Chapter 14
OZZIE
“Yes, First Sergeant,” the company replied in unison.
Tire irons, screwdrivers, pliers, and jack wrenches clicked and clanked as men changed tires, examined belts and loose cables, and replaced hoses.
The transmission fluid smelled sweet, almost like candy, as Ozzie removed the dipstick, wiped it on a towel, and then reinserted it to check the levels.
The night before, Ozzie had spent over two hours before bed studying technical manuals and reviewing inspection worksheets to assure that he wouldn’t make any mistakes.
Motor pool checkup was an essential part of his job.
If any of his vehicles left base with faulty equipment, Ozzie’s unit would feel the ass chewing.
Morgan was crouched down, checking the tire pressure on a cargo van. “Looks like somebody got lucky this weekend,” he teased.
Ozzie tried keeping the smile from his face as he topped off the fluids.
“ ’Bout time our boy got that stick out his ass and had a little fun.” Satchel knelt on the ground, changing the spark plugs to a generator. “Let me guess. It was that big-eyed waitress, wasn’t it?”
“A gentleman never kisses and tells.” Ozzie wiped grease from his hands.
“Well, I sure ain’t no gentleman,” Satchel sang as if it were the blues.
“I gotta honey here, and a fine-ass woman back there.” Satchel tapped the generator, keeping time with the rhythm.
“Gave her a promise ring and everything. But shit, it’s impossible to stay faithful over here, and that’s as real as a chicken wing. ”
The guys all cackled at Satchel’s song. “You ain’t never lied,” Morgan said to him, then turned solemn.
“It’s the isolation that gets to me. We are literally on the other side of the world.”
“Away from everything we know.” Ozzie closed the hood to the truck.
“Being with men all day, every day. Shiiit, you need a touch from a woman to make life bearable.”
Ozzie nodded in agreement.
“That’s why Germany stays right here in Germany,” Morgan piped. “Work hard, play hard.” And all the men agreed.
During the days, Ozzie kept his nose clean at work; in the evenings, he practiced his German and brushed up on his Latin, so that when the opportunity came to be assigned to the Intelligence unit, he’d be ready.
He had gone to the Federal Eagle Club for the past three weekends with his buddies and spent more money than he had intended on those nights with Jelka at the rooming house, which charged by the hour.
When he had tried to negotiate with the thick woman in the scarf, she’d told him that her husband had been a local dentist but never returned home after the war.
“This is how I make ends meet for my children,” she said with sad eyes.
After patronizing the house a few times, Ozzie noticed it was only Negro soldiers with their German brides who rented rooms, and when he asked the woman, she told him. “The one time I let a white American soldier in led to trouble. I do not understand the hatred in them.” She tsked her teeth.
Ozzie wanted to explain to her that the hatred had been bred, and at the root of it was fear, but when he was with Jelka, he didn’t feel like thinking about America’s race problem.
On his next Sunday off, Jelka asked him to join her at a small park a few blocks from the bar where she worked.
The fall day was cool, and the orange and red leaves fell steadily all around them.
Construction work could be heard on K?fertaler Street, the main throughfare, as buildings were being restored and roads repaved.
Ozzie had worn a sweater under his army jacket so that he could offer it to Jelka if she got chilly.
She had arrived first and was spread out underneath an oak tree on the wool blanket he had given her.
She grabbed his face and kissed him gently on his lips.
Out of habit, Ozzie looked around to see if anyone was watching them.
He carried a brown paper bag with sandwiches from the mess hall, a tin of potato chips, and her favorite drink, Fanta.
She smiled brightly when she tipped the drink to her fingers.
“Are you hitched?” Jelka tucked the Fanta between her fingers.
“No,” he said, pushing thoughts of Rita away. He still had not received a letter from her. “Why? Do you have someone?”
The corners of her eyes drooped before she turned her lips into a grimace. “Once. But… I lost him to the war.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” As if consoling her, he handed her a liverwurst sandwich.
“That was a long time ago.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” She took a big bite and changed the subject. “This tastes good.”
As Ozzie watched her eat the sandwich, he felt content.
In the short time they had been seeing each other, he had come to enjoy taking care of Jelka.
Last weekend, he had bought her a tube of lipstick and a bottle of fingernail polish from the commissary, and the look and kiss she had given him made him want to give her even more.
She didn’t require much, and he liked that about her.
He knew that he wasn’t in love, yet he enjoyed her company.
“Do you ever get time off from work?”
“If I want. Why?” She cocked her head at him, and he wiped away a bit of mayonnaise from the corner of her mouth.
“I have leave, a three-day weekend is coming up. I was thinking about traveling somewhere. I want to see more of Germany.”
Jelka looked up at Ozzie. “We could go to Frankfurt. I have a cousin there. She can put us up.”
“Really? You’ll take me?”
“Of course,” she said, sliding in closer to him and threading her leg with his.
On the second Friday in October, Ozzie had misjudged how far the Mannheim Hauptbahnhof was from his post, and by the time he reached the bustling station lobby for their trip to Frankfurt, Jelka looked flustered and red in the face. “What took you so long? I thought you were not coming.”
“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to worry you. Just got a little turned around.”
She grabbed his hand. “We must hurry.”
They walked down the steps, through a long hall, and then up to platform four. Ozzie had only enough time to ask if she had the tickets when the train blew into the station. They found two seats together, and Jelka sighed.
“I have not been away from home in many years. The last time I took the train to Frankfurt, I was thirteen.”
“How old are you now?”
“I am twenty-one.”
Ozzie’s eyebrows rose with surprise. The way the light hit her face, she looked seventeen.
“You?”
“Nineteen, but I’ll be twenty soon.”
“I am older than you. That means I get to tell you what to do?” She kissed him and then put her forehead to his so they were eye to eye. “And how I want you to do it.”
When they got off the train in Frankfurt, Jelka hailed a taxicab. As they drove down cobblestone streets, the devastations of war were at every turn. What obviously once had been beautiful architectural structures now sat in ruins.
“This is Altstadt, the Old Town, destroyed by air raids.” Jelka pointed to the rubble piled in places where timber-framed houses once stood.
Then she instructed the driver to stop there.
He parked across the street from a cathedral with entire walls blasted away and the roof collapsed in several places.
“That is what is left of the Kaiserdom St. Bartholom?us. The largest and most lovely church in Frankfurt,” Jelka said once they were standing on the street.
Ozzie heard drills and hammers and smelled ammonia, burnt rubber, and concrete. “I can still see its beauty.” He tilted his head.
“Come, the apartment is not far. We can walk the rest of the way to view the neighborhood.”
“Careful,” Ozzie said, and took Jelka’s arm as they stepped over a broken sidewalk.
Strolling past piles of debris, Ozzie couldn’t help but realize that he never could have imagined feeling at ease walking hand in hand with a white woman back home.
As he and Jelka moved together through the streets, he noticed that none of the passersby even gave them a second glance.
At a streetlight, he came across a group of Negro soldiers with German women sipping coffee at an outside café.
Everyone looked relaxed, as if being together was the most normal occurrence, and Ozzie loved the sense of comfort he felt being away from work.
With each corner they turned, the air entered his lungs, loosening the invisible noose that lived against his neck on base.
His normal state of high alert subsided.
Was this what white men felt every day? At ease and carefree?
They continued through a small park with a tiny stream, and on the other side, Jelka pointed to her cousin’s building. It was banana yellow, and each flat had a small balcony with a silver awning.
Jelka led Ozzie up three flights of stairs. The smell of coffee wafted in the air as he brushed against a door pinned with a miniature pink pig. Ozzie touched the pig.
“Glücksschwein,” Jelka said, knocking harder. “The good-luck pig.”
A woman as tall as Ozzie stood in the doorway. She grabbed Jelka and kissed her on both cheeks.
“This is Elga.”
“Willkommen,” Elga replied brightly.
She was blond, big-boned, and sturdy. The flat was narrow and smelled like cigarettes and boiled meat.
Ozzie could see everything except the bathroom from where he stood in the sparsely furnished living room.
Jelka and her cousin exchanged a few muffled words, then more hugs.
Elga waved to Ozzie and was out the door.
“What did she say?” Ozzie stood awkwardly. Just outside, he could hear a radio playing a talk show and a woman screaming at someone in German.
“That she was going to her friend’s until we leave. We have the whole place.” She opened the door to the bathroom. “I’m going to run us a bath.”
Ozzie thought to object—it was midday and he was eager to see the city—but Jelka had already disappeared into the bathroom.