Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [67]
He looked up, wearing a startled expression, perhaps for her benefit. "Of course he's still alive."
"Then how did you get all this food?"
In the Opel, after the American had told her he was the Horseman, and with blood still pouring all around, he had asked where the nearest food was. In a daze, she had pointed at the gauleiter's home. He had told her to go into her house, and that he would be along in a few minutes, all the while speaking with a bank clerk's dispassion. He had returned while she was upstairs decoding the message.
The American said, "The gauleiter was upstairs, drunkenly bawling out some beer hall song. And a lady was up there too, giggling and singing. I went in the unlocked back door into the kitchen. They didn't hear a thing, and so much food was in his larder he won't miss the little I took. I made three trips, my arms full of food each time."
"Where did you put the car, the car with the bodies?"
"I left it in a park a kilometer from here. From there I walked to the gauleiter's,"
She nodded at the stove. "And the wood?"
He grinned again. "It's coal, not wood."
"I've been out of coal for months."
"Do you know anything about your furnace?" he asked.
"Only that it doesn't have any coal, like I said."
"This is a large house, and you have a huge furnace. A coal bin with a feed into the furnace usually has a few pieces of stray coal that the feed screw couldn't collect. And I found a few more chunks that had fallen into the ash bin below the furnace."
The scent of the meat was powerful, was making her act strangely and inappropriately. She was talking with a cutthroat, a merciless killer, chatting away and making small gestures, all as an excuse to monitor the progress of the steaks in their pan.
She had heard a few things about America and Americans, mostly on the radio. They were naive and full of energy, children really. They were easily swayed and easily distracted. Churchill had duped the entire country. American women shaved their armpits and New York City lay in ruin after Luftwaffe bombings. That was all she knew about them. She had never before met one.
Now an American was making a meal in her kitchen. If Americans all looked like him, the war was certainly lost. His smile was there and gone, there and gone. A killer, yet he had a veneer of urbanity and good cheer. In fact, she thought, he looked rather German. At least, he looked like the exaggerated caricatures of German soldiers on the propaganda posters Goebbels had placed all over the country. Big-framed and blond and agate-eyed. Except this one looked like he'd been run over by a truck once or twice.
"Are you German?" she asked abruptly.
"I'm an American. I thought you knew that."
"What I mean is, is your heritage German? You look German. Were your grandparents from Germany, maybe?"
He pulled at an earlobe. "I had an uncle who was German. He came to America to work in a baby carriage factory."
"Yes?"
Cray said, "He was fired after two weeks."
"Why?"
"Because every time he tried to build a baby carriage, it turned out to be a machine gun."
It took her a moment. Then she said, "You are a child."
"Looks like the steaks are done." He slid them onto two plates, then fished out the carrots and potatoes. He broke the potatoes open and spread butter on them. He tore off large chunks of bread. He buttered hers, but with his he scraped the meat pan, letting the grease soak into the bread. When Katrin pointed at the pan, he did the same with her bread, cleaning the pan with it. He handed her a plate. So much time had passed since her last full meal, she was startled with the plate's weight. He gave her a knife and fork.
She followed him into the adjacent room, where a fire was on the grate. The coal was of a poor quality, and it gave off more smoke than heat. Even so, it warmed the entire room. He had placed a bucket containing a few more pieces of coal to one side. He lifted two pillows from a sofa and tossed them in front of the fireplace. He lowered himself to the pillow, his feet out to the flames. She followed him down to