Creep Around the Corner. Douglas Atwill

gorgeous merchandise,

      My camera, it’s a dandy,

      six by nine, just your size.

      You want my porcelain figure? Black Market . . .

      –Marlene Dietrich

      CORPORAL MURGON CAUGHT up with me for his guideline lecture on life at Schloss Issel, as Sergeant-Major Tetley had requested. He came over to my table at the Bierstube Langenscheidt, across the street from the schloss, while I was waiting for Follum.

      The corporal was slight and dark. He sat down without being asked and looked both ways at the other stube customers before he started to speak.

      “Sergeant-Major asked me to get you up to speed. About Schloss Issel.”

      “Thanks, corporal, but I’ve already been here a couple of weeks now. Mostly I figured things out for myself.”

      But the corporal would not be stopped. “Don’t come here very often to the Bierstube Langenscheidt, the higher-ups notice if a new enlisted man drinks too much. Don’t miss the morning formation, and stay under the radar when it comes to leave requests. They watch men who take took much time off.”

      I said, “I’m looking forward to my leave time. Paris, maybe, or London.”

      “I would stick around here. Foreign travel is suspect.”

      “Callard goes to France a lot, he told me.”

      “I would especially avoid Callard, if I were you. He used to work with us in the Counterespionage, but high command transferred him over to Historical Section. We can’t have any questionables in Counterespionage, you know.”

      I said, “I’m assigned to the Historical Section, too.”

      “Oh, well.”

      “Now, exactly what’s wrong with Callard?”

      It was obvious that Murgon relished passing along gossip and I could not help thinking of him as a fishmonger’s wife, sleeves rolled to the elbows, trafficking poisonous stories as she wrapped the glassy-eyed purchase in newspaper. We new arrivals were the only ears that would listen, I was sure.

      He said, “Callard is smart, I’ll give him that. Phi Beta Kappa from Idaho, Master’s Thesis almost done when he enlisted rather than being drafted. He can type faster than anybody else with no mistakes.”

      “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

      “There’s talk that he’s a fairy. Nothing definite, but all the signs are there. Goes to the ballet and the opera, drinks late at night down in the Polish Quarter.”

      “All major crimes, I can see.”

      “If you’re not going to take me seriously, I won’t continue.”

      “Sorry, Murgon, but I go to concerts and the opera, too.”

      “Well, you’re different from Callard, I can tell. He even makes a point to dress like the Germans, so he won’t be picked out as an American. There is definitely something wrong with that.”

      “So a season ticket to the ballet and civilian clothes are damning evidence for Callard?”

      “You’ll see. Just wait.”

      Follum came to join us, but before he could say a word, I took the opportunity to leave Murgon and his tittle-tattle. “Eric, let’s go over to the club. I said I would meet Callard. Thanks for everything, Murgon.”

      He glared at me as we left. As we crossed the street, Follum said, “I don’t like him much, that Murgon.”

      “Creepy guy.”

      A few nights later, I walked down to Callard’s room at the far end of the third floor. He had showered for the evening, dressed in slim black trousers and a black silk shirt. There was a towel around his neck, protecting his shirt while he patted a gooey substance around his eyes. A glass ampoule broken into halves stood beside the plate of goo on his footlocker.

      “Belgian Elixir, Bradford. My friend Omer, the Brussels pianist at the TubeBar, smuggled a few ampoules into my pocket the other night. No mere soldier could afford them. I will, in time, give him favors in return. After five minutes on your face, he said, the elixir erases every sign of a crows-foot and those horrid marionette-mouth lines. I’ll be a teen-ager again.”

      “Callard, you already look like a teen-ager, if a slightly wasted one.”

      “I know, but it pays to make sure on a night like tonight. The magic lasts until midnight, though, so fast work is required. I wish you could see what will happen, but I can’t take you with me tonight.”

      “You don’t look old.”

      “Tonight, I definitely won’t. Every eye on my entrance to the Krakow Klub, where I pause for a moment to let the cold night air swirl about me, heads turning as snow eddies into the room. Then, cruel workers’ hands reach to touch me as I pass by their rough tables, all the men engorged with desire and, at last, walking ever so slowly, giving savor to every eye, I reach my chair at the regulars’ table, the Stammtisch, in the very middle of the Corps de Ballet. The whole table of handsome Polish regulars, the very heart of the ballet, stands with light applause, companionable hugs all around. Darling, how young you look. Herr Callard, so thin and hungry. Guten Abend, Liebchen. Sweaty bodies, joy beyond belief.”

      “All this from a Belgian goo?”

      “Don’t be snippy. You can come next time.”

      “I’m not sure I want to come.”

      “You do in your heart.”

      “It scares me a bit, your night world.”

      “You’ll be my young apprentice, watching my every move. With the maestro, there will be no danger.”

      “We’ll see, Callard.”

      He wiped away the excess ointment to reveal a startled look on his face, as if someone had clapped together a pair of pot lids behind his back. The Belgian astringent was working, but perhaps concocted with too heavy a hand.

      As he walked away down the hall with his curious, almost sideways walk, he looked back over his shoulder and adjusted his black jacket and long scarf. The black beret finished his look, decidedly un-American and non-military. Four hours of bliss, then I turn into a sewer rat, he said; he dipped ever so slightly and rounded the corner.

      The men of the Polish quarter were in for a surprise tonight. Or not.

      The next day at lunch, Callard had recovered enough for conversation and he motioned for Follum and me to sit with him. Most of the other enlisted men shunned Callard’s table because of his gamey talk and tainted reputation. Murgon was the source of his bad standing, I was sure.

      “I had the most amazing offer at the Krakow Klub last night,” he said.

      Follum said, “Are you sure we want to hear?”

      “Nothing salacious, Follum. There was this old woman at the Stammtisch, a Nazi widow, who reached across the table. She grabbed my hand in both of hers and said that I resembled her son, Manfred, dead at Stalingrad. So young, so sad.” He put his own hand to the side of his face, now relaxed from the rigors of Belgium.

      I said, “So the elixir was already paying dividends.”

      “She was most pleasant, smiling, talking to her companions about the resemblance.”

      I asked, “So what was her offer?”

      “Don’t rush me. I could understand a little of what she said to her friends as they all nodded their heads, but then she switched to English. Spoke it well. She asked me if I had an auto. All young men needed an automobile now, for their sweeties on the other side of town.”

      “She offered you her car?”

      “No, it was her son’s Mercedes. A nineteen thirty-seven