Forbidden Liaison: They lived and loved for the here and now Read Free

‘Bitte?’
    ‘We have no ashtrays,’ she said.
    Heinrich persisted. ‘Why is your husband in prison?’ he asked.
    ‘He wouldn’t obey your rules.’
    Heinrich sighed. ‘Sometimes we don’t like what we have to do. And, like everyone else, even I have to abide by the rules.’
    ‘There’s only one ashtray and that’s in the kitchen,’ she said.
    ‘Well, in that case I will have to requisition one from somewhere,’ he said on the point of laughing out loud. If he didn’t see the funny side to the conversation, he was in fear of losing his temper with the woman, and he didn’t want to do that. So, as he got up from the sofa he pulled himself up to his full height. He never clicked his heels, but he did that day.
    ‘Good day Mrs Wilfred. You have been most helpful.’
    Margaret let him out and immediately the door was shut, she locked herself in. Heinrich then took himself off into the communal kitchen.
     
    The men who sat around the table ceased talking and stood to attention. ‘Heil Hitler,’ they shouted as soon as Heinrich walked in.
    Heinrich didn’t echo their cry: a call he heard about a hundred times a day. He was an officer in the Wehrmacht, the German Army, where senior officers still maintained some of the old customs. He saluted their way – hand to head-gear – and he got away with it because of the medal that adorned his chest. As he looked around he could see the men’s eyes resting on his Iron Cross, causing a few raised eyebrows. The soldier who stood by the stove suddenly moved when a pan was about to boil over, and quickly turning off the gas under it he stood to attention again, but Heinrich’s eyes had become fixed on a small ashtray in the middle of the table. It was full of stubs, and the fug of stale cigarette smoke, sweaty bodies and cooking, choked him for a while as he imagined the smell of cordite filling his nostrils, but it was only his mind playing tricks on him again.
    ‘Open some windows in here,’ he ordered.
    ‘Sir,’ came a shout from the back door as a youth scrambled to let in some air.
    ‘At ease,’ Heinrich said before turning his attention to the man by the stove.
    ‘Who are you?’ he asked.
    ‘The cook, Sir.’
    ‘Do you have a name?’ Heinrich asked.
    ‘Feldwebel Busch, Sir.’
    ‘And who are you?’ Heinrich turned to ask the young boy by the back door.      
    ‘Steiner, Sir,’ came his thin, young voice. His eyes were still focussed on the Iron Cross, and although he held the officer’s uniform in awe, the cross commanded his total respect and he wanted to know who was wearing it. ‘Who are you, Sir?’ came his request.
    Heinrich flashed him an angry glance then continued to concentrate his stare on the young boy’s face. But Heinrich liked a soldier with balls: grit. He knew the indoctrination these soldiers received diminished their power of being able to think for themselves, and being able to think for oneself was something Heinrich thought should be left intact. 
    ‘Heinrich Beckmann, but to you, Oberleutnant, or Sir,’ he replied.
    ‘Dinner will be in about an hour, Sir,’ Feldwebel Busch stated.
    ‘What is it?’ Heinrich asked.
    ‘Stew, Sir.’
    ‘What sort of stew?’
    The cook didn’t answer. Heinrich waited for a reply.
    ‘Beef,’ the cook eventually said as he looked at the others in the room who knew it was black-market horse meat.
    ‘I thought for one moment Mrs Wilfred might be missing her pet cat,’ Heinrich remarked.
    Busch grinned.
    ‘I trust someone is going to clean that filthy table before we sit down to eat?’ Heinrich asked.
    ‘Sir,’ came a shout.
    ‘There are two men asleep in one of the attic bedrooms. Their room’s unfit for human habitation. Who are they?’ Heinrich asked.
    ‘Müller and Braun, Sir. They’re on nights,’ Busch replied.
    ‘And who occupies the middle room up there?’
    ‘We do, Sir,’ three men said in unison as they stood to attention again.
    ‘Things are looking