Karl struck out for yet another green grocer or meat market. So the cook was correct about all the nearby ones. There used to be a fresh market a kilometer away. Probably down Kugelstrasse. He turned right and picked up his pace.
Shopkeepers told him the way, begrudging more than volunteering information. Queuing on the cobblestone sidewalk, he realized how much his awareness of Germany’s condition had changed this morning. Instead of the deference he had come to expect, citizens who didn’t want to share the food remaining in the city growled at him. His family’s money and profession mattered little to those who had no money, no provisions, and certainly no investments.
The roar of two German Army trucks startled Karl from his thoughts. They pulled in front of the store, bracing the customers right and left. Soldiers waved their Mauser 98 rifles and dismounted from the cabs and canvas-covered backs before the tires stopped rolling.
There goes the food. He stepped out of line, the urgency to escape spiking his heart rate. These men were dangerous.
“Halt! Get back here. Where do you think you’re going?”
A soldier with several stripes on his uniform grabbed Karl’s shoulder and shoved him toward the end of one of the trucks.
“Show me your Ausweispapier.”
Karl handed over his ID paper. The fellow glanced once and slammed it on the clipboard of the other soldier. That man copied the details then pushed Karl against the truck.
Stumbling, he braced on the high floor and found men staring out from benches along the inside walls. The reality of forced conscription stabbed his lungs. They would take him away without a word to his family and send him off to die in a war against his mother’s people and his father’s politics.
“Wait. I have a deferment. Von Steuben Investments manages Reichland funds—”
The kick half-missed its target as Karl turned to explain, to beg, whatever necessary to return home with or without food. His rear end throbbed with pain.
The soldier’s laugh broke from a crack in hell. “Yeah, and my son’s a lawyer but he’s serving. Get in. Now.”