by Steve Weiner
Nicholas laughed.
“That’s funny, Herr Bogaerde.”
Reflections of the red-haired woman tilted in a black window. The Death Guild came in. They nodded to Bogaerde. Bogaerde bought Canadian whiskey. They clinked glasses.
“Whirlpools of pleasure!”
“German songs and cherry sekt!”
Nicholas giggled.
“Good-bye, Agatha!”
“Hello, God!” Jacek shouted.
Nicholas and Jacek drank until the Askania coat of arms twirled off the tavern wall. Red eagle, yellow stripes, and grapevines flew around and Slavs drowned like in old times. Bogaerde, Jacek, and Nicholas staggered out. They ended up in Dampferplatz. Johann Russow’s sawmill dripped in fog-rain.
Bogaerde shadowboxed.
“I love a fight!”
Bogaerde slapped Jacek.
“Fight me!”
“Not you, Herr Bogaerde.”
“Nicholas! Hit me!”
“No, Herr Bogaerde.”
They stumbled down Elbstrasse. Medieval redbrick and half-timbered warehouses lined a narrow cobblestone lane. Many were inscribed. Who trusts God builds in heaven and earth. Anno 1649. I built this House so that by God’s will and When it Pleases Him I will move to a Better One. Anno 1585. Orange lights glared off red bricks and black windows. A pulley stood out of a second floor. A red devil leered.
Nicholas and Jacek urinated in a doorway, arms on each other’s shoulders. A boy leaned out a dormer.
“Schwulen!” he shouted. “Homosexuals!”
Jacek and Nicholas let go of each other. Bogaerde, Jacek, and Nicholas rotated to Hotel Möller. Bogaerde went to his room on the mezzanine. He opened the door. An old man slapped a bowler hat over an erect penis. He pointed at Bogaerde.
“I don’t want trouble from you.”
Bogaerde turned to Nicholas and Jacek.
“Good night, Herr Bogaerde,” Jacek said.
“Good luck, Herr Bogaerde,” Nicholas said.
Jacek and Nicholas went upstairs. The top-floor corridor was narrow. Their room was an old attic, a dormer and walls angled over the river. There was a cartoon: a bald man stuck his penis in a woman’s ear: Whatever Mistakes You Make, Make Them Here. Erwartung bobbed at the pontoon below.
“Would you like tea?” Jacek said.
“Thanks.”
Jacek boiled tea.
“How do you like it?”
“Put chicory in it,” Nicholas said.
“Stirred?”
“Stirred.”
Rain thudded on Hotel Möller.
“Is there anything to eat?” Nicholas said.
“Old bread.”
A shooting club got loud in the next room. Jacek banged the wall. The shooting club quieted.
“What happened to you, Jacek?”
“Nothing.”
“No. There’s something wrong with you.”
“I suffered.”
“We all did.”
“Then I did, too.”
They drank tea.
“Got laid?” Jacek said.
“Yes.”
“Man or woman?”
“You’re getting on my nerves, Jacek.”
“No. Tell me.”
The old man from Bogaerde’s room ran naked past Erwartung, penis flopping. Jacek closed the curtains.
“What do you think of Herr Bogaerde?” Jacek said.
“He’s a good man.”
“He’s very handsome.”
“I know.”
“Are you interested?”
“I had a woman, Jacek. So shut up.”
“What do you think of Julius Bernai?” Jacek said. “I mean, as a homosexual?”
Nicholas’s blond hair kept falling on his forehead. He was very drunk.
“Chasing women is useless,” Nicholas said. “One lives one’s life in a few seconds.”
“Exactly.”
Jacek took off his shirt.
“I believe, Nicholas, our circle of friends, on Yellow Sailor, had inclinations.”
“But certainly not Karl and Alois,” Nicholas said.
“No.”
Jacek fingered crumbs on a green tablecloth and ate them, though they were not his.
“But to deny it would be catastrophic,” he said.
“Why?”
“Mental violence—terrible mental violence,” Jacek said. “Unreality.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
Jacek washed at the pitcher.
“A man walks down the road of his personal existence. The road divides. People say, he must choose. I say, he is obliterated.”
“Jacek—”
“I go down both roads at the same time.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
A coal train rumbled over the bridge. For a long time it faded, gone, far away, gone.
“Jacek. Lie down.”
Jacek wiped his eyes. The Elbe was quiet. There were no more boats. The parties were over.
“We are fragments of a collapse,” Jacek said.
“Whose?”
“Nobody knows.”
Nicholas turned off the light. Jacek lay on the bed beside him. His chest was wet.
“I’m frightened, Nicholas.”
“Of what?”
“Annihilation.”
“Everybody is annihilated, Jacek.”
“Not God.”
“God will also be annihilated.”
Nicholas opened the curtains.
Sun was on the Elbe. Sun came to the River Aue, too, and to the River Stadtrand as it always had, as it always would. Jacek brushed his teeth with his forefinger. Nicholas carried his suitcase downstairs. Jacek carried his duffel bag. Beer and urine stained the carpet. Bogaerde drank black coffee by a riverfront window.
“I’m kaput …”
“The thirteenth bottle must have been a bad one,” Nicholas said.
“Now you tell me.”
Kaiser Wilhelm docked, pennants flying. Beautiful women came on deck with parasols.
“How was your old man?” Nicholas said.
“Shut up.”
They laughed. They paid their bill and went down stone steps to Erwartung. It was very bright. Glassy swells clanged the iron rings on the pontoon.
“If you see the others—”
“I’ll tell them, Nicholas.”
“That I had a woman.”
Nicholas and Jacek shook hands.
“Adjüüs, Nicholas.”
“Adjüüs.”
Nicholas carried his suitcase past boats painted red, green, and yellow on the Lübeck Canal. Jacek limped over Lauenburg bridge. Erwartung chugged back to Hamburg.
MORONS
KARL TRAMPED to the Harz Mountains. He came to a camp for juvenile delinquents.
Cloud wisps curled upright. A three-hundred-gallon steel tank stood by a seedling compound. Ducks flew through the pines. A generator leaned against a shed. Cabins stood in a clearing. Disinfected blankets hung over the rails. It was dry. A pump sucked sand.
Werner Au, chief of the camp, stopped him.
“Who are you?”
“Karl Dach.”
“What do you want?”
“Food.”
“Lots of people come here looking for food.”
“I’m starving.”
“Can you work?”
“If necessary.”
“If you work,” Au said, “I’ll feed you.”
Karl woke at five-thirty A.M. The sun was not up but the Brocken’s pink cliffs stood over the pines. Karl scrubbed the steps of the mess cabin. Paul Luger helped him. Paul was twelve. He had jug ears.
“Paul, bring me soap.”
Paul brought eggs.
“I said, soap.”
Paul brought bread.
“Poor bastard,” Karl said. “You should be in a mental hospital.” Paul scrubbed.
“Why do you wear your coat?” Paul said. “It’s summer.”
“But it’s all rags.”
“I sleep in it,” Karl said.
“Are you a criminal?”
“No.”
“You look like one.”
Karl scrubbed.
“If you were in a lunatic hospital,” Karl said. “They’d sterilize you.”
“How?”
“A nurse gives you a glass of schnapps and cuts your balls off.”
“No, she wouldn’t!”
Karl looked up, red-faced. He glared at Paul.
“In Hamburg,” Karl said, “they do it in Holy Ghost Field. In a big white tent.”
“Waahh!”
“Shut up! It was a joke!”
Werner Au came out.
“What’s wrong, Dach?”
“Nothing.”
“He said a nurse was going to cut my balls off!” Paul said.
Au knelt down.
“Look at me, Dach.”
“Jo.”
“I said, look at me.”
Karl looked at him.
“You’re responsible for him.”
“Jo, Herr Au.”
“His mind isn’t right.”
Au stood up. He rang a bell.
“Breakfast!”
Petty thieves Rudi Lenz and Joachim Willems came in. Paul and Karl sat, too. A dozen boys came in. They ate potatoes and drank coffee. Au rang the bell again. German boys marched into the forest. Au drove a truck with a box of dynamite. He brought a tin box of percussion caps from the cab. He used his teeth to crimp the fuses. Karl stripped the fuse ends and twisted them to a battery. Germans blew stumps all afternoon.
Au turned to Karl.
“Where’s Paul?”
“In the truck.”
“He’s not.”
“He was!” Karl said.
“Well, he’s not now.”
Karl turned.
“There he is,” he said. “By the dynamite. See?”
Paul sat on a wood box, shuffling his feet in the dirt.
“I warned you, Dach. Keep an eye on him.”
“Jo.”
“Bring the poison, Dach.”
Karl carried weed poison into the forest. His long coat stirred dust. Au marked stumps to kill.
“Make sure Paul doesn’t drink the poison,” Au said. “Are you listening, Dach?”
“Jo.”
“He’s your responsibility.”
“Jo.”
“You’re not much brighter than he is, Dach.”
Au plucked a red oblong from bark.
“Here, Dach.”
“What is it, Herr Au?”
“Resin. Taste it.”
“It’s sweet.”
“Chew it. It might make you smart.”
Au left. Karl urinated in the dust. It made dark dusty drops and spirals. Sunlight filtered from pinecones. Sweat ran down his face.
“This is worse than the North Sea.”
Rudi and Jürgen brought axes, shovels, and a splitting hammer. They went deeper into the forest. Karl kicked rootballs. A boy named Fritz cut undergrowth with a hooked saw. Karl and Paul dragged branches to a forest sled.
A pine tree cracked.
“Bone dry.”
“Dead-man dry,” Paul said.
“Old-woman dry.”
Karl sat on a stump. A few leaves grew from its top.
“Christ. This is awful.”
“How old is the stump?” Rudi said.
“I don’t know.”
“It must be very old.”
“Let’s find out,” Karl said.
Karl split the stump with a wedge and hammer. Jürgen counted the rings.
“You killed the oldest tree in Germany.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“I’ll tell.”
“If you do,” Karl said, “I’ll kill you and bury you under it.”
Karl and Paul walked to a creek. It was nearly dry. Karl washed the back of his neck. Paul danced on white rocks. Karl found a trout wedged in two white rocks. He knifed the belly and fingered out a maroon organ.
“Hold it, Paul.”
“It beats!”
“That’s what it’s like.”
“For who?”
“For her.”
Paul turned away.
“Look,” he said.
Raftmen carried a cooking stove onto rafts linked with willow strips. They strapped thorn spikes on their boots and carried ten-centimeter nails, fifteen-centimeter nails, twenty-centimeter nails, chains, links, saw, foxtail brush, wire cutters, round iron rings, oval iron rings, calipers, and white and red lanterns.
“Where are they going?” Paul said.
“Hamburg.”
Paul walked away.
“PAUL!”
Karl stumbled into the brush. Spiral, twisted growth slapped his face.
“Paul!”
Paul was at the entrance of an old mine. Gravestones stood in the tall grass.
“What is it?” Paul said.
“An old silver mine.”
They went in. It was cool. Damp air brushed their faces. Timber props were chalked: In diesem Bog in ole Tiden waren viele Feur brent. In this place in old times many fires burned.
“What does it say, Herr Dach?”
“I can’t read.”
Moist winds blew.
“Maybe there’s silver—” Paul said.
“—or gold—”
“Something fabulous—”
They went out. It was hot and bright and they blinked. Rudi and Jürgen threw pinecones.
“Two idiots!”
Karl caught Rudi and punched him.
“You broke my nose!” Rudi shouted.
“When you cut timber, chips fly!”
Werner Au came.
“What’s going on, Dach?”
“Rudi tripped on a log. He hurt his nose.”
“Get to work.”
“Jo, Herr Au.”
Karl looked for his poison canister.
It was night.
Paul sat on his bed in a cabin and threw a jackknife at a photograph of a woman. Rudi mixed aspirin and coffee. Joachim turned on a radio. There was music from Leipzig. Paul pulled a bark beetle from his ear.
“Ow!”
Rudi laughed.
“What a baby.”
“I am not a baby.”
Rudi filled the cabin stove with paraffin. He used a bicycle pump.
“Do you want a woman, Paul?” Rudi said.
“No.”
“Then why do you have a photograph?”
“To throw my knife at.”
“I thought you were in love”
They went to bed. Lights went out.
“I will someday, won’t I?” Paul said.
“What?”
“Fall in love.”
“If she’s a moron, too.”
Boys laughed.
“Will it be fun?” Paul said.
“What?”
“Falling in love.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Will I survive?”
“Not a chance, Paul.”
It was three A.M. Werner Au rang a bell.
“Los!”
Smoke filtered out of the pines.
“Fire!”
German boys ran into the forest with shovels. Karl drove the truck with a tank of water. Old railroad cars burned. Karl and the boys beat the fire with wet blankets. Ash stuck to their arms and hair. Some shoveled dirt. Karl and Rudi got the giggles.
“Mass grave!”
“Mass grave!”
Werner Au spun Karl around.
“Where’s Paul?”
“With you!”
“He’s supposed to be with you!”
“Well, I was putting out the fire.”
Au cupped his mouth.
“Everybody! Find Paul!”
Karl ran into the woods.
“Paul!”
Werner
Au and the boys ran different ways.
“Paul!”
“PAUL!”
A tree calipers was stuck in a pine tree. Karl tripped. Concertina barbed wire ripped his coat.
“Paul!”
Karl was caught in barbed wire.
“Paul!!”
Paul chased a diamond ring along the floor of the silver mine to a black lake where an orchard suddenly bloomed on an island.
Maybe yes.
“She’s beautiful—”
Maybe no.
Smelters poured silver. Paul ran forward. He fell headfirst into a crevice. He wedged upside down.
“Herr Dach!”
It was dawn. Nobody found Paul. Werner Au threw Karl down the steps of the mess cabin.
“Get out!”
“Don’t hit me!” Karl said. “I’ll kill you!”
“Paul hallucinates!” Au shouted.
“Tough!”
“Who knows what he saw?”
Au kicked Karl. Karl scrambled backward and left the Harz Mountains.
O, SOLDIERS!
OUTSIDE KURHAUS TRAIBAISEN, across a rutted road, a peasant stepped on a pitchfork. Cattle snorted in the field. Austrian soldiers, quartered by a barn, smoked bacon over a greenwood fire.
Bernai read old love letters. From Lieutenant Klinger, Danzig:
If you do come and don’t call, I’ll be disappointed. On the other hand, if you do, I can’t imagine how I’ll behave.
From Maciej Furkel, Warsaw:
That time still occupies many, many quiet moments in my mind. I can remember no other parting as painful as that one following a wonderful day in Potsdam.
From Daniel Semlonovitch, St. Petersburg:
Am I dreaming, or wasn’t Odessa a wonderful part of our lives?
Bernai dressed in an Italian hunting jacket, black cape, and wide-brimmed black hat.
The monarchist Friedrich Schoensteiner died. Bernai put on a black armband. He chose a walking stick. He skipped down the spiral staircase and went to the kitchen. Frau Möhler sprinkled poppy seeds on pastries.
“Is it good?”
“Very good.”
“May I taste?”
Bernai kissed the kuchen.
“She’s pretty!”
Frau Möhler gave Bernai Igmander Bitterwasser for stomach pains.
Bernai walked out. Herr Rohmer, the forester, touched his cap.
“Good morning, Herr Bernai.”
“Salvus.”
Herr Rohmer tucked twigs around a bird trap.
“Caught any birds?” Bernai asked.
“Some.”
“Pretty?”