Blame it on Rio

I was too stunned to respond. I had thought that once I explained the situation to Colonel Skoda, he would unquestionably give us the keys. I did not think he had an option. The Crown was in its possession and no doubt the greatest army ever assembled could find someone to break into them. It was only respect for the Crown and our strong desire to win the peace along with the war that kept us from doing that. But patience was wearing thin. Perhaps I didn’t explain it correctly. Perhaps if I explained to him what would happen to his precious Crown if he didn’t hand over the keys I could convince him to turn them over.  

I was about to set foot down this path when Anton said “Honestly, I would give you the keys if I had them but I don’t.”

“But Pajtas told us you had the keys. He said he gave them to you per his orders.”

“He did not lie to you. He did give me the keys but I don’t have them any longer. They were passed down the line to someone else.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That is a bit of a story. Too long to tell in here. The priests have a room on the other side of the alter where they change into their vestments. Lets go there. We can have a smoke and I can tell you the rest of the story.”

We exited the confessional and walked down a short hallway to a door with a hand carved depiction relief of Christ giving the Sermon on the Mount. We entered and found a small room lit by a stain glass window with several closets full of various vestments and several stamped metal folding chairs that looked very out of place in this ancient church. We pulled three of them together so that Anton faced Paul and me. We sat and pulled out a pack of Lucky’s and offered a cigarette to Anton and Paul. The Colonel took a deep drag off the cigarette and began telling us his story.

“In late March of 1938, just a couple of weeks after the Anschluss, I received a telegram from from Baron Perenyi one of the two permanent Guardians of the crown inviting me to a special meeting on Good Friday, April 7^th.  Hugi, in case you do not know, The Guardians are given the right of determination of the Crown by the Hungarian constitution. Each is given one of three keys to the “trunks” in which the Crown and its retinue is kept and they swear a secret oath to protect the crown. I knew Perenyi from my time as Captain of the Crown Guard and knew him to be a good man, a real Magyar, and a patriot. He would not ask me to come to Budapest unless he had something serious to discuss and I decided I must go.”

“When I arrived at his home, I was shown into the Baron’s study. In addition to the Baron there were three other people in the room: Baron Radvansky, the other permanent Guardian;  Pai Teleki The Prime Minister of Hungary who due to his position in Government a Guardian and Admiral Miklos Horthy, The Crown Regent. I was of course taken back by this. Why would four of the most powerful men in Hungary ask me, a former member of the Guard and now just a glorified clerk in a department store to such a meeting.”

Pereyni got right to the point. He said “Do you remember your oath you took as a member of the guard?” I told him that I did. He asked me to recite it which I did. He then said  he asked me to recite it. When I finished, he reminded me that it was a lifetime oath and that the Crown needed my service once again. I told him that I would always live up to my oath to protect the Crown. This seemed to satisfy him and he said “Admiral Horthy has a request of you. I will let him explain.”

“Horthy gave a little speech about how important it was for Hungary always to be free and independent of outside powers. That the German annexation of Austria had threatened that independence. He had high hopes that he would be able to negotiate an alliance with Hitler that would keep Hungary independent. However, any prudent leader needed to make contingency plans. He wanted to make sure that no matter what happened to him or the Nation that the Crown needed to be protected at all costs. Hungary could not be ruled without the crown.”

“As a part of that emergency planning, the Guardians and he had decided to enlist the help of loyal former Captain of the Guard who would, when called upon, help shepherd the Crown to safety. Would I be willing to serve him and the Crown in such capacity?”

“Had we not been in a private setting I would have stood and saluted him but instead I told him I would happily serve in any way that is requested of me. For the next hour or so they outlined the contingency plans they had devised for a variety of different scenarios that could befall the country and the role I would play if such things should take place. Included in that planning were ways in which we could contact each other to activate the plan.”

Anton paused and said “Of course much of this you know already. It is what we discussed that day in the car. It is the reason you’re here Hugi.”

“Sam.”

“Sam?”

“Hugi is who I was before the war. Before I went to the United States. I changed my name when I got there. A new life deserves a new name don’t you think? But I didn’t mean to interrupt. Go on.”

“Returning to Vienna I felt tremendously honored by the trust placed in me by these august men. For months after, I awaited the call that my services were needed but that call never came. Horthy had managed to walk the tight rope and he was welcomed by Hitler in August 1938 and treated as a head of state. His loyalty to Germany was further solidified with the First Vienna Accords where Hungary was granted sovereignty over parts of Slovakia and Ruthania. It made me think that the plans we had made on that Good Friday were what we had hoped them to be: merely a precaution. By the time I talk to you two about in 1939 I was all but convinced that the contingency plans would never be executed. That is why I didn’t think it would do any harm sharing those tales with you.”

“For a long time, things went very well. No one could stand up to the Reich. Not the allies. Not Russia. And Hungary was safe. And despite the trouble young Paul managed to get himself into and the subsequent trouble that got me into, I was living a fairly good life. I had savings and a pension, so I had money. Years before I had bought an old farmhouse not far from here and I spent my time renovating it. There was a widow who lived nearby who would come and visit. I began writing a history of The Crown Guard.

He paused his story and got a faraway look in his eyes as if he were reviewing a mental picture of those times.  Sighing he continued. “And then the tide turned. The American’s got into the war. Operation Barbarossa stalled outside of Moscow which led to the disaster at Stalingrad. And of course, D-Day. But none of it much bothered me. I lived in the country far away from the bombing and the war. The world may have been at war but I was at peace. That is until I got a visitor one warm August evening in l944. Just after dusk I was sitting on my porch smoking a cigar and drinking a glass of Tokai when a car came roaring up the driveway and pulls to stop right outside my door.”

“I was a little alarmed. I was not expecting any visitors and I had not forgotten the trouble I had been in with the Gestapo. I was relieved and surprised when Captain Pajtas, wearing mufti, stepped out of the car. He and I had met over the years and I knew he had recently been made the Captain of the Crown Guard so the minute I saw him I knew what had brought him here. As it was a warm night we stayed out on the porch. I brought him a glass of whisky, some pears I had picked that morning from a tree in my yard and some farmer’s cheese. After he had satisfied his hunger and his thirst, he told me what had brought him to me.”

“Hungary was caught between a rock and a hard place. The Red Army was on the move and that it was just a matter of weeks before they reached the Hungarian border. The Germans were exerting more and more pressure on the Horthy to be a more active member of the Reich. They had invaded the country earlier in the year and while Horthy remained nominally in charge the government was now being run by the Arrow Cross or Hungarian Nazi party. This was an anathema to Horthy and a violation of his oath as Regent. When Romania withdrew from the Axis Horthy took this as a signal to be more aggressive. He replaced the prime minister Sztojay and other Nazi favorable ministers with his own people. He also began secret peace talks with the Allies. He had concluded that a peaceful settlement with the Russians, despite be an adamant anticommunist, was a better fate for Hungary than an invasion and the consequent destruction.”

“Pajtas told me that Horthy was under no illusions. If his peace talks with the Soviets were successful and a separate peace achieved the Crown would need to be moved to keep it out of the hands of the communists. If the move failed and the Germans reasserted itself then the Crown would have to be moved to keep it out of their hands because he did not want it to become war booty or worse lost to vagaries of war. To protect the crown, he had initiated a bold plan. He had become friendly with Nicholas Roosevelt, a cousin of the President, when he had been Ambassador to Hungary in the early thirties and had reached out to him through our embassy in Switzerland. Using that back channel, it had been arranged, should the need arise for the Crown to be moved, it would be placed into the hands of the advancing American Army.”

“I was stunned. Placing the Crown in the protective custody of any foreign government at best could be called daring. At worst reckless. Couldn’t the crown be buried or hidden as had been so many times in the past when it had been threatened?  I questioned Pajtas about this. He said that the plan had been discussed with the “Guardians” and that while the debate had been heated with some objecting strenuously it had been agreed that this was the course of action the largest chance of success.”

“He then went on to tell me what had brought him to my front porch. The Guardians and the Regent wanted to know if it should come that the Crown needed to be moved would I agree to be its escort?”

“I told him that I vowed to do so and would live up to my vow. He then proceeded to outline the plan. When the word came, I would meet the Crown when it passed into Austria using the Semmerling Pass. From there it would be my job to guide the Crown and the troops guarding it from there to a Monastery in Attersee. We discussed the best ways to do this for a little while and agreed on a plan including how the Crown Guard would get word to me when they were on the move. Then he left as quickly as he came.”

“You know what happened next. In October, the Germans, hearing of Horthy’s plot, kidnapped his son and forced him to appoint a new Fascist government. Recognizing that this was the beginning of the end of Hungary, the Guardians decided to put the plan in action. In early November The Crown in its protected iron trunks left Budapest with a contingent of Crown Guard under the command of now Colonel Pajtas. Over the next few months, The Crown and its entourage made their way west stopping at a variety of different way stations only moving on when it was safe to do so.

“I had spent the months since my visit from Pajtas reconnoitering the roads that led from Semmering to Salzburg. I had a suspicion that by the time the Crown made its way to Austria that the German forces would be in retreat. It meant that the major roads would be full of Wehrmacht troops and transports in a bad temper and with prying eyes. Things we needed to avoid if wanted to get the Crown to Attersee undetected.  This was particularly time consuming because I could only cover a small portion of roads at a time to avoid suspicion. But eventually I was able to map a route and several alternatives that would allow us to make the journey quickly and with the least chance of being detected or stopped.”

“I was waiting for the Crown and its entourage on March 27^th. I remember the day because it was two days after my sister’s birthday. As I had suspected the main road was jammed with ill-tempered and battered retreating German troops. Even though the weather was lousy we diverted off the main road per my plan. This slowed our progress considerably as these secondary roads were muddy and rutted. But I hadn’t planned to go far. Only to Murzsteg where I had found an abbey to give us shelter for the night.

So it went for the next week. We would travel the back roads of Austria during the day and stop in Abbeys, Convents at night. We went to Seeberg and turned north to Marizell. Once we cleared Linz we found that the main roads were cleared as the Germans were fearful of a Russian attack from the north so we made quick time of it arriving in Attersee on Easter Monday April 2^nd.  Our final move, to Matsee NNN was on April 7^th, where the Crown Guard and its precious cargo had been told to wait for the advancing American troops.

That night there was a small celebration among the troops and officers of the Crown Guard. After nearly six months of being constantly on the move, constantly in danger, they had reached their destination. Somehow, they had managed to purchase or requisition a pig which they roasted whole and with the aid of some local beer and schnapps and proceeded to blow off some steam. Colonel Pajtas and I enjoyed the revelry as well but both of us refrained from drinking except for a few toasts made to the Crown. As the evening degenerated into the singing of Hungarian folk songs, Pajtas pulled me aside and asked to speak with me privately.

“He led me to the priest study and told me that the plans had changed. The Guardians and Horthy had agreed that while they were going to turn over the trunks with the Crown and its retinue over to the American Army that they would not turn over the keys. They believed that they could convince the Americans that breaking into the trunk was a violation of Hungarian Sovereignty.  They hoped would not break into the trunks. Instead, they would search for the keys. The thought was that the delay would give the Catholic Church enough time to negotiate with the Americans for the custody of the Crown and in that way it would not become a lever of power or war bounty.”

“While I didn’t agree with the deception. I have always believed the best policy is say as you do, do as you say, I understood it. Which is why when he handed me the keys to the trunks, heavy and ancient, and asked if I would keep them safe, I agreed to do it. He then provided me with a code phrase. He said that if someone came to me and provided the code phrase that I was to do what was requested of me. Again, even though I thought this a little too much intrigue I agreed.”

“The next day I returned home. This took nearly a week as I was going against the grain of troops fleeing the Eastern Front and feared having my little Skoda seized by the retreating Army. When I finally reached my little farmhouse on April 13^th I was exhausted from the nearly three weeks of constant threat and looking over one’s shoulder. But despite my exhaustion the first thing that I did was hide the keys. I had been thinking about where to do this for the three days and found what I considered a secure place. A location even a dedicated searcher would be reluctant to investigate. Underneath the seat in my outhouse. This required a little bit of carpentry and some malodorous work but when it was done, I felt as if a burden had been lifted from my shoulders.”

“That night, I build a fire and settled into my favorite chair with a glass of Peach Palinka and turned on the shortwave in the hopes of listening to some soothing Mozart Lizst or even Bartok. Instead, I got the BBC broadcasting news of President Roosevelt’s death and in honor to him that they played dirges. It reminded me too much of the death and destruction the war had caused. And for what. What really had been accomplished? Nothing! I found it far too depressing. I went to bed and slept for twelve hours.

“Over the course of the next few weeks I resumed my normal life. I built a new chicken coop so that I could have fresh eggs. I repaired my front porch where a number of the floorboards had rotted. I had the occasional dinner with the widow who lived down the road. And with my return to normalcy the trip with the Crown faded. Then one evening in early May I heard a car pull up to the house. Concerned by an uninvited desk so late at night I pulled my Walther P-38 from a drawer and went to the door. Cautiously, I pulled it open revealing unshaved man wearing a dark Homborg Hat and a suit that looked as if it had been slept in for a few days. He bade forgiveness for disturbing me so late, but he had been sent by Colonel Pajtas with a message and with that provided me with the code phrase.

Over the course of the next hour, and a meal of salami, cheese, and peasant bread he introduced himself as Captain Enroe Gombos. He was the son of the former Hungarian Prime Minister Gyula Gombos and now was an aide to the Ferenc Szálasi, the Arrow Cross Prime Minister of Hungary. Szálasi and his cabinet had fled in front of the advancing Soviet armies and like the Crown had hunkered down in Mattsee safely out of reach of the advancing Allies.  Before surrendering to the American Army, they held a final cabinet meeting whose chief topic was the Crown. It was agreed that the keeping the keys with a single person would it make it too easy for the Crown to be compromised. He provided no explanation as to why this decision was made, although I got the impression they were to be used as a bargaining chip with the Allies.  I have no doubt they realized that the Arrow Cross Government would be arrested in mass and they needed to dowl out information to exact leniency.  It was Gombos’s assignment to take the keys and distribute to trusted allies of Szálasi and loyal Magyar.

“I felt as if I was caught between a rock in a hard place. On one hand, the demand for the keys was coming from the son of one of Hungary’s true patriots and from what had been the government of Hungary, it had not come from one of the Guardians or Horthy. But there were things I did not know and Gombos did have the code words that the current commander of the Crown Guard had given me. Did I have any right to refuse the order?  In the end, I had I felt I had no alternative but to turn over the keys.

“The next morning, May 8^th, I turned the keys over to Gombos. Before he drove away he thanked me for being a loyal servant of the Crown and reminded me of my oath and warning me that revealing any part of our conversation or what happened to the keys would result in undesirable consequences. Of course, later that day the Germans surrendered to the allies and I have worried ever since whether my decision to turn the keys over to Gombos was the right one.”

“Which is why I am talking to you Sam. I have come to regret my decision to give the keys to Gombos. While he had the code words that were given to me by Pajtas I have no idea how they were obtained but more importantly I concluded that the Crown is not a bargaining chip. It should not be used for one’s personal gain or to secure a person’s freedom it is bigger than that. It is Hungary.  That my duty was to protect it and I have come to believe that the only entity able to do that right now are not desperate officers of defeated regimes. It is only something that the American Government can do.”

“After consulting with some old friends, former member of the guard and others I had reached the decision to approach the American Army and discuss what I had known. And I would have had you two not come along. Telling you allows me to relieve my conscience while not exposing me to the wrath of my fellow countrymen who will no doubt consider my act of conscience as an act of treason.”

There was a silence after Colonel Skoda finished his story. Part of my silence had to do with the fact that I had been flown halfway around the world to find this man and obtain the keys of the crown. The army had dedicated time and resources to find him. I had left OCS and engaged in espionage and deception to find him only to come up with nothing. What was I going to tell Granville?”

The other element that was causing paralysis of the tongue was trying to take in the scope of his story. It spanned from a length time that encompassed my entire journey to the United States and return to Vienna. Put another way, it covered a 1/3 of my life, the time it took a poor immigrant boy to become an officer in the Army. But it was also a remarkable story of devotion to an ideal that is bigger than oneself. I know that I felt the same dedication to my adopted country. I had sworn to “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” But that had been for an ideal a concept. Skoda’s dedication was to an object in an addition to an ideal. And it had placed him in an impossible situation of having to interpret what was right for it, regardless of what he believed his orders to be.

I asked “How do you make a decision like that? How do you make decision between the orders your receive and what is the right thing to do?”

He shared a benevolent smile with me. One that might be exchanged between a senior officer and a junior officer that he was trying to instruct. “Sam, that is an unanswerable question. Sometimes to uphold your oath you have to break another. In the end, you can only try to do what you believe is right and hope that you have made the right decision.”

“Is that what you have done now? With this decision about the Crown?”

“Yes.”

“And how do you feel about telling us. Don’t you fear retribution in some way.”

Again, the benevolent smile. “No. I will let the future take care of itself. I made my decision to the best of my ability as I have made all the decisions in my life. I was chosen to protect the Crown based on my ability to make the correct judgment. Others can judge me any way they want. I cannot stop them but whatever the consequences I am comfortable that I made the right decision. “

I nodded in an understanding I did not truly have. He then added “But you have not asked an important question.”

“What’s that?”

“Where is Gombos.”

“I assumed that you didn’t know.”

He wagged a finger “Officers don’t assume.”

“Do you know where Gombos is? “

“I do. According to my sources shortly after he left my home an advance party of the American Third Army captured him. Why they detained him I don’t know but they eventually find out his identity and put him a detention center outside Salzburg called Camp Macus W. Orr.”

Paul and I exchanged a glance and then a small chortle. Col. Skoda looked confused not understanding why this would even be remotely funny to us. I explained “Uncle Anton, forgive our laughing but you see our next stop was going to Camp Orr. It is where the army is holding prisoners, they don’t know exactly what to do with and we have a person in our custody whom is going to be detained there.”

 The Colonel’s face lit and he too let loose a small laugh. “Then I suppose it is destiny.”

“I suppose it is.”

Colonel Skoda rose and looking at his watch said “Boys, I am running late. I need to leave. Walk me outside. We walked out of the church the same way we came, Uncle Anton again genuflecting before he walked down the central aisle. Just before we left the church he excused himself and walked over to bank of votive candles that were nearby. There, after put a few coins in a wooden box, he used a taper to light a candle and then bowed his head in prayer.

Outside the sun was still very bright made more so by the dimness of the church. I put on my sunglasses and then offering my hand said “Thank you Sir. I appreciate you taking the time to meet with us. Perhaps the next time it will be under easier circumstances.”

“It was good to see you Hugi…Sam. You have come a very long way from the boy in short pants who brought his mother’s ties to Winters. Serve your Army well and with honor.”

“I will sir.”

He turned to Paul and wagging his finger “And you my favorite troublemaker, try to stay out of trouble.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Be good to your mother and give her my love. Tell her that I hope to be able to come back to Vienna before too long. “

With that they hugged and we parted company. Paul and I headed back to the road which we had used to come the church and Colonel Skoda walking towards the Vestry. We had gone maybe a hundred meters when we heard the snap of a rife shot. Training took over and I yelled to Paul “Get down. Get down!” and tackled him.

When after thirty seconds we heard no other shots, we raised our heads. There only a few yards from the Vestry’s door lay the body of Colonel Skoda his biretta laying face up on the ground next to him.

The Cathedral of Maria Saal is located about 12 miles east of Portschach am Worthersee in a market town of the same name. According to the clerk at our hotel while not the seat of the bishop, it was the center of Christianity in Carinthia as a church has been on that location for the past 1200 years. For centuries it was the Cathedral that the local nobles went to obtain their ecclesiastical blessings. Perhaps it was that connection between faith and rulers that made Uncle Anton had choose it for our meetings. But there were strategic reasons as well.

First, the town of Maria Saal is a market town with many roads leading in and out of it. Anton did not trust us. That is he trusted Paul but not the US Army.  That was made clear from the note that he had sent to Paul at our hotel. It said that he knew why we were here and that he would meet with us but we must come alone. If he saw we were not by ourselves or followed all bets were off and he would disappear. This did not please Granville. I was learning that he was the type that liked to command every step of an operation. He wanted to be at point and lead. Not having this control made him profoundly nervous. But in this matter, he had no choice and he agreed to let Paul and I go alone. However, in the lead up to our visit to the church he peppered us with instructions on what to do in certain situations, what to be on the lookout for and how to tell if we were being played for chumps.

It annoyed Paul. He had led an underground life for the past six years, living by his wits and surviving only because in most cases his instincts had been correct. He did not need to be lectured on the subject of stealth and intrigue by anyone let alone a US Army colonel who did not know the territory. And of course, Anton was his Uncle and had been the architect of his original salvation. A man who held a singular place in his and whom he revered. Granville was, by implication, suggesting that Anton was not to be trusted,  and that insulted Paul. More than once in the two days leading up to this “operation” I had to talk him down from his anger with Granville by letting him know that while Granvilles instructions  may be old hat for him it was helpful to me and reminding him that the Colonel did not known Anton and had no reason to trust him.

It was Granville that suggested the second reason why Anton had chosen to meet at the Cathedral. He explained, a little pedantically, that it was the law of sanctuary. That since ancient times, churches had served as a place for refuge for those being sought by the authorities. The word sanctuary original meaning of “sacred place” had over time developed another meaning: A place of safety. While there were no laws that prevented anyone from entering a church or any place of sanctuary and removing the person being sought it was only done in the most extreme circumstances due to blow back from religious authorities and local population. This would apply doubly the Cathedral of Maria Saal with its history and importance to the region. Anton would feel free to meet here without the fear of being taken into custody by us.

Trying to sound smart after this lecture from Granville I said, “Do you think that the fact the Crown of St. Stephan and its retinue are reliquary of the Catholic Church helped shape his decision.”

He turned to me and gave me a look that a teacher reserves for the dullest of its students and simply said “No.”

It was embarrassing and I decided that in the future I would keep my thoughts to myself. But Paul who had enough of Granville’s lecture at that point said “Well it could be. Especially if the “Holy Right” is locked up in one of those cases.”

“The “Holy Right?” I asked.

“Yes. The right mummified right hand of St. Stephen.” I must have given him a blank look so he continued “When Stephen was named a Saint by the Church his body was exhumed so it could be moved to a more exalted place. When they opened his coffin, it was discovered that his right hand, the Holy Dexter, was perfectly preserved. Supposedly, this discovery caused healing miracles all over Budapest and ever since then it has been considered a holy relic. It even has its own crystal casket and cult like following and is paraded around Budapest every St. Stephen’s day.”

I have never understood the Catholic churches obsessions with bones and body parts. We don’t do that in the Jewish faith. We put people in the ground as quickly as possible and most certainly avoid praying to anything other than the almighty himself. These reliquaries seem far too similar to idol worship for the Rabbi’s. Also, Paul used to delight in making up stories that would make me cringe. I said “You are making this up?”

“No. Absolutely true. For the better part of the last millennia Hungarians have held a severed right hand of an old king sacred.” And with a little too much glee he added “I hear its green and still has the pearl bracelet on it that Stephen was buried in . Right Colonel?”

Looking a little exasperated that the conversation had taken this turn he replied. “Yes. The Holy Dexter is one of the things we believe are in the iron trunks that were delivered to us. But we don’t know. And I certainly don’t know whether it is green or not. Lets get back to the subject at hand.”

“Good one Colonel.”

This earned me another glare and instead of commenting on his inadvertent bad joke he continued on with the third reason that he believed Anton had chosen the Cathedral. He explained that according to the British Army officer he had spoken to about the Cathedral, the place was a fortress. The designers of the church had intended it to be a house of god but they also meant it to be a “keep” where the townspeople could flee to in case of impending invasion. As such, a relatively small group of men could hold out against a much larger force for an indefinite period time. This suited Anton’s purpose because it meant that he and the men he was with would have a strategic advantage should we decided to break our word.

This advantage is also the reason Anton chose the time for the meeting: High noon. I joked with Paul that it felt like a scene out of a Karl May novel where Old Shatterhand and Winnatou were going to face danger. But in addition to appealing to my boyhood imagination the reason behind the time requested by him for the meeting helped ensure his safety. He, and whomever was coming with him, would find  a way to slip into the Cathedral under the cover of darkness and have time to surveil all approaches for hours before the meeting took place.

What I did not understand was why he felt the need for the secrecy and security he had arranged. It was not something that I wanted to bring up with the Colonel. For him, and the type of work that he had been involved with during the war, this must have seemed perfectly natural. However, for me, who had been a college student less than a year ago it was a bit baffling.  I resolved to talk to Paul about it. Not only did he have the practical experience stemming from the time he lived underground but no one knew Uncle Anton better than he did.

Unfortunately, my duties guarding Pichler and the constant presence of the Colonel or Cookie had made private conversations impossible. It was not until we were walking up the small hill from the town of Maria Saal to the Cathedral (another one of Uncle Anton’s security concerns) that I got a chance to question him about the need for so much security.

It was a beautiful late spring day for a walk. Deep blue skies that you only get in the mountains with only a few puffy clouds and temperatures with temperatures warm enough that I had taken off my jacket and carried draped over my arms. The winding road that led up to the Cathedral had once been paved but now was more pothole than road. It made for slow going as for every step up we had to take two to avoid stepping into one of the craters in the road. But t did give me time to ask my friend the questions I wanted to ask.

 “Paul, I understand that your Uncle likes to be cautious, but don’t you think that he is taking his precautions too far. I mean it just seems so elaborate.”

“Not at all.”

“How come? I honestly do not get it. This is just a meeting to see if he knows anything about the keys to the Crown’s trunk.. It is not like there are any big secrets that are going to change the outcome of the war are going to be exchanged.”

“You don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“What the Crown really means to Hungary and Hungarians. Or what it means to the future of Europe or why the American’s are even bothering looking for it.”

Feeling a little insulted, I said “I knew it was important enough that I thought it might get me a six-month deferment. I understand that it is important enough to us to drag me halfway across the world during war time to help us find it. The Crown represents Hungarians sovereignty, and we want it because we feel it will help us settle the peace.”

“All that is well and good, but that is all intellectual. The Crown is not about intellect. It can’t be. It is about emotion. What you said was the Crown represents Hungarians sovereignty. And that is right but it does not go far enough. The Crown is Hungary. It was given to St. Stephen by Pope Sylvester II because he had a dream in which God Almighty told him to give it to King Stephen. It is literally a gift from God to the Hungarian people. It is Hungarian’s Ark of the Covenant. Without it there is no Hungary.”

I smirked and said “When did you get so smart?”

“I always have been. You just have not noticed.”

“Okay I get how important it is to Hungary, but I still don’t understand why Anton has set up all of this security.”  

“So you understand that the Crown is Hungary?”

“Sure. Okay.”

“Well, Uncle Anton was a commander of the Crown Guard. He swore an oath to protect and defend the crown. When I was a little kid, after my father disappeared, he was the only father figure I had. He would come and visit wearing his grand uniform and telling me tall tales of his life in the guard. I absolutely idolized him. I told him I wanted to be just like him. A member of the Guard. Remember I was about six or seven at the time and easily impressed. So when I would tell him this he would say well you can’t be a guard until you take the oath. We would say it together. I still remember it.

“I solemnly swear that I shall protect the Holy Crown incorporating the continuity of constitutional statehood of Hungary in all circumstances, against every danger, and I shall persevere in guarding it, and prevent it from getting into unauthorized hands, even at the cost of my life”, as the oath goes. “In order to meet the strict requirements of the special service, I shall strive to keep my best mental and physical condition and lead an irreproachable life. Guided by the spirit of camaraderie of the HDF Crown Guard, I shall live and die, fighting as a true warrior, in an exemplary way, at all times with honor, as worthy of a Hungarian soldier. So help me God!”

“In other words, he was just living up to his oath.”

“Yes.”

“But why is he protecting it from us. We already have it and we don’t really want as much as to protect it.”

“You are going to have ask Uncle Anton about that. But I am fairly sure there is something else at play as well.”

“What’s that.”

“Pichler.”

“I don’t get it. What does that son of a bitch have to do with it?”

“Remember what Granville said about Pichler. That you Americans were looking the other way about his past because you had another war to fight. He said it was about the Japanese and the Russians. But it is not really about the Japanese. Coming out of this war there are only two powers in the world the Soviets and the USA and they are going to try to dominate the world. And a part of the front line of that war is likely to be Hungary.”

“Okay.”

“Remember Admiral Horthy and his government allied with the Germans not only because they had little choice. They clearly did not want to get invaded by the Germans and lose control of the government. But they also had…have… a pathological fear of communism. I don’t know this for sure, but I am pretty confident the Crown was moved out of Budapest because it was clear that was only a matter of time before the city was going to fall to the Soviets. It was a risk to move it. No doubt the Germans were not pleased. And the Crown could have been lost to opportunists or worse. But anything would have been better than it is falling into the hands of the Reds. Anything.”

“All of this precaution is because of the Russians.”

“Maybe. I am fairly sure the reason they were paying so much attention to me in Vienna is because of Anton. They know who Anton is and they are looking for him. Your friend Major Kudarinsky was clear about it. And when I would provide him an answer, or better said could not and didn’t want to give him answer, he did what he could to make my miserable in the hopes that solutions to my troubles would lead back to Anton.”

“How come you didn’t mention it before?”

“You did not ask.”

I was going to argue with him about that but at that point we turned the last curve in the road and got our first full view of the Cathedral. It was a massive gothic structure with an onion dome clock tower and a matching bell tower on either side of the transept. Atop the narthex there was another dome but that end of the cathedral was defined by thin vertical stain glass windows that added to the soaring nature of the structure. All of this was laid out in a peaceful well manicured lawn that seem to defy the fact that a conflict that had laid waste to most of Europe had just concluded.

As we followed the cobblestone road up to the church Paul said “It is no Stephansdom” referring to the mother church of Vienna.

“True. But at least it still has a roof.” We laughed. More out of nerves than wit.

Our message from Colonel Skoda had told us to meet him outside the Cathedral by a frieze of a carriage being pulled by two horses. It was not evident from our approach, so we began to circle the structure. We found it on the far side of the church almost directly opposite of our approach. It did not appear to me that it was originally designed to be a part of its church. It looked as if it had been borrowed from an older structure and the architects had decided to add it to the edifice for a reason that were not immediately obvious to me. What was clear is that it was a powerful image that was not easily decipherable, and which made both Paul and I lean in to examine it closely. Which is why we were both startled when we heard behind us “It is called the Carriage to Kingdom Come. It depicts a soul being carried to the other world. It was done in Roman times and I think the designers thought it powerful enough to include in the outside of the church. What do you think?”

I turned to see an older priest, standing ramrod straight, wearing a black cassock and biretta with white silver hair underneath.. I was about to ask him a question when Paul exclaimed “Uncle Anton!” As I watched the two embrace each other, I could not help but think of the irony of the situation. Little old, insignificant me was dragged out of OCS and flown a 1/3 of the way around the world like a VIP, in a time of war brought to Europe on the off chance I could identify this man now standing before me. Looking at him now, I realized what folly that was as the Uncle Anton I recalled bore no resemblance to this man. And it was not the priest’s garb that threw me. It was other things. For example, his height. He was much shorter than I remembered. Obviously, some of this had to do with the fact that I had grown almost nearly a foot since I had left Austria. I remembered him as being a tall man and now he was just average.

Also, despite his military posture, he looked much older than I recalled. Where there had been a twinkle, a glint of joy, in his eye when I knew him in Vienna, it had been replaced by a wariness that bordered on weary. The countenance of man who had seen more than he wanted to see and pushed on despite all the forces that tried to bring him to a halt.

But what was the kicker was his lack of a moustache. My most vivid recollection of him was his magnificent imperial moustache. It had reminded me of the photographs my mother had shown me of her brother Rudolph. He had been a calvary officer in the first world war and had sported one a magnificent mustache as well Even though that style of facial hair had been out of style for decades, it had fit Colonel Skoda perfectly. It was if they had both sprung from a different time where nobility and honor meant a little more than they do now. Perhaps that was the reason he had shaved.

After Uncle Anton had finished embracing his nephew he turned to me and said to me with only a hint of irony “Hugi, I don’t think I would have recognized if I had stumbled on you along the street. You seem to have grown a little” and adding with a chuckle “And, you are no longer wearing short pants.”

“Well sir they fed me pretty well in the United States and I think only the British Military issues short pants to its soldiers.”

“Just so Hugi. Just so. It is good to see you have made a good life for yourself. An officer and everything. Perhaps now I need to salute you?”

“Never sir. I still in debt to you for the fifty deutschmarks you made Winter’s pay me. Without it, I don’t think my family and I would have been able to leave Austria. “

Paul added “And, Uncle he is no longer Hugi. He calls himself Sam now.”

“So you both have new names. I guess that is fair. But boys it is getting hot out here. Why don’t we go inside the cathedral where it is cooler and we can chat with a little more privacy. ”

It was not hot outside. At least not in the physical sense. But I understood his meaning. He wanted to minimize the number of people seeing us. He led us along the outside of the church until we reached the doors at the west end of the Cathedral. When Paul and his uncle entered, I hesitated.  It is silly. I do not like entering churches. I am sure it stems back to my days in Vienna when the kids at my school used to call me delightful names like “Christ killer” and “baby Jesus eater” and chase me down the streets. Ever since then, I have imagined my entering a church would produce a thunderclap and the parishioners would take one look at my beautiful Jewish face and yell “Jew” where in they would attack me. Of course, that is just my mind playing games with me. It would never happen. I think. But it did make me hesitate a second before entering Maria Saal.

There was no thunderclap as I entered the cathedral. There were no cries of “catch the Jew” as the sanctuary was empty. When my eyes had cleared from going from the bright light of the outside to the relative dimness of inside I was blown away by the beauty of the Cathedral. There was a vaulted ceiling with frescos that I took to depict the life of Mary. The center aisle was flanked on both sides by graceful stone arches that drew the eyes attention to the golden two story alter that was framed by another stone arch and  backlit by vertical stained glass windows. Adjacent to it was a raised pulpit that was bedecked with even more gold leaf. While not as grand as my recollections of St.Stephen’s before the war it was beautiful and even for a nice Jewish boy like me it made me feel as if we had walked into a place that touched heaven.    

Paul and Colonel Skoda were walking down the green and white tile aisle. When Uncle Anton reached the first pew, he took a knee, genuflected and began walking towards the alter. I noticed that Paul, who had been raised a Catholic did not follow suit. Throughout our time together I had noticed that he had identified more with the Jewish faith of his father than of the Catholic faith of his mother, but I had never talked to him about what had produced this change. I made a mental note to ask him what would make him choose a faith that would get him instantly persecuted when choosing another could have made his life that much easier.

When we got to the front of the church, he made a sharp left turn and led us to a confessional made of dark hand carved wood. It had two doors and Uncle Anton indicated that we were to go into one and he the other. For a person who has a minor phobia of entering churches this felt a bit extreme, but we followed instructions and squeezed or way into the booth. When we had settled onto our knees a sliding panel in front of us opened and Skoda said in business like tones “Tell me why you are here? “

Paul looked at me and said “It is your show.”

I took a deep breath and launched into my story. I began by apologizing to him for breaking his trust that he had placed in Paul and myself regarding the Crown. I explained that I had told my draft board about it because I had wanted to stay in school a little while longer and that I justified it to myself by rationalizing that I was now living at a country at War with Hungary. That whether or not that justification was valid or not I had made a promise to him and I had broken it. For that I was profoundly sorry.

I paused there hoping to gain some absolution. We were in a confessional after all. There was only silence. It made me feel a little awkward, but I continued. I told him that I had been granted my deferment, went back to school and promptly forgot anything about the Crown. That is, until two men from Army counterintelligence had spent a few hours one cold winter’s afternoon in Syracuse interrogating me about it. They had seemed satisfied with my story and again I forgot completely about the Crown until two weeks ago when Army CIC had pulled me out Officer Candidate School because of the Crown.

“Apparently, sir the troops of Hungarian Crown Guard that were in charge of protecting the Crown were captured at Monastery neared Seaham, Austria. That while this appeared to be on the surface an ordinary surrender of enemy combatants it had been carefully arranged through back channels. The Crown Guard had possession of three large iron trunks in which the Holy Crown of St. Stephen and its retinue were contained. As agreed, upon, the Guard and the Crown were escorted to the 5^th Army detention center in Augsburg.”

I paused to take a breath and said “Here is where things started to go off the rails. When the commander of the 5^Th Army detention center found out that Guard and along with them the Crown had been captured, he sent word to General Eisenhower who in turn sent word onto President Truman. Needless to say, when they arrived in Ausburg the commander was very anxious to see the Crown and its retinue. He demanded the Guard open the cases. From what I have been told sir, the Guard’s commander, a Colonel named Pajtas at first refused to open the cases saying he was forbidden to do so. However, after many hours of interrogation he finally admitted that he could not open the cases because he no longer had the keys to them. He said that when he arrived in Austria with the Crown his orders had been to give the keys to the cases to you.”

“This of course, created quite an uproar. The President of the United States and Supreme Allied Command in Europe, the two most powerful men on the planet, had been told that we had the Holy Crown of Hungary in our possession and were anxious to see pictures of it but we could not provide it for them because we could not open the cases. A moment of glory for Major Kubala, the commander of the 5^th Army detention center, had turned to one of major embarrassment. He had egg all over his face and splattered it on Eisenhower who had told the President. Orders were given. At all costs find the keys.”

“Army Intelligence HQ was contacted, and they were instructed to dig through their files for anything relevant. They found the reports on my conversation with them and the next thing I know I pulled from OCS and on an airplane to Europe. When I arrive that I have one mission. Find you and get the keys.”

I paused there. I was hoping that my silence would elicit a response from Colonel Skoda but after thirty seconds or so of quiet it was obvious that it would not. I in the most formal tone I could invoke said  “Colonel Skoda, on behalf of the United States Army will you please turn over to  me the keys to the cases that hold the Holy Crown of Hungary and its retinue.”

Again, there was a long silence the only sound being Paul fidgeting uncomfortably on the bench we were kneeling on. Finally, Anton after a deep sigh said “I am sorry Hugi. I cannot.”

I dreamt that I was back at Ft. Sill. We were doing a “close over” drill with 105mm howitzers and I was commanding a battery of three that kept firing in synchronized order. There would be the “boom” of the gun firing followed on its heels by the artillery piece next to it and so on. Interspersed between the rounds firing were the muffled “thumps” of the ordinance landing nearby. I remember thinking that this exercise was very loud and the next time I needed to remember to bring more cotton to stuff in my ears when I woke up.

There was someone banging on my door with a steady knock of the back of a fist. Thump. Thump. Thump. Just like an artillery barrage. I reached over and grabbed my watch from the table next to my bed. 3:30 AM. Who the fuck would be knocking on my door at this hour? I called out “Whose there?”

An urgent whisper responded. “It’s Granville. Open the fucking door.”

I hustled the door, unlocking it, open the door just a crack to make sure it was the Colonel. It was him. But he was not alone. Standing next to him, looking furtively up and down the hallway was a medium sized man, in a worn brown tweed suit, wearing rimless glasses and a dark Fedora he had pulled down over the forehead.

I opened the door wider and both men darted in. Shutting the door behind them I tried to come up with a smart retort in response to the Colonel busting into my room in the middle of the night but underlying fatigue in addition to being awakened in the middle of the night robbed me of any witticism I might have had and simply said “Good morning, Colonel.”

I guess by hotel room standards my room was not large. Just enough room for two twin beds nestled closely together, a small writing desk and a settee opposite the beds. The colonel made himself at home by laying claim to the small couch while my still unintroduced visitor deposited himself in the desk chair.

“Glad you don’t sleep in the nude, Flossel.” Referring to the Army boxers and t-shirts I had been sleeping in. “Put on some pants.”

I lifted the corner of the mattress on the bed in which I was not slept and pulled out my pants. Max, who dressed better than anyone I knew, had given me this tip before I had left for Syracuse. He had said “If you don’t know when you will be able to get you pants pressed, lay them between the mattress and box spring. It will keep you seems sharp.” Max had told me over the years a lot of nutty things but this tip actually worked and saved me money on pressing clothes when I had precious little of either.

Pants on I turned to Granville and he said “Lieutenant Floessel, let me introduce to you Dr. Heinz Pichler. You will be happy to know that he had decided to join our merry little band. However, he was a nervous to return to the places where he was sleeping as he felt the Russians were keeping tabs on him there. Considering his predicament, I volunteered your extra bed until we can arrange for his transportation. That isn’t a problem is it?”

What was I supposed to say? “No, Colonel of course not.” I nodded at Pichler and said “Herr Dr.”

He responded with a condescending expression, as if bunking with a Lieutenant was a step down in social order and replied in unaccented English “Lieutenant.”

His accent or lack thereof surprised me but I tried not to let it show but madea mentalnote to ask the colonel about it at some point. Granville continued. “Good. Great. Then I am going to get some shut eye. Let me have a quick word with you out in the hallway.”

Once we were in the hallway. The Colonel leaned in close to me and whispered “Don’t trust this sonofabitch for one second. He kept me waiting for over an hour for our meeting. When he finally did meet, he was condescending and rude making it perfectly clear that our offer was not his only option and that if we did not agree with his demands then he was perfectly willing to walk away. I was tempted to let him walk and would have except for orders.”

“If it is any consolation, I am pretty sure he was not lying to you. At least about having multiple options. During our travels today we found out that he had contacted some folks Paul knew to get forged papers. The guy we talked to said he would not do it because he thought Pichler was “too hot.” But Paul’s contact said there were many others who would have agreed to help him.”

Granville considered this for a second and said “Don’t trust him. We can’t let him out of our site until we figure out a way to get him to Salzburg. It means eyes on 24/7. Which means you are done with sleep tonight. Let him sleep but you need to stay up, so he does pull a dodge on us. Got it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How was the rest of your day? Successful?”

“Yes….” I was about to tell him that we had located Uncle Anton he cut me off saying “Sorry. Can it. I got to hit the rack. I am . Give me a full report in the morning at Breakfast. 0800. I will send Cookie to relieve you.”  And with that he walked off down the hall.

Returning to the room, I found Pichler sitting at the desk the telephone at his ear. I quickly crossed the room and depressing the switch hook said in German “I am sorry Dr. There are no phone calls allowed.”

He looked at me with a mild look of astonishment on his face and said, “You are Viennese?”

“I was born here.”

“Ah So.”

“May I ask how old you are?”

“No. And why don’t you move over to the settee. I think you would be more comfortable over there.” He, with a look of indignation, and distain, reluctantly got up and moved over to the small couch. As he did so, I unscrewed the mouthpiece to the telephone and removed the microphone from inside and placed it in  my pocket. Pichler chuckled when he saw what I was doing. “I will not give you any trouble, Lieutenant Floessel. I am here because I want to work with you Americans.”

“I am sure you do Dr. But in that case us taking a few precautions so that you are not confronted with temptation should not be a problem for you. That way we can all relax. Yes?”

“Very good.” Then looking around the room he said “I see that you have taken the bed nearest the window. Would you mind letting me have that bed because I sleep better when I have a little fresh air.”

I knew Pichler was playing games with me. He was trying to intimidate, to be the alpha dog, as he no doubt was in his research lab. Perhaps he thought it would be easy considering my age and obvious inexperience. But I have never liked being pushed around or manipulated. Being a patsy got you beat up in the 16^th district.  I especially disliked being manipulated by a Nazi who according to Paul was likely involved in the murders of my grandmother, Aunts and Uncles. If not directly, indirectly. He knew. Trying to keep the anger out of my voice and to remember what I learned about command voice I said “Herr Dr perhaps you are under a misunderstanding that you are a guest of the American Army. You are not. You are here by the good graces of our Government. Or perhaps you think that your former position offers you some special privileges with me. It does not. In fact, just the opposite. You are a Nazi scumbag who’s playing the system while this city and most cities in Europe are shattered because of your arrogance and bullshit beliefs. Or maybe you think you can play with me because of my age. Let me disabuse of that notion. I am an officer in the American Army. You are in my custody. You will do what I say, when I say it or there will be measures taken so that you comply. Are we clear?”

“Lieutenant whatever you say. I was really just asking for a favor.”

“Dr., with all due respect. Bullshit. But let’s move on. You can take the bed on that has not been slept in. If you do not have any toiletry articles will try to get you supplied in the morning. In the meantime, you can use my toothpaste on your finger if you like and if you feel like taking a shower, I think there are some fresh towels under the sink. Any other questions.”

“No.”

“Good. I am glad that we understand each other.

I turned around and pulled out some writing paper from the desk drawer and began writing a note to my friend Eduard in England. I knew that I could never mail it. I was not supposed to be here. I was supposed to be Oklahoma learning how to fire cannons and had been told in no uncertain terms that is where people needed to believe I was. But I had four hours to kill before Cookie relieved me and I needed to do something to stay awake. I figured writing Eddie about all that I experienced was a good way of solidifying the details of the last few days in my memory. Who knows someday I may even be able to tell my children?

I heard Pichler get into bed and for a few moments the room was silent before I realized that I need not have worried about falling asleep. My guest snored. Not your run of the mill snore I had encountered at college or in the barracks. Not the put the pillow over your head and it is not so bad snores that Papa managed to generate especially after drinking with his friends. No. Pichler’s snores were stentorian. They were bass and full of power. The type of snores that they make fun of in Bugs Bunny cartoons. They were so loud there were times where I thought the window frames rattle.

Cookie showed up on time at 8:00am. By that point I had showered leaving the door open to keep an eye on Pichler whose snoring was uninterrupted by morning ministrations. Instead letting the Sgt into the room I stepped out into the hallway and handed Cookie the microphone from the telephone.

“What’s this?”

“It is the microphone from the telephone. When I was talking to Granville in the hall last night he tried to make a phone call so I figured I would take it for safe keeping.”

“What is he like?”

“More than a little full of himself. He tried to play some mind games with me last night. You know the type. He thinks he should be in some fancy suite and be waited on hand and foot. He was a little put out to be sharing a room with a lowly Lieutenant whose whole race he tried to kill.”

“And”

“I set him straight. I am sure he will complain to Granville when he gets a chance, but the Colonel will back my play.”

“Speaking of which he told me he wanted to meet you around the corner at Café Mozart. He wants to talk and thinks we are less likely to be overheard there.”

Café Mozart was only a short walk around the corner from the Hotel but it gave me time to wonder about how Pichler would react to Cookie. He felt slighted to be sharing a room with a mere Lieutenant, how was he going to feel about being guarded by a noncommissioned officer. I felt sure the Sgt had enough experience to bring our “guest” in line especially considering as he was relying on us to be his ticket out of Vienna and not becoming a permanent guest of the Soviets.

The Café Mozart reminded me of what I imagined an Imperial Hunting Lodge would have looked like during the time of Emperor Franz Josef. Twenty foot ceilings, illuminated by crystal chandeliers on long tethers, walls painted in warm yellows and accented with white, dark wood fixtures with mirrors and seating areas upholstered in rich maroon fabric with a green leaf pattern. The colonel was sitting at a small table with a starched white tablecloth in a far corner of the restaurant. There was a silver coffee pot at the table and a cigarette was burning in the ash tray. He had both elbows on the table and was leaning over his cup of coffee making me believe that he had even less sleep the night before than me.

“Good morning Colonel.”

He looked up. His eyes were blood shots and there were the beginning of dark circles underneath his eyes “Floessel, good morning. Have a seat. Pour yourself a cup of coffee. Tell me how it went last night.”

I did.

He shook his head. “I am afraid that has been the standard operating procedure with most of the German muckity mucks we have captured. They all act as if their former rank or position mean some to us. We don’t care if you had the Nazi’s Golden Badge or were a fucking Field Marshall. We kicked your ass. You our prisoner and you will take what will give you.”

Taking a gulp of his coffee “But there smart. It is like they all took a course on how to act when captured. They know we are not going to throw them in some gulag or torture them like the Russians. They know we have to follow the Geneva convention because if we don’t, we will not hold any moral authority over them. They can say “See you are just like us.”

“They also know that we need things from them. With some of the Generals I have taken into custody. They allude to the fact that have secret stashes of documents or war prizes or both and if we treat them well and they feel inspired that they might tell us where these things are.”

“Sadly, the scientist are the worst. You know about the V2 rockets?”

“Yeah, the ones the German starting tossing at London at the end of the War.”

“Right. Well, the person that ran that program was a guy by the name of Wernher Von Braun. Intelligence had a huge dossier on this guy. He was not only a major in the SS but personal friends with Himmler. When we started bombing his rocket factories he had them moved underground and used slave labor from the concentration camps to build them. We knew that thousands died because of rockets and even more died building them. Yet, he was on the top of our capture “blacklist.” We were to take him to custody and treat him right. We finally found hm near the end of the war and promptly installed him and a bunch of their scientists in there own villa. These guys who had murdered so many we were being sent to a hotel with servants. It was FUBAR. Right after he was captured I was ordered to due the initial interrogation with him. It did not go far. He objected to my rank. He thought he should be interviewed by a General. He had things he needed to negotiate and only a general would do. I wanted to tell to take a long walk off a short pier but command sent in a general. They need to know the secrets of the rockets and were willing to do whatever they needed to get it including kissing this guys ass.”

“Probably, the reason they sent me on the assignment. They know I know the score.”

“Did they tell you why this guy is so important.”

He gave me a jaundiced look that suggested that I should have known not to ask the question. He responded “There is not much I can tell you. What I can tell you is that he was doing work in biological warfare that the Army thinks is important. But even more important that we keep him out of the hands of the Russians.”

I knew what the Colonel was getting at but nonetheless tempted to ask him a question to make sure I really understood but learning from his previous look decided against it. Instead, I just nodded.

He said “Tell me about yesterday.”

I proceeded to give him a full report on our activity from the day before and ending with the news that we had found Anton Skoda in Portschach am Worthersee.

“Where the fuck is that.”

“It is in the south, Carinthia, in the British Zone. Before the war it was a resort town that visitors would stop at when traveling between Vienna and Venice. According to Tad it is quite picturesque.”

“Hmm. You say it is on the main railway line between here and Venice?

“Yes.”

“That might work out quite well for us.”

Two days later I found myself at the Sudbahnhoff. The same station in which I said goodbye to Vienna six and half years before I was once again saying my farewells, at least for now, to the city of my birth. The difference now is that instead of wondering what had happened to my friend Tad, he was with me, albeit in his new incarnation as Paul. Surprisingly, the station had not changed that much in the years since last I had been there. Allied bombs and Russian artillery had punched a few holes into her but by in large she remained intact. Whether this was by design on the part of the Allies or bad marksmanship I did not know but as a budding Artillery officer I wondered how you could miss such a large target.  “

I mentioned this to Paul. He laughed “The Russians were notoriously bad shots. The only time they hit anything they were aiming at is was when they were shooting at point blank range. And you cannot really blame the American bomber pilots. Did you see the flak towers the Nazi’s built? They made bombing the center of the city an awfully expensive proposition.”

“Plus” he added needling me. “Everyone knows that Americans, except for Old Shaterhand, are lousy shots.” We both laughed as we made our way to our train’s platform.

The plan that Colonel Granville had come up with during our meeting at Café Mozart a couple of days before was simple misdirection. We hoped that the Russians were paying very close attention to Paul and myself. Or at least enough attention that they would divert enough effort into trying to figure out what we were up to so their surveillance of the Colonel, Cookie and Pichler would be less than robust. Paul, if could convince him, and I would embark on a tour of the city late at night visiting a number of night spots frequented by some of the cities more interesting cities. Our revelries would take us through the night and we depart directly from our evening frolic to the train station where we would buy tickets for Venice with the full intention of going no further that  Portschach am Worthersee. While we were off on our jollies the Colonel and Cookie would load up  his Packard “Clipper” staff car with our gear and Pichler concealed in an area between the back seat and the trunk. He felt that a combination of Paul’s and my activity, the early morning departure and the lack of any semblance of wrong doing on their part would allow them to pass over from Russian controlled Austria to British seamlessly. If things went well, we were all to meet up at Portschach at the Schloss Leonstan, a hotel that had been commandeered by the British near the center of town.

Convincing Paul to go along with our plan was not difficult. Apparently, the idea of getting out of Vienna appealed to him as he said “yes” even before I finished outlining our plan.  Not only did he want to see his Uncle, but he thought after the trouble we had managed to stir up over the last few days getting out of town for awhile might be the most prudent course of action. He had only one question: How were we going to convince the Soviets to allow him to leave? You needed official papers to leave Soviet territory and those would be difficult to arrange. I had raised the same question with the Colonel and he thought that he would be able to swing with the Russians. In fact, he thought that it would be easy as the Russians would be happy to get rid of Paul. The more difficult part would be to get him back to Vienna.

When I raised this point with Paul he laughed and said “Getting out is the hard part. I have plenty of ways of getting back in.” This was a bit counter intuitive to me but I suspected his comfort in finding a way back to was an area of expertise he had developed during the war.

Our part of the plan went as well as we could have expected. Paul took me to a number of bars, nightclubs and speakeasies around the city. Most of these places were makeshift that had popped up after the cessation of hostilities to help people forget the trauma of the last few years and their tenuous existence now. Paul explained that most of the people he knew were live shadow existences compared to their life before the war. The city was shattered. Housing, at least decent places, were hard to come by. Food shortages were constant with old supply lines having been destroyed and the hungry men of the conquering armies being fed before the local populations. The economy no longer existed. Businesses that thrived before the war had been bombed and shelled out of existence. Those that had survived were on their knees suffering an economy that showed little mercy.

Everyone in Vienna had ghosts who haunted them. Those who had died either in the camps, in battle or in the siege and would never return. Their spirits brought to life every day with the familiar surrounding made foreign by war, or the need for their comfort made more acute by their absence. To silence them, people turned to other spirits. At least the ones they could find. There was not much scotch, rye, bourbon left in the city. Most of that had been destroyed or consumed during the war. But people always found a way to make liquor. It was one of the things our instructors at Fort Sill had warned us about. The chemical reaction that fired howitzers and other big guns also produced methyl alcohol that were drained from the guns after firing. We were told that invariably some wisenheimer in the battery would realized this and would try to get drunk from it. We needed to be on the watch for this as it would methyl alcohol he would be drinking not ethanol. And Methyl alcohol while produced a  good buzz would also kill you pretty fast.

In Vienna they did not make their alcohol in cannons. They made it the old-fashioned way using stills and what ever yeast and carbohydrate they could find to make their spirits. As Paul explained sometimes this produced drinkable spirits and other times far less so. As a consequence, we mostly stuck to beer. It was often watery, had little flavor and no kick but as I was not much of a drinker I didn’t mind that much.

However, that changed at the last club we visited. It was a speakeasy/nightclub located on Austellungstrasse just a block away from the Prater. I don’t know if it had a name. If it had one I didn’t not see it but then again I was not really looking for it. At that point, it was just after three in the morning I was not at my most observant from a combination of fatigue and alcohol. Like most of the clubs we had visited it was a big rough. At one point it had been a large retail space that some entrepreneur had managed to salvage a few tables and couches and arranged them around a makeshift dance floor where a quartet of musicians played.  The bar, if you could call it that, was an old desk that had been salvaged out of a bank or a law firm as it was hand carved and was massive. It was also full of Russian soldiers being entertained professionally by Austrian girls.

Paul and I found an empty couch far away from the dance floor and were immediately joined by a couple of girls who asked if we wanted to buy them a drink. We agreed, in part because of our cover and it would have looked odd had we not enjoyed the company of the dance hall girls and in part because we were nineteen. When the waiter, in an ill-fitting and grungy tux came to take our order the women, Karlotta and Barbara, ordered Champagne which was no doubt was a cheap wine that had seltzer added. Before I could answer Paul asked the waiter if they had any Slivovitz. They did and he order one for the both of us.

I said “What the hell is Slivovitz?”

Paul shared a big smile with me and said “It is something that I discovered during the war. It is a plum brandy. Guaranteed to take the edge off, never get you drunk, and never give you hangover.”

“Who fed you that line of bullshit.”

He gave me a perfectly sincere look and without hesitation replied “It is perfectly true. Have you ever tried it?

“No.”

“Then how do you know.”

I knew it was useless to argue the point with him. When he invented a story, and this one sounded truly invented, he rode it until it died. Instead, I turned my attention to Barbara. Like all the women in the club she wore too much make up and despite her young age, she was not much older than me, she had a hard look around her eyes. No doubt during the last couple of years she had seen and experience too much of the worst man had to offer. Still she tried to feign an innocence she no longer possessed. After her initial surprise that I spoke German with a Viennese accent and a surface curiosity about what I was doing here she told me her story. It was heartbreaking. Before the war she and her family had been very prosperous. Her father was a banker and they lived in a fine house in Dobling. They had a cook and a maid. She went to Catholic school where she was popular. Then the war came to Vienna. Two days after Christmas 1944 her home had been hit by an errant American bomb. She had been visiting friends and was unharmed but her mother, father and younger sister had been killed. Friends took her in and while the estate was being settled she had a small stipend. But then the Russians came and laid waste to the city. Her friend’s home was destroyed. She had no money and there were no jobs. So what was a girl to do? She needed to eat. And this was not so bad although the Russian soldiers were a little rough.

When the girls left to “powder their nose” Paul leaned over to me and said “You know not to believe anything these girls say? You know they are professionals at getting your sympathy. They want your money and with that uniform on, they probably are looking for you to set them up in an apartment as a “girlfriend.” These are not girlfriend material. Understand.”

For the next couple of hours, Paul and I talked, drank and danced with Karlotta and Barbara all the while drinking glass after glass of Slivovitz. My initial skepticism about it replaced by an appreciation of its unique ability to take the edge off and not make me feel drunk. If anything I felt like I saw the world more clearly and proceeded to share with our little group my worldly insights and philosophy of life. The young women seemed particularly interested in what I had to say and Paul just smiled as if amused by a private joke and nodded his head.

The place shut down at about 5:00 AM and we walked out into the early morning light of a new day. After the darkness of the club it hurt our eyes . Karlotta and Barbara wanted us to take them to breakfast at a place they knew not far from the club. I thought it was a great idea but Paul reminded me that we had a train to catch. We parted ways but not before Barbara gave me a wonderful kiss and a phone number she could be reached at when I returned to Vienna.  

As we walked down Venediger Au we could see the green on the Prater in the early morning light. I put my arm around Paul’s shoulder and said “What a great evening. And you were right about that Slivovitz. I feel great. Not a bit drunk. Just happy. Like all my worries have disappeared.” Then pausing I added “Hey do you see that.”  And I began running down the street.  When I  got to the edge of the park I stopped  next to a one of those large hexagonal structures that mark the entrance of Vienna’s sewers and said excitedly to Paul “ Do you know what this is.”

Paul, who was now laughing, said “No. What is it.”

“Don’t you remember?”

“Remember what?”

“I can’t believe you don’t remember. This is where it happened?”

Paul laughing harder in exasperation said “What happened?”

“Don’t you remember the fire?”

“Oh that.”

In September of 1937, Paul and I had been leaving school when we had overheard one of the adults walking down the street that the Great Rotunda of the 1837 Worlds Fair had caught fire. The Rotunda was the largest in the world and a source of great pride for Vienna. Nothing touches a 12 year old boy’s heart more than the chance to see a big fire. It was exactly the type of adventure Tad and I loved. After all who doesn’t love the spectacle of an inferno of one’s Vienna crown jewels. People would be talking about this for the rest of their lives and seeing it would provide us with celebrity status on the playground.  Without giving much thought to what our parents would think of us going halfway across the city to see a fire we jumped on a trolley and made our way to the Prater.

When we arrived, it was apparent that the fire was far bigger and as a consequence far more exciting than we had anticipated. It seemed that Vienna’s entire fire department had turned up to cope with the blaze. There were red fire trucks everywhere. Thin hoses spread like giant serpents hissed water from loose connections. Firefighters, wearing helmets that reminded me of soldier’s helmets during the great war except with a “sharks fin”on its crown  with their blue tunics, broad belt, and white billowed pants and rubber boots hustled between their apparatus and the fire, a look of grim determination on their faces. It was all that we could have hoped but there was one exceptionally large problem. We were not the only ones to appreciate a good fire. A huge crowd had gathered to see the spectacle. At the fire lines they were ten people deep. Unfortunately, for us, we were significantly shorter than most of the crowd and could not see over them. We also lacked the strength to push our way to the front of the line and we could see nothing.

It appeared we were sunk. Having come all this way only to see people’s backsides and perhaps a weary firefighter or two resting between shifts at the fire line. It was very frustrating especially when an ooh or ahh would ripple through the crowd signaling an important development that we could not see.

I was on the verge of telling Tad that we should head home, staying and see nothing was not worth the beating I was sure to get from Papa for this adventure when he had one of his inspired ideas. I was sitting on a curb, feeling dejected arms around my  knees, giving close inspection to my shoe laces when he grabbed my hand and said “follow me.” Before I could even object, we were standing in front of one of those hexagonal sewar entrances that are all over Vienna with Paul saying “Help me look.”

“Look for what?”

“The door of course.”

I was horrified “Come you are not thinking of going down there.?”

“Why not? We can use the sewers to travel under all those people and get a great view of the fire.”

“I can think of at least two reasons. No, three why nots. First, you have no idea how to navigate down there. We could get horribly lost and then what will we do.”

“We won’t get lost. You know I have an uncanny sense of direction. I can find my way anywhere. Remember that time in the Vienna wood and we got separated from our class. I found our way back.”

“Yeah, well you had the sun and things to guide you. Down there you have nothing.”

“Its simple but if it makes you feel better we can mark our way and if we feel like we are getting lost then we can find our way back.”

“You mean like Hansel and Gretel”

“What?”

“They thought they were laying a trail and the birds ate and they got lost.”

“Trust me we will not get lost. Next.”

“We are in our school clothes. Do you know what Papa will do to me if I come home in filthy clothes let alone wet and ruined shoes. They are new. Papa just bought them for me at the beginning of the school year. You know how he is about shoes”

“Not a problem. Take the shoes off. Tie them together and hang them around your neck.”

“You are not suggesting we walk barefoot through the sewers of Vienna?”

“Come on don’t be such a baby. It is mostly a storm drain. And even if we come across some of that nastier stuff, we can always wash our feet.”

“The smell will get into our clothes?”

“Don’t be stupid. Now you are only making excuses. We are only going to be down there a few minutes. Even if it smells horrible it won’t get onto our clothes.”

At this point Tad had found that latch to the door and pulled it open. He said, “Are you coming or not?” Refusal meant being called a chicken forever. Constant reminders of that day I did not have the courage to brave the sewer. I went.

We walked down the spiral staircase that led us into the architectural marvel that is the Vienna sewer system. When we reached the bottom, it is quite dark but you could see due to the light streaming in from the open grates on the surface. We sat on the bottom step and took off our shoes, stuffed our socks into them and tied the shoelaces together so they could hang around our neck. Luckily for us, the main tunnel of the sewer, like a small underground river, ran in the exact direction we wanted to go.

Tad asked “How far do you think the police lines for the fire are in front of us.”

I thought and then said “I don’t know a hundred meters maybe one hundred and twenty-five.”

“So if we go that far and then another one hundred and fifty meters farther we should behind the lines and be able to get a good view of the fire. What do you think?”

Still nervous I said “That should work.”

“Good. What we should do is count our steps. When we reach one hundred strides we each call out. Who ever calls it out last is our first line. Then we will do the same for one hundred and fifty strides. Then we look for a way up. Agreed?”

Luckily for us it had not rained for two weeks so the water level in the tunnel was low. But the slick stones ripe with algae and god knows what else felt creepy to walk on. To me it felt like you could catch a disease with every step and fall into the shit river next to you on every other. But I kept my comments to myself. I wanted to put up a brave front for the sake of our friendship. Tad who was a few inches shorter than I was called out one hundred first. I called out it out a few strides after that. The next one hundred and fifty yards proved far more challenging. First, the little light that we had before diminished as there were less open grates as we walked beneath the Prater. Also we began to hear sounds. Not just the steady drip drip of water from the ceiling and the rushing sound of the sluices flow but little squealy sounds that had to be rats. Of course, neither of us acknowledged the twin daggers of fear this placed in our hearts as we both wanted to prove our bravery to each other, but we each walked a little quicker. This time I reached our mark of one hundred and fifty first. Perhaps it was fear but I think it more likely that Tad lost count but he called a few steps after I did.

We began to look for a way out. Lucky for us, maybe twenty-five meters down the slimy tunnel we saw light popping through. When we got there we found another spiral stair case leading to the surface. I led our way up and found myself inside another hexagonally shaped structures. When Tad reached the small room, we opened the door to the outside just enough to peer around. Tad’s sense of direction and boldness had gotten us beyond the crowd and within only a few hundred meters from the fire. We put on our shoes but before I could venture outside Tad said “If we go outside we will surely be seen and they may shoo us a way. But if we sit on top of the kiosk no one will notice us. No one ever looks up. And, we will have an even better view.”

I thought it was a good idea and as a consequence when ventured outside I gave Tad a quick boost using my hands as stair and catapult. When he made it to the roof he lay on his stomach, extending his hands down while a took a running leap at the wall. And between his pulling and my feet clawing against the side of the building I managed to reach the top. There, we were the kings of the world, with a beautiful unobstructed view of the fire and of the fireman’s futile attempt to put out the fire. Or at least it seemed futile to me. The fire fighters kept attacking the fire with more hose lines, different angles of attack and brave forays into the inferno. But nothing seemed to work. The fire just seemed to grow more intense. I heard one of the firefighters yell to another “It’s the damn tin roof. It shields the water from the fire.”

When I heard a nearby church chime 6pm I said to Tad “We have to go soon. I need to get home for dinner. Papa hates when I am not there at dinner time. His says it is disrespectful to Mama.”

Even though Tad does not have a father to deal with he knew mine and understood. But as we were getting about to jump down from our little nest, the 150 meter dome of the Rotunda collapsed. It was spectacular. It sent flames and smoke 100 soaring into the sky and firefighters scrambling for their lives. It also meant we couldn’t leave just then. Who walks out a good movie on the 2^nd reel? We stayed a little longer, even as clouds of smoke and ash covered our position. And then even a little longer after that when the firefighters pulled back their line when the rest of the building seems of the verge of imminent collapse. We had to see that.  And we probably would have stayed even longer if some eagle-eyed policeman noticed us on our perch and ordered us off and behind police lines.

I did not make it home until almost 8pm. I spent the trolley ride home worried about what I was going to tell my parents when I got home. What could I say to stave off the beating that was sure to come not only because I was late and my parents did not know where I was but because of the strong odor of smoke that permeated everything I was wearing? Tad did not provide useful advice. He kept saying “How can they be mad at you?  We were witness to one of the greatest fires in Vienna’s history. Not since the Ring Theatre fire has anyone seen such a fire. They have to understand.”

Everything Tad was true and maybe that would work with Mama but Papa was not the one to understand life’s frivolity. He believed that was life was hard. That you put your nose down and worked hard and you respected your parents by doing what they said. No excuses.” Tad knew this and he was giving me this advice. It made me mad. I said “You are useless. I am going to get a beating for sure.” And we spent the rest of the ride in silence. I didn’t even say good bye when I lept off the trolley at my stop.

I walked up the steps to our apartment like a condemned man on his way to the gallows. I paused for a second in front of our door and taking a deep breath pushed it open. Mama and Papa were sitting at the kitchen table, the remnants of dinner scattered across its top. Mama lept up from the table and wrapped me in her arms and with emotion in her voice Mama said “Yoy, Hugi I was so worried about you. My little boy where have you been.” Then sniffing she released me from her hug pushed me away gave me a once over and said “What have you been up to. You reek of smoke.”

I could see Papa glowering, coiled like a spring about to release, in his chair. I knew he was on a hair trigger and it would take very little to release the spring and for me to get a beating I would not soon forget. I had no choice. I didn’t have the imagination to create a story out of whole cloth. The only option I had was to tell them the whole story of how we come to see the Great Rotunde fire. From hearing about it on the steps of our school to our disappointment on not being able to see the fire and our adventures in Vienna’s sewers to the collapse of the dome. I tried to give them details that would make them feel as if they were there but more importantly to keep the story going. I felt for sure as long as I was talking Papa would not punish me. But finally, I had exhausted the story. There was nothing left to tell. I ended my tale by saying with as much sincerity as I could muster “Mama I am so sorry to have made you worry but you see, it was a once in a lifetime experience. I really could not miss it.” 

I waited for the blows to fall as they had in the past when I had disappointed Papa.  The anticipation making me hunch my shoulders and turn slightly away from him. I was shocked when instead of a slap I was hit with Papa’s chuckle. He laughed “What adventure! Just the type of adventure I went on when I was a boy. Mama make him a plate of food. Tell me Hugi could you feel the heat of the flames from where you were?”

I never told Tad I had not received a beating that night.

———-

“This is definitely the place.”

Paul gave me a knowing smile and said “No, I think that was on the other side of the Prater.”

“No. No. I am sure I am right. It was right here.” I said stomping my foot in adamance and nearly stumbling for my trouble.”

“You see right over there were the police lines. And over there is where we went into the sewer. It all adds up. How come you can’t see that.”

“Whatever you say Sam.”

“It was a great fire. Did I ever tell you what happened to me when I got home?”

“No. Never.”

“Well then I am not going to tell you now.

“Okay. Okay. I think we better get some coffee in you before we get on the train.”

The cool glass of the train compartments window felt marvelous on my face. It helped lessen the pounding in my temples and made feel less feverish. But the rocking motion of the train as it pulled out of Sudbahnoff negated all that. Not only did it bang my head against the window which worsened my growing headache but it reminded me that I had a queasy stomach on the verge of becoming volcanic. I may have groaned.

Paul laughed. Taking a bite out of disgusting smelling cheese and pickle sandwich he said “Not feeling so good?”

I lifted my head from the glass and facing him I said with as much vehemence as I could muster. You are an asshole.”

With a mouth full of food and smirk said “And what made you reach that conclusion?”

“Slivovitz.”

“What about it? You seemed to like it simply fine last night.”

I raised an eyebrow “No hangover?”

“I might have exaggerated a bit.”

I said, “Well fuck you for your exaggeration.”

Much to my annoyance my retort seemed to please him. Instead of engaging, I laid my head back on the window and let the cool of the glass soothe me a little. Despite my discomfort, I smiled into the glass so my friend could not see: Tad and Hugi were off to their next fire.

Granville acknowledged Paul’s concession with a slight nod and then proceeded to lay out the plan we had devised the night before. When our breakfast was over it would be convivial punctuated with handshakes and smiles. Then the colonel would walk us out the side entrance of the hotel where Cookie would be waiting for us with our Jeep. He would thank Paul loudly and let anyone in ear shot hear him say that we were forever in his debt. We would then drive away while Granville slipped back into the hotel.

Our mission was to visit a number of the cities open air markets that had sprung up around the city to meet the cities commerce needs now that the supply chain had broken down. Invariably, within these markets where citizens traded what few items they had left for what they needed, there were black marketers. Those who people who were resourceful enough to be able supply-controlled items in short supply such as medications, drugs, and clandestine items such as birth certificates, passes and ids. We would make a show of walking around the markets as if Paul were giving me a tour and then not so surreptitiously sneak off with some of the less reputable traders. Our hope was this would peak Soviet interest in a way that could not be ignored.

Granville had explained that ideally, this is the type of operation, would be a slow build. Over a series of days conduct these operations in a way that feigned stealth but was actually designed to tip our hand in a way that would intrigue our Russian observers. The end goal being that they would divert more and more of their assets to keep an eye on us. However, we did not have that kind of time. We needed them to pay attention to us now right now. The way we hoped to do that is in these markets talk to two types of “vendors” who the Soviets were already keeping their eyes on: Smugglers and forgers. We wanted them to believe that we were desperately looking for ways to help someone exit the city and have them pay attention to that.

Our first stop that morning was not far from our hotel, Karlsplatz. It was an open area, mostly cleared of rubble, where people had fashioned a makeshift open-air market. A few vendors had tables and improvised booths but most laid out their wares on the pavement. Even so early in the day it was crowded. It reminded me of those days when we were so desperate to get out of Vienna that any hint that an embassy would offering up Visas would spread at the speed of gossip. I suspect the same principal applied to these ersatz markets. News of fresh vegetables or fruit would or any other hard to get commodity would send people scrambling to get there before supplies ran out. None of that was really surprising however I was shocked by the number of Russian troops milling about, many of them drunk and some having in tow the women who entertained them the night below. When I expressed my astonishment to Paul, he laughed. “Who else would buy some of the shit these people were selling.” To make his point he walked me over to where a middle age woman who despite having spent time trying to make herself presentable looked as if she had been sleeping on the streets. It was clear at one point she had been quite prosperous because despite her unkempt appearance her clothes were well made and must have cost quite a bit of money when they had been purchased. They hung on her like a tent. Her once well-fed body had shrunk from deprivation. The items she had for sales were laid out a blanket was a pathetic collection of various household items including several well used pots and pans, a ceramic mantle clock with a floral design and a crack in the crystal, and a number of well used pipes.

Paul asked her how much she was selling the clock for and with a glance at me responded that she wanted one pack of “Lucky Strikes.” She launched into a well-rehearsed about why the clock was worth so much. It was a family heirloom bought in Switzerland during her Grandparents honeymoon. It was of the finest quality and still kept time perfectly despite the cracked crystal. It would make a wonderful present to someone special. That normally she would not even consider selling it as it meant so much to her family but what was she to do. Her husband had been killed on the Eastern front and now she needed to do what she had to stay alive. I have not had a lot of experience with antiques. The furniture we had in Vienna and Danbury may have been second hand, but it was not the type you passed from generation. No doubt when Mama and Papa got rid of their furniture it would go to the dust heap. Even so, I knew the clock was worth at least $100 back in the states. And, to see her a middle-aged woman, reduced to selling what little she had just for the privilege of eating touched me. It made me recall the days before the war when Mama had to sell many of her little treasures just so I would be able to eat.

I surprised her when I responded to her in German. “ Es ist eine schöne Uhr Mutter, aber es ist nichts für mich. Aber bitte nehmen Sie diese Zigarettenschachtel als mein Geschenk an Sie”. (It is a beautiful clcok mother but it is not for me. But please take this pack of cigarettes as my gift to you) and then handed her a pack of Camels I had in my pocket. She looked as she were about to cry and to save her embarrassment we walked away.  

As we walked away, I could see Paul shaking his head “You do know that same woman would have spit on you and forced your mother to lick the bottom of her shoe six years ago.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you give her the cigarettes?”  

“I don’t know. She reminded me of Mama. Selling anything she could to put a little money on the table. She is a victim.”

“You always were the compassionate one” he said with only a touch of irony in his voice. “And I don’t think living in the US helped cure you of it. Here, at least for the last six years ago we could not afford to be compassionate. It got you killed or worse…”

I really did not want to pursue this line of conversation with him as I feared it might bring up old grievances and hurts. Instead, I changed the subject. “There are  a lot of Russian soldiers here. Is that normal?”

“There are always lots of Soviet troops here always looking to cause a little trouble. Steal when they can but there are more than usual today. Rumor has it that they just got paid yesterday and are painting the town “red.” Paul laughed. “No pun intended.”

Just then a Soviet corporal came up to Paul and I. He was wearing his envelope cap like a beanie on top of his head, his tunic was unbuttoned to his chest and his vodka-soaked breath could have been used as an offensive weapon. He had one arm around one of his less intoxicated comrades and another around a drunk Austrian girl of about 16 who wore too much make up. He stopped just inches from me and said in heavily accented English “Hey Joe. Let me buy your watch” and then holding up his bare left wrist adding “I need watch.”  

I replied, “I have no watches for sale today, comrade” and attempted to walk by him and his friends. But with amazing agility for someone as clearly drunk as him he maneuvered himself in front of me and grabbing my wrist exposing the Wyler Incaflex that Max had given me.

“Sorry buddy that is not for sale.”

Freeing my wrist, I tried again to push past. But Ivan was not taking no for an answer and stepping in front of me again pulled out a wad of cash. “I got money. I can pay.” He grabbed for my wrist, as if to pull the watch off. Using one of the disabling moves they teach you in basic hand to hand where you grab your opponents thumb and use it to peel back the hand flip the wrist into the follow me hold, I pushed him away. But again, he did not move as if he had been drinking. He tried to counter the move and with surprising agility. That is when Cookie, who had been walking several yards behind Paul and me, got involved.

Stepping between me and the drunk Russian he said “Comrade what do you want with a shit American watch like that. I know where they have Bulova’s and Longines. I think I even saw a Rolex. “ And put his arm firmly around the drunk corporal’s arm led him and his companions away.

I turned to Paul and said “I don’t think that guy was drunk.”

My friend smiled back at me and said, “Smart boy.”

“At least we know they are paying attention. Might as well give them something to really think about. Where do your friends hide themselves here?”

“Follow me.” And he proceeded to lead me through the market towards Karlskirche. When we got to the steps of the church Paul asked me to hold tight and continued on to the steps of the church. There he approached a well dressed middle age man who sported a Van Dyke and a black beret that he wore more like a hat than cocked to one side military style. The man greeted Paul with a big bear hug and they proceeded to have an animated conversation almost as if they were having a disagreement. At one point, Paul held up a single finger and mouthed “hold on” whereupon both of them disappeared inside the church. 

After about 15 minutes I got antsy and was just about to go charging into the church after them when they emerged. They were smiling and laughing like one of them had just told a very funny joke. Paul motioned to me to join them and from the church smiling and laughing. Paul motioned to me and I climbed the stairs and joined them. He said “This is my friend” indicating the man with whom he had entered the church “Augustine, he is someone who helps us out when we need a little printing done” he said with a wry grin. “Augustine, this is my boyhood friend Sam who, as you can see managed to miss all the fun, we have been having the last few years. But don’t hold that against him.”

We exchanged handshakes. And Paul continued “Since the Russians arrived in April, Tobias has become very well acquainted with our Russian friends. They seem to feel that his “printing” business includes generating paperwork that is not strictly legal  and have detained him on multiple occasions. But they never arrest him not only because they have never found any proof of his guilt but because from time to time he lets them know when certain Nazi’s are looking for papers that would allow them to assume more desirable identities.”

“He tells me that the Russians keep him under surveillance most of the time. This doesn’t both him too much because of course he is not up to anything that would be of interest of them” I looked over at Tobias. His face was a picture of innocence or as much as one a man sporting a Van Dyke can be and winked at me. “He is fairly sure that the Russians will contact him after our meeting which is why we are making such a big show of standing here on the steps so they cannot help but notice our meeting. He will tell them that you and are old friends and that I was just introducing him to you as we had happened to be in the area.” Paul paused for dramatic effect. “After the Soviets question him, he will then pretend to make an effort to lose their surveillance and when they are sufficiently satisfied that Augustine believes that he has lost them he will make contact with one of his “friends.” An obvious exchange of money will occur along with a passing of a thick envelope. This man will then make his way to Hertha’s place in the Labau where we will be waiting.”

“What will be in the envelope?” I asked.

Paul laughed “Nothing. Just some blank sheets of paper. That way if he is detained his hands are completely clean. He can claim he was just doing a favor for a friend and has no idea what the meaning of the blank sheets of paper. And the Russian will have no reason to hold him.”

“Meanwhile they will be spending our time watching us and not watching other things.”

“Exactly.”

Realizing that no one does a favor of this size for nothing I said “Tobias I genuinely appreciate your help. How can we thank you for your assistance?”

“No thanks are necessary. A friend of Paul’s is a friend of mine. You might say that this just helps us balance the books a little.” Then catching the bulge in my top right jacket pocket said “But could you spare one of those American cigarettes? We have had nothing but ersatz cigarettes and Russian Belomorkanals. Both taste like shit and almost make you want to give up smoking.”

I wanted to give him the whole pack but while I had a carton back in my room this was the last pack, I had on me and I was painfully aware that this was not our last stop today. Instead, I took the pack out of my pocket and shook one loose for him and said “Take two.”

We left Augustine on the steps. Meanwhile Paul and I made our way through the market towards the Opera House. Paul said, “I didn’t want to talk about this back there but our friend Tobias’s printing business got a request from your friend Pichler.”

“He is not my friend.”

“You know what I mean. He was looking for new papers. Swiss and visas that would allow him to enter Argentina. But Augustine has an exceptionally low opinion of former Nazi’s, so he turned him down. But there are other places he can go those papers so my advice to Granville is to act quickly.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. I would of course tell the Colonel about Pichler’s search for new papers. That was my duty. But I was profoundly disturbed by the idea of helping a former Nazi find a place in the United States. We had fled Vienna because of them. Our family had been murdered by them. They had killed untold millions and suddenly we are supposed to forget all that because they may help us with the Japanese and the Russians. All is forgiven because now you can help us. While I understood it intellectually it tore at my emotions and ripped at what I thought were my adopted American sense of values.

So, I said nothing. I just nodded my head and asked, “Where to next?”

Over the course of the next 6 hours Paul, Cookie and myself went to blackmarket sites in Leopoldstadt, Margaretten, Dobling Penzing and even our old stomping grounds Ottakring where the blackmarket had set up in a South East corner of Yppenpark not far from where Paul’s mother’s shop used to be. In each, place, Paul seemed to know someone on whom he could rely. Each of his friends agreed to a similar ploy as Tobias and on the same terms. They all seemed to be trying to balance the books with Paul. Which made me wonder what exactly my friend had been up to in the last few years where he had accumulated all of these favors and made a mental note to ask one day.

Someone knocked at the door of Aunt Hertha’s cabin. This was a bit of a surprise since we had positioned ourselves around the kitchen table so each of us could use the adjacent windows to monitor outside activities and we had seen nothing. Paul held a finger to his lips while Cookie and I both unholstered our pistols and plastered ourselves against the walls as not to be seen from the outside. Paul crept quietly to the door and putting his ear to it hoping that he could get a hint from what was going on outside the door. There was another knock door but this time it was accompanied by the squeaky voice of a young girl. “Herr Gross, it is Greta. Your mother sent me with a message.” Paul smiled and waving his hands he signaled us to put away our weapons. When we had he opened the door to a young girl of about eight or nine with two long blonde plaits running down her back wearing a wrinkled dark blue dress that was several sizes too big for her.

Paul gestured for Greta to enter and when he did, he poked his head outside and gave a quick looksee as to whether there was anyone watching the cabin. As he closed the door, he shook his head slightly indicating to Cookie and I that it appeared that she was alone. H greeted our guest “Bertha, did you come all this way by yourself? Aren’t you a brave girl.”

She blessed my friend with a look only a child who has grown up during war and occupation can give a condescending adult. A mixture of contempt over the perceived insult of age and incredulity that a child of conflict would be worried about walking a few miles. She did not respond to Paul’s question. Instead, she reached underneath her dress and pulled out a small envelope and said “Your mother said to bring this to you immediately.” And then pointing to me said “And she said you would give me a chocolate bar.” That froze me. I did have a stash of chocolate bars. I had snagged them at the PX before Cookie and I had set out for Vienna. But they were back in the room. Cookie saw the panicked look on my face and reached into inside breast pocket and pulled out a Hershey bar and handed it to Greta. She lit up. The hard child of war who had seen to much of war and destruction to be a child anymore and for a brief moment her innocence returned in the form of a smile that showed only joy. I knew the look too well because I had once worn it myself. Near the end of our time in Vienna, with all of the restrictions and food rationing for Jews, I had been that hungry child. Where even one square of a chocolate bar or a single piece of a Manner hazelnut Neopolitan wafer would make my day let alone my week. Seeing the innocence and the joy return to the little girl’s face made me want to find something else in my pockets. To help her return to a lost childhood. But I had nothing and knew even if I did the relief would only be temporary. She would never have the blessing of innocent childhood. Just like me.

Paul learning from his mistake said “Greta, be careful leaving here. There may be people who are watching the cabin and I don’t want you to get in any trouble with them.”

She replied with the matter-of-fact way of children. “You mean the Russians? I saw them on the way here. There are a couple of them down the road. They can’t really see the front door of your cabin from where they are. They can only see the path leading up to it. So I walked past your cabin and came around the back.”

“Smart girl. Now hurry home. If you see Momma tell her I will see her a little later.”

When Greta left, we returned to our positions at the table and Paul opened the envelope his mother had sent him. “Good news Sam. Momma has received word from her brother Anton. He is Carinthia. A place called Portschach am Worthersee. I remember before the war he used to go there in May for their annual Brahms festival. Perhaps that is why he is there now. Reading further from the note he added “Apparently, he is staying there with “friends” and has invited her to come and visit if she can get away.”

I turned to Cookie and asked, “Do you know what Zone that is in?”

“Carinthia is in the south, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, if it is in the south.” Cookie said letting his Kentucky accent grow a little larger “Then more than likely it is in the British Zone. Which is fairly good news as they are a mite more friendly to us than are the Russians.”

Paul added, and apparently it is pretty easy to get to “According to Mama’s note the Train to Venice goes directly through there.”

“Well that adds some interesting options.” I said trying to think ahead to when we were going to have to sneak Dr. Pichler out of Vienna, but I kept those thoughts to myself. It is not that I did not trust Paul. If I couldn’t trust him whom could I trust., but it was not clear yet if he would be a part of that operation.  I f nothing else had been driven into to me at OCS, it was the need to compartmentalize information. The “need to know doctrine” where only those with the need to know had informed shared with them was the foundation of military operations and it was likely what had allowed D-day to be successful.

I changed the subject. I said teasingly to Paul “When did you become such a Mama’s boy? Do you always tell your mother where you are?” He responded, not the least bit embarrassed. “Naturlich.”

I did not get back to the Hotel Sacher until quite late. Our plan had called for us not leaving the cabin until well after dark. This was part of our plan to have a feint within a feint. We really had nothing to hide from the Russians, but we wanted them to believe that we did. If we left after dark, it would only add to their suspicion. Why are they leaving during the dark unless they had something to hide? It meant we spent a few long hours with little to do but BS and smoke. Ironically, it was the least loquacious among us who did most of the talking: Cookie.

He had been in the war almost since the beginning enlisting in the Army on December 8, 1941. According to him, this was not out of any great patriotic fervor the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had awakened him but instead represented the opportunity for him to get out of Three Forks, Kentucky. A town, that was so small and so poor that the residents wanted to change the name of the town to one spoon because that was the only utensil most of them owned. The Army gave him a chance to get out but what he had not realized at the time, it would allow him to see himself very differently. The Army saw potential in him that he never saw in himself.  After basic they assigned him to the 9^th Infantry division and quickly promoted him to Sgt. As a part of Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, he had been in charge of a squad that had captured a German Colonel. He told a very improbable story about using a bottle of captured bottle of Cognac and a few cigarettes to coerce the Nazi officer to give up the battle plans. This had caught the eye of his unit’s  counterintelligence officer, a then Captain Granville, and the two had been a team ever since.

After North Africa they had been in Sicily and then a part of the invasion of the Italian mainland before being sent back to England in preparation for D-Day. There they had been assigned to US Army and General Patton through his dash through France, the Battle of the Bulge until the end of the War found them at the Austrian border. Cookie was extremely tight lipped about his war activities only saying that he had Granville had some “interesting” times together and that they had a few “scrapes” where disaster had been averted by seconds. This was of course a disappointment to Paul and me. Despite the fact that I was an officer in the US Army and Paul a hardened member of the Underground, we were still both teenagers eager to hear the exploits of an experienced soldier who had seen significant action.

As tight lipped as he might have been about his military activities, he was more than happy to share with us his exploits off the battlefield. He had over the course of his 4 years of service become a connoisseur of whore houses across North Africa and Europe. He told us, that as much as the Army tried to keep the troops away from the ladies of “ill repute” they quickly realized that it was like ask asking water not to run downhill. Of course the army did not give up without a fight. There were films on venereal diseases, lectures by “experienced” soldiers on keeping “your gun clean.” They even put posters up where men were billeted that had WPA images of a sailor, soldier and Marine that said “Men who know, say no to prostitutes: The spreaders of syphilis and gonorrhea.” None of it worked. As Cookie put it “Men who can’t fuck, won’t fight. In the end the Army turned a blind eye and he became a connoisseur, of  sorts, on the brothels of North Africa and Europe.

Cookie also said, with a totally straight face, that this was also part of his job description as a counterintelligence officer to visit brothels. After all, for millennia spies had used “compromised women” to gain enemy secrets and as a consequence he needed to avail himself of their services to assess the enemy threat. He looked indignant when Paul and I broke into laughter when he told us this.

He told us what had surprised him the most was the sheer number of brothels everywhere he went. Back home in Three Forks, you had to go all the way to Danville if you were looking to pay for love and then it was a “seasoned” woman who hung around the back doors of bars. In Tunisia, it was a regulated industry with the government licensing establishments. The Vichy government had even given them the title of “fonctionnaires” or civil servants. He said that ordinariness of the houses took some of the fun out of it but the Arab customs of making guests feel as if they were visiting royalty more than compensated for it.

Naples, he said, was one large whorehouse. And it was needed. Italy, especially after the Italian surrender and the Germans took over the fight had become a horror show and troops come to Naples for R&R took full advantage of what the city had to offer. Here, because of a quirky law prostitutes could only work out of private homes which made you feel like mother, father brother and sister were looking on as you completed the transaction. However, the Italian women were comely and passionate. If that had a fault it was that it seemed harbored the idea that the GI’s who were fucking them would come back and marry them at the end of the war. Cookie said he didn’t realize at the time, but it was just a trick to get more money out American GI’s whose puritanical upbringing made them feel badly about visiting prostitutes.

When, in the months leading up to D-Day, he had been stationed in England, he said he had been forced to go to brothels. I had asked “What he meant by being forced.” He explained that British women were just not “his cup of tea.” They were attractive enough but that their accent made them seem a little snooty for his taste and were just a little mechanical in their ministrations to him. If that was not bad enough, often his forays into these houses of ill repute were interrupted by the Luftwaffe and the baby blitz that was happening at the time. He said that nothing killed passion quite so completely as an air raid siren and the sounds of exploding ordinance.

He said that he was most disappointed by the French houses. Both Paul and I questioned him on this. We had grown up believing that the French were the epitome of sexual being. They were always portrayed in films and in novels as being sensual and passionate. Didn’t we call an open mouth kiss, a “French Kiss?” He said, that he had thought the same but by the time he had reached France in late June of 1944 many of the brothels had been turned out by the citizenry. Many of the prostitutes were accused of collaborating with the German’s dragged into the streets, stripped, had their head shaved and then daubed with tar and feathers. The working girls were still reeling from their mistreatment and it seemed to take the “steam” out of them. They put little or no effort in their work.

This was an education to me. I am embarrassed to admit how little experience I had with women or lovemaking. I had gone on dates in high school but they were pretty much chaste affairs Danbury being a relatively small town where a girls “reputation” could be easily tarnished. In college, despite being in a fraternity, TEP, I did not date very much. I did not have the time. If I wasn’t in class or studying, I was working trying to earn the money to pay for my tuition and expenses. There was one girl. A flaming red head named Gabrielle from Skaneateles, New York who had her hooks out for me. Just before I left Syracuse in August she had taken me on a picnic and there after a lot of fumbling and probably a little too much eagerness I had lost my virginity. It was not what I expected. Not that I did not enjoy it. I did. But I was so caught up in “I am losing my virginity” that the whole experience seemed as if it was happening to somebody else. It left me eager to have more experiences, but the Army had kept me too busy for the last 9 months for next times.

By the time Cookie had finished giving us his ”Baedecker Guide” to whore houses in Allied Territory it was sufficiently dark for us to leave. After agreeing to meet at Stephansdom the next morning we made our exits separately. Cookie leaving first, to make sure that the coast was clear, followed by me fifteen minutes later and then Paul. It was a little creeping through the woods at night, but I was aided by a clear sky and a mostly full moon. About a mile down the road from the cabin I found Cookie. He had retrieved the Jeep and together we headed back to the Hotel Sacher.

I discovered the word “ablutions” shortly after I had been placed in 2^nd grade as a 14-year-old and decided that the quickest way to learn English was to read the dictionary. Perhaps it was because I was just learning the language, imagine standing at the base of Everest and looking up, but it seemed that their were so many words in English. Many of them meaning the same thing and the word had struck me as a wonderful way of describing the act of cleaning up before bed. Almost like a religious act. I had used it ever since.

I was thinking about the word ablutions was made for moments like this standing in the hot shower in my hotel room at the Sacher. I was washing the sins away from my day. Well not exactly sins but I never had imagined myself a spy trying to deceive my enemies into believing something that did not exist. It was far more like the crappy “penny dreadfuls” that Paul and I used to read as kids that life I had imagined for myself as an Army officer. Fort Sill seemed like it was months if not years ago. A whole other lifetime. Yet it had been less than a week since I had been calculating “base angles” and learning how to make “sticky bombs.” Since the day, those officers had told me that I was wanted to help with the search for the Crown of St. Stephan I had been on the bounce. I had traveled over 6,000 miles by plane and Jeep; been reintroduced the city of my childhood albeit horribly altered; mourned the death and destruction of most of my family; discovered my best friend whom I though dead for years was alive, well, and living a life underground; been arrested by the NKVD and engaged in counter terrorism operations.

There was more to wash off than the dirt of the day. If I was to sleep that night I would have to let the heat of the water soak into me enough that the events of the last few days to fade. I spent a long time in the shower but when I finally turned off the faucets and emerged from the shower the only thought I had was of the bed that was waiting for me.

My last thoughts that I had before falling asleep that night were of my grandmother and visits to her home in Farafeld. I would run the few hundred meters from the train platform to her home and in anticipation the hug that awaited me there. She smelled of strudel and cinnamon from the treat she had baked for me and her hugs were like getting a vacation from the world. Nothing could harm me in her arms. I thought about the handkerchiefs in which she would place my lunch when she would send me out to play during the day. How she always managed to find a piece of a peppermint candy for my dessert. I thought about the horsehair mattress that I slept on while I was there. Somehow it managed be hard and comfortable at the same time and how the roughness of the blanket that covered me was somehow reassuring. As were the lullabies she would sing to me as she stroked my hair until I fell asleep.

I thought of the last time I saw her. We were abandoning her for our new life in America but she was urging us to go. To make a good life. Our wellbeing, my wellbeing being more important than her own.

I thought about how horrible her last days must have been. Old and infirm. Unable to protect herself. Carried away to some faraway place in a cattle car only to find fear and death with no one to comfort her.

Despite all my army training. The hardness I had developed over the years. My journey had caught up with me and I wept. Then, in the midst of my tears, I heard my grandmother’s familiar voice singing me the lullaby she would sing to me all those years ago in Farafeld.

Schlaf, schlaf, schlaf, mein liebes Kindlein, schlaf!

Die Englein tun schön musizieren,

vor dem Kripplein jubilieren.

Schlaf, schlaf, schlaf, mein liebes Kindlein, schlaf

Sleep, sleep, sleep, He lies in slumber deep.

While angel hosts from heav’n come winging,

Sweetest songs of joy are singing.

Sleep, sleep, sleep, He lies in slumber deep

I slept.

Paul, Cookie and I were sitting around the kitchen table of Aunt Hertha’s cabin in the Lobau. It had not changed much since I had seen last six years before. The windows were still covered with curtains that had a bright floral pattern albeit a little faded; the bedroom still had an ancient iron four poster bed that Hertha had no doubt inherited from one of her more well too do relatives, a fluffy faded yellow goose down duvet covering a sagging mattress; the table we were sitting at was covered with the identical lace tablecloth that had graced it the last time I was here.

The cabin also showed the tell-tale sign of neglect. It smelled musty. There was a thin layer of dust that blanketed everything. A rusted bucket sat in the corner of the kitchen in order to catch water dripping from the ceiling when it rained. One window was boarded shut, no doubt shattered when an artillery shell or bomb had missed its mark and landed on one of the neighboring cabins. The front door’s frame was cracked and askew.  Whether it was from someone looking for shelter or food or the police I could not tell and did not ask.

There was a knock at the door. Paul said “Kommen Sie.” The door creaked open and a man wearing a black beret and a dirty grey suit that was two size too large for him entered. He looked at Cookie and me apprehensively and said to Paul “Was ist das?”

Paul replied “Ignoriere sie. Sie sind Freunde. Was hast Du für mich.”  Pay no attention to them. They are friends. What do you have for me.”

The man, still nervous, replied. “I did what was asked of me. I went to the open-air market in Karlsplatz right by the Opera. I tried to make myself as conspicuous as I could I even spoke with a number of people we know are helping the Russians. Then I found Tobias Hoffer and after we talked a little bit he gave me this to give to you. “The man then pulled a single sheet of paper that was folded in three and looked as if it had spent the war in his pocket and handed it to Paul.

Paul asked “Did you read this.”

The man seemed slightly offended and  said “No. Of course not.”

I took a packs of Lucky Strikes out of my pocket and slid them across to the man. He quickly picked them up and quickly hid them somewhere in the folds of his clothes. Paul said “Danke Schon” and the man quickly left the way he had come.

When he was gone Paul walked over to the fireplace and put a match to the paper the rumpled man had just given on him. He didn’t bother to look at it because we all knew what was on it. This was the fifth messenger we had received that afternoon. All the notes handed us had exactly the same thing on them. Nothing. They were blank sheets of paper. It was all part of the plan we had developed with Major Granville that morning.

I met Paul in the Lobby of the Hotel Sacher that morning. He was wearing a tweed suit that looked second hand as it was both a threadbare and too big for him. It gave him the appearance of a 2^nd son wearing his older brothers discarded clothes. Normally, I would have teased him over it but the importance of his meeting with Colonel Granville that morning silenced me. He must have seen something in my eyes and said with a smile and a wink “A woman whose husband was killed on the eastern front gave it to me. It is a little big but it has nice memories”    

“Very nice. I am sure that there is a bigger story to tell but we don’t have time for that this morning. I need to give you a heads up about our meeting this morning. The mission has changed.” Pausing I added “Did you find Uncle Anton?”

“Not exactly. I think we know where he is but I won’t be sure until later today or at worst tomorrow.”

“That is disappointing but  We can talk about that later. Colonel Granville is going to ask you to help us out on something else. You need to be straight with him. If this is going to put you in a bad spot or break your ass in any way you need to be up front about it. Don’t do this because of our friendship. Only do it if you think you can help and your okay with it.”

Paul smiled “Don’t worry about it. Its cracked already.”

“What is cracked already.”

“My ass.”

“Always with the Witzelsucht. You need to be serious. This is important.”

“Okay, okay. Relax. What is going on.”

I would have loved to give him a full briefing on what the Colonel wanted us to do. However, I had been ordered not to. Granville wanted to check out Paul for himself. The job was too important to him to let alone a shave tail like me evaluate whether or not a person we would be trusting with a crucial element was worthy of that trust.”

“Granville will be here in a second. He wants to brief you in person but just do me a favor and go with the flow. Things may seem a little strange to you but trust me there is a plan of action we work on and it will all make sense later.”

Paul gave me the same look he used to give me when I had proposed some hair brained scheme when we were kids. A combination of “I think you are crazy” and “okay, if you are in so I am I.” And said “Okay.”

We walked through the lobby to the Café in the rear of the hotel. Colonel Granville had chosen a table in the center of the restaurant. When we arrived at the table he rose and boomed “Herr Gross, it is a real pleasure to meet you!  Floessel here has told me a lot about you. We are really hoping you will be able to help us out.” Not the greeting one would expect when your meeting is on the edge of the clandestine. But that was part of the plan. We wanted the Russians and those who spied for them to pay attention.

They shook hands and as they sat down Granville said quietly to Paul “Did Sam fill you in?”

“Not exactly.” And then shooting me a glance “But I am sure he will fill me in later.”

Laughing the colonel replied “Good. That is grand.” Raising his hand like he was hailing a cab in New York he said “ Waiter would you please bring us some coffee. Have you eaten Paul? Would you like some breakfast? They don’t have eggs at the moment, but they have some delicious Krapfen and Mohnzelten. Waiter bring us a basket of pastries with the coffee. Danke.”

As the waiter walked away Granville leaned forward and said quietly “Have we resolved the issue with your Uncle?”

Paul replied, “Not exactly but I believe by this evening I should have resolved that issue to everyone’s satisfaction.”

“Good. Good.” He signaled that we should all lean in to hear him and said “For the rest of breakfast I want us to speak very quietly. I want those who are listening in to think we are trying to hide something from them. If anyone comes close to the table stop talking and lean back in your chair. Make it obvious that we are stopping because of them. Got it? Good now laugh.”

Paul, Granville and I all chuckled. Then Granville said “Sam, you should probably bring Paul here up to date on what happened to you after your meeting yesterday.” As I began to recount my adventure with Major Kudarinsky the waiter approached the table with a silver tray laden with coffee cups and a basket of pastries. Paul gave the high sign and we all stopped talking and were silent as the waiter fussed over us. When he left the table, I resumed quietly telling my story about how I had been picked up and interrogated by the Soviet NKVD and most importantly the warning Kudarinsky had given me about Paul.”

 He laughed mirthlessly “Yes. No doubt they are not thrilled with me.” Pausing, to gather his thoughts he added “Us U-boaters learned a lot avoiding the Nazi’s and their collaborators. Those of us who learned our lessons well managed to survive for six years. Those who didn’t well..In any case we  have managed to put together our own ways of getting things done. Food for people who could not shop for fear of being recognized. New papers for those who had none or needed new identities. Places for the disposed to sleep without fear. And when necessary ways for people to escape into the countryside and beyond. By the time the Soviets came, we had it down to a science. The NKVD knew all this. They had spies among us the whole time and when they go here they thought they could use us to help them find people they wanted to talk to like government officials and Nazi’s who they thought were in hiding.”

Paul paused to sip of coffee and claim a Krapfen for himself and then added “Of course, we saw the Russians for who they were. Nazi’s in other uniforms. But we decided that we would help them selectively. Where our interests coincided. If we knew where someone on their list was hiding and we agreed that he was someone who had earned the right to their hospitality, we helped the Russians find them. However, their were people on their list that had done nothing wrong. Fellow U-boaters who had done nothing wrong but had somehow managed to make their list of enemies. Those people we hid and told the Soviets we could not find whom they were looking for. They, of course, knew we were not being entirely honest with them.”

Paul took another large bite from his pastry and added with a smile “Of course, this has added a little tension to our relationship. They don’t know when to believe us and that makes them distrust us and I am sure they would lock us up but for the time being we are far too useful to them.”

I could see the wheels turning behind Col. Granville’s eyes. He was wondering whether or not we could trust Paul. Clearly, he was not fully cooperating with the Russians and that was good but it was clear from our conversation that he belonged to a group of some kind who while they could potentially make our tasks a little simpler could also jeopardize our mission with Pichler as well.

Granville gave Paul a look similar to the one Kudarinsky had given me the day before. The type that is designed to intimidate by implying that you knew what was going on inside the other persons head. If it effected Paul in any way I could not tell. He just smiled and reached for another pastry and refilled his coffee cup. When he realized that his intimidating look was not doing him any good the Colonel tried a different tact, being direct. He said, “I don’t know if I can trust you or not. Floessel here seems to think you are worthy of our trust, but I don’t know.”

Paul put down the Mohnzelten he had been enjoying and letting his face go blank said “Colonel, I am sure I cannot trust you. You are a military intelligence officer on a mission. No, Sam here did not tell me that. But looking for the Crown is an intelligence matter. Now, you want to get me wrapped up into something else. I know you will sacrifice anything for your mission because you have nothing to lose so why should I trust you.” Pausing long enough for Granville to digest what it is his message he added “But Sam here. I trust. He will not bullshit me because we know each other to well. He won’t sell me down the river for a bigger cause because we have been brothers since we are five years old and brothers don’t do that to each other.”

Turning his gaze on me he continued. “Sam, why don’t you tell me what this is all about.” I glanced at Granville who gave me a small nod.  I told Paul that our original mission as he knew was to find the keys to the cases that held the Crown. However, we had received additional orders when our Counterintelligence group had uncovered that one of the Nazi scientists they had been looking for, Dr. Heinz Pichler, a virologist, was in Vienna. Apparently, he had some vital information that could help us win the war with the Japanese. The type of knowledge that the Russians wanted desperately as well because they saw a war coming against the west. But now, since my fun adventure our hosts were spending too much looking at our team making it difficult to recruit Pichler with the Soviets finding out. If we were going to be successful we needed  to distract them. That we had a plan. If we could get the Soviets to pay attention to Paul and I doing something benign, Granville could sneak off and meet with Pichler below the radar.  At the end, I said “Would you mind helping us distract the Russians for a while?”

Paul looked at me with the gaze of older, wiser  brother who has been down this path before and feels the need to let his sibling know what lies ahead.. He said “Of course, I will help. We have done this type of dodge many times with the Soviets. They are like a dog with the ball. You can pretend to throw one way and they will go chasing after it while the ball has never left your hand.”

“I sense a but…”

“But do you know who this Pichler is? Why your people want to get ahold of him so badly?”

I looked at Granville. He gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head.”

“I have no idea.”

“I will help you, but I don’t think you have any idea of what you are getting yourself into… There are people trickling into Vienna from all the camps these days. And the stories they are telling of the atrocities at the Concentration Camps are beyond imagination.”

We had been hearing stories for months now. But while I knew the cruelty of Nazi’s first hand some of the stories we had heard seemed so nightmarish that it strained your ability to believe them. Then I saw the photos. While I was waiting for my flight at Homestead Air Base someone had left an issue of Life Magazine laying around. On its cover, was a picture of prisoners from Buchenwald. The article was called “Atrocities: Capture of the German Concentration Camps Piles Up Evidence of Barbarism That Reaches The Low Point of Human Degradation.” There had been pictures of the survivors who resemble more skeleton than human. Corpses half burned in crematoria. Bodies of dead inmates lined up like cordwood. And perhaps the most horrifying picture, a photo of little German Boy in shorts and a sweater blithely walking by a line of dead inmates outside of Belsen concentration camp.

I said simply “I have seen the pictures.” Knowing that Paul would appreciate the understatement behind the words.

Paul nodded “Good. So you know. But what you may not know is what we have heard from some who escaped from Auschwitz and Dachau. The Germans were not content in just murdering us. They were using us as human guinea pigs in experiments that were to help glorify the Reich. They are telling us stories of having to carry away bodies with their bodies twisted into pretzels where the German scientist were wearing protective gear and they were not and how sick some of them got afterward with many dying. A group from Dachau talk about removing bodies that looked if they had been exploded from the inside. Every day as more manage to find their way back to Vienna we hear more and more about what these Nazi scientists were up to and what they did to us. Are you really sure you want to be a part of this?”

I did not know what to say. Why would I want to be a part of any program that helped those who tortured and experimented and brutally murdered people who could have been my family or friends. But what could I do? A superior officer was giving me an order. How could I possibly turn him down but justifying something by saying “I just followed orders” did not sit well with me. Luckily, Granville interjected before I could say anything.

“What you don’t know about me is that I was on the original counterintelligence team to enter Dachau. It was the day after they liberated the camps. The first thing you noticed was the smell. You noticed it miles away from the camp it was so putrid, so full of death it was hard to breathe. There were piles of bodies, maybe five of six feet tall, stacked like wood.  The mind is funny. At first I didn’t even realize that they were bodies, I had been in fights from North Africa to Germany, I had seen more than my share of dead bodies and I  just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that they used to be human. It was not until I got closer and I could make out faces and hands that I realized what it was that I was seeing. As I walked through the camp you would see these barracks where the prisoners were kept crowded with men most of whom were so pale and emaciated that they more resembled the corpses that I had just seen than people. I felt like I was walking through the worst nightmare that I had ever had and I must just started to walk around aimlessly when a prisoner grabbed me by the sleeve and told me to follow him. He led me to the edge of the camp. There the Nazi’s had bult huge crematoria There were still bodies burning in them and their smell is something that I think will haunt me for the rest of the life.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but Granville continued with a look in his eye that made me believe he was reliving those moments all over again.  “I spent most of the rest of that day and the morning of the next looking for some of the Nazi’s who were on our grab list. We knew who that some of these sons of bitches would try to hide pretending to be prisoners. But the inmates knew who they were and kept turning them in. We built a detention center for them right in the midst of the corpses. We wanted to make sure they knew we knew what they were.”

“On the afternoon of the 2^nd day a convoy pulls into the camp. It is led with a deuce and a half’s and a squad of MP’s followed by a couple of jeeps with heavily armed MP’s and a staff car with a 5-star flag on it. Out walks Ike but he is not alone. He has brought along Patton and Omar Bradley. A colonel comes out to greet them and offers to give them a tour. Patton, fucking George S Patton, the fucking meanest sonofbitch in the army will not go in. He says it will make him sick. But Ike and Bradley go in. When they finish with their tour, they are both pale and look sick to their stomachs. Ike orders the colonel to go the nearest town and round up all of their citizens and force them to the come the camp. It turns out Ike had stopped in the village on his way in and the people went out of their way to tell him they knew nothing that was going on the camp. Now he knows they are lying, and he wants to rub their nose in it.

Granville paused long enough to pull a pack of Lucky Strike out of his jacket pack and offering one to Paul and I, he lit up and sends a plume of smoke over the table. Looking at Paul he says “Don’t for a fucking second think that I don’t know who and what these bastards are because I do. I have seen with my own eyes and the odor of those camps is something that I will never be able to wash away.” Taking another long drag he adds, a little more calmly, “But I have also seen a lot of our boys dead. 18- and 19-year-old boys like you. Brave kids who leaped into the lurch because we told them to and got their faces shot off for their trouble. or who died staring at their own guts pouring out of their bodies. Kids who died screaming for the Mamas because they were hurt and dying.  Young men who will never see their families again let alone have families of their own. I can’t forget them either. But I can help those boys we are sending to the Pacific. I can make sure that we have done everything we can to make sure they come home from a fight that will be much uglier fight than we had here. The Japs thinking dying is honor and surrender is a disgrace. They are going to fight to the last man. And if I can do something to help keep a few more of our boys alive even if means making a deal with the devil then goddammit I will.”

Crushing the cigarette as if it had done him personal harm, he gave Paul an awfully hard stare “I am not asking you to deal with SOB. I know what they did. But you owe us. We lost a lot of men liberating your asses and perhaps by helping me you can pay us back by helping save a few lives down the road.”

Granville’s outburst was not a part of our original plan. Paul had hit a nerve. But it still served our purpose. While the colonel’s voice had never risen above a loud whisper his emotional response had generated looks from the wait staff and other diners. Which in the end what we were hoping to do. We wanted the Soviets to notice that we were engaging with a known member of the black market and get them curious enough about it to invest some of their energy in following us.

Paul leaned across the table and said “I understand Colonel. You are doing what you must to protect your country. And I must do what I must to protect mine. Far too many of my fellow Austrians decided to make a deal with a devil in the hopes that it would provide our country with a better, safer, future. But the problem in dealing with the devil is that he exacts a very heavy price in the long run. Our deal with him has left this city a pile of rubble and a country occupied by forces who hope to exert their will over ours.”

Paul went silent. His gaze firmly affixed on Granville and then unexpectedly burst into a laughter. Then looking at me he said “But, sometimes it is better to deal with the devil you know that the devil you don’t know. What do you have in mind?”

Seventy-six years ago, on January 20, 1945 my father took the oath of citizenship.

Barely 19 years old, I imagine him sitting on a bench inside the Federal Courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas dressed in a US Army Class A Uniform waiting to be called before the clerk of the court. It was, to say the least, and improbable place for him to be. 

Six years before, just days before he was to become a bar mitzvah, his synagogue was burned to the ground on Kristallnacht. That night, the apartment he shared with his parents was raided, and his father arrested and imprisoned for the crime of being a Jew. While his father had been released because of his army service in World War 1, his cousins Benno and Walter were not so lucky and were sent to Dachau.  Over the course of the next year Dad witnessed his relatives, neighbors and friends subjected to unimaginable abuse, daily insults and indignities.  

Like most of the Jews of Vienna, he desperately sought a way out of what was now Greater Germany. This meant listening to the rumors on the streets of which embassies were accepting visa applications and often standing on long lines only to be told that no more applications were to be given out. He watched as the Jewish Community of Vienna contracted to 60,000 from more than 290,000, as one by one his friends either departed with their families to Shanghai, South American, and the incredibly lucky to the United States. Or others like his friend Eddie or his cousin Lizzie spirited away to safety without friend or family via Kindertransport.

He spent a good part of the time begging his father to try to get out of Austria. He went as far as getting himself a Visa to Palestine through the Zionist Youth Organization. His father refused to let him use it. Wherever the consequences their family would stay together.

On September 1, 1939 the 2^nd World War began with the German invasion of Poland. The Rothkopf’s search for a way out of Vienna move from urgent to desperate.  Finally, in November of 1939, two months after 2^nd World War had begun, their visas came through. They were going to the United States.

On his arrival in the US, his English was so deficient that they placed him, a 14-year-old boy in the 2^nd grade. But he had showed them. Within the year, he would be in school with kids his own age and playing wide receiver on the Danbury Hatters, his high school football team.

3 years after arriving in this country, a waif who had been out of school for one year, with no English competency, was now attending Syracuse University.  

I cannot imagine Dad did not think about Syracuse that day just because of contrasts. The year before at this time he had been clearing railroad tracks and switches from some of the 10ft of snow Syracuse receives each year of feet in temperatures as low as 7 F. That day in Ft. Worth it was nearly 60 F and sunny.

Syracuse was also in part why he was, where he was, at that moment. Among his course of study there were three Semester of ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps.) It provided him the background and education that would help qualify him for Officer Candidate School. At that point in the war, they had just opened the ranks of officers to those in the ranks who were not native-born citizens. However, to qualify you needed to first become an American citizen. When his application to OCS had been accepted in late December and a slot found for him at Artillery School in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, getting him sworn in as a citizen became a priority.

Sitting on that bench, waiting for the clerk of the court to call his name to take the oath of citizenship I have no doubt that he contemplated what the future held for him. Artillery school was not for the weak of mind or the timid. Not only did he need to complete the normal training officers receive in military and command arts but he also needed to gain a high degree of proficiency in math and ballistics. He must have also realized the inherent danger of being an artillery officer. While they may be behind the lines lobbing shells at the enemy, the enemy also knew where you were and prioritized “taking them out”. But he knew that the fight for democracy was not for the faint of heart.

In the midst of the “hurry up and wait,” I am sure Dad, who had taught himself to read by deciphering newspapers would have sought one out. I wonder if he realized then what a momentous day it was.

General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific, had fulfilled his 4-year-old promise to the people of the Philippines. He had returned.

The Battle of the Bulge, the Nazi’s final attempt to turn the tide of the Allied Invasion of Europe, had just concluded.

Soviet Forces had completed a major breakthrough in Silesia with the battlefront now at Lodz and Krakow and were now drawing ever nearer to the home of Dad’s family in Grodzisko. No doubt he wondered about the fate of his father’s sisters, who lived in the market town, which the German called Auschwitz.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was to be sworn in that day for his fourth term President of the United States.

In other words, January 20, 1945 was a big day for the U.S. and for him. But that was not something that Dad would have dwelled on.

Eventually, the clerk called him and other soldiers into the court room to take the solemn oath of citizenship.  There a Federal Judge, standing behind a bench, and wearing the black robes of his office gave a stirring speech on what it was to be an American citizen. Then, he asked them to raise their right hand so they could take the oath of citizenship. According to Dad, only he and one other person in the room raised their hand initially. Apparently, the others did not know enough English to understand the Judges command which appealed to Pop’s sense of humor. Eventually though, all raised their right hands and the judge surrounded by American Flags with 48 stars, administered the oath of citizenship.

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

I have no trouble imagining what taking that oath must have meant to Pops. For most of his life he must have felt like an outsider. A person who did not belong. The land of his birth had first oppressed him, denied his humanity and eventually threatened his life. Then he became a “stranger in a strange land.” The boy who had to be placed in 2^nd grade until he learned enough English.  Then to many he was the kid who spoke with an accent. A foreigner viewed by some with suspicion.  Now he was part of it.

He was home.

Part of a country that would allow him to be who he was, to live a life without persecution and fear. A nation that would allow him to achieve his dreams based on his merit and hard work.  A homeland for him and the family that would soon be his.

A country, whose uniform he now wore, with the real possibility that he may soon have to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Years later, during a discussion about his Army days I asked what this moment when he became a citizen,  felt like for him. He thought for a second and said “It was emotional” proving once again that members of the greatest generation were masters of understatement.

Dad valued his citizenship in ways that us native born, can never fully appreciate. Like most people in the day, Dad used to prepare his taxes by himself. I recall this not being a happy time in the household. Tax preparation required a lot of work and endless deciphering of rules and regulations that took accountants years to understand. This would leave him “growly” and my siblings and I were instructed to steer clear of him. One year when the taxes had been completed my parents sat down to sign them.  Mom, expressed shock about how much money they owed. . Dad threw a fit.  He proceeded to give her a lengthy and memorable lecture on why citizenship in this country was so valuable and why paying taxes was a small price to pay for that honor.

My siblings and I think of this story every year when we pay our taxes.

Dad’s last inaugural day was January 20, 2009. That day, my sister, nephew Oliver and my parents gathered together at my parents’ home and watched the first African American President inaugurated. At the time, I did not know it was also the 64^th anniversary of his citizenship. My father was not the type of man to remind us of historic events in his life even when they had significant meaning to him. That is not to suggest these anniversaries meant nothing to him. He was just content to treasure them privately. I have a picture of him from that day. In it, he is in profile, watching intently the images on the television screen with a small enigmatic grin on his face.

Twelve years later, I wonder whether that smile was for the events occurring that day in Washington or from remembering the day 64 years before, in Ft. Worth, Texas when he became a citizen. Or perhaps it was that Barack Obama and he had taken the same oath, albeit years apart, to “support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

As a person who took his oath seriously, as a veteran who fought for his country, and a survivor of the Holocaust I have no doubt how disturbed he would have been over the events of the last four years. He had seen too much in the streets of Vienna where the power of hate and lies had taken what was arguably one of the world’s most civilized cities and turned it into a place of oppression, hate and mob rule.

The parallels between the Austria of his childhood and Donald Trump’s America are too obvious to ignore. The marginalization of citizens due to class, color, race and creed are part of the fascist playbook. . The Goebbels-esque big lies told over and over again until people believed them to be true. The cult of personality that allowed Trump to flaunt the constitution, laws and institutions of our country designed to protect the same. The slave like devotion of his followers who because they shared his political agenda were willing to rationalize his flaunting of the law, the constitution for their own political power.

He would have seen the MAGA hat and Trump flags for what they were: the American equivalent of Nazi Brown Shirts and Flags. He would have heard the decrying of Antifa and Black Lives Matter as the false flag fear mongering of Hitler and Nazi’s against Bolshevism.

He would have been horrified to see the American Kristallnacht. The attempted political coup orchestrated by Donald Trump by inciting, encouraging and empowering of the storming of the US Capital by the MAGA brown shirts.

He would have seen equivalencies between those Republicans, who in the light of Trumps attempted coup, justified their previous support of him with “how could we know” and “he did some good things” with defeated Nazi’s justifying their support of Adolph Hitler.

He would be disappointed in us. We, the descendants of the generation that saved the world, allowed a man who cared more for power than governance to ascend to the Presidency. We allowed him and his supporters to turn conservatism into fascism. To push the big lie and separate us into tribes through false equivalencies, lies and hypocrisy.

Despite all that Dad had been through, all that he has seen, he was an optimist. The planned coup by Donald Trump and his followers failed. He would hope that the heinous acts of January 7^th remind us that the politics of lies, hate and division are the gateway drugs to fascism and oppression. He would tell me democracy is not for the feint hearted. The path to restoring our democracy lies in finding common ground. It does not include a blanket forgiveness for all those who supported Donald Trump, for political expediency, knowing he was a clear and present danger to this country. Forgiveness can only come when it is sincerely sought.

On January 20^th, I will celebrate Joe Biden and Kamala inauguration and the power of our democracy it represents. I will embrace the spirit of reconciliation that they have requested. But I am also going to be thinking of my Dad. About the vow he made seventy-six years ago and his passion for this country that gave him safe harbor when fascism sought to destroy him. We cannot reconcile with the unapologetic who have sought to do harm to our republic through big lies, false narratives, sand bagging, gaslighting and insurrection. Our obligation as citizen’s is, as Louis Brandeis said, to expose them to the” broad light of day “as “it would purify them as the sun disinfects.”  The insurrectionists and, those who empowered them in word and deed, must face our legal system and be adjudicated to the full extent of the law.

We must look inward and see where we have failed as keepers of our father’s legacy. We must realize that we, as is our democracy, are imperfect. Our obligation as humans and citizens is to do better. Not only for ourselves but to honor the sacrifices and the memories of those who came before us.  Only after we complete these tasks can we achieve the promise of our constitution and form a “more perfect union.”

I was not surprised by two things as I exited Soviet HQ. First, that the sun was still bright. I had forgotten how long the days were at this time of year in Vienna. I also did not expect to see Cookie waiting for me in our Jeep outside the building. Especially considering that Granville was sitting next to him. The colonel gave me a look that I am sure he normally reserved for bad odors and signaled me that I should hop in the back.  Before my butt even hit the seat Cookie took off with a grind of the gears and a squeal of tires. I leaned forward to provide the Colonel with an explanation of what had happened, but he held up his hand and yelled against the wind noise. “Hold it. Wait until we get someplace where we do not have to yell to be heard. Then leaning over to Cookie he said “Find us some place we can have a beer and where we won’t likely be overheard.”

Cookie, whose normally sardonic expression had been replaced by a tight-lipped grimness, nodded and proceeded to take us on a high-speed drive through the streets of Vienna.  We all wanted to leave Soviet HQ in the dust. If the experience of the last two hours had taught me nothing at all it was the Russians were everywhere and they were watching. Cookies drive was an effort to get them off our trail for at least a little while. But I also sensed he was exercising some personal demons as well. It was clear Granville was not pleased with him and perhaps he was a little embarrassed too. While not entirely his fault, it was his responsibility to keep me from tripping over my own shoelaces which I had no doubt done in a somewhat spectacular fashion.

After about 15 minutes of driving, where I was in constant fear of falling out of  the back of the Jeep,.we pulled up to what appeared to a pile of rubble on Gonzagagasse. It was not far from the Danube Canal and the Old Hotel Metropole which had served as Gestapo Headquarters. Clearly Soviet artillery and Allied Bombers had known this because the area was a sea of rubble. What used to be a bustling section of the city was now just piles of broken masonry and concrete with only a few buildings remained standings. Many of those just barely. None of them without scars of the allied assault. I couldn’t imagine why we had come here. To my eye it resembled more the surface of the moon than any place man might possibly live. Let alone find a bar.  Clearly, my eye was not as well trained as Cookies. Or perhaps he had been here before.  He led us to a partially collapsed building where a path had been cleared through the rubble. It led to set of stairs that sank into what appeared to be the basement of the building.

At the bottom of the stairs, we had to push aside a filthy velvet curtain that once might have been red and were instantly plunged into darkness. The last hour of daylight and the dimness of the cellar producing a momentary blindness. When I regained my vision, I saw that at some point before the war that this had been a watering hole for the rich and the famous. Its décor was Art Noveau whose sinuous contours and lines seemed perfectly at home in this subterranean refuge. It had a long zinc bar that at one point must have had a large mirror behind it that was no doubt shattered with one of the first bomb blasts. It had been replaced by makeshift shelving salvaged from broken bits of other buildings that held a few bottles of dusty liquor. A few small round tables were scattered over the broken and dirty white tiles that made up the central part of the bar. At one point these tables must have had a high gloss but now were pock marked with water marks from countless drinks. A few had crude repairs to their legs and tops inadvertently making them perfect metaphors for their city. Around the periphery of the room were a few booths that may have once been covered with  rich dark red velveteen but now were upholstered in a patchwork of their original coverings and sacrificed bed sheets grafted over holes and tears where wear and war had taken their toll.

.  What used to be a place where the wealthy and well to do used to come and laugh about the world had become a refuge for the weary and the worn. A place to anesthetize themselves against the cruelties of war. Except at this hour the place was empty. Not even a proverbial drunk passed out at a table.

The barkeep, a mustachioed formerly fat man who now held his pants up with a length of rope and looking as if personal hygiene was more a memory than a day-to-day occurrence brought us three steins of beer without asking.  The beer glasses looked filthy, but thirst and anxiety got the better of us, so we took a gulp of what proved to been warm and watery ale. None of us had said a word since we had exited the Jeep. I cannot tell you what was on Granville’s and Cookies mind but speaking for myself I didn’t know what to say. Do you apologize for getting kidnapped and interrogated by the Russians? It had never come up in basic or at OCS so I figured I would let the other two break the silence first.

When the barkeep was back behind the bar and we had each had drained about half  our beers, Granville looked at Cookie and ignoring me, said “What the fuck happened.”

Cookie looked pained. All the languid cocksureness that had defined him to me up until this point was gone. He said “Boss, I fucked up.

Granville growled “You are god damn right you fucked up. This kid doesn’t know any better. He’s still fucking wet behind the ears and as innocent as virgin brought up in nunnery. You’re the veteran. You know the score or at least should after all these years. You were supposed to protect this shave tail and make sure he did not trip all over himself like a newborn fawn. How hard could it be. Just look at the galoot. It is not like he was going to disappear in the crowd. Didn’t I fucking warn you that the Russians were looking for any excuse to pick you up. Didn’t you learn god damn anything from yesterday. My 68-year-old mother who has two cataracts and a hearing aid could have done a better job than you. Instead, you allowed him to get hauled away by the NKVD.  Is this job getting to be too rough for you? Just dialing in the job until you get enough points to get sent home. Because if that is what you want to do I can think of a lot better places for you to do that. Perhaps a transfer to a sanitation unit would be more to your liking. How badly could you fuck up there.”

Granville drained the remainder of his beer and signaled the bartender for another round. Cookie said nothing. I just stared at the bottom of my glass. I had not heard an epic dressing down like that since basic and it was mortifying to watch. Part of my embarrassment was due to the fact that I knew that Cookie was taking it on the chin for me. He, in my eyes had done nothing wrong. He had just done what I had, in essence, ordered him to do. I needed to set the record straight. “Colonel, Sgt. Cook was only doing…”

“Shut the fuck up Floessel. I know exactly what Sgt. Cook did and why he did it. You are just a butterbar who does not know his ass from a hole in the ground. Yeah, you gave him an order. But it was a stupid fucking order. And he knew it. Or should have known it. He has been doing this since this war was so young it still had dew on it. He should have politely called you an idiot and suggested to you the right course of action. That is what experienced Sgts are for. To keep 90-day wonders like you from getting their ass shot off or, as is this case, getting arrested by the god damn Ruski’s. Isn’t that correct Sgt. Cook.”

“Yes, sir.” Replied Cookie with all the military gusto he could summon.

“But that doesn’t get you off the hook. Despite the fact you are still in diapers you should have known better. I can think of at least six mistakes you made in this operation. I will be impressed if you can tell me even two.”

All things considered I thought I had done pretty well. I had accomplished what I had set out to do. Find Tad in the hope that he could lead us to Anton Skoda. I had done that and had been feeling fairly good about myself…”

“Sir, sending Sgt. Cook to get our transport was a mistake. He was ordered to cover my flank and I ordered him to disregard that order which resulted in me being seized by the Russians.”

“And.”

“I left mission success and familiar surroundings lull me into a sense of complacency where I neglected situation awareness.”

“God damn right. What else”

He had me. I was clueless as to the other mistakes that I had made. So I said nothing.

Granville shook his head. “Pathetic. You have known since yesterday that the Reds have been on to us yet you chose to meet with your asset, one that they will certainly be looking for now, in a public place where hostile assets could hide easily in plain view.”

Taking a breath, he added “You let your asset go. How do you know you will ever see him again? Being your boyhood friend has nothing to do with it. Nothing. He could get hit by a truck. Picked up by the Commissars. Disappear into sewars. We need him and you let him go.”

“He promised he would meet with us tomorrow.”

“That is just the point. He promised. You have not seen this guy in 6 years. Do you really think he is going to keep his promises to you?”

How do you explain to a man like Col. Granville, a professional cynic, that a friendship such as the one I have with Tad/Paul do not require cynicism? If he said he would be there, you could count on it. I said “Sir, he will be there.”

“We will see.” And then taking a breath, “Tell me what your friend said abut Herr Skoda.”

“He told me that he had not seen his Uncle in over a year. Since the Nazi’s seized control in Hungary. But that his mother had recently received word from him saying that he was fine and living in a town in Carinthia, called Portschach am Worthersee…near the Italian border. He couldn’t remember the address of the house he was living in but he thought his mother might know. He was going to retrieve it and let us know tomorrow when we are supposed to meet.”

“Where are you planning to meet?”

“I told him to come to the Sacher at 0900.”

After a pause, where Granville seemed to be considering his words, he said “What did the Russians ask you about during your visit with them.”

“They asked about Paul.”

“Who the hell is Paul?

“Sorry, Tad now goes by the name Paul. He had to change identities to avoid the Nazi’s.”

“Okay. What did they want to know about Paul. How did I know him and what we were doing in the cemetery.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“I told them a version of a truth. Paul was a friend of mine as a boy. That I had run into him unexpected at another friend’s mother’s apartment where I was paying a condolence call. And, he had volunteered to take me to our mutual friends’ grave site where we had talked about old times.”

“Did they believe you?”

“I don’t know. I think I confused them. The guy who interrogated me, Major Kudriavsky, seemed like he had done this a few times before. I got the impression he knew I was telling him the truth but that I was twisting it somehow?”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because right before he released me, he gave me a warning about Paul. He said that I did not know about him. That he was mixed up in the underground and the black market and just because someone was one thing before the war didn’t mean they would be the same now that the war was over

“Why do you think he did that?”

“I don’t know. I have been trying to puzzle it out ever since. I don’t think he was giving me the warning as a favor. One ally to another. Or to help junior officer navigate a more complicated world. The best I can figure it, he was trying to attack my confidence. Plant seeds of doubt so that I lost confidence in whatever it is that I was up to.”

“You may be right…” and while he paused to think I interjected. “Sir, how did you get me out?”

“Oh that.” and his grim faced returned as if reviewing an unpleasant memory. “Cookie, after he saw you being man handled by the NKVD, high tailed it back to the Sacher and told me what had happened. After I chewed his ass out and cursed your stupidity, we got back in the Jeep and drove to Russian Headquarters. You know that I have been spending the last few days there massaging them about our supposed mission in finding a HQ and I have become well acquainted with their commanding general. We have done a bit of horse trading where I give him some information that is useful to him and puts him in good stead with his bosses in exchange for him turning a bit of a blind eye to what it is that we are up too. And it was working pretty well until you two son of a bitches screwed the goddamn pooch. Anyway, I went to see him. Told him you were an idiot butterbar who was simply visiting friends and that I would consider it a personal favor if he would let you go. And that is what makes me so fucking mad. I now owe him at a time where I really needed him to owe me.”

He took a long pull on his beer and then added “Because what you two fucking idiots fail to realize is there more to us being here than looking for a bunch of keys to open a couple of crates. SHAEF, my bosses, and most of the eggheads think that the war we just finished is just a prelude to the next war where we take on the Bolsheviks. Neither of us are strong enough to do that right now. But it will happen. We are determined to win that war and do whatever is necessary to achieve that goal. No matter how personally repugnant and contrary to our values that is.”

“Do you understand what I mean Floessel?”

“Well, I don’t think you do. In fact, I am sure you do not. One of the things we have kept out of the public eyes is how far advanced in science and technology that the Nazis were. You may have read about the V2 rockets and their so called “jet” airplanes. Well, they were just the tip of the iceberg of their “Wunderwaffe.” Their miracle weapons. The Nazi’s knew that the only way they could beat us was with superior technology, so they invested in it. They built secret facilities, recruited teams, co-opted corporations and industries and then got ardent Nazi scientists to run them. The investment paid off. As we advanced through Germany, we found they had made unbelievable strides in munitions, chemical, biological and atomic weapons. Some of these munitions were on the verge of being deployed are seriously scary shit. One of them a nerve agent named Tabun was tested on concentration camp inmates. One drop on the skin killed them like ants spayed with insecticides, twitching and spasming until death followed in minutes.”

 “They created artificial viruses that no one had ever seen before and only they had the vaccine. All this created a vast wealth of scientific knowledge that would give the country that possesses it a huge leg up in the war to come. In other words, we cannot let the Russians get their hands on this information. That is why the big boys created special teams to follow our troops as they pushed across Europe to root out what they could about these programs. To capture the research and the people who worked on these programs not only to advance our own programs but to keep them out of Soviet hands.”

“Then, something really scary happened. Two weeks ago, a German U-Boat, I think it was U-234, surrendered off the coast of Newfoundland. It turned out to be a “cargo” submarine. Who the fuck had ever heard of something like that. A “cargo” sub. Anyway, it turns out its mission was to take samples of the Nazi “Wunderwaffe” to Japan. They even had a team of scientists on board to explain it to the Nips. This got the big boys wondering in two directions. What if Japan gets hold of these new weapons in the Pacific? It could be catastrophic to our war efforts. Which led them to the next logical conclusion What if we used some of these wonder weapons against Japan? That would be catastrophic for them.”

Granville downed the last of beer. Putting his mug back on the table he said “In either case, the brass decided to step up its efforts to find, detain, and use the knowledge of as many Nazi scientists as we could find. To keep their knowledge and skills out of the hands of the Soviets and the Japanese. Just before I left on this mission, I get called into Kubala’s office. He has another officer who was introduced to me as Colonel Smith. He told me the Army had put together a roster of the scientist they wanted to detain, and recruit called the Ossenberg List. One of the top men on that list was a Nazi virologist Erich Traub whom they had been unable to find. However, they had received reports from assets in Vienna that his chief assistant, Dr. Heinz Pichler had found his way to Vienna and was living in hiding in Vienna. He wanted me to make contact with him and offer him the opportunity to come to the United States and “share” what they had learned with us. If I was successful in convincing him, and he accepted our offer, we were to smuggle him out of Vienna without the Russians catching wind of anything.  He then told me that as much as possible compartmentalize this information. That I was only to share the second mission on a need-to-know basis.”

Granville paused and looked at both Cookie and myself and then added “This was not going to be easy even in the best of circumstances but now because of your clusterfuck today you have put that mission at serious risk. You see, this morning I received word through a third party that Dr. Pichler is willing to talk with us but he will only do so in a public place and if he is feels it is safe. This information was being provided on a need-to-know basis and only if he feels comfortable that there is no surveillance. Because of you two we are all going to be under surveillance. It is a no-win situation. We make the meeting, and the Dr. sees the Russian surveillance and he bolts. Just as bad, if he doesn’t spot Russian surveillance and the meeting is held we all may get picked by the Russians and we get fucked twice. They get the scientist, and we do not get the keys for the crown.

He gave us the stink eye for a few more seconds and then added “Any suggestions, geniuses.” There was an awkward silence where I spent my time giving a thoroughly inspecting the bottom of my glass and doing my best to avoid eye contact with either Cookie or Granville.  As the junior member of this team I thought it best to keep my lips zipped. Besides these guys have experience in this sort of a thing and anything I could think up they probably had considered anyway.

From the corner of my eye, I glanced over at Cookie. He would not meet my glance. I returned my gaze to the bottom of my glass and several moments no one said anything. The silence became oppressive.  It got to the point where I figured that saying something no matter how stupid, was better than stewing in the silence. I cleared my throat and said, “Why don’t we try some Ju Jitsu?”

Granville looked at me as if he had just heard the stupidest comment he had ever heard and was about to chew my ass off but he hesitated. No doubt figuring he could torture me a little more if he drew me a little more.  He spit out “What the hell do you mean by that.”

“Its probably a stupid idea sir but why don’t we use the concept of Ju Jitsu on them…you know where you do the weight of the enemy to do all the work. You know the enemy charges at you and instead of stopping them you use their momentum to throw them.” Granville still looked confused at my suggestion and I was thinking that my original idea of keeping my mouth shut was the right course of action when he said “Go on.”

“Well sir, we know that the Russians are going to be all over us like white on rice. We can use that to our advantage. We make them think that our meeting with Tad is the important meeting. That it is where they should focus their attention. You know like the misdirection a magician uses. While you are paying attention over here, something else is going they do not see because they are focused on something. They focus on Tad and me while you keep the meeting with Pichler.”

Granville had a shocked look on his face. The type of expression you might imagine a new father having when he heard his child saying their first words “How would you do that.”

“I told Tad that I wanted him to meet you and arranged to have him meet us at the Hotel Sacher tomorrow morning. . It seems pretty obvious that the Soviets have informants if not spies there. Let’s give them something to report about. From what I learned from Major Kudarinsky they are plenty interested in Tad. What we need to do is give them reason to spend even more attention to Tad.  At least for a couple of hours. If they throw their weight behind trying to figure out what is going on with Tad it should should at the very least give you a better opportunity to meet with Pichler.”

Granville looked thoughtful and then asked “Cookie, you have been remarkably quiet about this idea. What do you think?”

“I don’t know, sir. I guess it could work. But it seems to me that there are two failure points. First, what can we do to make them focus on Lt. Floessel’ s friend so much that they lose a little focus on you and allow you to slip away. The second challenge is how do you make it believable. Undersell it and they will never lose focus on you. Over sell it and they will think something is wrong and also not fall for the misdirection.”

Granville returned his attention to me. “Your friend Tad…

“Sir, he goes by Paul now.”

“Yeah fine whatever. You can explain that to me later. What I want to know is how quick on the uptake is he.”

I had a quick flashback of all the days that Tad and I had found ourselves in situations where we were forced to improvise. Make up stories on the spots with each following each other leads. I could not think of a single time where he had dropped the ball. But we weren’t 13 anymore and it had been years since we had pulled our “Frick and Frack” routine. Could I place trust into his pickup on things quickly after so many years. I thought I could but unlike when we were kids this time our lives would actually depend on it. I had absolutely nothing to go on to make that decision except the faith that the bond of friendship and understanding had managed to outlast the war.

“When we were growing up sir there was no one quicker with story than him. He could invent them out of thin air and sell them no matter how absurd. I have to believe 6 years of being a Uboater has only improved those skills.”

“U-boater?”

“According to Paul it is what the people who lived underground in Vienna called themselves.”

“Funny. I love the Viennese dark humor. But you are right. His experience living underground may be very useful.”

The jail cell looked pretty much what I imagined a cell would look like even though I never imagined myself to be in one. It was about 6’ x 8’ with rough concrete floors and with walls painted industrial green, no window and a black steel door with a heavy mesh window and a small door to pass food in and out. There was no mattress just a tattered woolen blanket that may have once been green but now was a deep brown bordering on black and lousy with lice. A rancid galvanized steel bucket in the corner was the toilet and the jail cell smelled as if Vienna’s famous sewar system shared its fetid air. It was a far cry from my room at the Hotel Sacher let alone the barracks at Ft. Sill. The worst part was that I had absolutely no idea why I was here or for that matter how long I would be staying. Nothing in my previous 19 years had prepared me for this and frankly I was scared shitless of what was going to happen next

The nature of great friendships is the lack of pretense and the ability to begin a conversation in the middle even after many years of being apart. Tad’s, now Paul, and I were quite different people than we were when we had last seen each other six and a half years ago. Beyond the fact that neither of us identified with our names from back then, our paths could not have been more different. I had gone to America. Sheltered from the war and the Nazi’s I had embraced a life in a country where you could be yourself, manufacture your own dreams, that success was only limited by hard work and desire. A place war had not touched and where the day to days of food, shelter and friends were not an ongoing struggle. I had embraced learning and was halfway to a degree and could envision a life on a college campus teaching and discovering the secrets that the universe had cleverly hidden away.

Perhaps that was the biggest difference between Paul’s life and mine. I could still dream while he needed to embrace the “what is” as opposed to the “what ifs.”  

From the day I left Vienna, in late November 1939 Paul’s life had been the opposite of mine. He was forced into a new life. He had to endure life on the streets where dreams were a liability and where if you did not embrace reality it would often come calling for you in the most vicious ways imaginable. A life that saw his family, friends and acquaintances disappear into the night and never return. An actuality that often had him sleeping in a box or hiding from the SS, Allied Bombing or the Red Army’s assault. An existence where the smallest of mistakes could mean the end of his.

Paul’s world had grown small and day to day. Mine had enlarged beyond my imagination and the future beckoned daily.

We had taken “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…” Despite this, our friendship which had been forged on the tough streets of Vienna’s 16^th district and hardened by countless adventures and boyish laughter, remained unbroken and strong. I should not have been surprised by Paul’s recognition that I was not in Vienna merely to reunite with an old friend. He knew me after all, and he knew the world. They do not send 2^nd Lieutenants to Russian occupied territory for no reason and I have no doubt he sensed the pensiveness that rippled just below the surface produced by my mission. But I was.

Perhaps that is why, when he asked me “what mission I was on.”  I replied, with a smile,  that I did not know what he was talking about. He, in return provided me with an incredulous look, and said “Hugi, we have known each other too long. If you need my help, I will try but do not pretend that this is purely social. It is not necessary.” And, then with a wry and somewhat bemused grin said “Not for blood brothers.”

I sighed. “You have always known me to well.” And smiling, added “And you’re right. We are blood brother so let me tell you my story. 18 months ago, I had just finished my freshman year at University when I became eligible for military service. I wanted to serve but I also wanted to finish my sophomore year at college. It wouldn’t delay my entry into the service much longer that 6 months and who knows we might have won the war by then. I had to make my case to delay entry into the army to something called a draft board. A bunch of old men who decide your status for military service. But I did not think my desire to finish another year of college would hold much weight with them. So, I told them about the Crown.”

“What crown?”

I shot him a glance, to see if he was playing with me. He looked guileless. I continued “Don’t you remember. Just before we left, we had dropped off some ties for my mother at Winters and your Uncle Anton had given us a lift home and told us this strange story about the Holy Crown of Hungary. How he had been charged with protecting the crown should it ever flee Hungary to Austria. Something that he made clear had happened many times in the past. A situation he felt sure would happen should Hitler ever fall from power.”

“Oh, that Crown.” Paul said with a smirk making me realize that he had been putting me on. He continued “You mean the story that Uncle Anton made us swear a blood oath that we should never mention to anyone.”

“Yes…that one.” I replied with as much sarcasm as I could muster, quietly grateful that the banter we had enjoyed as schoolboys, was still present. I continued “ I figured that circumstances had changed enough by that point to make my promise subject to my discretion. After all, the battle of Dneiper had made all but certain that Russians were in command of the battlefront and Hungary was their next target. It was all but inevitable and with it only a matter of time before the Hungarians would lose control of their government as their position in the defense of the “fatherland” had become tactical. The Crown was going to “fly” and I knew who the “pilot” was going to be. And I thought I owed it to my new country to let them know how they might find it…if they thought it important.”

“And if you could trade that secret for a little extra time at University why not.”

“Yes. Why not” I said a little self-righteously.

“Hold on. Hold on.  Do not get your knickers twisted. The smart move was to stay out of the war as long as possible. I would have done the same thing. What I don’t understand is how you got a bunch of Americans to understand what the importance of the Crown.”

“Oh. I didn’t.”

“What do you mean you didn’t. You are here.”

“Yeah, well not because of the draft board. They got glassy eyed when I started talking about the Crown. I thought I had totally blown my deferment, but they granted it on the spot.  And I went back to Syracuse and forgot all about the Crown.  Until two Army counterintelligence officers came to visit me a few months later. Politely, they made me go through the whole story several times. I was never sure if they thought that I was making the whole thing up or whether they were making sure I didn’t leave anything out. When they left, I forgot all about it again. I was too busy. First, with school and then with the Army.”

“And…”

“Then two weeks ago, I am at Officer Candidate School at Ft. Sill Oklahoma, two weeks from graduating worrying I am going to be sent to the Pacific,  when my commanding officer calls me in. Tells me these two Sgts wanted to speak with me. When I meet with them they tell me they have read the report submitted by the Counterintelligence guys have written, that the US is actively looking for the Crown. That effective immediately, I am commissioned a 2^nd Lt. Their orders are to find me the fastest transport available to Vienna where I will be given further orders. 48 hours later, after three planes and a long jeep ride I arrived here.” 

“Sounds like one of those books we used to read when were boys.”

“It was a lot less comfortable than that.”

Smiling, Paul said “But I don’t understand why they needed you. Surely, they didn’t need little Hugi Flossel, sorry Sam, to help them find the Holy Crown of Hungary. The American Army must have divisions of people more knowledgeable and capable than you.”

“It turns out that they did. From what I was told the US Army has been negotiating with the Hungarians since the Crown left Budapest months ago. Everything was going fine. The Crown Guard managed to smuggle the Crown into Austria and past retreating German troops to American occupied Austria where they surrendered. Everyone was happy but the Hungarians had pulled a fast one. They surrendered the Crown and its retinue, but they were locked up in steel cases with multiple locks. When the Americans asked the Guard for the keys so they could inspect what was in the cases they told them they didn’t have them. That while they had been instructed to deliver the trunks to the American’s they had been ordered to surrender the keys to a former officer of the Guard. This even had  happened two weeks earlier just after they entered Austria near the Semmering Pass. Initially they could provide no clues to the identity of the former guard officer, but later under interrogation one of the guardsmen recalled that a member of his party had called him Anton.”

I paused for a second, hoping that Paul would connect the dots. But he did not take the bait. Instead, he asked “Why didn’t they just cut the locks off the trunks. Seems a lot easier than searching for a single man who has disappeared into the ether.”

“I asked the same question. Apparently, they wanted to but they were held back by a couple of experts who inspected the cases. Two of the locks were recent additions. Really nothing more than padlocks and they could have been cut away easily. However, three of the locks were integrated into the case. They too could be picked or drilled out, but the process could cause damage to the contents of the case. Worst, according to these specialists, the cases themselves were considered a part of the Crown’s retinue and as such damaging them would be an “afront to the Crown and the Hungarian people.”

“So, because Sam Floessel had mentioned Anton Skoda in a meeting years before they pulled you out of Indian Territory to come and save the day. Come on, that sounds too far-fetched. “

“I thought so too. I mean how did they even connect the dots? According to my commander, the guy who told me this story, its because they had painted themselves into a corner. Apparently, the minute they got word of the Crown’s recovery an over anxious General sent a telegram to Eisenhower and Truman letting them know that the “Holy Crown of Hungary” was now in the hands of the allies. Ike was thrilled with the news and called the commander personally to congratulate him only to find out that they didn’t know if they had the Crown or just a few metal cases. He went a little batshit. He told them to use whatever resources they needed to find the keys.”

According to Granville, my boss, one element of the all hands alert was sending a telegram to Army Counterintelligence HQ and asking them what information they had collected on the Crown. Apparently, they found my story in some filing cabinet and said what the hell, lets try Floessel.”

“You may have a new name but it is the same old Hugi.”Paul said smiling.

“What do you mean.”

“I have been bailing your ass out of trouble since kindergarten.”

“And?”

“I don’t know if I can help.”

“How’s that?”

“Because I have not seen my Uncle Anton in over a year. Shortly after Hitler ordered German Troops to take over Hungary in March of 1944, I went to visit Uncle Anton although I had long since stopped living there. I wanted to know what he thought of the situation because while the official radio was extolling the Reich’s supremacy, the underground was reporting that Hitler had ordered the troops in because he could no longer count on the Hungarian government’s support. Apparently, they had made a separate peace offer to the United States and he could not afford a new “Italy.” I had also heard that Germany was nervous, despite their claims of success, because the Red Army was on the border of Hungary and it was the last line of defense for the homeland.” 

“When I got to his apartment it was a mess. It seemed as if every closet, cabinet drawer and shelf had been taken apart and their contents thrown on the floor. The entire life he had struggled to make for himself in Vienna lay in a heap. He was seated in a chair and had a large rectangular bruise on his forehead. He seemed completely non plussed despite the destruction and his injuries.  When I asked him what had happened he told me that in the middle of the night the Gestapo had broken down the door to the apartment and began systematically tearing the place apart. When he asked what this was all about one of the soldiers had answered his question with the butt of his rifle. They never told him what they were looking for. When they finished tearing apart the apartment they just left. But he said the message was clear. They knew or suspected of his loyalty to Admiral Horthy and the Crown and wanted to make sure he understood the consequences of that continued loyalty He was being watched and they were looking for an excuse to pull him..”

“He then tried to hustle me out the door telling me that if the Gestapo was watching his place they would have seen me enter. And I could not afford to be stopped by them. Not only because my papers were forgeries but because not everything, I had been doing in the past few years would have been welcomed by the Reich.”

I held my hand and said “Like what.”

“That is a different story, and I will tell you someday but for now lets just say when you live underground you make choices and I had made mine. But Anton was right. I needed to get out of there. But I knew I had a few minutes. Long ago I had figured out how to exit his apartment building without being noticed.  He had been like a father to me for as long as I could remember. Whenever I had been in trouble or worried Mama, he was the one who smoothed things over. When the Tomahawk went up in flames,  it was he who figured out how to create a new identity and gave me a place to hide. So, I pressed him “Where are you going to go. What are you going to do.”

“He understood what I was feeling without being told. “Listen don’t you worry about me I will be fine. I have some things to do and it would be best if you or your mother do not know where I am. Safer for me. Safer for you. But I will be fine. Old dogs like me get to be old dogs like me because we know how to survive. Tell your mother I love her and that I will be in touch with you just as soon as it is safe for me. Now you need to get out of here.”

“When I protested, he gave me a hug and said “Tad, I love you like a son but if you don’t get the fuck out of here right now, I am going to kill you myself.”  I left. And you know, thinking back on it, that is the  only time I ever heard Anton swear.”

Tad looked at his feet seemingly lost in the moment so I asked gently “Did you ever hear from him?”

Looking up, he said “Nope. Every time I would visit Mama I would ask if she had heard from him only to be told she had not. It got to the point that it became to painful for me to ask anymore especially as it hurt Mama to keep telling me no. I stopped asking.”

“Shit. Well, that is that. Anton was the key. Granville will not be pleased but what can we do? He is going to have to find another lead.”

“But I do know where he is or might be.”

“But you said you didn’t hear from him.”

“No, I said I stopped asking. It is different. A couple of weeks ago Mama got a knock on the door and a man she described as “rough looking” handed her a letter, doffed his hat and left. It was from Anton. He didn’t say where he had been or what he had been doing but he wanted us to know that he was safe and when he could he would visit us in Vienna.”

“Did he tell you where he was?”

Paul smiled. “Yes, he said he was living in Carinthia, a place called  Portschach am Worthersee. He said, we could write him there. Mama has the address.”

“You enjoyed torturing me over this.”

“Yes” he said with a Cheshire cat sized grin on his face. “Very much.”

I looked at my watch. A Wyler Incaflex given to me by my Uncle Max when I graduated from High School. It was just past 1600 hours. “I want you to meet my Col Granville. Share with him what you know about Anton. Can you meet me at the Hotel Sacher at 0900 tomorrow.?”

“The Hotel Sacher? You are living well, Sam. I think I can find the time.” And with that we began to walk out of the cemetery. As we said our good byes, I signaled to Cookie who had rematerialized from wherever he had been hiding to go and get our jeep.

With Cookie gone I turned back to Paul and said “For six years, I have thought you were dead. I can’t tell you how happy I am you are alive…even though you are still an asshole. “

Paul shook my hand and replied “I could say the same about you…” and, laughing, began making his way down Alszelle. I watched him until he turned left onto Berlingasse thinking about the enormity of things that had happened to both of us, to the world, since we had last seen each other. Yet despite all of that, it was as if, at least in some ways, nothing had changed. Some friendships are transactional. Where every action is placed in a column and when and  if the books are reconciled the relationship ends. Others are situational. Like the boys I palled with while I was on the Vulcania. They were useful and beneficial in whatever the situation you happen to find yourself in but like spring flowers, when their time had passed they were gone. But my friendship with Paul seemed to be transcendent. Time, distance, and war could interrupt it but in the end we would always have each other’s back.

One of the biggest lessons of basic training and for that matter Officer Candidate School was situational awareness. My OCS instructor defined it as “the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status.” Or, as he paraphrased “Keep your fucking head on a swivel.”  The training on this was constant. There were games. For example, we would be in the field and told to examine the surroundings for various objects that were in plain sight and then we would go through a set of rigorous exercises like squat thrusts and then asked to recall the items we saw. The person who remembered the most would win. I am pretty competitive and did very well at these games, winning more times than not. The other form of training was more dynamic. Especially in OCS. You would be in the middle of a field exercise such as setting up your team for a barrage on an enemy location when one of the instructors would appear and tell you that you and your squad were dead because you failed to locate the enemy mortar team hidden on the ridge above you. This is, of course, highly embarrassing. Made more so when you are 19 years old, gangly, and speak with an accent. I learned fast and soon became proficient at sussing out threats in field operations. Situational awareness was in fact something that I prided myself on.

Which was why what happened next was so mortifying. While I was basking in the warm glow of having found my old friend, I did not notice two Russian NKVD officers approaching me from my six o’clock position. In fact, I did not notice them until they had grabbed my arms and twisted them behind my back and began frog marching down the block to a converted Nazi G4Staff Car. I struggled, digging my feet as much as I could into the pavement and protested “I am an American Army officer you have no right to detain me” I was met with silence and increased pressure on my arms. Needless to say, my protests proved less than effective. When we arrived at the car, I was relieved of my .45 pistol and thrown into the back of the car where two other NKVD soldiers were waiting for me.

As the car pulled away from the curb, I began to protest again when I saw Cookie looking out from a doorway on Berlingasse. Clearly, he had taken to heart his training in situational awareness more than I had. Knowing that he knew what had happened to me was a relief. Not that I wasn’t scared shitless. I was. After all, the NKVD was not well known for their kindness and hospitality.  Before the war they had been the hammer in the Hammer and Sycle of the Soviet Union arresting and assassinating those who dared to question Stalin. During the war, they had been incorporated into the Red Army, first to keep soldiers from deserting then as the front moved west the mass assassination of prisoners whom they deemed a threat to the motherland.  At least now, someone knew what had happened to me. I would not just “disappear.” And, with any luck at all Granville would call out the Calvary before these guys decided to play rough.

I had only been in my cell for an hour when two guards escorted me up two flights of stairs to an interrogation room. It was windowless and had a small rectangular metal table that was bolted to the floor with a chair on either side. I was shoved inside without a word from the guards. Before I even had a chance to sit down a tall man wearing the light blue uniform of a NKVD officer walked in accompanied by an armed guard. The private stood at ease at the door and the officer sat down at the table opposite me and in perfect accent less English said “My name is Major Mihail Kudarinsky and I am the officer in charge of this area. Who may I ask are you?”
I decided since I did not know who this person was, and I had been warned by Granville about letting the Russian’s know too much about what it was that we were doing here that I would give him only the information that I was required to give under the Geneva convention. “Lt. Sam Floessel, US Army, Serial Number 01-186-434”

“Lieutenant, there is no need to be so formal. We are allies after all. Would you like a cup of coffee? I can have the private here fetch you one.”

“No thank you Major. Perhaps we have a difference in customs in our countries. Where I come from, friends don’t have friends manhandled into a car and thrown into a cell for no apparent reason.”

“And where is it that you do come from Lt. Floessel?” I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. No doubt the Major had noticed that my English was not as flawless as his. While learning English I had tried desperately to lose my Viennese accent, but my efforts had only taken me so far and traces still remained. I decided to play coy with him and responded “My parents and I live in Danbury, CT.” 

Kudriavsky smiled “No doubt they do. But I can tell from your accent that you were not born there. So let me ask you again. Where are you from.”

I could see no benefit in continuing in playing this game with him, so I responded “Oh you mean originally? I was born here in Vienna. The 16^th District.”

“Good, now we are getting somewhere. Perhaps now you can tell me what you were doing in Dornbacher cemetery.”

“May I ask who you are?”

The major frowned as if I had asked an impolite question but he replied “Come now Lieutenant. This is a Russian controlled city, and I am the local commissar.  As such I am responsible for the safety and wellbeing of our guests. When one of my men sees an American Army officer, who is here only as a guest, in an area that is out of the ordinary, we become quite concerned. So, the question remains what were you doing in the cemetery.”

One of my foibles is being a smart ass. I can’t help myself so as opposed to giving him a straight answer I responded, “I was visiting the grave of a childhood friend.”

The Major raised an eyebrow, so I added “Please feel free to check. His name was Tad Saegerer. He died in 1939.” Kudriavsky signaled the private at the door and he, in turn left the room no doubt to verify what it was that I had told him was true.

He then turned his attention back to me. “I understand. It is important to remember old friends and comrades but perhaps now you can tell me who it is that you were talking to in the cemetery.”

I was ready for this question. If they knew that I was in the cemetery they could not help to notice that “Paul” and I spent a long time there in conversation. But if I could help it, I did not want to give up Paul’s name. So, I responded casually “Just another old friend from school.”

“And his name?”

I hesitated. And he must have sensed my reluctance to share the name, so he added. “No let me tell you. His name is Paul Gross. He is a former Uboater. Those people who lived “underground” during the Nazi occupation. And from what I understand was not only a member of the resistance but is highly involved in the black market. What interest does an American Army officer have in him.”

It was news that Paul had been a member of the underground. But it was not surprising considering all that the Nazi’s had taken from him and his nature. He was never one to sit in a corner and hope the trouble passed by. He would have wanted to be a part of a change. It made me proud of him and at the same time a little guilty as well. While I had been a carefree student, he had been fighting the Nazi’s. Would I have had the courage to do the same. The black-market information surprised me less. He had always been a “handler.” It is how we had gotten most of our supplies for the Tomahawk. And from what Cookie had told me, most Viennese were struggling to find food these days as a consequence to survive you needed to be involved in the black market.

To me these facts, did not suggest anything nefarious but no doubt they were viewed a little differently by the Russians. Colonel Granville had warned me that they were trying to exert control over this city despite the fact that it was slated to be “open city” run by the allies. Before that happened, they wanted to make sure that anything that might interfere with their domination of the city needed to be stopped. To the Russians an American Army officer who was supposed to be scouting locations for a Headquarters building socializing with a man who had access to and could exert influence on the hidden parts of this city would be viewed with suspicion. I needed to be careful with my response, not only to protect our ultimate mission but also to protect my friend.    

“As I said, he was just a friend from my school days. I had not seen or communicated with him since 1939. Running into him was an accident.”

“What do you mean an accident?” His friendly nature suddenly becoming aggressive.

“My commanding officer had given me the morning off, and I decided it was good time to pay a condolence call on my friends mother. I was at her apartment, having cake and coffee when Paul arrived. He volunteered to take me to Tad’s grave”

I hoped that saying what I said, which was a version of the truth, would provide a sense of confidence that would translate to Kudriavsky as veracity. But he looked at me with very cold blue eyes and I could tell there was something about my story he was just not buying.

“That is an interesting story, but I am a little confused. How did you know where your friend’s mother lived. Was she in the same apartment as before the war?”

Before I could answer there was a knock at the door. An agitated Sgt popped his head into the room and beckoned the major outside.

I was grateful for the interruption. Not only had I never been interrogated before but this was not a subject they spent a lot of time on in artillery school. The instruction we had received was should we be captured that we required to give nothing more than name, rank and serial number. But I was not sure that really applied here. The Russians were supposedly our Allies although their behavior often suggested that they acted in their self-interest more than that of the Allies. And of course, there was Granville’s warning. He was abundantly clear that the Russians were not to know of our activity. That the Crown was our prize and was not going to be shared. I had read a few articles in the New York Times about how a post war Europe was to be configured and one of the writers had suggested that after we had finished fighting the Nazi’s it was inevitable that we would have to begin fighting the Russians. Bolshevism and Capitalism were not compatible, and the two philosophies would clash over who was to dominate Europe. It is what made the Crown such a valuable prize. Whoever possessed it could lay claim to Hungary as its divine right, at least symbolically. It made me realize what I was doing was pretty important to the new war that was about to begin, and it meant I needed to do everything I could to keep my mouth shut.

The problem was that I was frightened that I had brought a gun to a knife fight. I was a 19-year-old 2^nd Lieutenant that technically had not even graduated OCS yet up against a seasoned major in the Russian internal security apparatus. No doubt he knew how to pull information out of young men like me as easily as most men shave in the morning. For him pulling the information out of me would be easier than shooting fish in the barrel and sadly I was the fish.

I knew that if I were going to get through this the first thing, I needed to do was to calm myself. I remembered something that a drill Sergeant, who was trying to teach us city boys, how to fire a rifle. I was not doing well and was hitting everything but the center of the target. He told me to relax. Take a few breaths in through the nose and then out through the mouth slowly. That this calms the metabolism, so you shoot more accurately. I tried the exercise now and helped a bit. Realizing that I had been at it with Major Kudriavsky for nearly an hour and had managed to hold my own. Telling him the truth whenever I could while not giving away anything vital while sticking to the agreed upon cover story. Thinking about that almost made me feel cocky. That is, until I heard the door open and observed a very grimed faced major walked back into the room.    

He sat down opposite me with an expression that I could only read as “no more bullshit” and said to me with formality “Lt. Floessel is there anything else you want me to know.” It was a very leading question. And to me it implied he knew far more than he was letting me know. At the moment I was absolutely sure that a failure to provide him with more information would result in a host of unpleasantness for me. But what choice did I have. I looked at him in the eye and said “I can’t think of anything.” He held my gaze for what seemed to be minutes, but no doubt was not more than a few seconds and said “Thank you very much for coming Lt. Floessel. I hope your stay here has not been too inconvenient. You are free to go. This soldier will take you out.”

I was very confused. I felt for sure that I was on the brink of a very unpleasant interrogation session and suddenly I was being released. I tried not to show my surprise. Instead, I stood up, gave him a crisp salute and said, “Thank you Major” and as a by product of my relief on being released allowed a little of my inner wise ass to be out and said “Thank you Major. I hope to return the courtesy someday.”  

I had almost made it to the door before Kudriavsky replied. “Lieutenant, if I may offer you a piece of advice.” I paused and replied “Certainly” and without a bit of sarcasm added “I would appreciate any advice I can get from a superior officer.”

“Vienna is a vastly different city than the one you left 6 years ago. There was a malignancy that grew here, and it destroyed much of what was good and beautiful about the city. The music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven has gone. First replaced by Wagner and then utterly silenced by a percussive cannonade of Soviet artillery and Allied bombs. The café and pastry shops which were the lifeblood of the city are without sugar, coffee and people. The citizens who used to walk with their chins in the air, with the arrogance of those who lived in an imperial capital, now walk with downward cast eyes staring at their feet not the sky.  Where there was hope and light now there is only desperation and fear. And while most cities can rest and rebuild, knowing that the war is over, Vienna cannot rest because for her, the war has just begun. All this makes for a strange alchemy, where friends become enemies, and enemies become friends where allegiances are often store bought and short lived. In other words, just because you knew this city as a boy doesn’t mean you know this city now. It has morphed into something far different.”

With that he gave a flick of the hand, almost as if he were shooing away a fly and my escort pushed me out the door.

I did not sleep well last night.

This is not a new occurrence for me. I cannot remember a time in my life where sleep has come easily.  At the end of the day, my mind is usually full of the day’s events circling like a cyclone and the only shelter I can find is in reading books that allow me to forget about the day and slip into the fantasy world of narrative fiction or be lost in the stories of our collective history. With each paragraph the whirl of my mind becomes less and after a few pages (or chapters on bad days) the book falls from my hands and I enter the land of nod. If I wake up in the middle of the night and my mind turns to the tumult of the day or of the day to come a few more pages (or chapters on bad days) and I am able to re-enter the world of dreams.

Donald Trump and Covid19, as much as they can be distinguished from each other, has changed this somewhat. The spiraling tornados of my mind, which used to be F1 with every day worries have increased to F5 with worries about the incompetency, recklessness, and slash and burn tactics against our democracy of Trump coupled with his inability to do the basics to control the Covid epidemic. These days I am often forced to self-medicate before sleeping. Everything from a few fingers of nicely aged bourbon to a few hits of weed or prescription relief with a mild sleep medication. On those nights where I medicate the pages are fewer and if I find myself waking in the middle of the night, I can fall back asleep with relative ease.

Yesterday, was a particularly troubling day. 225,000 new cases of Covid with nearly 3,000 dead and yet there are still people arguing about the efficacy of masks and basic protocols such as social distancing and hand washing. Millions of people are out of work, without health care and threatened with eviction and hunger, small businesses are failing in record numbers and Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump and the Republicans are blocking bi-partisan efforts to help them. To top it off the Texas Attorney General files a nothing burger lawsuit against four other states constitutionally protected right to determine how elections are managed in the hopes to get a pre-emptive Presidential pardon from Donald Trump. That lawsuit was then endorsed by several other states and 110 Republican members of congress in an act of blind fealty to Trump with a total disregard for the constitution and seemingly little understanding of the awful precedent and damage it was doing to our democracy.

The Fujita scale tops out at 5. I was clearly at a 7. I took medication and it did its thing. I only managed a few pages of my current novel before falling asleep. But I did not rest. Instead, I dreamt.

I was sitting at the kitchen table of my parents’ home chatting with my mother. Mom despised Donald Trump. She saw him not only an existential threat to the country but as a vulgarian. She hated him so much that as she lay on her death bed our last act of kindness to her was telling her ( a full year before it really happened)  Donald Trump had been impeached.  Needless to say our conversation was about Donald Trump and I was explaining to her how it seemed to me that Donald Trump was doing everything he could to diminish our democracy. That this went beyond politics to the core of our institutions in our country.  What else can it be when 7 million more Americans voted for Joe Biden legally than for Donald Trump; States certified 306 electors for President Elect Biden over 236 for Donald Trump, 53 out of 54 lawsuits have been dismissed, disregarded and or repudiated by judges of all parties; When at the core of our democracy Republicans are more concerned about political power than our constitution. I asked Mom when the moment would come when a political ally of Trump would tell him to stop harming the country and stand up for the constitution. When did country over party go out of style?

Mom did not say a word. I realized that is not what I had come for. I wanted one of her hugs. The ones you got when you were six and thought the world was ending because of some minor travesty. The hugs that made you forget your troubles and allow you to go giggling back into the world. When I went to claim my hug, I woke.

I was a little to shaken by my dream to go back to sleep. Instead, I made my way to the kitchen, artfully dodging Rosie, who was asleep on the floor directly next to my side of the bed. I am unusual in that having a little sugar usually allows me to go back to sleep. Luckily, my sister had given me a small supply of some of her holiday cookies. After eating one, two or three of them, I went back to bed in high hopes that sleep would find me. And after a few minutes of reading, it did.

I was in Memphis. Not the city but a bar of blessed memory on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They were famous for convex Martini’s and it was for a long time my favorite bar. Sitting next to me at the bar was my best buddy Rich. This was unusual for two reasons. I don’t think Rich ever went to Memphis with me and he died 6 months ago. Needless to say I was glad to see him especially considering that he had been considerate enough to order me a Chopin Martini blessed with two blue cheese stuffed olives. We slurped (you cannot initially lift a convex Martini) and then toasted each other silently. He said “How about that Donald?” Rich had (sorry for the politically incorrectness of this statement) a very Irish sense of humor where the dark is always mocked with a bit of wit and a grin. (e.g. Old man Murphy and old man Sean were contemplating life when Murphy asked, “If you had to get one or the other would you rather get Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s? ”Sure, I rather have Parkinson’s”, replied Sean“’Tis better to spill a couple of ounces of Jameson whiskey than to forget where you keep the bottle!”)

Years ago, we had been chatting on the phone, trashing Donald Trump and he decided that laughing about Donald was far better than crying about him.  So he had bought the rights to a website called “OHTHATDONALD.COM.” He never populated the site, but it changed the arc of our conversation about Trump. Instead of bitching about Donald we would try to find the most absurd things the Orange one had said or done that day.

After my second sip of the Martini I inquired “Did you hear what Donald Trump said today when asked about total Covid 19 cases in the US reaching 15 million?” When RP shook his head I said “He thought it was great because we were close to 15% herd immunity.”

We said, “Oh that Donald” together.

I woke up before I had a chance to tell him how much I miss him for everything but especially for helping me keep it light. His humor and wit would be immensely helpful in these darkest of dark days.

Laying there in the dark, Rosie’s soft snores keeping the silence at bay and Elaine laying claim to my shoulder, I realized that I could not use my two favorite tricks to fall back to sleep. Reading would wake Elaine and cookie hunting would disturb the literal sleeping dog and no doubt raise Rosie’s ire. So I tried changing my thought process. Instead of the political things I would think of things that bring me joy and happiness. My inner dialogues version of “Rain drops on roses, and whiskers on kittens.”  How graced I was to have a wonderful wife, who even though she immobilizes my arm from time to time, has never failed in being a great companion during these times of quarantine. She even laughs at my jokes. So many people are by themselves. Of course, there is Rosie. Everyone should have been issued a dog at the beginning of the pandemic. There is nothing like her completely unconditional love or how easily she can be bribed into a cuddle. Even though I could not get to the kitchen right now I know that my pantry, freezer and fridge are full. I am so lucky that for the time being these are things I don’t have to worry about, when so many people are facing empty bellies and eviction. I have a sister who bakes cookies for me, a brother in law who has good bourbon, and nieces and nephews who occasionally seem to be fond of me.

I was in a bustling lobby of a large building.  There were mask wearing people moving quickly in all directions. I was looking for a friend. Someone I had not seen or talked to in a long while but there was an urgency to finding them. I wanted to make sure that they were okay. That their family was okay and they had enough to eat and were safe from the storm. I tried stopping the masked minions to see if any had seen my friend, but none would stop or even pause. They were far too busy with their own mission. All had desperate eyes.  

My watch said 6:13 and I could smell coffee coming from the kitchen courtesy of my automatic brewer. Carefully removing my arm from Elaine’s clutches and gingerly stepping over Rosie, I made my way to the kitchen and poured myself a cup of freshly brewed Joe. There is something about that first cup of coffee in the morning, especially in the dark and quiet of the pre-dawn hours, that allow your thoughts to coalesce.

If you are  sentient and living in the United States right now I suspect that you are having trouble sleeping. If you are not you have either achieved a higher level of Zen than I will ever have, or you are not paying attention.

An unseen, unchecked, deadly virus is swirling around us killing more people every day than died on 9.11 or Pearl Harbor and when it is all over will have killed more Americans than service member died during the 2^nd World War.

Millions of our fellow citizens are out work facing hunger, displacement and a dimly lit future while corporations and the wealthy take advantage of government programs that were meant to help them.

Our congress, elected officials who are supposed to be representing us, cannot find the time or inclination to create a relief bill that would allow many of our fellow citizens a lifeline that could allow them to survive these unprecedented times.  

We have a sitting President, whose job it is to protect and defend the constitution of the United States, doing everything he can to defile it and make a mockery of our democracy.

No wonder I want a hug from my Mom, share a laugh with my best friend, or hope that all I know are doing well. That is what dreams are for…

When we had finished laughing, I said “Okay. I understand that sitting in a closet all day without moving would produce wild thoughts, but you didn’t have the same problems as Jakob. You are not a Jew. They weren’t going to send you to the camps or to be “resettled.” The Gestapo would have stopped looking for you eventually. All you needed to do is bide your time and eventually you would have been able to go back to a normal life.”

“Living in America has made you forget what it was like back then. I had no identity papers. I had no ration books. And if I applied for them, I would be arrested on the spot. These were all the things that were going through my mind when I was sitting in the cabinet, waiting for dark. But I hoped that it wouldn’t come to all that. I held out hope that maybe this would all pass by. But I also knew something else by the end of the second day. That I could not live this way. Spending all day in a little box and then sneaking around at night was not a life. It was purgatory at best. I certainly couldn’t continue to do it at Hertha’s. What little food I had was running out. There was nothing left to read. It was prison without the physical torture.”

“On the morning of the third day, I decided that this would be my last night here. That I would make my escape somehow. Whether that was life on a coal barge or faking my own death I did not care. I just knew that one more day locked in a closet with only my thoughts to keep me company was not possible. Besides shitting in a bucket had lost all fascination for me. I began planning my escape from Hertha’s cottage at nightfall and was eagerly anticipating sundown when the cabin door opened and Uncle Anton walked in.”

At the moment I was tempted to blurt out my purpose in being here but I kept silent. Tad needed to tell his story and I wanted to hear it. Delaying the mission by a few moments would not foul things up. More importantly, in the general scheme of things, Tad’s story..his life..was more important than finding the crown . And perhaps rationalizing a little,  I knew that my Army assignment, finding Skoda and the keys for the Crown were far better served listening to my friend than forcing a conversation about his Uncle. So I said “That must have been a surprise.”

“I’d say. And it was not a joyful reunion. He told me that I had really shit the bed and he dressed me down like I was the lowliest, most incompetent, private under his command. How could I have been so stupid? Building a submarine under the Nazi’s nose. What did I think would happen? That I would magically float down the Danube and escape the war? Didn’t I know that the Germans had all sorts of devices to stop submarines and other underwater machines from passing through the river. Let alone being spotted from the shore or the very real possibility we would have sunk because two 13 year old boys could not possibly have built a workable submarine.”

“But..”

Tad shot me look as if to say Now was not the time to have a lengthy conversation about the seaworthiness of a vessel that never saw the water.

“But he was only getting started. He wanted to know if I understood what I had done to my mother, his sister. That her shop had been searched, roughly, every day for the last three days with shelves being tossed. Customers had been harassed and now many were frightened to come into the store. Our apartment had literally been ripped apart in their efforts to see if I was hiding there. And worst, Mother had been taken to Gestapo Headquarters and interrogated for hours. He let me know that we were very fortunate that she had not been kept in custody. The only reason she was released is that they thought that eventually I would reach out to her. They were making her the cheese in the mouse trap in the hopes of catching me.”

“I got very defensive with Uncle Anton. This is so silly. Two boys building a little ship on the shed on the Danube. How could that possibly threaten the Reich? Why were they making a mountain out of a mole hill? Perhaps I should turn myself in and explain that it was just a childish fantasy. Anton told me I was just adding stupid on stupid. That the Gestapo would never accept my explanation especially considering that it was a Jew that was helping me. That the only outcome we could expect from turning myself in was me being arrested and sent to one of the camps with the possible added bonus of Mama’s shop being seized.”

“I don’t know whether it was the almost three days I had spent locked in a closet, the lack of sleep, or the verbal dressing down I had just received from my Uncle but I broke down and cried. I mean really cried. Sobbed and wept. And Uncle Anton didn’t do a thing to stop me. With a frosty, almost haughty expression on his face he watched as I was wracked with tears and regrets. When I stopped sobbing, he handed me a handkerchief and told me to blow my nose and compose myself. Then he said in far more gentle tones “Listen to me. When you and Hugi built that boat you were little boys finding children’s solutions to a problem far bigger than you. Children cannot be expected to understand the consequences of their behavior.  But you can no longer afford to be a little boy. From now on, fair or not, you need to be… have to be… an adult. You have to consider consequences when you do things. Not just what is going to happen to you but to others. Children make decisions based on their little worlds. Adults make decisions based on what happens to them and their community. Do you understand.”

“I told him I did. And I thought I did. But the truth of his words are something that I am constantly relearning. Anyway, when I told him I understood he said “Good. Now your mother and I have discussed this problem. The Gestapo will not stop looking for you so soon. And, we know staying here is not safe. There are too many people here to whom we have to explain your presence. We think the best thing to do is to send you to Sopron to live with my brother Ede. And then after a while when things become a little calmer perhaps you can come back but in the meantime, you will not be so far that your mother can not visit. The only problem is getting you there. The best way is that we drive you there in my car…”

“ I interrupted him “Uncle Anton, that won’t work. I have had a lot of time to think about this over the last few days and just going away for awhile won’t help. You know the Nazi’s they keep records of everything. I would be living in fear of getting caught for the rest of my life. Every time I see a soldier asking for papers I would need to turn away. Every person I meet I would have to worry that they would turn me in. And even worse it would not help Mama. She would still be subject to harassment from the Gestapo. If she visited me, she would be in danger of getting caught. Every note shared would be a danger to her safety. We can’t do that to her.”

“Then I told him about my idea. About how I could commit suicide but not commit suicide. How my death would liberate Mama and me especially if we could find new identity papers for me. I even told him where I thought we should stage the suicide, The Zollamtsbrücke Bridge. During my time in the cabinet I had wondered how I could get the Nazi’s to believe in my death because I was sure they would want proof beyond Mama telling them I died. Someplace where a body need not be found but gave them reasonable assurance that I was gone. So it had to be somewhere over the water, but not one where it was likely that I would be seen and one where there had to be some sort of official inquiry. Without that kind of certification, it would be a wasted effort. The Zollamtsbrucke Bridge was perfect because it was a pedestrian bridge over a railway bridge over the Danube Canal. I said I thought we could throw a heavy object covered in blood off the pedestrian bridge just as a train was passing underneath. The train would have to stop to investigate and they would find a suicide note and a bundle of clothes on the pedestrian bridge. They wouldn’t need to find a body because it would be reasonable to assume that it fell into the canal. A funeral would be held, and I could assume a new identity.”

“Uncle Anton was silent after I explained my scheme. He paced about the small cabin for a bit and finally stood by a window staring out, clearly reviewing what I said with the mind of a military officer. It seemed like a long time before he said anything but eventually he said “Tad, perhaps your greatest attribute is your ability to get yourself out of trouble after you have made trouble for yourself. That is not a compliment but a fact. In this case, you are right. If we don’t devise and end for you there will be no end to the trouble for you. And, making the Germans think you are dead is a good solution but I think you make it far too complicated. Too many things could go wrong. What if the object you throw onto the train misses or worse hurts someone, or the Nazi’s investigate too much and something makes them suspicious. No we can’t risk staging a suicide.”

“I started to object, but he held up a hand to stop me from speaking. He continued “But I think faking your death is a good idea. Your mother can place a death announcement in the paper. She can hold a funeral and invite your schoolmates and family and tell them that you have committed suicide on the Zollamsbrucke Bridge. She can even show them your suicide note. The only real challenge is getting you new identity papers. I know who to talk to but it might take a little while….Can you manage here for a few more days.”

“Before waiting for my answer he said “Good. I must go. I have left you enough food for three more days. I will be back before they run out. In the meantime, be a good soldier and don’t get caught.” Then, after a quick hug he was gone.”

“Three very long days and nights later, Uncle Anton returned with a copy of the Neue Wiener Tagblatt in which my obituary was printed. It was simple stating that I had died suddenly and because of the circumstances of my death there would be no church services, just a burial. That was perfect as that was the standard phrasing for suicides back then. Uncle Anton explained that I would be buried here the following day and that our schoolmates had been notified. He then told me that it was time for me to move. That after dark, he and I would go to his apartment where, he said with a wink he had made “special” accommodations for me. “

“When we reached his apartment late that night those accommodations turned out to be a hiding place that he had built in the dormer beneath his window. It was built with a mechanism that allowed it to open only if you moved certain pieces properly and in the right order. That way a random search would not uncover it. For the time being, it is where I would sleep in case the Gestapo pounded on the door in the middle of the night. During the day, when Anton was at work, I was free to move about the apartment but I needed to be careful not to make any noise and never be too far away from my “coffin” should there ever be a knock at the door.

“It was not ideal but at least I did not have to shit in a bucket anymore as Uncle Anton’s apartment had its own toilet.  

“The first order of business was to change my appearance. It wouldn’t do for a suicide to be seen walking the streets of Vienna. It might make people believe in ghosts. And, tomorrow he was going to take me to a friend of his from the Army who was a photographer so I could have pictures for my new Kennkarte.  He had decided that since I couldn’t grow a beard that the fastest way to change my look was to cut my hair as if I had a case of lice; so short that you could see my scalp. When that was done, and the hair folded into some old newspapers that would be disposed in garbage bins away from the house, he presented me with dark brown tortoiseshell glasses that had small round lenses that had no prescription. He also gave me a pair of worn overalls and a workers flat cap that I could pull down over my face when I was walking on the street. When I looked in the mirror I could still see myself but Anton assured me that even if someone I knew saw me, my disguise would allow me to pass them by.

“That night was my first in the box. It was very much like being in a casket only  less comfortable and without the finality. This amused me and made me wish I could speak with you.”

“How is that.”

“Here I am supposed to be dead and I am living in a casket in my Uncle’s apartment. I thought if you knew you would think it hilarious. But it also made me think of the sharp turn our lives had taken. You on your way to America and a new life and me stuck in a box and on the run. I was happy for you but angry too.  It seemed unfair that you were in America enjoying a grand adventure while I was stuck here in Vienna holding the bag for Tomahawk.”

I did not know what to say to that. I could easily imagine how he felt. I had lived in “fairyland” and he had joined the cast of a Kafka novel. .Since the day I left Vienna I had been plagued with the convoluted feeling of the joy of my new life and the knowledge that so many others, including my best friend Tad, did not have the same opportunity that I had. How could I feel good about the course my life had taken when I knew that almost everyone I knew as a child had suffered a far harsher reality. It is what had pushed me at school, and virtually everything that I did. I had been given a golden ticket and I was not going to miss the opportunities that it provided.

However, understanding that life has dealt you a good hand and making the most of it only takes you so far. You are still left with the feelings of not being worthy of the break you have been given. That your luck somehow prevented the good fortune of another. It made it easy to place yourself in the shoes of friends and family left behind. It made it easy to understand why Tad would have been angry with me. I was about to tell him so when he held up a hand to stop me from speaking and said “If this war has taught me anything it is how unfair, random, and unforgiving life can be. It is a cruel lesson at any age but especially nasty at age 13” He paused, and chuckling said, “I don’t think Winnetou or Old Shatterhand ever spent any time at all bemoaning the situation in which they happened to find themselves. They just got on with it. Devoting their energy to solving the problems at hand and never cursing the good fortune of others. I long ago stopped being angry with you for your good luck. In fact, a lot of how I kept myself going over the years was imagining the good life you were living. Happy that at least one of us was…. if it couldn’t be me then I was glad it was you.”

The next morning Uncle Anton’s army buddy came by the apartment with his Leica and took several photographs of me with my new “lice” hair cut and glasses against a white sheet background for my new Kennkarte. I don’t know how he arranged it but Anton told me that I was going to assume the identity of one of his cousins , a child who had died shortly after birth so while he had a birth certificate no one had ever bothered to get a death certificate.”

“So whom am I talking to now?”

Tad held out his hand and said “Ich bin Paul Grosz. Wie heisst du?”

“Ich bin Sam. Es reut mich, Sie Kennenzulernen.”

Tad raised an eyebrow and said “Sam?

“Lets just say Hugi is not a common name in America and there was a lot of mispronouncing it that was not exactly kind. That along, with the feeling I had entered a different world, a different life, it made sense for me to change my name.”

“But why Sam.”

“Because Max was taken…” and then after seeing Tad didn’t understand or think my little joke amusing, I added. “Samuel was the name of Papa’s father. I never met him, and from the stories I heard  Papa didn’t get along with him very well. But from what little I knew of him I understood him to be a man of integrity and of learning. And from what I remembered during my Bar Mitzvah instruction, Samuel was a great judge and is not only venerated by Jews but also by Christians and Muslims as well. So it seemed a good choice…especially since Sam is such an American name.”

“What do you want me to call you?”

“You can call me anything you like. You always have.” I replied smiling. “But since there are so few people left who know me as Hugi perhaps calling me that will remind me of who I was before the world changed.”

Tad smiled. I could see that he understood exactly what I meant. Childhoods are everyone’s secret garden. Where nothing bad can happen to you and where dreams and wishes come true. Children should be able to live in this sanctuary for as long as possible. Reality comes soon enough. Our reality, the reality of Herr Hitler and his mad quest for Aryan invincibility and the destruction of the “mud” people that had killed millions, and destroyed most of the known world had laid waste to our childhood. A reminder of that kinder time where dreams were not coated in fear and dusted in the ash of the crematoriums would be welcome.”

For a few moments there was silence between us. It was not uncomfortable. Despite years of separation and lives that could not have taken more different paths we were still like Winnetou and Old Shatterhand, blood brothers who could sense how each other thought and didn’t need conversation to communicate. After a few moments of contemplating the peace of the cemetery and staring at the tombstone that bore Tad’s name I said, almost as a joke “How was your funeral?”

He laughed. “It was great. Uncle Anton did not want me to go but he knew that it is not every day that you get a chance to attend your own funeral. You see that mausoleum over there. The one with the two angels on either side of the crypt. I hid there and watched the whole service. Mama was held up at the graveside by Uncle Anton. You would have never guessed they both knew that I was alive. Both of them look completely bereaved. Mama even managed a sob or two. But they were nothing to some of the girls in our class who were there. They had their arms around each others and were crying so loudly that I could hear them even all that way at my hiding place. You remember Debra Adelstein? The girl with the long neck and great tits. She practically through herself on my grave. But then that sneaky bastard Ohrenstein swooped in and began comforting her. No doubt he was using my funeral to get under her shirt. It really peeved me. It was my funeral, and the little bastard was going to score off it and I was going to go home alone. It seemed really unfair.”

Laughing, I said “Very unfair especially considering that Debra wouldn’t give you the time of day when you were “alive.””

There was silence again and then I asked the question I didn’t want to know the answer to but felt I had to ask, “Do you know what happened to them?”

“I heard Debra’s family managed to raise the money to get to Shanghai. I do not know about Ohrenstein. I ran into his cousin Aaron last week. He had been a prisoner at Mauthausen and looked like a walking corpse. He was looking for his family and had not been able to find a trace….”

This silenced me. I knew that at one point there were nearly 200,000 Jews living in Vienna. Now there were virtually none left. How many of them were dead? Sent, like my grandmother, to the death camps. Would we ever know there fate? What about those who had fled to the four corners of the world trying to escape the grip of Nazism, separated from friend and family. Would we ever find each other. And then what? How will we rebuild the world?.”

I must have gotten a far away look in my eye because Tad touched me on the shoulder and said, “You okay?”

“Yeah, just a lot to think about.”

“I understand. Perhaps it is best if we change the subject.”

Chuckling I said “Your probably right.”

“Good. Then perhaps we should talk about what really brings you here. I know it is not for some sentimental reason. You need something from me.”