Winter Men

by Jesper Bugge Kold

  “No, not really.” He glanced back at the bed, where three nurses were trying to push the screaming man down. “I was in the combat troops, and he was in the supply troops.” A doctor arrived and gave the patient an injection, after which he relaxed.

  “But you’ve met him?”

  Wasner seemed uncomfortable and shifted nervously. To August, he looked like someone who’d had enough of hospitals.

  “I have met him, and the only thing I can say about him is that he’s tall,” Wasner said.

  “Yes.” August smiled at the thought of his father.

  A doctor approached August’s bed. Wasner uttered a stiff and dutiful “heil Hitler,” then said, “Good luck, August Strangl.”

  “Thank you.”

  Wasner stepped uncomfortably past the screaming man’s bed. An aide was in the process of covering the now-silent man with a white sheet. A pool of blood underneath the bed was slowly widening, filling the grout between the tiles, and when the grout was full, spilling over onto the white tile and sliding toward the lowest point in the floor: the drain. The aide struggled with one of the dead man’s arms, which kept sliding off the bed so that it hung near the floor, swinging back and forth. The aide grew gradually more flushed and finally shoved the man’s arm underneath him. August couldn’t bear to watch and rolled onto his side. The war had abolished all reason: A dead man mocking a living one, Germans turning into killers, the innocent transformed into soldiers, and other innocents dying—and why? To what end? How could human beings treat each other this way? He didn’t understand any of it. He tried his best not to think about it, but he couldn’t suppress the ineradicable images that lived inside his head.

  The doctor had apparently said something to him, but he hadn’t caught a single word. Then he nodded at August and moved on to the next bed.

  August got to his feet and shuffled to the window with faltering steps. He peered down at the small courtyard a few stories below, which was crammed with a welter of clotheslines. Had the Germans been victorious, he thought, the courtyard would have been decorated with red flags bearing swastikas, but instead the clotheslines were draped in bloodied sheets. Emblems of the vanquished. He crawled back into bed and pulled the wool blanket over his head.

  Seven days later August left the hospital and returned to his unit.

  Near Rzhev, Russia, March 14, 1942

  They stopped in a small village. They all looked alike. The only things that distinguished them from each other were their names and locations on his map.

  A big, burly man appeared in the doorway of one of the houses. A thick beard extended down his cheeks to his unbuttoned shirt. He signaled that he wished to speak with them. Paul made his way toward him cautiously, which made Karl smile. Although the man was big, Karl couldn’t imagine that he would take on an entire company of German soldiers. When Paul reached him, he called for Pasek, a German from the Sudetenland who knew a few Russian phrases.

  “He wants to invite the commander inside for refreshments,” Paul said when he returned to Karl.

  “You don’t say no to a man of his size, do you?” Karl said, smiling at Paul and adjusting his cap. They’d been in the country for nearly a year, and their relationship with the locals had grown only more tense. Many of the men wanted to tear the head off any Russian they met, but Karl still believed that kindness was the best policy. Everything was easier when they were in good standing with the civilians. He planned to set a good example. He might have been a bit naïve, but he was in good spirits that day. The ground had begun to thaw, and the change in the weather made him feel more energetic than he had in months. He’d never gone through so difficult and merciless a winter, and now they all could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Spring’s arrival meant that they could renew their advance on Moscow and be back in Germany before the following winter set in. That was something to be happy about.

  The man nodded toward his house, then disappeared inside. Karl studied the squat building for a moment before following. With its thick, untreated outer walls of logs, moss-covered roof, and tiny windows, it looked like all the other houses in the village. He ducked as he entered so that he wouldn’t bump his head against the low transom. At first he could see nothing in the pitch darkness, but his eyes soon adjusted, and the room began to take shape. He’d entered into a kitchen. In the middle of the room was the customary oven that served two functions: food preparation and heat. The walls were crude, and in one corner, the usual images of saints hung in gilded frames that had seen better days. Below the holy icons was a spinning wheel. As far as he could tell, the house consisted of just two rooms, and he assumed the other room was where the entire family slept.

  An old woman was rummaging with some pots and pans. When she noticed Karl, she put them down, let her arms fall, and stared at the floor. He walked toward her and kindly offered his hand. Without raising her eyes, she wiped her hands on her stained apron and gave his hand a light squeeze with a wizened hand that reminded him of his old nanny, Mrs. Buchholz. When they were children, he and Gerhard agreed that she must have been at least one hundred years old, though she could hardly have been over fifty-five. The woman before him looked to be a great deal closer to one hundred than their former nanny had been. He had never imagined that a human being could be so wrinkled. She had typical Russian features: potato-colored skin, gray-blue eyes, and paper-thin lips. The skin of her neck had lost its battle against gravity and hung like a rooster’s, which made her appear slightly grotesque. She peered up at him with deep-set, bloodshot eyes, and her toothless mouth formed a submissive smile. It looked like it hadn’t smiled in many years.

  Karl was startled when the man put an enormous fist on his shoulder. Without a word he offered Karl a seat at the large table. On the table sat a strange metal device that Karl had never seen before. He sat down, and the man settled across from him. Karl studied the strange contraption, which reminded him of their own field kitchens—the goulash cauldrons—or an urn with a chimney affixed to it. A small pipe extended from the bottom and terminated in a spigot. The old woman set two mugs before them, and the man twisted the spigot. A dark, steamy liquid poured into the mugs. The man dropped a couple of sugar cubes into one of them and set it down before Karl. An indistinct but pleasant aroma blended with the thick smell of the petroleum lamp above the table.

  The man raised his cup to his mouth. Karl followed his lead and took a cautious sip so as not to burn himself. The taste was indescribable. The first mouthful was unpleasant, maybe because he wasn’t used to it. There was a smoky taste to it, and it was redolent of unfamiliar fruits. He held up his mug, smiling to indicate what he thought of the tea.

  That’s when he saw the younger man in the corner opposite the holy icons. Half-concealed by the darkness, he rocked soundlessly but intensely back and forth in a rocking chair. He had a wild expression in his eyes, as if it took all his concentration to see just a few feet in front of him. The large man, who noticed Karl watching the cripple, spun his index finger around in circles at his temple. Karl understood. He figured the two men were brothers and that the old woman was their mother.

  His host said nothing, just scrutinized Karl while occasionally raising his mug to drink. His eyes radiated a mixture of curiosity and vigilance. From his pants pocket he removed a leather pouch of tobacco, then began to roll a cigarette. When he was done, he offered it to Karl, who politely accepted it. He’d heard rumors about the Russian mahorka tobacco but was certain the stories were overblown, just like the ones about the Russians being cannibals. He noticed the cigarette had been rolled in newspaper, probably yesterday’s Pravda or Krasnaya Zvezda; it smelled of sawdust and seemed harmless.

  He took one drag on the cigarette and moments later had tears streaming down his cheeks. The man sat impassively while Karl did his best to suppress a coughing fit, but Karl was certain that he was laughing inwardly. The man said something to him then, and Karl gave him an apologetic look. The man pushed back his chair and we
nt to pick up a square plate of some kind that was leaning against the wall. When he set it on the table, Karl saw that it was a chessboard. He shot Karl a questioning glance, and Karl nodded. The man began to set up the pieces, black for Karl and white for himself. A rook was missing, and in its place was a hunk of wood that had been cut so that it would stand. Karl waited patiently for his host to sit down, but to his surprise the man went over to the cripple instead. He put his hand beneath the cripple’s arm and guided him to the chessboard. The big man then positioned himself next to the table and crossed his arms. Karl sized up his opponent. He tried in vain to make eye contact, but the young man’s eyes darted about restlessly.

  With a hard jerk, the cripple moved his king’s pawn to D4. Trying to overpower his opponent, Karl shifted his knight to F6. The crudely carved piece was heavy. Pawn to C4. The young man played quickly; he didn’t waste time contemplating his moves. Karl’s plan was to overtake the middle, so he moved his pawn to C5. The cripple lurched in his chair, then pushed his D-pawn forward one square. There was something apt about their choosing the classic Benoni Defense, Karl thought. The name meant in Hebrew “the son of sadness”—which was telling, given his opponent. Though his protruding teeth caused his mouth to twist into a smile, his face was full of sorrow. His eyes were wet, and drool glistened at the corners of his mouth and chin.

  Karl considered himself a skilled chess player, but he was quickly in trouble. No matter what he did, the cripple remained one step ahead of him, forcing him onto the defensive. Karl tried frantically to improve his position, but defeat was inevitable. It seemed he’d underestimated his opponent. The big man appraised Karl, who gave him a strained smile in return. Following an ill-conceived move by Karl, the young man nearly fell out of his chair in excitement. Checkmate. The banging pots fell silent, and the house was still for a moment, the only sound coming from the German soldiers outside. Then the big man began to laugh. His booming laughter shook the walls, and he laughed until his belly jiggled, his deep voice echoing throughout the house. It wasn’t malicious, but an unfamiliar sensation began to grow in Karl. He was the object of this peasant’s laughter. It was degrading. He’s mocking me, he thought to himself. His uniform jacket suddenly felt constricting. He has been waiting for me to lose in order to humiliate me, an officer of the Wehrmacht.

  Karl stood abruptly, and the chair toppled over behind him. He drew his service pistol and shoved the barrel between the man’s eyes. The man fell silent. The old woman dropped a bowl behind them, and the clatter of broken glass filled the room. The man breathed heavily through his nose. Karl looked at his hand; his viselike grip on the pistol’s shaft made the veins on the back of his hand bulge, and his hand began to shake. It occurred to him that he hadn’t considered how this scene would play out. There were two possibilities: he could shoot or he could let it go. Should he shoot this crude peasant? He wondered how he would feel seeing the huge body drop lifelessly to the floor. But what was the man’s crime? He’d had a laugh at Karl’s expense. But was murder a reasonable punishment for insult? The man wasn’t part of the war, after all; he was a random resident of a country at war. He decided that his death could not be justified. It would be the equivalent of SS justice—in which hundreds of civilians paid with their lives for every dead SS soldier. He saw then tension in the man’s face. His jaw muscles were stiff beneath his beard, and his forehead was so furrowed that the muzzle of the pistol practically disappeared in his wrinkles. He stared at Karl with a mixture of defiance and wonder, as if fearing death and refusing to fear it at the same time. His mouth gaped, and the tart stink of the man’s tobacco breath reached Karl every time the man exhaled.

  Suddenly Karl thought there was something wretched about the man, something frightening about how swiftly a pistol could change the balance of power between two people. He glanced at the cripple rocking slowly and sluggishly back and forth, which seemed to underscore the seriousness of the situation. A single squeeze of the trigger, and the old woman would have only one half-son left. He looked at the woman, who stood as if petrified among the shards of broken glass, her oversized apron wrapped around her waist like a shroud. She was obviously poor. The place showed no sign that anyone else helped feed the little family apart from the man with the pistol at his forehead. No, it wasn’t worth it. The man’s death would benefit no one. His hotheaded urge for revenge, so strong only a moment before, began to subside. The big man sat stock-still, awaiting his fate. Karl then thought of something else: Would he lose face if he turned and walked out the door?

  The man apparently sensed Karl’s hesitation, as his defiant expression slowly spread to the rest of his face. Karl tightened his grip on the pistol and pressed the barrel harder against the man’s forehead. He was overcome with a sudden fear that the man would fight back, because for some inexplicable reason he sensed the man gathering his courage. Moving quickly, Karl thumped the base of the pistol’s shaft against the man’s temple. The man raised his hands to his face instinctively as a stream of blood ran down his cheek and through his coarse beard. Karl ran past the woman, who hadn’t moved, out the door.

  Daylight cut through Karl’s eyeballs, causing a murderous pain in his eye sockets, which then spread to his ears as the old woman began to scream. It wasn’t so much a scream but a lonely, hollow wail. Seeing Karl’s expression, Piroska quickly ordered all the men to their vehicles, and the column drove away from the village.

  Piroska sunnily hummed Franz Grothe’s “Am nächsten Tag.” Karl knew Piroska well enough to understand that he was trying to cheer him up. He leaned against the window and pretended not to notice Piroska eyeing him. He didn’t feel good about what had happened back there. Striking the man had been unnecessary. And yet he’d done it anyway. Like a crazy man. Like all the others. The Opel Blitz’s shock absorbers were in poor condition, and he let the battered road’s jolts and vibrations punish him. He didn’t move his cheek away from the window, didn’t try to absorb the bouncing, but accepted it like a boxer too tired to put up his hands to block the blows. He deserved it. He cursed the fact that he’d allowed himself to imagine he had a place in this war—that he could make a difference. He shook his head sadly at the sight of a Panzer IV standing on the side of the road.

  “Gunpowder is mankind’s worst invention,” Karl said.

  The panzer’s caterpillar tracks marked the path it had taken, reminding Karl of a runaway dog dragging its leash behind it. He guessed the tank had been walloped by a T-34. Grass and shrubs had begun to emerge from underneath the melting snow, growing between the heavy belts of manganese steel, as if nature had decided to conceal the war. A hare had apparently accepted the presence of the charred wreckage; it sat contentedly on one of the tracks. At the sound of the convoy, it turned its ears attentively, then darted between the trees.

  “I would say that religion is worse,” Paul said, his gaze fixed to the road. A pothole jounced him in his seat. “Much worse.”

  “Do you mean that?” Karl’s voice quivered because of the road.

  “Isn’t that why we hate Jews?” Paul turned to Karl.

  Karl studied his next in command, who’d once again directed his attention at the windshield. “Because of religion?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why do we hate Jews, then?”

  Karl shrugged. “That’s just how it is, no one likes the Jews.” Both men knew that neither one held the slightest thing against the Jews.

  “Religion is a claim, that’s all it is,” Piroska said following a short pause.

  Paul confused him on occasion. His way of thinking was so different, so provocative. To think of religion as a manmade invention along the lines of gunpowder, the wheel, or the telephone—to compare faith with objects—was offensive to most everyone on the planet. But it was typical Paul. He always said what was on his mind, taking every opportunity to curse Hitler and religion in that order.

  “My brother is a doctor.”
/>   Karl already knew that.

  “He’s stationed at a military hospital in Kraków.” Paul rolled his window down and spat out of it. “He wrote to me about a small city near Kraków, Oświęcim, I think it’s called. They’re gassing the Jews in a gigantic camp.”

  “He wrote that?”

  “No, not that. The censor would have blotted that out.”

  “I’ve heard rumors of the camp. And of others,” Karl said.

  “Have we lost our minds?”

  “Hmm, maybe the rumors are worse than the truth.”

  “Hitler’s crazy.”

  How things had changed, Karl thought. There was a time when people would have been shot for talking like that. Now, it was common to hear such remarks among the men. And Paul was right. Karl’s thoughts circled back to the Court of Honor in Berlin and the time he’d met Adolf Hitler. The man who was responsible for Karl being thousands of miles from his family, the unassuming little man who’d brought the world to the brink of chaos. He’d recently overheard a peculiar conversation between two group leaders. They’d been discussing Hitler’s and Stalin’s mustaches—whether one could pick the war’s victor by looking at them—and they’d agreed that if size was what mattered, Stalin was in the lead. But if originality was the deciding factor, then Hitler had a slight edge over his rival. The thought made him laugh.

  Paul made a dry, hoarse noise. He rolled his window down again and spat. Karl scrutinized him, unable to reconcile himself to the fact that Paul was a lawyer. He liked to spit, he enjoyed the front line, and he was generally capable of finding something positive to say about life as a soldier. Karl struggled more and more with that as time went on.

  Karl didn’t want to believe the rumors about the camps. He sincerely hoped that no one could be as evil as the rumors purported. But the camps existed—deep down he knew it—and the SS was responsible for them. Karl hated the SS. Even though he was a member himself, he felt no kinship with them. They were a bunch of psychopaths, and unfortunately his own son-in-law was among them. As was his brother. It had been some time since he’d thought of Gerhard. They wrote to each other, of course, but it was as though they didn’t speak the same language anymore. As though Karl had been in Russia so long that his words had become warped. Gerhard, too, had adopted a new language that Karl didn’t understand. Their letters were safe and superficial, always variations on the same template. I’m well, and I hope you’re well. They were meaningless and irrelevant, but maybe that was what all letters were like these days because of the censors.