The Children's War

by Stroyar, J. N.

  Zosia laughed. “What did you say?”

  “I told him it wasn’t our custom. I didn’t tell him that I thought it rather strange to greet other people by invoking a dead psychopath’s name.”

  “Perhaps no odder than having one’s wedding day blessed by a visit to a pickled, I mean, preserved corpse,” Zosia commented.

  “Who does that?”

  “People in the Soviet Union.”

  “Wow, that is weird, but then I suppose religious people get married in the presence of a crucifix.”

  “Yes, some do,” Zosia agreed, pursing her lips. “So what happened?”

  “Well, when the evening finally ended, I felt utterly drained. Being charming was hard work among those idiots, and I had rewarded my efforts by overindulging in the hors d’oeuvres and Sekt. By the time the last guest had stumbled out the door, I felt woozy. I remember just sitting down, wishing I had a cigarette, and wondering how the hell I was going to get a promise of good behavior out of him.”

  “Did you?”

  “Not immediately. The Kommandant returned from saying farewell to the last guest and poured me another drink. Brandy. He explained he didn’t offer his guests any because it was too expensive. I drank it down in two gulps. He called me a barbarian for that. Said I should savor it. I told him he could fucking savor it, I had to get back and get up early.” Peter paused, then said,“He reacted to that word.”

  “Which word?” “Fucking. I could see it in his face. It was like my ‘foul’ language had opened a door to him . . .” Peter’s voice trailed off.

  Zosia waited without saying anything, without voicing her suspicions.

  “Anyway, he gave me another, and I know I shouldn’t have, but I drank that, too. It just felt so good to break the monotony. He didn’t sit down, he stood a few feet from me, pulled out his cigarette case, and removed one for himself. Didn’t offer me one. Just smoked a cigarette as I sat there drinking. I began to feel all nice and warm and almost numb. Thought that in a few minutes I’d be asleep. Began to think about Allison, then I noticed he was staring at me.

  “Suddenly he said, ‘You are very handsome, you know.’ That’s when I knew I was in real trouble. I said I had to go and I tried to stand up, but he sort of pushed me back into the chair. I was off-balance from . . .” Peter paused, embarrassed.

  Zosia remained silent, her face a mask. Outside the tent, the wind picked up and the brittle leaves of the trees rustled noisily in the breeze.

  “He said, ‘We still have to discuss our deal.’ I was worried, but tried to put a brave face on it all. Told him, sure, I’d been to his party, now he would do his part and lay off the boys. He said, no, we weren’t done yet. I didn’t ask the obvious question, just got up to leave, but he blocked my exit. So finally I asked him what he wanted.”

  “And he said?”

  “Me, of course.” He smiled at her, as if he were telling a joke, but the smile was not returned and his dropped from his face. “He offered to leave everyone else alone if I would . . . you know.”

  “Did you accept his offer?”

  He shook his head. “No. I probably should have. Not only would he have left the others alone, but I don’t think he was really interested. He wasn’t homosexual, he just liked power, and if I had said yes, maybe that would have taken away all the fun and he would have left me alone.”

  “You had no guarantee that he would have kept his word.”

  “No, I didn’t. And I used that to justify my refusal. That, and the fact that young kids are resilient. I figured that their getting raped was a hell of a lot easier for them to cope with than me getting fucked by him. I guess that was rather cowardly on my part.”

  “I don’t think so. You can’t give in to blackmail, it just gets used against you more and more if you do.”

  “I’ve done nothing but give in to blackmail for the last four years,” he commented bitterly.

  “That proves my point.”

  “It’s the only reason I’m still alive.”

  She straightened a bit, then said, “Please continue.”

  “Well, in any case, I didn’t have the choice. He drew his gun and said I should reconsider. I called his bluff and headed toward the door. He didn’t shoot, but his personal guards dragged me back in. They tied my wrists behind my back and left me alone with him.”

  “But you could still fight.”

  Peter laughed. “Have you ever fought with your hands tied behind you?”

  “Only in training.”

  “Well, for one thing, fighting implies that there is a chance of winning. If I had managed to overpower him, there was still nowhere to go. All I could do was try and hurt him.”

  “And did you?”

  He nodded. “It was irrational but I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.”

  “What happened?”

  “It didn’t stop him. He . . .” Peter closed his eyes as he tried not to remember too clearly all that had happened. He exhaled, then said, “He used the belt of his robe to tie my wrists to my neck, then he started pounding on me, on my head. I spent all my time trying not to break my arms or strangle myself. I think the pounding or the lack of air caused me to black out. All I know is . . .”

  Zosia raised her eyebrows and waited. Finally she asked, “What?”

  He blinked at the unexpected sight of the tent. “My refusal was moot.” His lips twitched but he did not say anything more.

  “What happened then?”

  “He released me, kicked me out. I pulled on my clothes and left.” He gave Zosia a fleeting smile. “That was the really weird part, the way he just stood there and watched me as if nothing exceptional had happened. And me, I didn’t know what else to do. I left, pretended it hadn’t happened. When I returned to my barracks, everyone was mercifully asleep, and the next day, when they inquired as to the success of my mission, I told them only that I had elicited a promise, nothing more, from the Kommandant. About a week later I was told that there were no more complaints, and I was to be congratulated on my diplomacy.”

  “So you were through with it all.”

  “So I thought. Two weeks later, I received another summons. It was late evening, most of the boys were asleep, some were playing cards or writing. I was sharing a pot of weak tea with Geoff, talking about nothing in particular, when one of the lads near the door suddenly announced someone was coming. A guard walked in, came straight up to me, and said that he wanted to see me in his quarters immediately.”

  “Did you go?”

  “I had no other choice.” Peter sighed and continued, “I’ll spare you the details of our conversation. The upshot was he wanted to continue our so-called bargain and he wanted a measure of cooperation on my part. I tried to reason with him, appealed to his decency, appealed to his sense of humanity.”

  “It didn’t work?”

  “He laughed at me, told me I wasn’t an Übermensch, so I should just do as he told me and be grateful for his attentions. I pointed out that what he was doing was not approved behavior and it could destroy his career. He said he knew I wouldn’t tell anyone because it would cost me my life. He was right, there was nothing I could say that wouldn’t make me more guilty than he.”

  “How so?”

  “Corrupting an officer of the Reich, seduction, perverse acts, unnatural proclivities—oh, the list could be endless. Any court would naturally assume I had provoked any illegal or immoral action.”

  “Yes, it would,” Zosia agreed upon reflection. “What happened next?”

  “I tried to leave, but he stopped me at the door. I remember how he put his hand on my shoulder.” Peter shuddered. “It still makes my flesh crawl. I knew I couldn’t physically resist, not with his goons ready to help whenever he called them, so I just kept trying to talk him out of it. All he did was hum the stupid piano music that was playing and go on about how wonderful German composers were.” Peter paused as if listening to something. “ ‘Das Wohltempierte Klavier.’ I can still hear it.�
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  He was so obviously distracted by the music that Zosia found herself listening for it as well. When she realized what she was doing, she said, “Please continue.”

  He looked up at her as if hurt by her words. Distantly he said, “Finally, he stopped humming long enough to tell me I had no choice except one: it could be painful and public or it could be quick and quiet.” He turned his head to stare out of the tent into the distance. “I opted for quick and quiet.”

  Zosia shifted uncomfortably, then asked, incredulous, “You agreed?” Peter nodded. “I knew that nothing I did would make a difference. He had overwhelming force at his beck and call, and he would use it if he had to. It would have been trivial for him to justify my murder . . .” He licked his lips as he stared silently into the distant past.

  After a few moments Zosia prompted, “So?”

  “I couldn’t stand the thought of his goons being there, witnessing it all. I just wanted it over with. I drank a lot of his brandy, to numb my sensibilities, and then . . . Afterwards, I walked back, feeling pretty sick. Geoff waited past curfew to ask what it was all about. I put him off with some lies.”

  “He believed you?”

  “I think so. I don’t really know what the others thought. Either they were oblivious or they didn’t care. Or maybe they thought it better not to notice, for my sake. After a while though, Geoff confronted me . . .”

  “You mean it kept going on?” Zosia asked, her tone betraying distaste.

  “Oh, yes, on and on.”

  “How long did it go on?”

  Peter noticed that she had ceased taking notes. “Too long. He did me favors, got me reassigned to easier jobs inside the camp, gave me stuff. It was humiliating.” He remembered the humiliation and the strange feelings of filthiness and complicity. Even now his gut ached. “Anyway, Geoff finally asked what the hell was going on, and with some prodding, I told him. It was a wake-up call. He suggested I use my position. Gain his trust, he said, then use it against him. And that’s what I did. I got myself assigned to cleaning the offices, made myself appear trustworthy so they’d leave me alone, then I looked for maps, money, anything that might be of help. That’s when I found out about my debt.

  “Meanwhile, Geoff organized some of the boys into an information network. He wanted to get me the precise information I would need to make it to the border if a chance for escape presented itself. There had always been an underground network—our black market ensured that—so it was not difficult to organize them to a new task. Once they had a well-defined goal, the lads were very efficient at bringing in information. I guess they enjoyed the diversion.

  “Finally, I hit pay dirt. It had nearly escaped my notice because it looked so normal, but it was a set of duplicate books. It took a while to compare the Byzantine entries of one set of books with the other, but eventually I was convinced: the Kommandant was embezzling.

  “Now the Party might indeed be tolerant of ‘social errors’ on the part of its top officers, but when it comes to money, they’re not so forgiving. With the information Geoff had gathered and those books, I knew I could write my ticket out of the country. So, after several days of preparation and planning, it was finally the eve of the ultimatum. Me and Geoff and several trusted lads were celebrating quietly in the barracks with some booze we had got from one of the guards. No one was planning to leave except me, since they all had limited terms and homes to return to.

  “Just as we were toasting my departure, I was summoned to see him. That’s when I gave him my ultimatum. He essentially agreed to my terms.” Peter smiled at that one moment of triumph. He remembered being led into the Kommandant ’s quarters. The Kommandant had been in his robe—dark blue satin with gold cording—sitting in an armchair, his legs crossed, covered by the burgundy satin of his pajama bottoms, his feet shod with black leather slippers each with a gold swastika embroidered at the toe.

  “Long time no see,” the Kommandant had leered, then coughed slightly as he set his cigarette down. Then, his tone changing considerably, he had ordered, “Pour yourself some brandy or whatever you need. Just hurry up, I’m not in a patient mood.”

  Peter had done as suggested, then slowly, savoring the moment, he had walked over to the Kommandant and had thrown the expensive brandy in his face.

  The Kommandant had sputtered obscenities and threats to which Peter had replied, “You are going to arrange my transport out of this country, and I’ll tell you exactly how and I’ll even tell you why, you goddamned, slime-covered, putrid-brained, shit-faced bastard.”

  It had taken a long time for the Kommandant to calm down enough to stop sputtering, and Peter had not helped matters by continuing to address the Kommandant with every insult he could recall or invent, but finally they began to communicate, and slowly it dawned on the Kommandant that he had better listen carefully and do exactly as he was told.

  “So that’s how you got to Switzerland?”

  Awakened from his reverie, Peter answered, “Yeah. He was to provide papers and a car and driver to get me across the border. I gave him a week to organize it all and let him know that the compromising evidence was not in my possession, and if anything happened to me, anything at all, no matter how accidental or unfortunate, it would be delivered immediately to his superiors. And to the local newspaper for good measure.

  “He wondered how we could manage that, and I remember being quite pleased to inform him that there was no shortage of volunteers to help us out among his own men. Then I explained I would send a postcard from Geneva with an undisclosed code to someone in the camp, and only then would my men accept that I was safe. I’ve always wondered what happened, since I never managed to send that card.”

  Zosia made a note, then asked, “What did he do?”

  “Fretted that he could be hanged. I told him it would serve him right, but nevertheless, we would help him cover up his actions. The way he looked at me then, pouting and hurt, that’s when I realized he was probably truly insane. I didn’t want to push him over the edge, so I tried to reassure him.” Peter used his thumbnail to scrape some dirt off Uwe’s shirt. “That’s when he whispered to me that he would miss me.”

  They sat silently as Zosia jotted down a few more things.

  “Now, tell me about what happened in Switzerland.”

  He explained about the old couple who had taken him in and their kindness, about reporting to the government office, and how somewhere in that bureaucratic maze, someone had betrayed him to the kidnappers. With devastating brevity, he told her of his terrifying return to the Reich and his brutal interrogation.

  “Altogether it was about a month or more before I got to trial, and surprise, surprise, I was found guilty.” Again he stopped. It was like some weird hallucination: the strange, horrible puppet theater that had been his trial. Zosia waited patiently. Eventually he said, “Actually, I never heard the sentence of death. I was out cold by then.”

  Zosia brought her hand to her mouth as though to hide the tremble of her lips. He caught the glint of a tear in her eye. She blinked excessively. Without knowing why, he asked her, “Who are you thinking about?”

  Too quickly she answered, “No one, please continue.”

  “At that point, instead of executing me, they reclassified me and dumped me into some sort of reeducation program. I didn’t know they did that sort of thing.”

  “The reeducation?” Zosia asked as she noted something down.

  “No, the reclassification. It was completely unnecessary—after all, I was a criminal convict, so they didn’t need to do that. It’s not consistent with their philosophy. It didn’t make any sense.”

  She smiled indulgently. “Their philosophy is whatever suits their needs. Just read the crap they write about us. We’re Aryan in one speech, just in need of some direction, and in the next we’re fit only for slavery or extermination.”

  “Well, when the only thing they have to judge things on is their idea of Aryan looks . . .”

  “You
mean like Hitler’s?”

  “Fair point,” he laughed.

  “You offended them. Your blue eyes and blond hair became irrelevant at that point.”

  He nodded. “I think worse than irrelevant.”

  Zosia raised her eyebrows expectantly, but he did not explain further, instead continuing his story. He told her about the Reusches and about his betrayal by them and how he had spent his years in the Vogel household. He spoke of his degradation, his pain and exhaustion, his utter loneliness. He told her about Teresa and Ulrike and Horst. He told her about the scene in Karl’s study and his humiliating capitulation to Karl’s demands, and about the months he had been leased out like a piece of equipment. He paused to collect himself, then as if he were talking about another person, someone he hardly knew, he told her about the horrendous beating he had received for his conversations with Ulrike and the months of random violence afterward. He told her about Uwe and how he had, by then, lost all track of his life and any semblance of independence. “Two madmen talking at each other,” he joked. Then he explained what had happened in the plaza and how perhaps, more than anything, the look in Teresa’s eyes had told him he had to risk leaving—that the cost of surviving was simply too high if it meant he had to stay.

  When he finished, he felt thoroughly exhausted, but somehow cleansed. They sat silently for a few moments. It was growing dark. Finally Zosia broke the silence. “I need you to fill in a few details here—spellings, full names, and exact dates and places—as far as you can.” She handed him her clipboard.

  Peter accepted it wearily. He did not know what he had expected, but it wasn’t that. She seemed to understand and assured him, “I believe your story. Not only that, but I think we can use it.”

  “Use?” he asked, almost affronted.

  She looked into his face as if trying to read his thoughts, then slowly she explained, “It’s my English, I’m sorry. I meant that I think I can convince thecommittee with it. We just have to check on these details, and if they agree with your story, well, that and my testimony on your behalf should be sufficient.”

  “Sufficient,” he murmured as he scanned the dates and names she had listed. When would it end? Then a thought suddenly penetrated his weariness and he asked, “You can check on these details?”