Wondrak

by Stefan Zweig

  This went on for several weeks, but one day when she had come to town yet again, and was embarking on the litany of her woes, Wondrak accosted her in a rather strange way and said, “Come along to my house and let’s drink a glass of something.” She dared not say no. But she felt cold all the way to her knees when she was alone with Wondrak in his parlour, and realized that he wanted to talk about one particular subject. He began by walking up and down, apparently undecided, and then he carefully closed the windows and sat down facing her.

  “Well, and how’s your Karel?”

  She stammered that he knew Karel had joined the army, his regiment had marched off to Italy yesterday. Oh, if only the war were over, she said, she prayed for her child daily.

  Wondrak did not reply, but just whistled quietly to himself. Then he rose and checked that the door was well closed. She concluded from this that he meant her no ill, although he so persistently avoided looking at her.

  Well, that’s all to the good, he muttered, but he, Wondrak, had just been wondering whether Karel hadn’t secretly made off? No business of his, of course, and after all, you could understand a fellow who didn’t want to throw his bones into another man’s soup—let the Germans manage this stupid war of theirs on their own. But (and here he turned to the door again) three days ago an armed troop had arrived, a contingent of military police from Prague with Carinthian soldiers, and they were searching the houses now for lads who hadn’t obeyed the call-up to join the army. There was Jennisch the locksmith, who after all had sprained his forefinger, they’d taken him out of his house and led him over the marketplace in handcuffs. It was a shame, such a good, honest man. And in the neighbouring village they were said to have shot a man who ran away, a shocking thing, it really was! They hadn’t finished yet either, said Wondrak. They had brought a whole list from Budweis or Prague or somewhere, a list of the names of all the men who hadn’t joined. Well, his lips were sealed on account of his official position, but maybe a number of men shouldn’t be on that list at all.

  As he spoke Wondrak did not look at her, but stared with curious interest at the smoke rings rising from his pipe to the ceiling. Then he stood up and growled, unruffled, “But if your Karel really did join up, they’ll have had their trouble for nothing, and it will all turn out well.”

  Ruzena sat there, frozen. It was all over. So her trick had done no good, they had found out, those bastards in Vienna with their books, they’d discovered that her child hadn’t joined up. However, she asked no more questions, and merely got to her feet. Wondrak didn’t look at her, but elaborately knocked out his pipe; they had understood one another.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly, and left.

  She went to the end of the street with her knees stiff and cold, and then she suddenly began to run. If only she wasn’t still on the way when they came—her child wouldn’t defend himself, silly boy. She ran faster and faster, she threw her basket away, she tore open the dress clinging damply to her skin, she ran on and on and on, further into the forest, she ran as she had never run before in her life.

  Night lay black above the house when she heard, from afar, the dog barking. That good dog Horcek, she thought, he gives us plenty of warning. All was still. Thank God, she had come in time. I’ll have a Mass said, she thought, gasping for breath and only now aware of her exhaustion, two Masses, three Masses, and I’ll offer candles, she added, lots of candles, all the rest of my life. Then she quietly went in, held her breath and listened. And suddenly the blood flowed strongly back into her trembling body as she heard the regular breath of the sleeping man. He was safe and sound, the child who had grown from her body. She climbed the stairs to the attic, a lighted candle in her shaking hand. Karel was fast asleep, sleeping deeply. His thick, heavy brown hair hung damp over his forehead, his broad, handsome, masculine mouth stood open to show his strong, firm white teeth. Tenderly, uncertainly, the candlelight flickered over the clear planes and shadows of that carefree boyish face. She saw again how handsome he was, and how young. His muscles stood out like white roots on his arms, which were bare, crossed above the blanket, and his shoulders might have been made of smooth marble; they were broad, strong and firm. There was power to last for decades in the flesh that she had formed from her own, there was an unimaginable wealth of life in his body, which had only just grown to manhood. And was she to give it up to Vienna for the sake of a silly piece of paper? Instinctively, she uttered a sharp laugh. Karel started up in alarm and shook himself, blinking foolishly at the light. Then, seeing her, he laughed too, his good, hearty, childlike Bohemian laugh. “What’s up?” he asked, yawning and cracking his finger joints. “Is it day?”

  But she shook him fully awake. He must get out of bed at once, she told him, he must get out of the house, she’d make him a place to stay for the next few days far in the forest and on no account must he move from it, even if a week passed before she came back for him. Then she tied up a great bundle of hay, put it on her back, and led him along a secret path for about quarter-of-an-hour into the thickest, most inaccessible part of the forest, to a place where a small huntsman’s hide had once been erected.

  He had to stay here, she told him, he mustn’t show himself by day, but he could walk around at night. And she’d bring him food, she assured him of that. As usual, Karel obeyed her. He didn’t understand, but he obeyed her. She would bring him food and tobacco in the middle of the day, she said. And then she went away, feeling relieved. Thank God, she had saved him. The house was cleared of his traces, so now let them come.

  And come they did, quite a large troop of them. They knew their trade, they had studied it. Wondrak had done well to warn her. At five in the morning, when she had gone to bed and had been there for two hours (they must have been marching all night), the dog began to bark. She lay awake with her heart thudding. They were here. The enemy had come. But she did not stir, even when a harsh voice downstairs shouted, “Open up there!” Slowly, very slowly she dragged herself to the door, muttering in a deliberately loud voice, as if she had just been woken from deep sleep. Slow-witted she might be thought, but deception came naturally to her.

  She yawned, a loud yawn. Then she opened the door. A military police officer stood outside in the wan, misty light of early morning with dew on his cap, a stranger. He had four soldiers and a dog with him, and he immediately stuck his foot in the door.

  Did her son Karel Sedlak live here, he asked.

  “Oh mercy me, he left long ago. He went to Budweis to join the army, all our town knows that,” she was quick to answer. A little too quick—noticeably quick. As she spoke, she did not forget that she should look these men in the eye. She had worked that out for herself.

  “We’ll see,” grunted the officer through his red moustache, which was moist from the mist. Then he barked out an order in German. Two men stationed themselves outside the door, two more went round behind the house, unslinging the guns from their shoulders. The dog leaped around sniffing at her own Horcek, who distrustfully avoided him. As soon as the soldiers had taken up their positions, the officer told them something else in German and then, turning to her, addressed her in Czech.

  “Let’s see the house now.”

  She followed him, feeling both fear and angry glee. There’s nothing in the house, look as long as you like, she thought. You won’t find anything.

  He stepped briskly into her living-room, pushed open the shutters so that grey light fell on everything inside, and looked around. He opened the chest, looked under the bed, raised the bolster—nothing. “The other rooms,” he ordered.

  As if to trying to fool him and make him tired of all this, she replied, “I don’t have any. The others all belong to His Excellency the Count. And His Excellency just has me here to keep house for him. I had to swear my oath on it.”

  He ignored this. “Open up.”

  She showed him the Count’s dining-room, the kitchen, the servants’ quarters, the bedrooms where the gentry slept. He searched the whole place.
He had had practice; he tapped at the walls. Nothing. An expression of annoyance came over his face, and joy leaped up in her, sharp and full of malice.

  Then he pointed to the stairs. “The attics,” he ordered. Once more she felt that surge of glee. Yes, Karel had indeed been sleeping in the attics. Thank heaven that good man Wondrak had warned her, or they would have caught him there.

  The officer climbed the stairs and she followed. There was his empty bed. And only now did it strike her that some of his clothes still lay there; she ought to have cleared them away, she should have stowed them in a chest. The straw was untidy too; she’d forgotten about that.

  He noticed it himself. Who, he asked, slept here?

  She made herself out simple-minded. “Oh, it’s only the servant ever sleeps here—that’s the Count’s huntsman when there’s a hunting party. Sometimes he has a couple of others with him.”

  “There’s no hunting parties these days. Who last slept here?”

  No one, she assured him. But the straw, he pointed out, was all churned up. Oh, she replied, the dog often lay down there to sleep in winter.

  “Indeed?” said the man sharply. “The dog.” And he reached for the table. There lay a pipe, half knocked-out. There were ashes on the floor. “So the dog smokes a pipe too, eh?”

  Ruzena did not answer. She was lost for words. He did not wait for her to reply, but opened the chest and took out clothes. Whose, he asked, were these?

  “My Karel’s. He left them there when he went away to join the army.”

  The officer stood there, thwarted. She seemed to have an answer for everything. He knocked on the walls here too, searched the floor, but there was nothing there, only the straw. At last he had finished his inspection, and her heart leaped up with relief. He stood up, adjusted his braces, and when he turned to the stairs she thought, now he’ll go. Saved! And her blood began flowing again.

  However, the officer stopped in the doorway, raised two fingers to his mouth, and gave a shrill whistle.

  Ruzena started in alarm. The whistle went right through her ear and penetrated deep inside her. What did it mean? She was overcome by fear of the unknown. And now along came the dog, wagging his tail, carrying himself proudly because his master had called him. His paws danced on the ground, padding on it with fast, light sounds.

  He was a kind of German shepherd dog, with intelligent eyes and a bushy tail. He pressed close to the officer’s leg and looked up at him, thumping his tail on the floor.

  “Here, Hektor,” said the officer. He took clothes out of the chest, a pair of shoes, a shirt, and threw them all down. “Here, seek!”

  Hektor came up, his pointed muzzle reaching a little way forward to burrow into the clothes, and sniffing a shoe as well. His nose quivered as he sniffed, and he uttered a short, sharp yelp as he took a deep breath, his sides quivering, wagging his tail hard. He was excited, his movements rapid, his flanks were heaving. He had picked up the scent, and now he had a job to do. The officer called something to him, raised his arm to point at the bed, and the dog padded over to it, sniffing. Then he put his head down and ran back and forth.

  The devil must be in that dog, she thought. His eyes sparkled. He had picked up a scent on the floor and was now sniffing its trail, which led him to the top of the stairs. The officer followed him. “Seek, seek!” he encouraged the dog. Now Hektor was in the attic doorway, still following the trail, and it led him downstairs. The military police officer was following him.

  Once he was down again, he shouted an order to his men. The four soldiers all assembled and followed the dog. Hektor moved swiftly from bush to bush, then back into the house. Finally he followed the scent slowly out of the door again, and at last towards the forest. Ruzena’s heart missed a beat. She ran down the stairs herself and instinctively went to the door; she wanted to follow the dog, run ahead of him, scream, warn Karel, stop them … she herself didn’t know just what she could do. But the officer in command of the party of military police snapped at her, standing at the door to bar her way, “You stay there! Sit down!” And he pointed to the bench around the stove. She dared not reply, she simply huddled there.

  She heard the soldiers’ steps, she heard the snapping sound of straps being fastened. And then she was alone with the officer, who sat down at the table as if she were not there at all. He calmly knocked out his own tobacco pipe, refilled it and began to smoke, drawing on it very slowly. He could wait patiently, he was sure of himself. It was very quiet now. Ruzena heard only the way he puffed smoke from his lungs into the air. His calm composure made her tremble. She sat and stared at him, her cold hands hanging down, feeling that her blood had congealed inside her, was frozen there. Yet everything in her was stretched to breaking point. She felt numb. She forced herself to hold her breath to listen for any sounds from the forest, then she heard her own breathing coming louder than the throbbing in her ears, and in her numb brain she wondered whether he might yet escape. Suddenly she raised her hands and felt through her blouse for the place where the crucifix hung. She clutched it and began praying, reciting the Lord’s Prayer and all the intercessions she knew. Involuntarily, she uttered one word out loud. The officer half turned, looking at her sharply and, as she thought, with derision. Got you, Death’s Head, just you wait, he was thinking. For at that moment she did indeed resemble a skull, with her forehead white as bone below her falling hair, her mouth open to show her white teeth, and then there were the black holes that were her eyes and her nose. He turned away again, instinctively spat on the floor, and then trod out the slimy spittle from his pipe with his foot, slowly, without haste or any agitation.

  She felt as if she must scream, She couldn’t bear this; time and eternity weighed down on her. She trembled, she wanted to fall down before him, beg him on her knees, plead with him, kiss his feet. He was a human being, after all, but unapproachable in his uniform, in the impregnability of his power, sent out by the enemy. But doing any such thing would surely give her away. After all, they might not find Karel. She strained her ears again, listening as if she were nothing but her sense of hearing. She listened for an eternity. This was more cruel than anything she had borne in all her forty years.

  It seemed to her a longer time than the whole nine months when she was carrying her child, but in fact she waited for only half-an-hour. Then there was a clinking outside, and a footstep. More footsteps were heard, and finally a small sharp sound. The officer stood up and glanced at the door. He uttered a brief laugh, and patted the dog, who came leaping up to him. “Good dog, Hektor, good dog.” Then, without looking back, he went out. Ruzena was stunned by horror.

  She stood perfectly still like that for a moment. Then, with a sudden movement, she banished the leaden feeling from her legs and rushed out. Oh, how terrible, they had him! Karel, her Karel stood between them, his hands cuffed behind his back, stooping, bent, his eyes lowered in shame. They had caught him just as he was going to the stream to wash and had brought him back as he was, barefoot, in his trousers and loose shirt. His mother cried out in shrill tones, and she was already making for the officer. She fell on her knees in front of him and clutched his feet. Let her son go, she cried, he was her child, her only child! Let him go for the Saviour’s sake, he was only a child still, her Karel, not yet seventeen. He was sixteen, only sixteen, she pleaded, they had made a mistake. And he was sick too, very sick, she could swear it, everyone knew, he had spent all this time lying sick in bed.

  The military police officer, feeling uncomfortable (and his men were looking darkly at him too), and tried to free his feet. But she only clung even more firmly, weeping and raving. The Saviour would reward him, she cried, if he spared her innocent child. Why in heaven’s name take her child, who was so weak? Have pity, she begged the officer, there were others around here, tall, powerful, strong young fellows, so many of them in the country round about, why take Karel, why him? Let him leave her child to her, she begged the officer, for the Saviour’s sake—God would reward him for his
good deed, she herself would pray for him every day. Every day. And for his mother. She would kiss his feet—and indeed, in her frenzy she actually did fling herself down to kiss the officer’s dirty, muddy shoes.

  Shame made him rough. Tearing himself free, he pushed the desperate woman away. What a fuss she was making! Thousands and thousands of men had marched away for the Emperor, and none of them had uttered a squeak of protest. The doctors would soon find out if the lad was sick. She should be glad he wasn’t put up against the wall at once as a deserter. A fellow who makes off like that ought by rights to be shot, and if it was up to him, the officer, he said, he knew what he’d do with him, he would …

  He got no further. In the middle of this speech she leaped at him. Suddenly, from down on the floor at his feet, she sprang at him and made him stagger, both hands going for his throat like claws. He was a strong man, but he rocked back on his heels. Hitting out, he struck her, punching her flesh, her forehead. Then he seized her in his two hard hands and twisted a joint until she writhed in pain. But although she was defenceless now, she bit, snapping like an animal, bit his arm and hung there with her teeth in it. He yelled. And now his men came up, tore her away, got her down on the ground and kicked her.

  The officer was shaking with pain and anger—to be shamed like this in front of his soldiers! “Handcuff her,” he ordered. “We’ll show you, you bitch.” His arm hurt like hell. Her teeth had gone through his coat and the fabric of his shirt; red blood was running out. He felt it trickling down, but he wasn’t going to show that. As they put the handcuffs on her, he bound up the place under his shirt with his handkerchief, and then, composed again, ordered the men: “Forward march. Two of you go ahead with the lad, two of you follow with her.”