spinning tornado-like through her veins. If Dale was dead, every German was partially to blame.
Weren’t they?
“Don’t you turn away from me again! You cannot run from this, Calvin!” Liza’s raised voice shot up the stairwell, and Fannie drew a deep breath.
No. That wasn’t true. Dale had to be alive, and as far as she and her family knew, he’d never been sent to Africa. But she couldn’t write to Wolf about this.
She focused on the activity downstairs. Hopefully, Liza would give Calvin the full piece of her mind he deserved. Fannie would tell Wolf about the tête-à-tête going on down there once she learned of the outcome. She glanced at her alarm clock on her nightstand. The kids would be home from school soon, and she promised Mom to have their dinner ready.
Cal and Liza’s voices bounced back and forth, and Fannie did her best to tune out the words, even as she abandoned her letter and decided to select an outfit for church on Sunday instead. It was good those two were talking. Having it out, as her dad would have said. Liza was smart to corner Cal here at home. If he decided to storm off, he’d have to return eventually. Liza seemed like the kind of gal who could wait him out. But Fannie never heard a door open or slam. Their voices eventually softened. Finally, she couldn’t hear them anymore, so she pushed back her lace bedroom curtain to see if there was any sign of them outside. Liza’s car was still here. So was their own. Had they reconciled? Or were they just sitting there in the kitchen, staring at each other in stony silence?
She turned and tiptoed out the door. Then, with a bit more purposeful noise, she headed down the stairs. She poked her head around the kitchen door, but the room was empty. The smell of cold potatoes still rose from the stove.
“We’re in here.”
Fannie whirled at Cal’s voice from behind. The couple was seated on the couch, and Liza was tucked snugly beneath Cal’s arm. She gave Fannie a soft smile. Cal looked a little sheepish, but neither was he cowed enough to be made light of.
“You two look like you’ve worked some things out.”
“You could say that.” Liza laid a hand on Cal’s chest. “Can I tell her?”
He stroked his free hand down both sides of his mouth with a hint of chagrin. “Might as well.”
A broad smile split Liza’s face. “We’re getting married.” She turned and gave Calvin a resounding kiss on the cheek.
“You … What? Really?” It seemed impossible, but Fannie’s heaviness lifted. “Calvin! I’m so happy!”
“It took a while, but he finally saw the light of day.”
Fannie rushed over to them, and with a bit of awkwardness, Calvin stood to his feet and allowed her to hug him. “There’s not a thing wrong with any of us that love can’t fix,” she said as she held him close.
“You would say that.” He rolled his eyes.
Then Liza stood up, and Fannie hugged her too. “Welcome to the family, Liza.”
“Thanks, Fannie.”
“Wait until Mom hears. She’ll be so glad.” The rest of their family skipped through Fannie’s mind, and along with them a melancholy over their dad’s missing out and, of course, Dale. But he’d be home again soon. He would! She’d not stop praying until he was.
“When will the big event take place?”
“Soon as the war is over and the boys are home. We want to bring a little joy,” Liza added.
“And you will.”
“Yeah, well, that could be months from now, so don’t get too excited,” Cal said.
Liza tugged him close. “Don’t go thinking you’re getting out of this, Calvin O’Brien.”
He turned an ear toward her. “What’s that? I can’t hear you.”
“Oh you!” She slapped his shoulder.
“Months from now.” So much would happen over those months. Lord willing, Dale would return. So would the German prisoners. And if the war did end, what then? Would she ever see Wolf again?
“What do you say we go out and celebrate tonight?” Liza suggested. “Fannie, why don’t you and Jerry come along to the movies.”
“I wouldn’t miss it.” She shared a smile with Liza that was both celebratory and knowing. Together they’d all discover if the rumors were true.
CHAPTER 25
May 1945
Wolf stared at the movie screen, and horror seeped like a cold, damp spring through his bones. Images bounced and flickered through the dark room. Stark images of black mud and emaciated white bodies, men herded like cattle, and women—at least he thought they were women—hunched with shaved heads and sores on their hands and faces. Hollow-eyed. Pathetic.
Then there was the dead. Human beings, bones strung together with the thinnest sheets of flesh, stacked like the cords of logs he and his men cut. Brittle. Broken.
Wolf clutched the arms of his chair with muscles taut and wooden. His mind shattered. How had they done this? What kind of evil lurked in the heart of man to do this to another? Bile soured the back of his throat, but he did not pull his eyes away. He let the newsreel burn them. He watched the staggering steps of other prisoners, once soldiers, muscled and robust, now skeletal frames donning soiled clothing that hung on them like shapeless, oversized rags. He could only imagine the smell. Nevertheless, some of them smiled through rotting teeth. Some cheered. Others nodded. Some wore the dazed look of those too long ill or simply in disbelief. Many had to be carried out on stretchers. Rescue. These had been rescued by Allied soldiers.
Finally, eyes filled with moisture, Wolf hung his head, but his heart rammed repeatedly against his chest, and he wanted to clutch hold of it and make it still, while at the same time he wanted to feel the pain. Surrounding him, the other PWs were equally silent, lost in the stunning reality of what had taken place. This could not be propaganda.
After the newsreel ended and white letters and numbers flashed in gibberish across the blackened screen, the lights came up. The men, nearly as dazed as those who’d been rescued, pushed stiffly to their feet, their shock evident in their stifled movements. They filed silently out the tent door, shuffling not unlike those men in the film, the living ones, if living they could be called.
There was no excuse for what had been done to Germany’s prisoners, nor would Wolf make one. Was Fannie’s brother one of those sickly, starved men, or were his remains heaped in a pile of bleached bodies? Might he have already descended into a mass grave somewhere under German soil? Would Fannie’s flesh and blood be lost to her forever? Wolf had seen boys struck down and buried where they’d fallen in the muck and mire or beneath the hot desert sands. But this … this horrific treatment he could not fathom.
He stumbled. Otto lay a hand on his back. “Are you well, Hauptmann?”
Wolf nodded and moved on. He glimpsed the changed stature of the guards on duty. They glared at the prisoners. No one spoke as they trudged back to their own tents. Wolf ducked inside and headed straight to his bunk. Rudy plopped down across from him, his face pale and eyes red.
Horst tossed his cap onto his pillow and lowered himself like an old man with aching joints. “It is true, isn’t it?” It wasn’t really a question. He scrubbed a hand over his face.
Rudy whispered, “I do not understand such hate. Fear I understand. Justice I understand. But this … It is madness.”
Wolf raised his head. “Such hatred is a poison, and there is nothing about it that can be understood, Rudy. It is simply to be endured.” He sighed and spoke as much to himself as to the younger men gathered around. “Only God can change the heart of man.”
“Such poison spreads quickly,” Fritz said. “Our taskmasters will hate us more deeply than ever. Now that they have seen with their own eyes what our countrymen have done to theirs.”
Murmurs of agreement swept around the room.
“We will do what must be done.” Wolf scanned their faces. “We will do our best work, ja? We will not give them cause to inflict punishment on behalf of those who committed such crimes. God alone will be our Judge, just as He will judge men who have done such things.”
“I wanted to come back to America after the war ends.” Hermann spoke from where he stood in the corner, and the rest swiveled to look his way. “They will not want any of us to come now.”
“You want to come back here?” Rudy’s face had regained some of its color.
Hermann dipped his chin in a nod. “There will be a future here. I would like to find my cousin’s family. Maybe stay with them if they will sponsor me.”
Wolf gave him serious study. “You’ve investigated this possibility.”
“Ja, I have. What will be left for us in Germany? The Allies are winning. Leo is no longer here to prevent us from admitting it.”
There were more murmurs, and then they each turned to their own thoughts. Wolf lay back and tucked his hands beneath his head. No one argued with Hermann’s conclusion, least of all Wolf. The younger man was right. The Allies were a step away from victory in Europe. They all could feel it.
The next morning, they returned to the woods under the guards’ watchful eyes, and one week later, they filed out the doorways of their tent barracks at dawn to board a train. Wolf couldn’t help recalling the rolling images he’d seen of empty train cars used to haul Jewish and Allied prisoners packed together like hogs to slaughter toward the German concentration camps. And overriding his thoughts were the questions about Fannie and her family. What her mother would think. How angered her brothers would be. How she would feel. He’d not have to wait long to find out. Yet somehow, he already knew. A devastation gripped him at the knowledge of this new chasm that had opened between them. A devastation she would share but for a much different reason. He thought only of how the unfairness separated them more greatly. But Fannie would think of what her brother suffered, and she would need to lay accusation at the feet of someone responsible. Wolf could not blame her if she chose him and his fellow PWs.
That same evening, Wolf dropped his small satchel on a musty-smelling cot in the barracks of the Barron camp. The strange familiarity of the place quickly returned, and he sensed that no matter how far away this time was, years from now the smell of wet dew on canvas, of filthy socks and the latrine not far away, of the soft summer nights … such smells would return him to this place, even when he was an old man.
And then there was the farm. The next day, his crew received their assignments. They were returning to the O’Briens’ farm. This time Corporal Taft would not accompany them. He had been sent elsewhere during the winter, and another soldier took his place. A private who did not speak German and could not interpret for them. Wolf was thankful for the opportunities he’d had to learn more English and for correspondence with Fannie that had improved his practice. The others too were learning still.
Wolf’s heart ticked a familiar rhythm in his rib cage as they bounced down the Wisconsin roads in the back of the transport truck with its canvas sides up and flaps closed, prohibiting their view. But he’d memorized the trip long before. He knew the turns onto each road. His body shifted instinctively as he anticipated each one. His adrenaline rushed as the vehicle braked and dipped into the familiar ruts of the O’Briens’ long drive. Every sinew of his body pulsed with wondering what it would be like to see the O’Briens—to see Fannie again. Puddles splashed beneath the wheels in the same holes as last year, and in a handful of moments, the truck halted. The men shifted restlessly, and Wolf wondered what they were thinking. A glance between him and Rudy, then to Horst and Richard, and between Fritz, Hermann, and Otto left him with few doubts. Their eyes all held the same question: What would their reception be?
When the guard flung open the back, Horst was the first to descend from the truck. Broad-shouldered Richard followed, then the others. Otto smiled weakly at Wolf, who waited until last. He peered back into the dark space, almost expecting to see Leo there smirking at him from the corner.
The sun momentarily blinded him, but he soon found his focus. Calvin O’Brien was striding toward them. Face-to-face, Wolf braced himself, and Cal also squared up, spreading his legs and folding muscled arms across his middle. It dawned on Wolf that he’d rarely seen Calvin without a gun in his hand or tucked beneath his arm, but today he carried no weapon. Seeing him without one seemed strange and comforting at once.
Yet, as Fannie’s brother stepped near enough that Wolf could see the glint of his eyes, he realized that Calvin had not changed much in his view of them, even after Wolf had stopped Leo’s attack on Fannie last fall.
Calvin stood only an arm’s length from Wolf and gave him a hard look. He spat to the side and raised his chin. “I don’t hear real good, but I can still give orders. I know most of you understand me, so all you have to do is listen up and do as I tell you.” Even though his words addressed them all, he never veered his gaze from Wolf. “Far as I’m concerned, you’re still the enemy. You’ve done good work for us in the past, and we expect you’ll do the same until they send you back to where you came from. We have a lot to do around here, and Uncle Sam says you’re the ones to do it.” He spat again.
