When we approached the village, the mother told Mathilde: "Du darfst zu keinem sagan, dass die Frau ein Indianer ist. Hast Du verstanden?"
"Aber warum nich?"
"Weil wir sonst alle eingesperrt werden."
„Was soll ich dann sagen? Die Kinder werden fragen wer das ist", Mathilde inquired.
It took the mother a couple of minutes, then she came back with an answer: "Es ist eine entfernte Verwandte von Papa. Sie kommt aus Spanien, wo seine Grossmutter herkam. Maria kam mit dem Zug in Bad Homburg aus Spanien an und wir haben sie abgeholt."
"Und wie heißt sie?"
"Maria ist schon in Ordnung", was the mother's final answer.
During the short drive through the village towards the house, all the adults looked at us and the children followed the horse cart and asked a hundred questions. I feared for the worst. Did these children already figure out, who I was, or were they just nosy? Well, even if they were just nosy, one wrong word and they could put two and two together. Mathilde might likely say something wrong. Children were just terrible liars. Why did people stare at me like I was a rare specimen of humankind? Have they never seen a Mexican woman before? Well likely not. How should a Mexican ever make it into rural Germany after all? There was one man in particular, who did not avert his eyes from me. He looked at me from the point he'd spotted me, up until we drove around a corner. If gazes could pierce through matter, he would have cut me in half. He was a well-dressed man in his fifties, not like all the other people who were wearing ragged work cloths. Nothing I could do for now. The outcome was entirely dependent on my bad luck. Shooting hat man would for sure not improve my current situation.
Much to my relieve, we reached the house quickly. I deemed their house to be a typical German farmhouse, except, that it was built into the slopes of a hill. Mathilde, grabbed my hand in order to drag me in. When I wanted to grab the MP40 the mother made a dismissive gesture. What was that? OK she wrapped it up in the boys jacket she was wearing, so that nobody would see it. Smart. The children were still surrounding us and an MP40 would for sure have raised another hundred questions.
In the house, the mother led me into a room with a bed and a wardrobe and a table plus chair. Simple furniture and no decoration. This was a farm, but it was way simpler than our farm in Mexico. My room in our farm had much nicer furniture, decorations and the plaster was in proper condition. Not like the one in this room, which had come off in large pieces already. It was just an observation. I did not wanted to complain. This room was much better than a shed. On the wall was a picture of a young man, round about twenty years I guessed, clothed in German dress uniform. Seeing me looking at the picture, Mathilde said: "Das ist mein Onkel, der ist gefallen. In Russland." Remembering, that I understood nothing she said: "Peng", and laid down flat on the ground. Well, that certainly explained everything.
I was gestured to remove the cloths and lay in the bed, which I did. I had longed for a proper bed for too long now as to even hesitate. A bit later, the mother brought some reddish oily substance and smeared it on my leg. I slept there like a baby until she came in with food in the evening. Surprisingly, it was not Sauerkraut. My bomber colleagues had told me, that the Germans lived of Sauerkraut day in and day out, they knew no other food and that the reeked terribly from it. Well that proved it wrong. It was some type of noddle dish with sauce and it was quite tasty. Again I slept until next morning and when I woke up. I was well-rested for a change.
Over the next couple of days, my leg got better and better. Turned out, the woman's name was Johanna and by means of the dictionary and our hands, we had established rudimentary communication. She had shown me an article in a local German newspaper, which she crudely translated to me. The article was about an Indian fighter pilot who had eradicated several batteries of Flak all by himself. His aircraft had gotten bewitched by a sorceress with a golden lasso and thus had inhuman firing power and speed. By means of most heroic acts of a Feldwebel (sergeant) and his Kanoniere (artillerists) of the Flak he got shot down a bit further south towards Frankfurt. That fighter pilot apparently was extremely dangerous. On the run from pursuing Wehrmacht soldiers, he had killed 9 Nabulas' school boys, a Teacher and 2 soldiers. Said Indian was extremely dangerous and invulnerable. The plane was totaled in the crash but the Indian did not die, several bullets did not kill him and getting run over by a Kübelwagen did not injure him either. With his looks alone, he could make people freeze or run for their lives. Every bullet he shot, killed someone instantly, no matter how far away. The Indian pilot was on the run and any sightings should be reported to the authorities. The article contained a drawing of an Indian, which hardly looked like me. The only similarities were my long black hair and my darker skin color. So, there I understood, how legends are created.
I also understood, why Johanna had been hell scared of me, after she had recognized me.
With every day, Johanna, Mathilde and I knew each other better and Johanna had come up with a good cover story. I was a remote relative from Spain who had come to learn German and who got hit by a bull rampaging at the train station at arrival. Spain was neutral, but had close ties to Germany and thus being from Spain was OK. Unlikely, that anybody would ever be able, to figure out that I spoke a Mexican dialect. My Mexican looks could as well be Spanish. Shipping all kinds of animals across the country via railway was common and bulls breaking lose on the platforms happened here and there.
So I was safe for the time being. Well, I did have good luck after all. Still, I had to go back to my unit eventually, but the only real means for that was by aircraft. Passing the frontier on foot, would have meant to stress my luck to the limits, something I'd rather avoided if possible. How could I get my hands on an aircraft? Well, I had to steal one from the Luftwaffe. At least I guessed that to be my best bet. To do that, I had to find out, where they were stationed and I had to make a very thorough plan, on how to pull that heist off. It would not have been much good to get caught, or worse shot. First however, I had to fully recover and learning some German would probably be advantageous.
After a couple of days, my leg was in a condition, where I could hobble. The only thing I could do in the bed was learn German, which made a lot of sense, but only learning German was boring over time. In order to get some distraction I hobbled through the house. I was really glad that I was able to do that. A bed is nice, but too much bedtime is boring. At one point, Johanna led me into her sleeping room and there were three pictures. One showed a man in his mid-thirties together with Johanna on a marriage photo. The other showed him a couple of years later in Wehrmacht uniform. The third picture showed Johanna and the man together with a baby. I pointed to the man on the pictures and I recognized tears coming from Johanna's eyes, while she said: "Mein Mann. Vermisst. In Russland. Stalingrad."
I knew what happened in Stalingrad. What Omaha-beach was for the GI's, that had been Stalingrad for the Wehrmacht, just a lot worse.
Once, her emotions had settled again, she opened her wardrobe and looked for a dress, which could fit me. She was taller than me and so I had to cope with a loose hanging dress again, but I could not be picky.
With her husband gone missing in Russia, Johanna had to run the farm all by herself. She already had to get rid of 5 out of 10 cows, because she could not master the workload. While I was still in hobbling mode, I tried to earn my keep doing the household. Much to the dismay of my mother, I had never been perfect at it. There in Germany, the household posed a challenge. I never had to clean, that was the task of our servants. Knitting and sowing were never my passion and so my mother focused on cooking. There were no ingredients for Mexican food however. Pinche, what should I cook? As such, Johanna had to show me, which did not exactly reduce her workload. So I'm not sure, if I was much of a help in those days?
Apparently, Johanna was fed up with the war. What did that war bring her or her daughter? Nothing but hardship. Her younger brother had gotten killed in action and her husband was missing in Russia. Every men of their village between 17 and 60 had gotten drafted. They were now using boys to protect the Fatherland, because all the men were fighting on the frontline. She did not wanted Mathilde to grow up like that and she had that epiphany, that I could bring them to the US, where she believed Mathilde to receive a better upbringing. Well, she did not take into account, that almost every young male US citizen between 19 and 23 had also gotten drafted. On top, many women had signed up with the WAC.
I had ample time on my hands and I tried to work myself further into the German language. Like English, it had Germanic roots and thus many words are similar. The grammar was something else. I'm not sure, if there is any language in this world, which has a more difficult grammar. There are grammatical rules, but they never apply, only exceptions do apply and thus, German has a gazillion exceptions. Nevertheless, I got better in communicating with Johanna and Mathilde, even though, the later was laughing a lot about my gibber.
The husband had a simple forge and other tools to shoe a horse in the stables. As I had a passion for horses, I did see that when roaming the premises. As horses need new shoes on a regular basis, I was able to make myself useful and got to work with her own horse. I was not an expert in horse shoeing, but I was not bad either.
Now word spread around, that I could shoe a horse and rather than having to go to the blacksmith who was 3 miles away in the next village, the local farmers came to me. There I had a business going. Like the booze smuggling, it was entirely tax free, but it only earned a fraction of the money. Well, I could not be picky. On the upside, I doubted, that Italian mafia wanted to take it over. While in the US, farmers had entirely switched to tractors and farm machines, German farmers still largely relied on horses in 1945. The farm provided the bare necessities and the horseshoeing added a bit of luxury for the three of us.
1st of March, I had to tend to a horse, which was sick and so, the farmer did not bring the horse, but I went to his house instead. The horse had a colic, which was nothing uncommon with horses and I had a herbal mix to ease the situation. Boys, 8-12 years old, were playing outside of the stable. With branches and remains of wooden planks and some nails, they had made aircrafts. Well, with the unlimited imagination of a child, they were aircrafts. Long and behold, one played the invulnerable little Indian with the bewitched aircraft. In his hand, he had a cord, which was the golden lasso and when he could hit another aircraft with it, then that player was out. The only thing, which could get to him, was the Flak. The Flak was resembled by tubes cut from reed and some boys were blowing small stones at the bewitched aircraft with inhuman speed and firing power. I had to laugh. If only they had known the real story...
Johanna had a mechanical Pfaff sowing machine and as I had gotten proficient in tailoring at Camp Goree, I tailored my own cloths from old dresses given to me. The big difference was, that the Singers at Camp Goree were all electrically powered, while the Pfaff was manually driven with a pedal. So not only did one have to pay attention to the sowing, no also in providing power for the machine. However, after about a year now, I finally had time and means, to tailor my pilot uniform to fit. Now, when I did not have a real use for it anymore. As mentioned, I sowed my own cloths, so they'd fit me and what do you do with all the remaining pieces of fabric. There are many options, like making towels, mittens, bedcovers, pillowcases, but I decided to make underwear. As a pilot you wear functional underwear, which keeps you warm and can easily be cleaned, but nothing which looks nice and I was longing for some nice underwear. I'm a woman after all. It is to say that I soon had my second business running. Nice underwear was not easily accessible in Germany's countryside.
What was disturbing, was that the village only had old men or young boys. All the men between 17 and 60 had gotten drafted. A man between 17 and 60 needed to have a system relevant position to remain back home in the Fatherland and farming and food production was not system relevant. Mind you, that everybody needs food! It would backfire badly after the war.
March 1945 had arrived and after only about two weeks, I had already settled in. Everybody in the village knew me as Maria from Spain.
Picture Farm House:
"File:Navis, Bauernhaus Keidler.JPG" by Jürgele is licensed with CC BY-SA 3.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/at/deed.en