The Story Begins Page 20

  He decided that his first step towards changing his very limited exposure to German culture would be to rent an apartment off-post, just as Lieutenant Krappa had done. Returning to the office that had initially assigned him his quarters, he was referred to a different section whose main function was facilitating off-post rental agreements with local landlords.

  He signed in on the roster and just as he was about to have a seat, a lady walked out of the office.

  “Hello,” she said, smiling.

  “Hi.”

  “You must want an off-post place to stay?” said the stern-looking yet soft-voiced, middle-aged woman.

  “You must have read my mind!” he joked.

  “Do come in, young man.”

  He followed her to the transparent cubicle that was at the very end of a huge office room divided into several cubicles, all of which were transparent. What’s the point of even dividing the workspace into cubicles if you’re not going to have any privacy, he wondered.

  “Please have a seat,” she offered.

  “Thank you.”

  “My name is Mrs. Kusch.” She looked towards his uniform name tape for his; however, Jaden had his arms crossed and his hand hid some of the letters of his name. “And what, may I ask, is yours?” she said pleasantly. “I can see that you’re a lieutenant but can’t see the name.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” he apologized, lowering his arms. “Please call me Jaden.”

  “Would you not rather I address you by your rank and last name?”

  “No. All that formal crap is just that – crap!”

  She smiled. “Well, we certainly do not want crap now, do we?”

  “Nope!”

  “So, we’ve established that you’d like a place off-post, now we just need to determine what exactly you have in mind.”

  “Well, I’m kind of new in town so don’t know much yet about the place. But I’m looking for something close to work, which, by the way, is at Coleman Barracks,” he explained.

  “Okay. Let’s go see what’s posted on the announcement board. Please follow me,” she said, grabbing a pen and pad as she rose.

  “Certainly,” he said, following her lead. As he followed her out, he looked around the office. He noticed by the name plates on the desks that it seemed like all of the employees were either German or another nationality. He figured that it only made sense that they be at least bilingual given the language barrier between potential American tenants and German landlords. What he found interesting, though, was that behind every single cubicle sat a woman. There wasn’t a single guy there. He thought it must have been one of those occupations which somehow, for whatever reason, was women-dominated; at least in that particular office. Then the most random thought occurred to him. He wondered if there were any male midwives, and if there were, were they called the same.

  As they made their way through the cubicles, he noticed a young woman get up from her desk and walk in their direction. She was too engrossed in reading the document she held to notice that the three were on a collision course. She was very beautiful. She wore a black and red skirt that conformed nicely around her midsection and fanned out just below mid-thigh. Her black high-heeled shoes accentuated her slender legs and, beneath her silver-colored blouse, Jaden could only have imagined was a full and beautifully sculpted bosom; that is if he had cared to imagine this. However, unlike a lot if not most guys, Jaden couldn’t have possibly cared any less about her appearance. Nevertheless, there was something about her, something very different that he felt had absolutely nothing to do with how she looked.

  Now sensing that others were approaching on the same narrow passageway between cubicles, the young woman raised her head, making eye contact with him. Seeing him she stopped, lowered her eyes, and stepped aside with her head bowed low.

  Mrs. Kusch said hi as she walked past her and thanked her for being courteous. She didn’t seem to find the young woman’s demeanor unusual.

  The young lady had remained silent though Mrs. Kusch had greeted her. As Jaden was walking past her, she genuflected.

  Though that struck him as odd, he smiled. Once he was past her, she continued on her way.

  He found her gesture sweet, if old fashioned, and conjectured as to her upbringing. He hoped that she wasn’t raised in a household where she was brainwashed into believing that she should be subservient to men. That fear was quickly allayed when Jaden, looking back at her as he walked out the door, saw her walk past a guy who had stepped out of an adjacent office without any of the behavior that she had displayed towards him. His fear for her may have been mollified but his curiosity was very much piqued.

  Mrs. Kusch led him to the board where available apartments were listed and showed him all the apartments that were in neighborhoods close to where he worked. He liked the description of a cozy-sounding, furnished, 63-square-meter one-bedroom in Lampertheim. Mrs. Kusch described the area as mostly residential and quiet, and about a fifteen to twenty-minute drive to downtown Mannheim, and no more than a couple of minutes away by car to where he worked.

  Back at her desk, Mrs. Kusch asked, “When would be a good time for you to go and see the apartment so that I may call the landlord and schedule an appointment?”

  “Oh, that won’t be necessary,” he told her.

  This surprised her somewhat. “Really? Are you sure you don’t want to see it? See what it looks like and get a feel for just how big it is. Sixty-three square-meters isn’t all that big, my dear. You might find it a bit too small.”

  “Nah, I doubt that. I’m single, simple, don’t have much, it’s close to work and the place is already furnished. I’ll be good with it, I’m sure,” he said.

  His primary criterion was its proximity to work; everything else after that was a bonus. Mrs. Kusch, however, was adamant that he go see the place first. Although it was ultimately his decision if he really wanted to or not, he acquiesced to make her happy. He reasoned that because she was experienced, it might be that she or her colleagues may have had past dealings involving people who might have liked the pictures shown, or been attracted by something else they may have seen on paper, but then found out that not all was as they had imagined only after it was too late.

  While he filled out the initial paperwork, Mrs. Kusch called the prospective landlord and made arrangements to visit the place. After making the coordination, she explained that if he was happy with what he saw, they’d finish up what remained of the paperwork at a later time, which, she explained, would essentially just be getting the landlord’s and his signatures and the Housing Office’s seal.

  Once done there on his way out of the office, he had to walk past the desk of the young woman who had lowered her eyes when she saw him. He noticed that her name plate read ‘Angela Schmidt.’ “Have a pleasant day, Angela,” he wished her as he drew near her desk.

  She looked up from the myriad documents on her desk and smiled back, after which she bowed her head again, as in a gesture of humility with a mannerism that reminded him of court women of old in the presence of royalty.

  I really, really wonder why she does that, he thought as he made his way out of the office.

  18

  Leadership Style

  Jaden had good soldiers who, knowing their jobs very well and taking their duty very seriously, made his job very easy. Because of his lack of expertise in the respective fields of the various sections in his platoon, whenever he tried to help out in their jobs, he often found himself doing more harm than good. His job, his guys would always remind him, was to manage them and make sure that they did what they were getting paid to do. He’d then always argue that he saw no reason why his platoon even needed a platoon leader, given how efficient and competent his guys were.

  Although he hadn’t been there that long and though rank was a recognized part of the profession, Jaden always treated his soldiers as his equals, unlike Lieutenant Krappa, who treated his men with an air of arrogance. Because of his very amicable leadership style
, it did not take long at all for him to earn the respect of the entire company, not just that of his platoon.

  His soldiers would have bent over backwards for him. They never failed in any of the tasks assigned to the platoon and not only did they carry out their duties in a manner that made the young officer seem like God’s gift to the army but even how they carried themselves off-duty was to be commended. Unlike many of the other units, whose company commanders and first sergeants were often called in to the Provost Marshall’s office on Sullivan Barracks at ungodly hours almost every weekend due to unbecoming behavior by their soldiers, none of Jaden’s guys had once gotten in trouble since he’d gotten there. Prior to his arrival, however, while Lieutenant Moore had been the platoon leader, the story had been quite different.

  Under Jaden’s leadership, not a single soldier dreamed of doing anything that would have reflected badly on their lieutenant and it was not uncommon for soldiers to randomly approach him just to tell him that they’d happily follow him into battle and take a bullet for him without hesitation.

  Captain Peterson had once called Jaden into his office to laud him for the terrific job he was doing both in his on-duty responsibilities and also for keeping the guys out of trouble off–duty. “I have no idea what it is that you’re doing, or how you’re doing it, but ever since you’ve gotten here, not a single one of your soldiers has gotten into trouble,” the Captain had said to him. “I wish I could say the same for the other platoon but unfortunately I can’t.” Captain Peterson had then paused for thought before continuing. “You know, I never could quite figure out what Moore’s problem was but the work was hardly ever done. And to make things worse, I was picking some of your guys up almost every weekend from the MP station. The German cops would pick them up for disorderly conduct – for, you know, like picking fights at nightclubs, being completely drunk and rowdy, disturbing the peace and the like. You name it and someone in your platoon has done it. Anyway, not only could Moore not control his guys, but he was never anywhere to be found when shit went south with his guys. But that’s all changed with you. Keep up the good work, Lieutenant. Soldiers can be very unruly, to say the least, but somehow you’re managing your guys exceptionally well.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Dude!” the Captain had then said casually, “You have no idea just how much I appreciate the peaceful weekends and good nights’ rest you’ve afforded me since you’ve gotten here.”

  “It’s nothing, sir. You just have to know how to care for and treat folks. If you do it right, it’s unlikely they’ll let you down,” the Lieutenant explained.

  Hanging out in the bay with some of his mechanics while the latter worked on the tracks of a tank on a relatively warm December morning, Jaden decided to inquire why his guys never took their jobs as seriously when Lieutenant Moore was in charge. “Ever since I’ve been here, it’s like your productivity level has skyrocketed. I’ve been here for a little over three months and most of the unit’s equipment is fully mission-capable again. Why wasn’t that the case when Lieutenant Moore was here?” Jaden asked.

  Private Kaplan explained. “Sir, are you and Lieutenant Krappa friends?”

  Jaden looked at him, aghast. “Kaplan! Whatever you do, please do not ever mention friendship in the same breath you would my name and that of Lieutenant Krappa. Please, please, please!”

  “Roger that, sir,” Kaplan said, laughing. “Now, sir, tell me, what kind of people do you think would befriend someone like Krappa – Lieutenant Krappa, I mean?”

  “If I were to guess, I’d have to say probably people pretty much like him. That’s not to say only people like him but I’d be inclined to think that it would be mostly those with whom he shares similar personality traits.”

  “In that case then, sir, it’s enough to say that Lieutenant Krappa and Lieutenant Moore were very, very good buddies,” Kaplan said.

  “I see!” said Jaden, making the connection.

  “Exactly, sir!” said the Private. “And when you don’t take care of your soldiers but instead treat them like shit… well, let’s just say what goes around comes around, sir.”

  “Yep, I believe in that wholeheartedly,” agreed the Lieutenant.

  “See, sir, we’re mostly lower-enlisted in the unit so we don’t need to worry about evaluation reports just yet. By the time evaluations start to concern many of us, most of us here will have already moved on to a different duty station. So, because we are untouchable in that respect, we made damn sure that Lieutenant Moore failed, and failed miserably. The unit has always been a team and because we all acted together, what could he have done – court martial or demote the bunch of us? Hell no! And he couldn’t bitch to the captain that his entire platoon was disobeying orders because obviously the problem could only have been him.”

  “I’m with you on that assessment of the situation,” Jaden said. “Unless you’re Jesus, if nine out of ten people don’t see eye to eye with you, chances are you’re the screwed up one.”

  “You, sir, on the other hand, are the coolest lieutenant any of us has ever worked with. Even the guys in Lieutenant Krappa’s platoon say that and you’re not even their platoon leader,” Specialist Morgan chimed in.

  “Thanks for the compliment, Morgan!”

  “Don’t mention it, sir. It’s the truth. You come out to the barracks on weekends, bring beer, have a drink or two with us, let us go home early if we finish up early… hell, you even let us take turns sleeping in.”

  That last perk Jaden had initially implemented very discretely so as not to draw the company commander’s attention; Captain Peterson, however, was quite aware of it but chose to look the other way because Jaden did an excellent job of keeping his soldiers motivated and productive. Additionally, the captain was certain that the young lieutenant did so for no other reason than as a reward for the great job his men consistently did.

  “There aren’t too many out there like you, sir,” finished Morgan.

  19

  A Lonely Soul

  Though the winter hadn’t been a terribly cold one, the weather was changing for the better for spring was now upon them. All had been going well and Jaden really hadn’t anything he might have complained of, at least such was the impression. He spent a great deal of time with his soldiers at the barracks after the work day was done, and even more so on weekends, just having fun playing cards, barbecuing, recounting stories and such. He was always amused when he’d see the guys working so hard, tirelessly trying to impress the local girls who had come to visit. The hard work had, evidently, been worth every bit of effort for some of his troops as there were a few among them who had proudly walked up to him and introduced their girl, beaming as though they had just snagged the most beautiful woman God had created. And why not believe so? he thought. Beauty, after all, is in the eye of the beholder.

  The more Jaden hung out with his soldiers, carrying on as though there were not a care in the world to be concerned with, the more he felt that something about him wasn’t quite right. And try as he did, he simply could not fathom what precisely that might be. He often thought of Melanie and he’d wonder if she was faring well. Ever since she had overheard his conversation with Tina, they had stopped seeing each other. He questioned if perhaps how he was feeling might have concerned her. He didn’t believe that it was related; still he was unsure. He missed her sorely.

  He very often pondered if at any time in his life he had felt as he now did. He didn’t believe so. Whatever the emotions were that stirred within him, he found them to be very strange and alien. As the days wore on, that which stirred within did not abate; on the contrary it magnified. And it wasn’t too long before he became so overwhelmed by it that, though oblivious, he descended into a state of depression. His visits to the barracks became less and less frequent then ceased altogether. If he wasn’t at work then he was at home. He didn’t care to do any more. He no longer cared to explore Germany, nor anywhere else in Europe for that matter.

 
For several months his routine had remained unchanged, never deviating in the least; work in the morning then home in the evening. And so his days repeated themselves through the fall, winter, and into the following spring. Then something changed.

  The pattern was for him to get home, change out of his uniform, switch on the television, have a couple of drinks, maybe three if not more, read a bit, more television, and then think of Melanie until sleep overcame him. This particular evening, however, would turn out to be different; the monotony of his routine was to be broken.

  He headed home after work and began settling into his customary ways, up until he switched on the television, that is. The very first image he looked upon was the Water Tower. He couldn’t understand the language but it appeared as though the program was a documentary in which the tower was featured. Seeing it reminded him of his trip downtown with Mrs. Steinberger. He remembered the odd phenomenon that had occurred. The mystery of what happened that day then got him thinking of the mysterious call concerning his car from a person who supposedly did not work at the office on whose behalf she had said she’d called him. His train of thought then led him to wondering why Angela had reacted to him as she had. He smiled when he remembered what Mrs. Steinberger had said about meeting someone at the Water Tower. He decided that he’d take a trip downtown to visit it. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll discover why I felt so drawn to it,” he said reflectively.

  AT THE WATER TOWER: He sat on one of the park benches watching the water sprouting high into the air. It looked beautiful against the backdrop of park lights that had just come on. He thought it must have looked even more spectacular when nightfall had fully set in.