Dry Bones (2 page)

“Up top was that fifty-foot brass swastika that the boys of the Seventh Army blew to smithereens soon as they took the city. You must’ve seen the newsreel.” Mundy peered up into the dark. “Can’t imagine what this must have been like in person. I mean, with thousands of people packed in, torches, flags, them searchlights surrounding the place like pillars of ice, must’ve been something.” Mundy held out his lighter.

Dunne dragged on the cigarette. Eight summers ago, hot, close day in an apartment in Yorkville, he’d listened on the radio to the speech Hitler delivered here—his last from this podium, as it turned out. It was the height of the crisis that Hitler provoked over Czechoslovakia and the fate of the Sudetenland. Distant, unfamiliar places. How many Americans had even heard of the Sudetenland before the crisis arose?

The ranting, high-pitched, angry voice, reinforced by ocean-like choruses of
sieg heil
,
heil Hitler
, needed no translation. The intent carried clear across the Atlantic.

Seven summers ago and 3,500 miles away.

A distance measured in gutted cities, wounded, crippled lives, soul-scarred survivors, and the dead, the endless piles of dead. Shot, bombarded, stabbed, starved, gassed. The dead you saw and learned to act as if you didn’t. Those you tried not to think about, butchered, half-burned, derelict corpses. The dead you watched die, some instantly, others in slow, moaning agony. The dead you knew. Friends. Some buried, parachute for shroud, or pounded into pulp, or blown into a fine crimson grit of flesh and bone, nothing to inter. Ghosts.

Remembered names and faces prompted a short prayer, part mental hiccup, part heartfelt:
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

“I feel bad I missed it.” Mundy rested his forearms on the steering wheel.

“The rally?”

“No, Captain. The big show. The war. Seems a waste to go through training and get to Germany the day before the Krauts toss in the towel.”

The drip, drip on Dunne’s cap turned steady trickle. Peter Bunde’s wish, too. Not to miss the big show.
Perpetual light on him, too.

Mundy reached up and covered the tear in the jeep’s canvas top with his hand. “Sorry about that, sir,” he said. “I would’ve stuck some adhesive tape over it if I knew I was going to have a passenger. But I wasn’t told till the last minute. Nobody cares about the condition of these motor pool jalopies.”

“I’m glad for the ride.”

Mundy plucked a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket and tucked it in the leak. “That should do for now, at least till we get where we’re going.”

“Where’s that?”

“The town is filled up, what with the trial and everything. Your lodgings are north of the city. Used to be an SS retreat. Nice digs.”

“How far?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“Which route we take.”

“What’s the choice?”

“Express or local. Express will get us there in no time.”

“And local?”

Mundy jerked his thumb at the pile of boxes in the rear seat. “No telling.”

“Hooch, chocolate, cigarettes?”

“Yes, sir. Nylons, too. All on the up-and-up. I’m head driver for the motor pool. Officers, enlisted men, anyone for whatever
reason, night or day—they need a lift? Call Harry Mundy. That includes the guys in the PX. For a reasonable fare, I’m your man.”

“Business must be good.”

“Like being the Good Humor Man in a heat wave. When I got here, Nuremberg seemed nothing but a burned-out shit pile. Except the Krauts are crawling back. Say what you want about them, and I know what they done, there’s no keeping them down. Dead as the city seems above, below there are bars, clubs, and the fräuleins. You can’t believe the fräuleins. Their men are dead, missing, or POWs, but they feel lucky they got us instead of the Russkies grabbing them by the hair and banging the bejesus out of them whenever they get the urge. Throw in a bottle of scotch, pair of nylons, it’s whatever you want.”

“I appreciate the offer, Corporal. But it’s been a long day.”

“Yes, sir. Express it is.” Mundy pushed open the side window flap, tossed his cigarette, and put the jeep in gear. This time Dunne was ready, bracing himself against the dashboard as Mundy hit the gas pedal. “I’ll have you there in no time, Captain.”

As they neared the city, the dull, indistinct, nightmarish landscape of ruined buildings and half-standing structures was occasionally spotlighted by an odd-standing street lamp. Though on a grander scale, the thoroughness of the destruction reminded Dunne of villages in France during the fight before this one, the War to End All Wars, which only prepared the way for round two. Despite all the glamour that surrounded the escapades of commandos and special operations, here’s how the contest was finally won: One side bludgeoned the brains out of the other with the biggest cudgel available.

“Guess you seen your fair share,” Mundy said.

“Fair share?”

“Of the war.”

Dunne tapped his cigarette, dropped ash into palm. Fair or unfair? More than his share? Who could say for sure? “I guess.”

“Don’t worry about the ashes.” Mundy grinned. “Like I said, nobody cares about these jalopies.” He pointed at a gigantic mound of bricks, concrete, wire lathe. “Don’t let that facade fool you,” he explained. The cavernous basement beneath housed an improvised beer hall, long tables, and—
ah, ahh, ahhh
(Mundy did a comic imitation of a man about to climax)—fräuleins, oodles of them, not like those cold-fish British broads (he obviously hadn’t met the English nurses the pilots boasted about cavorting with) or skinny-malink Frenchies—but full-bodied women, busty, lusty, and hungry for it.

Behind the beer hall, Mundy explained, was a warren of windowless bedrooms with Oriental rugs, canopied beds, gilt-framed paintings. Impromptu liaisons of occupied and occupiers. Place ran twenty-four hours a day. The same scratched records played over and over on the Victrola, nonpartisan mix of “Lili Marlene” and “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree.” Sometimes, if you were there long enough, it was easy to lose track whether it was night or day.

Before they landed in Germany, they got strict orders about nonfraternization. Most of the Heinies, they were told, were still in the grip of Nazi indoctrination. “But you know what, Captain? That’s all malarkey, least as far as the girls go. They got one thing on their mind.” Mundy cupped his crotch with one hand, tapped the horn on the steering wheel with the heel of the other.
Honk, honk.
“At one point, the brass got it in their heads the Commies were recruiting a regiment of whores to pump military secrets out of GIs. They made it so you want to bring a girl into a GI club, which is where they all want to go, the local police got to certify she’s a regular Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. That’s great for whoever’s doing the certifying. Means they get laid all they want. It also means the illegal joints doing more business than ever.”

Two young women, sharing a single umbrella, stood Lili Marlene–like in the piss-yellow light pooled beneath a surviving street lamp. They waved vigorously. “See, what’d I tell you?”
Honk.
“When it comes to the fräuleins, it’s
Deutschland über alles
. As the Brits are fond of saying, ‘It’s only fraternization if you stay for breakfast.’”

The rain stopped. Dunne was glad for the enthusiasm and boyish innocence of Mundy’s monologue. If this war was like the last, those who’d puked their guts, or pissed their pants at that last minute before they went into action, or turned away from the pulverized carnage a single artillery round left behind, they’d treat their memories like tattered photo albums in attic recesses; throw them out once and for all, if they could.

But they couldn’t.

After a few drinks in a crowded, happy bar, the sudden flash of a charred corpse, top of its head blown off, motionless hand protecting absent eyes. Or on a calm summer’s afternoon, face of approaching stranger turns into Quentin Osbourne’s, Billy Coughlin’s, a kaleidoscope of the dead and missing. Or in the middle of the night, palm protecting against the flashlight’s beam, the barrel of an MP 40 submachine gun—the German Schmeisser—knocks your hand away. Nozzle to nose. Smell of expended rounds still fresh.

Fin, wake up, you’re having a bad dream.

Not really dreaming. Remembering, mostly.

Those who lost all control and ended up with haunted faces were secluded in mental wards of veterans’ hospitals, some a short time, a few permanently. Most carried on, did the best they could, moved in sync with the unwounded, unscarred, uninitiated.

Mundy began to hum a tune that Dunne recognized immediately.
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho.
He’d seen the cartoon movie the year before he met Roberta. The woman he was dating at the time dragged him to see it.

First name he remembered: Maria.

Her last: … ?

Irish-Italian from the Bronx, she worked at the phone company and was taking courses at Hunter College at night. She brought along
a bag of a half-dozen licorice wheels from Krum’s, on the Grand Concourse. “Walt Disney isn’t just a cartoonist,” she said. “He’s an artist.” When he finished his share of the licorice, he fell asleep and began to snore. She poked her bony elbow hard into his ribs.

Snow White’s gaggle of midgets was in midsong.

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off to work we go.

The next time she jabbed him awake, the wicked witch or spiteful stepmother or evil queen—whoever she was—was asking, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” He managed to keep his eyes open for the rest of the movie, which didn’t placate her. Standing outside the theater, she was awash in the lights from the marquee. Olive skin aglow. A face he’d never forget. He kissed her on the cheek.

She shook his hand, hailed a cab, and was gone.
Heigh-ho.

He never saw her again. Things worked out better for Snow White and her pint-size fan club.
And they lived happily ever after.

Corporal Harry Mundy and his fortunate cohort seemed destined to enjoy the same fate: Honor of having gone overseas, good luck of having arrived as the guns went dumb. A lamb in wolf’s clothing, civilian disguised as soldier, willing to share with an officer he’d never met the details of trafficking in contraband and German girls—Mundy’s war was over, for sure.

Heil Harry Mundy
, harbinger of peacetime and its pleasures.

Heil Corporal Mundy
, messenger of a world on the mend, stirring beneath dirt, dust, ashes, like first blades of grass in early spring.

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s home from war we go.

“Where are you from in the States, Corporal?” Dunne asked.

“Hastings, just above Yonkers. You’re from New York, too, sir, aren’t you?”

“Good guess.”

“Easy. Been around a lot of Southern crackers. You hear somebody talk normal, you zero in right away. And you got none
of that snooty attitude like the college types. Picked that up right away, too. You live in the city?”

“With the exception of two all-expenses-paid trips to Europe, compliments of Uncle Sam, lived there all my life.”

Mundy chuckled. “‘All expenses paid,’ that’s a good one, Captain. I got to remember it.” He drove fast but confidently, speeding through ink-dark streets with apparent certainty about where they were headed. “You were in the first war, too? You must’ve been a kid when you joined up.”

“Close.” Sixteen. Lied and said he was eighteen. Didn’t know what he was signing up for. What kid did? Thought he was tough, fearless, all grown up, nothing left to learn. Like all those other kids—the ones who survived—he learned differently. All grown up when it was over. And glad to be alive.

The jeep braked to a stop. Chest pressed against the duffel bag, Dunne sat back, cracked the door, dropped cigarette on wet pavement. “What’s the problem?”

“Damn streets all look alike. The RAF blew up the signs along with the streets. Hard to know where you are. Sorry, but I think I took a wrong turn back there.” He shifted into reverse, made a quick three-point turn, and headed back in the direction they’d come. “Between that war and this, you pretty much seen it all, I guess.”

“Enough.”

“Wish I could say the same.” Mundy steered in a tight half-circle around the ruins of what looked to have been a fountain or a monument. “Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had my jollies here in Nuremberg. Still, I’ll be glad to get home. Not to brag, but I got a girl
and
a job waiting for me. Don’t know a lot of GIs who can claim that, do you, Major?” He stopped again.

Dunne ignored the promotion Mundy conferred. Another sure sign the war was over when enlisted men were so inattentive to an officer’s rank. “Are we lost?”

“No, sir. Should’ve gone right instead of left.” He continued
talking as he completed the circle. Theresa, his girl, worked same place he did, Anaconda Wire and Cable. Supplied most of the wire for the Northeast’s telephones. Two years ago, the plant won an Army-Navy E pennant for excellence in supplying the military. Steady work, good pay, and as long as civilians and the military needed telephones and communications equipment, there was no need to worry about a job.

“Theresa’s last name is Kelly.” Mundy glanced over. “Don’t get me wrong, I know plenty of Irish who are regular as cornflakes. Theresa’s family ain’t among them. They know Mundy used to be Mundowski. They go to St. Matthew’s. Don’t want their daughter marrying a Polack from St. Stanislaus who didn’t graduate high school. But she’s as stuck on me as me on her. Soon as I get home, I’ll go after that diploma, and we’ll get hitched.”

Mundy hit the gas, then slowed down. A bent but still standing street lamp glistened on rain-glossed cobblestones. “This is the old part of the city. Or was.” A truck followed closely behind.

Both sides of the street were lined with ugly heaps of broken, blackened masonry and debris piled atop furniture, lamps, china plates, toys, mementos, souvenirs, porcelain figurines—a graveyard for the thirty thousand people entombed beneath, the innocent with the guilty. Ancient or new, eloquent medieval Gothic or plainspoken military modern, one mute testament to the consequences of the war their führer had insisted on:
Deutschland unter alles.