The End is the Beginning -Part 5-

Pineapples at the end of June  

                                                                                  

What we actually go for are K- rations: Those wonderful packages of wonderful food, which the Americans treat with such nonchalance. What we most often harvest, however, are cartons of cigarettes: Lucky Strike, Old Gold, Chesterfields, and Pall Mall. Ten packages of twenty cigs each, in a carton, called a “Stange” or Pole. Our trips to the farmers of the Innviertel really get successful. It’s incredible how much food you can get for a “Stange” of 200 cigarettes. We hit the farms in accordance with the farmer’s preference. Today we have Lucky Strikes. We know from whom we can get the most food in return.  We develop a veritable Black Market in Cigarettes, Eatables and Silverware. It is comical: Less than a year ago or so, we brought them our Silverware for their food. Today we bring them cigarettes for, in some cases, the same silverware and food. There is a seemingly never ending demand for cigarettes.

It is a dark and stormy night; No, I’m just kidding. It is just dark.

Hermann, his friend from high school Helmut and I meet at the Fountain just in front of our house: Stadtplatz 22.

We are dressed in black track suits and black slip-on, thin soled running shoes. There is still a strict curfew in place.

Kurt lives with his mother in one room at the Gasthaus Gans and cannot get away.

It is about 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. The main square is jammed, as always, with military vehicles. Jeeps, trucks, and still the occasional light armoured car, parked side by side with just enough space to open doors to get in or out.

We have learnt where the Americans usually keep their cigarettes. We split up, so as not to present too large a target. Silently I move from truck to jeep to truck. The most dangerous moment comes when you open the door. It makes a clicking sound. I can feel my rapid heartbeat in my neck and I have to wipe my sweaty  hands along my pants. I prefer the open jeep, where I can just reach in, grab a carton, sometimes from the open shelf underneath the dashboard, sometimes just lying on the seat, and move on. (By now we ignore K rations,)    There is a holstered pistol. I ignore it, grab this night’s fourth carton of cigarettes and slip down the Fischergasse and in a roundabout way, home.

The front door is locked. In my track suit’s breast pocket I carry the key. Up the two flights of stairs and back to bed. Cigarettes are stored underneath my bed, where the hand grenades used to be. The whole excursion took less than an hour, and I am very pleased with myself.

The Nussgarten, or, as we call the place when we speak to our many American friends, the Nutgarden, used to be a Beer garden, much beloved by a certain group of Buergers during the summer time.  Two walnut trees give plenty of shade to seven or eight wooden tables with six chairs each, Situated right atop the city walls, it affords a lovely view over the confluence of the Inn and the Enknach rivers and the wooded area running along  up-river for miles and miles.

On one side a small kitchen in which Goulash, Sausages and Sauerkraut and Sandwiches are prepared.
The beer barrels are lowered from the building on street level above via an interesting contraption of pulleys ending in four clamps which grab the barrel and allow it to be lowered through a hole in the ceiling, right into the kitchen.

just to the right of this building was the "Nutgarden"

As always after such a raid, (we call it a “buying trip”) we meet at about 9 o’clock in the morning in the Nussgarten to compare success and plan the next trip to the farms.

Helmut “bought” five cartons, I just four. Hermann, sitting on the wall, his legs dangling over the side (for a bleeder he takes real chances) has a broad grin on his face. “I got none. Not a single cigarette.” He sounds almost proud. “I got something much better.”  We don’t ask. We just look at him. We know he’ll tell us. He leans forward and although at this time in the morning we are alone in the Nussgarten, he whispers: “I got six pineapples.”

We are totally stunned.

“What in hell are we going to do with pineapples?” I ask Hermann.

Helmut just looks uncomprehendingly.

I don’t much like it when Hermann, just because he is nearly 4 years older than  I am, adopts a superior attitude.

Although I must admit that at almost 17 he knows a good deal more than I do. And in any event, he is my best friend. He is my “blood brother”. But that’s another story.

I repeat my question: “What in hell will we do with pineapples? I have never eaten any. I don’t even know if I’d like them.”

Hermann smiles: “These are not for eating” he says. “Pineapples" is what the Americans call them, because they look like small pineapples”. He pauses:

“These pineapples are hand grenades.”

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