Wolf's Mouth Page 3

  In retrospect, it’s easy to see things in a larger, historical context. But at the time, considering the fact that we were all tucked away in this northern outpost where our only real concern was survival against boredom and the elements, Vogel’s response to world events was perplexing and increasingly threatening. When it was becoming clear that Germany was going to lose the war, it brought about a change in the kommandant—a tightening, an intensification like I have seen in no man before or since. He became more determined that here in Camp Au Train, Nazi ideals would prevail.

  When we returned to camp with Gerhardt’s body, it was early evening, and other prisoners gathered round the truck to see him draped across our foodstuffs, until Vogel gave the order to his men to push everyone back. Adino and I remained standing in the truck as Vogel alone approached the vehicle and inspected Gerhardt. The kommandant had a smooth-shaven jaw and a savage squint; though he wasn’t yet forty, the skin around his eyes was dark, aged well beyond his years. Something in his stare was always searching for the flaw, the error, the weakness.

  “I smell excrement,” he said without looking at either of us. “He’s lying on our potatoes in the last shit of his pathetic life. How are we to eat these potatoes?”

  “It’s still in his pants, Kommandant,” I offered.

  He raised his head and aimed his squint in my direction, as though he were surveying the atmosphere I inhabited. “Are you suggesting we eat this dead man’s shit?”

  “No, sir. But the potatoes can be washed, peeled, and boiled until they’re clean.”

  The logic of this seemed to stun him for a moment. “Clean? And who will clean them?”

  “Sir, they will be as clean as any potato you’ve ever eaten in Germany.”

  “They had better be,” he said, stepping back from the truck. “You will both unload this truck, and you will prepare the potatoes tonight.”

  Adino looked at me quickly. “Sir,” I said. “We are not on the schedule for kitchen duty tonight.”

  “You are now,” he said. “And I will send an officer to inspect the potatoes.” Vogel looked out at the men, who stood in a semicircle around the back of the truck, and they immediately snapped to attention, clicking their heels. “This man,” the kommandant said, nodding toward Gerhardt’s body, “could not fulfill his duty. He escaped, but he did not do his utmost to harass the enemy. So! He took the only other course of action: he killed himself. This is not an honorable act. It is not what we expect from German soldiers. This body will not be given a soldier’s burial. But—but he was a German.” He looked at two privates standing at one end of the group. “You men will take him and inter him before dinner.” He started to move through the crowd, which parted for him.

  Adino and I spent the next few hours washing, peeling, and boiling the potatoes, which the cooks then added to a stew consisting of venison, onions, and carrots. At dinner I stood between Wilhelm Ruup and Adino as we moved down the service line. “I don’t understand why he would kill himself,” Adino said.

  “Perhaps he didn’t,” Ruup said.

  “It is strange,” I said. “He just stops suddenly in the woods and decides to hang himself.” I took my bowl of stew from the counter and moved toward the bread.

  Wilhelm stared at the bowl in his hand and said to the cook, “That’s not enough. It’s not as much as the others are getting.”

  The cook took the bowl from him and for a moment he looked like he was going to throw it in Wilhelm’s face, but then he put it down on the counter and picked up another bowl. “Does this one look better?” he asked pleasantly. If anything, it had more stew than the others.

  “Yes, better,” Wilhelm said as he took the bowl.

  We sat at our usual place, a long table near the south windows. Adino called it Il Tavola di Calcio, because it was where the members of the soccer team sat. As a captain in the Italian army, I was allowed to sit at the officer’s table, which was on a small riser at the front of the hall, but as captain of the soccer team I preferred to sit by the windows, where we could discuss strategy. It was mostly German officers who sat up front anyway. At our table were sixteen men: several Czechs, Hungarians, and Poles; a Serb; a Croat; the Russian; and two Germans, Wilhelm Ruup and our goalie, Rudi Brandt. As captain and coach, I was largely responsible for assembling this squad. We had held tryouts, and these sixteen constituted the best talent the camp had to offer. Predictably, Vogel had questioned the fact that there were only two Germans on the team, and because of him the camp had come to refer to us as the League of Nations.

  “Potatoes,” Adino muttered, dipping his bread into his bowl. “After this war I will never eat a potato again.”

  The men at the table laughed.

  Wilhelm said, “The venison, Adino, is cut to perfection.”

  “For generations we have been the best butchers in Naples. Here, one must know how to find and remove the bullets without causing too much damage to the meat. Bullets can be very bad for the teeth.” He ate slowly, while Wilhelm, sitting across from us, was eating rapidly, as always. He was our biggest player, a defender, and often when he finished eating first, someone at the table would give him something from their plate. The portions were that large. Adino said, “What I would like—”

  “Don’t start,” I said.

  “What I would like is some oregano, and maybe a little fresh basil.”

  “Just eat,” I said.

  “Or pesto, with some garlic,” he nearly sang. “Or a little pancetta, a couple of eggs, and a teaspoon of Parmesan cheese—carbonara.”

  Wilhelm stopped eating, and he looked curiously at both of us for a moment and then began chewing his food again, and slowly we witnessed a remarkable transformation. His method of chewing changed—he seemed to be trying to locate something in his mouth that tasted foul—and then his face began to contort as his eyes bulged. He wasn’t chewing now, but trying to expel something from his mouth, and suddenly blood broke forth from his lips. Leaning over he choked and gagged as clumps of masticated food emptied into his bowl. The entire hall became silent. Wilhelm stood up and staggered toward the front door, but he collapsed on the floor, his mouth and chin covered in blood.

  3.

  Wilhelm spent the night in the infirmary and was tended to by the camp’s medical staff. There was wild speculation in the barracks: the Americans were trying to poison us; it was a rare disease—influenza, or even the black plague—that would ravage the camp. No one got much sleep.

  In the morning Adino complained about his breakfast. “I am eating this—Wheaties?” he asked, running his spoon through his bowl. “What is this ‘Breakfast of Campions’?”

  “Not kaa,” I said. “Chaa. Champions. Like cena.”

  “Cena—chay-na—is dinner,” he said. It was bad enough that I was trying to teach him how to write in his native language; he couldn’t accept that I was now telling him how to pronounce English. “This is . . . I don’t know what this is.”

  “Adino, it says on the box: ‘Corn flakes.’”

  “What is ‘flakes’? My mother never fed me flakes.”

  I pushed my bowl of Wheaties away and stood up. The other members of the soccer team gazed at me. “You know, Adino, you’re absolutely right.”

  He put down his spoon. “I am?”

  I left the mess hall and went to the commanding officer’s headquarters. His assistant, Corporal Marks, was sitting in the outer office. He was nearly deaf due to an explosive device that had been detonated during a training exercise in boot camp. He put his newspaper down on his desk and shouted, “What?”

  “I wish to speak to the commander,” I said loudly. “It is about the food.”

  “What?”

  There was a pad of paper on his desk. I picked up a pencil and wrote on the top sheet: WE WANT PASTA.

  We were often told that Au Train was one of the smallest prisoner-of-war camps in the United States. This was their response any time we had a request or a complaint: Au Train was too small
for special consideration. Corporal Marks looked at the pad of paper and nearly shouted. “What is ‘pasta’?”

  Slowly I said, “Spa-ghet-ti.”

  The door beyond Marks’s desk opened and Commander Donald Dalrymple peered out at us. He had a mustache that Americans called “pencil-thin.” “Sir,” I said, coming to attention.

  “Yes, yes,” Dalrymple said. He was not one for military etiquette. We were a small camp, so we told ourselves that Commander Dalrymple was what we got. The prisoners called him “Uncle Donald.” He had also been reading the newspaper, which he still held in his hand. “What’s this about spaghetti?” He had an accent unlike any of the other Americans at the camp; one of the guards told us that he’d been stationed up in Michigan as a reprimand, for what no one seemed to know, and no one knew where he was from—my English wasn’t good enough to tell whether he was from the South, New England, or any of the other parts of the country where people have distinct accents.

  “Commander Dalrymple,” I said. “I wish to request that we have spaghetti for dinner. At least once a week. It is stated in the Geneva Convention rules that prisoners should be fed a diet they are accustomed to, and that means the Italian prisoners are entitled to eat pasta.” I didn’t know what the Geneva Convention said about food for prisoners, if it said anything at all, but we had learned soon after arriving in Au Train that the Americans were petrified at the thought of not complying with these regulations. “It’s in Article 32, sir.”

  Marks had been leaning toward me, trying to read my lips, but now he turned toward the commander and shouted, “He’s complaining about the food, sir.”

  Dalrymple’s face went blank, and Marks seemed to understand that his assistance wasn’t necessary. The commander then smiled at me as he folded his newspaper under his arm. He came over to Marks’s desk and rested one haunch on the corner. This was part of his uncle routine; he was going be straight with me, as he liked to say. “I’ll be straight with you, Captain Verdi. Ours isn’t a very big prisoner-of-war camp and the government, well, it doesn’t give us everything we ask for. I am aware that they make spaghetti at some of the other camps. But there is a war going on and, as you know, there are shortages. The reason you men are up here is because there’s a shortage of manpower. Pulp wood is necessary to the war effort.”

  “Sir,” I said. “As you know, nearly every day we eat venison, carrots, potatoes—a great amount of potatoes. It is not what we eat in the Italian army.”

  “Captain, you’re just upset because that soldier took ill at dinner last night.”

  “I am making a formal request, sir,” I said.

  “Based on the Geneva Convention—I believe it was, what, Article 32?” The ends of the commander’s pencil-thin mustache lifted slightly. He thought he was humoring me. The commander did so—he called it giving me “the time of day”—because I was useful: I acted as a translator and, more important, I was captain and coach of the camp’s soccer team. “And if I deny your request?” the commander asked.

  “I will make a request in writing,” I said loudly. “And I will send it to Mrs. Roosevelt.”

  Marks coughed. The commander almost lifted his haunch off the corner of the desk, but then, as if to restrain himself, he unfolded his arms, causing the newspaper to fall to the floor with a slap.

  “Captain,” the commander said, “we provide you with a nutritional diet, one that’s far better than what I’m sure you got when you were in combat—I know it’s better than what our own troops are eating, and even better than what many American citizens are eating. In fact, I was just reading a column in the newspaper accusing the government of ‘coddling’ you prisoners of war. Your English is quite good—you used the word ‘entitled’ correctly. Do you know what ‘coddling’ means, Captain?”

  “Is it something you eat, a kind of baby fish?”

  He shook his head. “Coddling is somewhat like entitlement. It means giving prisoners anything they want, like spoiled babies. It’s upsetting to Americans who have sons overseas eating K-rations. My God, last week we managed to get in a shipment of pork chops and pickled herring!”

  “Sir,” I said. “In my letter to your First Lady I will mention the Geneva Convention, and the venison.” “What about the venison?”

  “What about the venison?”

  “They’re hunted illegally, sir. We often see hunters in the woods—they all have licenses pinned on their hats or jackets. Your guards shoot the deer with machine guns, and I don’t see any licenses on their uniforms.”

  “Well, at least they’re not breaking the Geneva Convention regulations.” The commander smiled, but when he saw that I wouldn’t, he held out both hands, pleading. “Captain Verdi, where am I going to find spaghetti up here?”

  “In Munising, sir.”

  “In Munising?”

  “Yes, sir. There’s an Italian woman—I don’t know her name, but I know where she lives. When we were getting supplies yesterday she told me that she made pasta in her home.”

  The commander raised both hands as though he was going to lift the air off his shoulders, but then he grabbed his head. His short gray hair bristled between his fingers. “Captain, I can’t ask some woman in Munising to make pasta for over two hundred men.”

  “Two men, sir. For myself and Private Adino Agostino.”

  The commander sighed and then stood up. This was to indicate that he was a reasonable man and that he had come to a decision. Looking at his assistant, he said loudly, “All right, Marks. You have to take that German soldier to the doctor this morning anyway. And you take Captain Verdi along with you and”—he picked up his newspaper and started back toward his office—“see that this man gets his spaghetti.”

  “Sir,” I said, and the commander stopped at his door and looked at me. “Wilhelm Ruup needs to go to the doctor?”

  “Yes, Captain. We only have your medical officers who were trained for combat duty on duty here. And, as you know, there are the regular visits from the Red Cross. But we do provide proper medical attention—in accordance with the Geneva Convention—and so we are sending Ruup to see a doctor in Munising.”

  “What’s wrong with him, sir?” I asked. “Was there a bullet in the meat?”

  “Bullet?” The commander ran a finger along one side of his mustache as he studied me, trying to determine whether I could be trusted with highly sensitive information. “No, terrible accident,” he said finally. “Apparently, the man ingested glass.”

  “Ingested?” I said. “I’m sorry, sir, I do not understand this word.”

  “He ate crushed glass, Captain.”

  I helped Marks get Wilhelm into the commander’s Jeep, which had a white star in a circle painted on the hood. Wilhelm sat in the back seat, his head wrapped in a towel. He had the eyes of a man in considerable pain. As we drove out of the woods, the Jeep bucked over the corrugated two-track lane, but Corporal Marks whistled loudly, completely off-key. Each time I turned around, Ruup looked worse, and finally I touched Marks’s sleeve and said, “Could you stop that whistling, please?” He did, and when I glanced back at Ruup he nodded carefully in gratitude.

  The doctor’s house had a view of the vast harbor in Munising. It was the first time I’d been in an American home, and the waiting room had comfortable sofas and chairs, and copies of Life, Look, and National Geographic were laid out on a coffee table. Marks quickly leafed through the National Geographic, pausing at photographs of dark-skinned bare-breasted women. From the front windows of the waiting room I could see down the main street to the intersection where Chiara and her mother had turned left in their Ford. For some reason, the image of her languid forearm and hand making the turn signal was more vivid than anything else. Through much of the night I had tried to recall her fine ankles, her slender calves, her breasts beneath the white sweater, her black hair cascading down her back, but it was the image of that arm that tormented me.

  “Corporal Marks,” I said, and waited for him to look up and stare at
my mouth. I nodded toward the office door. “This could take a while, particularly if Ruup has ingested much glass.”

  “Are you in a hurry to get back to work?” Marks asked pleasantly.

  “No.” I smiled. “When I was impatient as a boy, my father always used to say, ‘No one is following you.’”

  “Right. My father used to say, ‘What, are your pants on fire?’”

  “While we wait,” I said slowly, “I could go to request the pasta.” I pointed out the window. “The Italian woman’s house is just down the street there.”

  “You want to go over and ask while I wait here?”

  I nodded, and to my surprise he shrugged.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Do I trust you?” Marks almost shouted. And then he laughed. “You really don’t have any idea how far you are from anyplace else, do you. I’ll pick you up.”

  “Molto grazie, Signore.”

  Though I knew he couldn’t read my lips, Marks nodded his head.

  There was the clearest blue sky overhead, and a gusting north wind came off Lake Superior, swirling leaves up into little tornadoes that scuttled down the empty street. Some say you can only smell oceans, but that day I could smell the lake; it didn’t smell like anything else, just a great big lake with deep water that remained cold year-round. I knew that the water we drank at the camp came from the lake and it was the best water I had ever tasted. Walking by myself down that blustery street I felt like lake water—nothing but water, clear through.