to the curb and found on his forehead a sweat so heavy it required both hands to dry. Now the melodrama was inflated beyond all sane proportion, and it was Schild who felt wet all over in genuine perspiration, certain, in a dread moment as the newcomer stopped before him and he saw a face as puffed and insensitive as a medicine ball, that it was an arrest.
“Lovely evening, men. May I trouble you for a light?”
A great curved pipe like Sherlock Holmes’s, like Stalin’s, and by the flare of the match, a golden lapel-cross. He continued to intake and expel till the flame seared Schild’s fingers, and then, with one last cumulus of smoke straight into Schild’s eyes, he padded on with a clabbering “good night.”
“A holy man,” said Schild derisively, regulating his breath as Schatzi returned. And then, as Schatzi said nothing, stood rather in silent, corrosive accusation as the minutes vibrated through the watch on Schild’s wrist, up his forearm, biceps, shoulder— “Yes. That would be the perfect disguise!”
“Don’t be ridiculouse,” Schatzi answered in a very low voice. “That was the Protestant chaplain for the 1209th Hospital. He is quite likely looking for girls, the younger the better, the dirty old man. ... You have then no explanation.” It was not a question. “Among the papers of Nader was concealed a memorandum which read ‘Documents—Schild.’ They all go to him before you deliver them to me, yes?”
To be frightened by a fat, buttery, strolling chaplain! Schild recovered so rapidly that he all but made another small joke. “Ridiculouse,” how ridiculouse it was. Schatzi was after all accusing him of treachery; of all imaginable moments it should have been the most terrible, yet he could barely withhold laughter. Nader, Lovett, the colonel, Shelby, the chaplain, and, in his own house, St. George, with their uniforms and pipes and insignia and parties and cleanup details and evening walks—who but Schatzi could envision that fat, genial toad with the gold cross pinching some German teen-ager’s behind, or Nader’s playing the deep game?
“I had to go to Nader, you see,” he whispered. “Anything else would have been suspicious. I assure you he’s a buffoon.”
“Now I must not again hear you say that of anyone,” said Schatzi, “or I will know you for a traitor. I have told you those are the most dangerous persons. But even so, you do not have a connection with Nader, you say, however, you go from him to the office of the commanding colonel and insult Sergeant Shelby.”
Surely he did not presume to direct Schild’s official relations with enlisted men; he was getting now clearly beyond his limits, and Schild forbore from righteous protest only because his intuition told him Schatzi had not yet reached the serious argument of which this was preface.
“Shelby?” Caution made him pretend briefly not to recall the name.
“ Shelby, yes!” Schatzi’s breath into his ear was like a long needle piercing the drum. “He is a sympatizer, but he will not forever be one with rudeness.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“You might have smelled it—but that is not the point. A source in the very headquarters of the major American medical hospital in Berlin. If Major General Floyd Parks becomes ill, where does he go? To 1209th ! If the deputy commander, Colonel Frank Howley? To 1209th ! Eisenhower comes to Berlin, twists his ankle—even you should see the actualities. There is no brains in making enemies of someone who has the slightest power. That is the first rule. The second is, give to a man a chance.”
Give to a man a chance! It was a touching slogan of wonderful, innocent charity, like the creed of some early social reformer, some Robert Owen, now outworn but fond in memory. He had not looked for such a sentiment in Schatzi and finding it was not quite sure he got its sense, unless beneath that scarred and charred carapace there was an old idealism that
“Lovely evening, men. May I trouble you for a light?”
A great curved pipe like Sherlock Holmes’s, like Stalin’s, and by the flare of the match, a golden lapel-cross. He continued to intake and expel till the flame seared Schild’s fingers, and then, with one last cumulus of smoke straight into Schild’s eyes, he padded on with a clabbering “good night.”
“A holy man,” said Schild derisively, regulating his breath as Schatzi returned. And then, as Schatzi said nothing, stood rather in silent, corrosive accusation as the minutes vibrated through the watch on Schild’s wrist, up his forearm, biceps, shoulder— “Yes. That would be the perfect disguise!”
“Don’t be ridiculouse,” Schatzi answered in a very low voice. “That was the Protestant chaplain for the 1209th Hospital. He is quite likely looking for girls, the younger the better, the dirty old man. ... You have then no explanation.” It was not a question. “Among the papers of Nader was concealed a memorandum which read ‘Documents—Schild.’ They all go to him before you deliver them to me, yes?”
To be frightened by a fat, buttery, strolling chaplain! Schild recovered so rapidly that he all but made another small joke. “Ridiculouse,” how ridiculouse it was. Schatzi was after all accusing him of treachery; of all imaginable moments it should have been the most terrible, yet he could barely withhold laughter. Nader, Lovett, the colonel, Shelby, the chaplain, and, in his own house, St. George, with their uniforms and pipes and insignia and parties and cleanup details and evening walks—who but Schatzi could envision that fat, genial toad with the gold cross pinching some German teen-ager’s behind, or Nader’s playing the deep game?
“I had to go to Nader, you see,” he whispered. “Anything else would have been suspicious. I assure you he’s a buffoon.”
“Now I must not again hear you say that of anyone,” said Schatzi, “or I will know you for a traitor. I have told you those are the most dangerous persons. But even so, you do not have a connection with Nader, you say, however, you go from him to the office of the commanding colonel and insult Sergeant Shelby.”
Surely he did not presume to direct Schild’s official relations with enlisted men; he was getting now clearly beyond his limits, and Schild forbore from righteous protest only because his intuition told him Schatzi had not yet reached the serious argument of which this was preface.
“Shelby?” Caution made him pretend briefly not to recall the name.
“ Shelby, yes!” Schatzi’s breath into his ear was like a long needle piercing the drum. “He is a sympatizer, but he will not forever be one with rudeness.”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“You might have smelled it—but that is not the point. A source in the very headquarters of the major American medical hospital in Berlin. If Major General Floyd Parks becomes ill, where does he go? To 1209th ! If the deputy commander, Colonel Frank Howley? To 1209th ! Eisenhower comes to Berlin, twists his ankle—even you should see the actualities. There is no brains in making enemies of someone who has the slightest power. That is the first rule. The second is, give to a man a chance.”
Give to a man a chance! It was a touching slogan of wonderful, innocent charity, like the creed of some early social reformer, some Robert Owen, now outworn but fond in memory. He had not looked for such a sentiment in Schatzi and finding it was not quite sure he got its sense, unless beneath that scarred and charred carapace there was an old idealism that
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