Cronley wasn’t sure whether Hessinger had prepared this yarn before they got to Strasbourg or was making it up on the spot. But it sounded credible, and Cousin Luther seemed to be swallowing it whole.
“So you’re going to Salzburg?” Luther asked.
Hessinger nodded.
“And from there?”
Why don’t I think that’s idle curiosity?
Before Hessinger could reply, Cronley said, “Ask him what he does.”
“The lieutenant asks what your profession is,” Hessinger said.
“I’m an automobile mechanic,” Luther replied. “Or I was before the war. Now there are very few automobiles.”
Hessinger translated.
“Ask him what he did in the war,” Cronley ordered.
As Hessinger translated, Cronley saw that not only had Cousin Luther understood the question as he had asked it, but that he didn’t like it, and was searching his mind for a proper response.
What the hell is this all about?
“Do you understand about Strasbourg?” Luther asked. “How over the years it has passed back and forth between French and German control?”
“Not really,” said Hessinger, who had delivered a ten-minute lecture on the subject on the way to Strasbourg.
“Well . . .” Luther began.
Hessinger shut him off with a raised hand.
“Lieutenant, your cousin says Strasbourg has been under German and French control for years.”
“Really?”
“Go on, Herr Stauffer,” Hessinger ordered.
“Well, before the war, we were French,” Luther explained. “And then when the Germans came, we were Germans again.”
Hessinger translated.
“So what?”
“The lieutenant says he doesn’t understand,” Hessinger said to Luther.
“When the Germans came, they said I was now a German, and in 1941 I was conscripted into the German Army,” Luther said.
There’s something fishy about that.
When Hessinger had made the translation, Cronley said, “Ask him what he did in the German Army.”
“The lieutenant wants to know what you did in the German Army.”
“I was a common soldier, a grenadier, and then I escaped and hid out until the war was over.”
Cousin Luther, that is not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.
What the hell are you up to?