Ch 47
“Shellproof, I don’t trust that American.” Thirty-Four had gotten Adler to sleep and was talking to Shellproof about Adam. “I’ve never met an American before but he is not American. He seems off to me.”
“I think you’re just paranoid, Thirty-Four. The radio messages aren’t the best quality, they might all sound like him.”
“It wasn’t just his voice, Shell, he was just awkward. His speech was awkward.”
“He is a little man talking to big tanks.” Thirty-Four didn’t seem to get the point. “I know how terrified you were when it happened, he probably felt as terrified.”
“Oh he looked just fine around you, though, I was never that comfortable.”
“Because I wasn’t staring him down like a wolf! You scared him so much he couldn’t act right. Believe me once he warmed up to me he was a lot better with his speech.”
“I still don’t believe you, Shell.” They continued through the night, neither needing to sleep. Sometime just before dawn Thirty-Four changed the subject. “Shellproof, what do you think the Americans will do with the German prisoners?” Shellproof thought about it.
“I don’t know but I think they’ll be kind to them.” There was a pause between them. “Why do you ask?”
“That ball Adler had, two German soldiers gave it to him before we were found. I scared them off; I feared for Adler and was angry at the Germans anyhow. I found them yesterday; they were badly injured and were prisoners. I went after Adler and watched him play with them, after I sent Adler away I approached them-they were terrified of me-and I gave them the ball back, and I thanked them for it. I left right after that.”
“You seem to have changed your position, you know that?”
“I did, I don’t have that hate, that desire to murder every single one of them, that’s all gone now. I have changed.”
“When did this happen? You didn’t turn soft did you?”
“No, I still wanted to kill the invaders-but, we won. That desire is gone, too. We killed them, we took their land, and now we are in their capital doing whatever we want.” She looked to Adler, fast asleep. “I think he’s rubbing off on me.”
“How so?”
“He never saw why we were invading their land. He didn’t have a problem with the Germans like we did, he thought them as people while I thought them as rats. I think them as people now.”
“Adam told me that his general has a bunch of ‘breathers’ as they call us. He said they have German tanks, too, and that they have families, and kids. They’re about Adler’s age, maybe tomorrow you could take Adler to meet and play with them.” Thirty-Four thought about it.
“I think I will.”
The following morning she got Adler his breakfast and took him to the river while he ate it. She waited there with Adler, washing some filth off of him while he sat in the water mesmerized by it. He mostly picked up the muck at the bottom and brought it to the surface to examine it. Thirty-Four cleaned out grass, twigs, stones, and dirt from between his treads and wheels and cleaned his face and body. After he was finished she decided to clean herself, too. Carefully she measured how deep her treads sank in the river while cleaning herself the same way she cleaned Adler. She tenderly rubbed her shot wound until it shone like polished silver and cleaned out her parts-genitals included-after three years of grime. She had cleaned her body and hoped for a way to clean her and Adler’s engine when she caught two tanks from the corner of her eye. She instantly knew they were kids, one was a Panzer and the other was a Sherman, like the American made tanks that the Russians used, but both were only two-thirds the size. Just like Adler. The Panzer waved, Adler waved back excited. She said he should go over to them and introduce himself, she didn’t expect him to lurch forward through the river. Her instincts kicked in and her terrified body lurched after him, holding him tightly as he wadded across. Thankfully the river wasn’t deep here and Adler made it across, and she was able to back out of the river harmlessly. She sat across the channel watching her son talk to the two child tanks. It looked like the two tanks instantly accepted Adler into their group. She smiled, her son had made friends. She watched them talk and play, they were showing off their engine power by pushing each other, and felt a desire to have had her own childhood.
She watched Adler and the Sherman play, then the Sherman led Adler and the Panzer off away from the riverbank, what she saw next made her jump and her skin crawl. The Sherman went right up to a huge German Tiger 2 tank. Thirty-Four’s heart raced as she threw caution to the wind and hurtled across the river. She powered her way up the bank and raced to Adler but he and the other tanks were already introduced to the Tiger 2 and were now playing a game in the dirt. She listened in to the conversation that the Tiger was having with the circle of Americans. Hansel and Marion were huddled together in a circle of other tanks and tankers, talking about stories and feats they’d had. A rough voiced man in his early forties asked Hansel what he did with the Americans, being a former German army soldier.
“Well, Marion and I at first were just heavy lifters, but eventually they pulled us up front because I speak English and German and because Marion’s, well, a tiger. We’d have a big horn on here and either myself or the loader, Meats, would try to convince the town ahead of us to surrender. We’d try that but it really never worked. And one day we got ourselves a new platoon leader, this guy was a kid. Poor kid still had pimples on his face, smooth face because he probably couldn’t grow face hair. Anyway so Marion’s in the middle, we’re lined up abreast with Shermans here and there, a bunch of infantry squatting behind us, and all the commanders, even me, are hunkered in our hatches except the P-L. We tried getting him down but he didn’t listen. So he’s standing up in his hatch while I’m talking through the speaker and then there’s a flash in a window just before the kid starts screaming following a rifle’s crack. He’d been shot in the left cheek and his whole left jaw had been shattered and broken. He screamed his head off and kicked and squirmed and threw himself all around. We all pumped some shots into the building with the sniper in it while the infantry pulled that kid behind the tank. I’ll never forget what the sergeant said because it’s exactly what my first ever sergeant said in Russia. He said ‘that was short lived,’ and off we went under his command. That town had nothing but riflemen and a machine gun, just a squad or two.” Thirty-Four listened attentively.
“Why are you here, tiger?” She asked in Russian. Marion shifted to look at Thirty-Four, confused and pleasantly surprised. Marion didn’t know Russian so she tried English, Thirty-Four didn’t understand a word. Adler tried to speak for his mother in German but he didn’t have enough vocabulary to translate beyond an introduction. While the two women quite easily recognized the other as females that was all they could discern. Marion called for Kramia because nobody around could translate between English, German, and Russian. Once she had scooted up with Mini’s assistance she first talked to Thirty-Four.
“How are you here?” Thirty-Four asked Kramia in surprise.
“I was absorbed into the Wehrmacht and then into the American army. How was the Red Army?”
“We triumphed! When were you lost? What happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean!? You have a tiger gun! You’re pregnant! What did those rats do to you?!” Kramia was confused.
“Rats?”
“The Nazi cowards! Rats! They took you and maimed you! Raped you!” Kramia was now upset.
“What? No! I deserted! How could you work with such heathens?!”
“YOU DESERTED!?!” At this point everyone knew something was up, Marion carefully picked up a round and put it in the loading tray. Hansel ducked into the cupola, the Americans did the same. Marion started pulling Geoff and Cindy around her stern. “I should shoot you!”
“What else would I have done? I just watched my crew rape and kill a Russian girl! I’ve never seen a German rape and kill a German girl! They abused and used me, treated me like shit, so I left! Russia had given me nothing but pain and hate, cruelty and confusion! Of course I left!” At this point Mini inserted himself between his wife and Thirty-Four.
“Who is this? Your rapist? Saving his sex slave!?”
“No,” Mini said, he looked to the child T-34 and figured that maybe it wasn’t legitimate, “I’m sorry, but we’re not all bad.” He looked to both girls, “neither side.” That devotion that Mini showed to Kramia, standing in front of her to keep a fight from breaking out, that little bit of devotion hurt Thirty-Four’s feelings. She felt a wave of depression overcome her while a deep rage grew and festered. She wondered if she wasn’t good enough for the Tiger to stay, what could’ve been if he stayed with her, flocked to her army or took her to his, she wondered if he didn’t rape her but seek a companionship with her. These questions of what life would be if Adler had a loving father shook her. Adler came up to her side and was grabbing her wheels and treads. She looked down to him, his little waist belts connecting his wheels together and his beading eyes made her smile.
“Don’t fight, mama, please don’t fight.” She put a hand on his cupola and rubbed it, a grin coming over her face.
“I won’t, Adler, baby, I won’t fight. Why don’t you ask them for a ball and show your friends how to play catch in the field over there?” He asked Mini and Mini got him a ball from an American. Adler took the kids away and they played catch.
“Are we calm now?” Mini asked, still lodged between them, they nodded. “Good, why don’t we get to know each other before we rip our gears out?” They agreed and traded stories, everybody else had relaxed a little but were still tense. Thirty-Four and Kramia had relaxed and forgiven each other, seeing the other’s reasons. After that Thirty-Four asked why all the German tanks were here, not just about Marion.
“So is she SS?” Thirty asked, Kramia answered no without translating to Marion. “So why does she have that on her gun?” She pointed to the black Tiger 2 tank silhouette painted as a break in the black kill stripe on her barrel, inside the black tiger was the emblem for the SS, two white lightning bolts.
“Marion, she wants to know why that’s there.” Kramia said to Marion, mentioning the special kill stripe.
“I have that for killing an SS tiger.” Kramia told Thirty, she asked if it was a living Tiger I with excitement. “No, it was a dead metal Tiger II.” When Kramia replied to Thirty, she slumped.
“With a bastard like that we probably got him, we probably got him good.” Kramia tried to lift up Thirty-Four’s spirit. Mini nodded in agreement.
“What if Adler asks about him?”
“What do you mean?”
“He asks where does he come from and I try my best to avoid it, but he’s smart, what do I say when he keeps asking? Who do I say his father is when I teach him about children? How do I tell my son that he’s a bastard?” She started to break down crying, Kramia brought her into a hug for comfort. “Kramia,”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You’re in for a world of hell when you give birth.” That sparked her interest.
“Where will it come out?”
“The same place it went in.” Kramia’s belly and stern turned cold and ached.
Fin Ch 47