He'd already learned how the old 509th had fared. In Belgium it had been in extended heavy combat, and so badly chewed up, instead of replacing the casualties (again), the Pentagon had sent the survivors to other airborne outfits.
A letter from Berta had arrived for him in London at the end of August, 1944. Edouard was out of the hospital, and working in Bern as a janitor, but had been accepted as a lecturer in the University beginning in September. They had married, and begun proceedings to adopt Lotta, who was living with them. They'd been living in a single room, but with Edouard's new position, they'd be able to afford an apartment.
Macurdy had been in France then, and the letter had followed him from London, then followed him again, reaching him at last in mid-September. He hadn't written back for more than a month. When he had, his letter hadn't reached Bern for more than two weeks, and was returned as not deliverable. He'd heard nothing since.
But the OSS office in Bern had resources. When the Peace was signed, he'd radioed, and they'd easily gotten Edouard's address and phone number for him.
So he phoned from the airport. Berta answered, and sounding delighted, invited him to supper. He suggested instead that they all eat at a restaurant, at his expense, but she insisted. "I am actually quite a good cook," she said. "And while many things are hard to get here, I have learned to do nicely."
Lotta would be home at about 4:30, she said, and Edouard by 6:00. If he could be there at 6:30…
A taxi delivered him at the curb at 6:34, and putting down the two suitcases he carried, he rang their bell. It was Berta's voice that answered, and Edouard who came down to meet him. Edouard's eyebrows rose at the suitcases.
Macurdy gestured. "A few presents," he said, "mostly for Lotta."
They went upstairs together, neither of them making even small talk. They'd have to get used to each other again, Macurdy decided.
The apartment was on the third floor, at the end of a hallway smelling faintly of varnish and cleaning compound. At first it was Berta who carried the conversation. Lotta had grown and changed in 12 months, but was still shy. By the time they'd finished the custard Berta had made for dessert, Macurdy and Edouard had loosened up and warmed up. Then Lotta, though still less than talkative, brought out almost every possession she had, for Macurdy to see and admire.
Which led him to open one of the suitcases he'd brought, the larger, with things for her. Anna Von Lutzow had helped him shop. Mostly they were dolls and stuffed animals, but there was also a bright orange rain cape and a gold-plated fountain pen. It earned him a hard hug and a kiss on the cheek from Lotta, and moist eyes from Edouard and Berta.
For Berta he'd bought a white nylon blouse-Anna had helped him-and a purse with several compartments; for Edouard a heavy sweater of Scottish wool, and a camera. For the two of them together he'd brought a liter of good cognac, and the suitcases, which they were to keep.
Afterward they sat in the living room and sampled the cognac while they talked. They told him about their new life-neither wanted to return to Germany, despite the end of the war, though "someday we shall visit"-and he told them a bit about his life before the war, leaving out the years in Yuulith, of course, and his first two marriages.
"You seem too young for all that," Edouard said. "I would have guessed your age at, oh, twenty-five perhaps. Although already in Germany I had decided you were older." He cocked an eyebrow. "How old are you?"
"Thirty-one." He'd been tempted to say forty-one, his actual age, but that would require difficult explanations. It occurred to Macurdy that with the secrets he had, close friendships of long duration would be few.
"Remarkable," Edouard said. "Don't you think so, Berta?"
"Yes, remarkable, but somehow I am not surprised." She laughed. "After the things we have seen you do, Herr Macurdy-Curtis- we are not so easily surprised as we might have been."
He didn't stay late. At nine they sent Lotta off to bed. She hugged and kissed Macurdy again before she left. Shortly afterward he phoned for a cab. Before he and Edouard went downstairs to wait, Berta too hugged him, and kissed his cheek.
"We will write to you," she said, "and you must write to us. Because you are Lotta's uncle Curtis, which makes you our brother." She paused. "You were a soldier, but also you were a human being. We have talked of you often. You have our highest respect and admiration."
"Thank you," Macurdy said, feeling awkward. "I am honored. You both have my respect and admiration, and not only because of what you are doing for Lotta."
While he and Edouard waited in the foyer for the cab, they found little to say again. Then the cab arrived, and before Macurdy left, the two men shook hands, a long process, as if there was more to say but they didn't know what.
Macurdy rode back to his hotel feeling pensive. Getting ready for bed, he spotted two of the reasons: Edouard and Berta not only had a child, they had a future in which, with any luck, they'd grow old together.
He doubted their love could be as strong as his and Mary's, but there'd been all those pregnancies without results. And as for growing old together…
Life, he told himself, is a string of choices, a web of them, choosing and living with the results, good and bad, and making future choices on top of the old. Hopefully learning as you go, getting smarter. He paused. No, not smarter. The word is wiser. And hoping that at the end of your life, the overall results will be good.
Which, he realized, was why he was flying to Bavaria in the morning: He had more results to check on.
42
The Bavarian Gate: Goodbye
Lieutenant Colonel William Von Lutzow, stationed now in Munich, met Macurdy at the Bern airport shortly before noon, in a borrowed OSS plane. They had supper that evening at the officers' mess in Kempten, where the army ran the airfield, exercised authority over civil administration, and undertook to supplement the district's inadequate food supplies. Afterward, walking uniformed around town in the long spring evening, Macurdy saw little sign of resentment. Stoicism was more the mode, and poverty. Two young women accosted them, but they declined.
The next morning at ten-thirty, Vonnie checked out a jeep from the motor pool and they headed for Schloss Tannenberg, Macurdy driving. May was verging on June, and though the morning was cool, the day was glorious. The villages along the way showed the drabness of war and defeat, the long shortage of means and manpower. But here and there, flowerbeds and planters were bright with color, and the roadsides were spangled with wildflowers. The beech trees and larches were a fresh and lovely green.
A truck was parked beside what had been the schloss, and using a ramp, block and tackle, and crowbars, several civilians were loading stone blocks. Two of them wore German army uniforms, perhaps the only clothes they had. Clearly gasoline was not entirely unavailable to civilians; presumably, entrepreneurial GIs in the Red Ball Express had set up a black market.
Macurdy barely paused at the schloss-he had no doubt of his results there-but turned up the truck trail to the top of the Witches' Ridge, where he parked on a patch of rock outcrop not far from the gate site. The moon would be full that night; if the gate still functioned, he should be able to feel it at local noon, as a distinct buzz in the Web.
Meanwhile they ate an early lunch in the sun: fried-egg sandwiches, Hershey bars and oranges, bagged for them at the officers' mess, along with two cans each of army three-two beer. "So this is the place," Von Lutzow said.
"..Yep…"
Vonnie did not doubt the Voitar were real. He'd always had faith in Macurdy, had talked with Anna and MacNab about them, and had read the report on the body, with photographs. And they had to come from somewhere. But it was still hard to believe in the gate; his face and aura reflected-not skepticism so much as discomfort.
Macurdy looked at him and smiled. "I know where there's one in the Missouri Ozarks," he said, "that I'm pretty sure still operates. If you'd like, we can go visit it sometime." He laughed then. "'When the spirit comes ahootin'."