A Despicable Profession Read Online Free Page B

small semi-circular bar at the far end of the dining car. Two GIs sat in a cloud of blue smoke. I got there in time for the punchline.
    â€œParachutes? Ohh, we’re using parachutes!”
    The GIs were headed south to Marseille for a long boat home. They bought me a drink, I bought them a drink. And so on.
    They had duffel bags full of black market swag that they just had to show me. Doug from Buffalo had a sterling silver serving platter engraved with two names and a date. A wedding present sold for cigarettes. His buddy had a topper. A bowling ball sized bronze bust of Herr Hitler. We set Adolph on the bar and drank to his health.
    Doug and his buddy both had sweethearts back home and were itching to pop the question. Or were already engaged. Maybe one was already married, I forget.
    I do remember one thing clearly. I remember thinking
Am I a lifer
? It wasn’t a happy thought.
    I looked out the windows streaked with rain. I recognized the distant outline of the Black Forest, low mountains covered in black firs. We were nearing Karlsruhe. I felt instantly sad, and stupid. How in the name of all that’s holy had I managed to get myself back here again?
    The train pulled into the station. I got up and wished my GI pals Godspeed. Though we had been deep in intimate conversation they waved a quick and cheery so long.
    Soldier’s wisdom. Here today, gone like that.
    I climbed down from the railroad platform, grip in hand, to take in downtown Karlsruhe under a wet black sky.
    The Fan City they call it because it’s laid out in a semi-circle, the palace the hub that all the streets spoke out from. Behind the palace was a large greensward for ducal pheasant hunts and chasing maidens through the hedge maze and like that.
    I hadn’t set foot in the town but I knew the layout. Karlsruhe wasn’t the Ruhr Valley but it had machinery-making plants and a harbor on the Rhine and had paid the price for that. And then some. The palace was a wreck.
    I had plenty of pedestrian company on my stroll but saw no cars, trucks or busses. Just a couple of horse drawn carts and a determined young bicyclist on bare rims.
    The locals looked more hale and hearty here. There were farms nearby. Milk and eggs for breakfast instead of rations of Zwieback and mock liver sausage made from breadcrumbs and beer yeast. I even saw a butcher shop with links of fat black
Schwarzwurstl
hanging in the window. Yum.
    I was approached by two blue-black Africans in French uniforms suitable for a parade ground, wearing tall shako capswith the lacquered bills pulled low. They wanted to see my papers, best I could make out.
    My onionskins passed muster and I walked on, wondering why in the hell African soldiers were patrolling Karlsruhe. I turned to watch them accost a doughty farmer and his two daughters.
    I understood. We were in the French Zone of Control, the small sliver of southwest Germany that Charles de Gaulle had won from the Big Three at the postwar negotiating table. The Froggies had all kinds of colonies in Africa. Putting black troops in charge of the remnants of the Master Race sent an unmistakable message.
    The light rain turned pinprick hard. And me with no lid. I ducked into a clothing shop and startled the owner by making a purchase. A dusty Tyrolean hat, good for yodeling in an Alpen gorge. It made me look ridiculous but I was used to that. Kept the rain off my neck.
    I repaired to the local
Biergarten
to chat up the locals. They were sitting out back, at rough hewn picnic tables despite the plinking rain. Farmers, in straw hats and flat black skimmers like you see in Pennsylvania Dutch country. They were smoking Luckies and Camels under the tall trees and hoisting steins to beat the band.
    This would be interesting. ‘Hello, I’m an American reporter for Stars’n’Stripes, working on a story about fleeing war criminals.’ ‘Like who?’ ‘Well, like this gentleman in the photo for instance. Seen