Winter Men
Page 25
A soldier stopped and studied him indifferently. August didn’t have the strength to lift his head, and his gaze remained focused on the soldier’s tightly laced boots. The Russian just stood there, and August’s eyes rolled slowly upward. From the soldier’s hip hung a green canvas bag with a red cross, indicating that he was from a medical unit. One arm hung down by the soldier’s side, but August fixated his attention on the other, which was bound in a sling. He suddenly recognized the shoulder-length blond hair that was tied in a little ponytail under the soft cap. Nadia. He wasn’t hallucinating. It was really Nadia. He’d dreamed of her ever since their encounter in the woods, and now she was suddenly standing before him.
She stared at him without expression. He tried to say something. Tried to let her know that he was still alive, but no sound emerged from his mouth. She didn’t budge. He wanted to call out to her, but her musical name turned into a rattling cough that ached in his chest. August looked up at her. She seemed so pretty standing with the sun at her back. An angel who’d come to take him wherever he was meant to go. But he didn’t want to go. He wasn’t ready!
His eyes slid slowly down to her hips and the green canvas bag. Nadia followed his eyes and saw the first aid kit. She flashed a brief smile before turning and running after the others.
He no longer felt the stinging nettles. Both of his legs were numb now. Despite the heat, he felt as though his body were hardening to ice. Another cough racked his chest. The blood that coursed from his body smeared his hands and arms, and he only just managed to think that a person couldn’t possibly contain so much blood. He was helpless. He could do nothing but watch himself cease to exist. His father stood beside him now. He lay in a bed; his mother was there, too, and Hilde, Maximilian, and Sophia. The sunlight blinded him. Where was his canteen?
Dmitri pulled out a couple of slices of bread from the bag he’d cinched to his belt. He’d relieved his bladder next to a tree, and now he would satisfy his hunger. He probably had some sausages left. He stretched his back, which was stiff and aching from so many hours lying in the same position. First his right side, from his toes all the way to his fingertips, and then his left. He cut a sausage in half so he would have enough for another meal. Either you ate all you had and were full and happy for a while, or you ate a little bit at a time. That meant, however, that you were always hungry. That seemed like the best option since he was already used to always being hungry.
He watched the remains of the German defense being beaten back while ingesting his meal beneath a tree. Now he heard only the scattered salvos of machine gun fire. He stood up and began to walk.
Dmitri looked at the two dead Germans behind the dike. The first had been felled by the perfect shot. The one snipers dream of. The shot that makes legends of them. In a split second the German had gone from ignorance to nothingness. He’d been alive and dead in the same instant. He shifted his gaze to the other one, who sat leaning against the dike, his eyes staring vacantly ahead.
Russian officers kept saying that once you’ve killed a person, it’s easier to kill a second time. But what about dying? There’s only that one irreversible moment. The other German hadn’t had an easy death. Why the hell had he stood up? He was a trained soldier, so why had he exposed himself?
Dmitri lamented the shot. He’d struck the soldier just below his ribs, on the right side of his chest, and it had surely taken a long time for the life to ebb out of him. For a dying man, ten or twenty minutes was probably an eternity. Ten minutes was just ten minutes to a living man, but to the dying man, it was all that remained.
He removed their dog tags as proof that he’d killed two more. In a certain sense he was glad that the German soldiers’ names weren’t on their dog tags. He didn’t want to know their names. Though he hated them, a name would make them human. Then he would see that they were like him. He turned the two metal ovals over in his hand. Then he dropped them in his pocket, where they clinked softly as he walked back toward the forest.
PART THREE
Santa Cruz, Bolivia. July 24, 1975
The wind originated in Patagonia and the Argentinian Pampas, and it was ice cold. The doors had begun to rattle, and the house was drafty. His skin was so paper thin that it no longer served as a shield against the cold gusts. He loathed winter. He felt frozen down to his bones. The temperature had dipped so swiftly in recent days that his body hadn’t had a chance to acclimate. All the heat had been sucked from the air, replaced by this icy wind. He pulled his blanket tighter around himself.
The wind seemed to have been created to make lonely people feel even more so. Like a knife, it sliced chasms between people, and every soul had to resist its penetration. In Buenos Aires they called it the pampero, but here it went by the name of surazo. The Argentinian capital had been the right place for him; the wind hadn’t been so brutal there. Every time he remembered Buenos Aires, his chain of thought brought him back to Hamburg, a city that he’d come to think had never really existed. That had originated in his imagination. In his memory it lay enshrouded in mist; soon he would no longer be able to see it at all. The towers were invisible, and he struggled to recall whether they were still standing the last time he saw the city. Hamburg had been in ruins, nothing but a heap of rubble and piles of garbage. With his brother buried somewhere beneath it all.
He couldn’t decide whether suicide was the solution of a coward or a final act of wisdom. But his brother had been neither a coward nor particularly wise. He wanted to say that he missed him, but over time his heart had grown too weak to miss anyone. And too tattered to suffer.
The whistling wind gave him goose bumps. Like a wolf, it howled at the moon as it searched for openings. He crawled deeper beneath his blanket.
It was one of those days when he felt guilty. His old heart still had the capacity to feel guilt. Thank god it didn’t happen often, but it was the kind of thing the wind did to lonely men. When he was overwhelmed by guilt, there was so much he regretted. So much he shouldn’t have done. He found comfort in this thought: if he felt guilty, it meant he was human. Making mistakes was part of human nature, and to regret was to recognize a mistake. And only through compassion and courage could one recognize one’s mistakes. If one had reached such a recognition . . . Nonsense, he regretted nothing. He sucked at the cigarette he’d just lit, his teeth clenched.
Maybe he should give up, let himself be captured, maybe even turn himself in. Or was that his mind playing tricks on him? Was he just imagining someone was out to get him? No, Buenos Aires had been real. Hadn’t it? Was it a form of megalomania to think that he had, in some bizarre way, made his mark on this world after all—whether good or bad? Was he trying to justify their pursuit of him as evidence of that?
If they came for him, he would no longer resist.
He sat listening to the wind blowing through the streets for a long time. The rain had joined it, drumming rhythmically against the tin roof. He suddenly felt vulnerable. When that happened, it was time to leave, time to depart and start over. He was overwhelmed by a compulsion to survive. With his blanket still wrapped tightly around his shoulders, he found his suitcase under his bed.
Near Isjum, Ukraine, January 15, 1943
A hand—a powerful hand with strong fingers—gripped Karl hard around his neck and squeezed his Adam’s apple with brute force. Fingernails bore into his skin as the grip tightened, lifting him up. His toes no longer touched the ground, and he kicked wildly. In a moment he would lose consciousness and die. The hand suddenly released him, and he began to fall. It was as though a mine had cut off his legs below the knees. He continued to fall, then broke through the earth’s surface. The crust scraped his arms and legs, and blood began to run down his limbs. Then he came to an abrupt halt and remained hanging in the air, as though held up by an invisible rope. He glimpsed a dot down below. It approached slowly, and he saw that it was August. His eyes were open, and he was smiling. When August was close enough that Karl could reach out and touch him, his body
dissolved before his eyes. August vanished. Karl opened his hand; in his palm lay a dented bullet. It began to move, then bore into his temple with great force. His head began pounding intolerably. He came to, blinking. Five, ten minutes, he sat staring blankly into space, until his brain slowly began to function again.
He reread the letter. The same way a child who has just learned to read does. One word at a time in order to comprehend, hoping that a second pass through it would change the meaning of the sentences. The result was the same: August was dead. August is dead. At first they were just words in his head. He knew the meaning of each individual word, but could not grasp the sentence they formed. As though to convince himself of their accuracy, he said it aloud.
“August is dead.”
The letter had been in transit for three months. It had followed his own route, first to France and then to Russia. He had lost his son three months ago, and he was only learning it now. It was unbearable. How had Ingrid been able to write the words “August is dead”? It must have required preternatural powers. She must have mustered all her strength to form the short sentence, the sentence that meant that he no longer had a son. When it came to letter writing, Ingrid was a true virtuoso. Her letters were practically calligraphic artwork, but the brevity and lack of aesthetic expression in the message he now held in his hands testified to her suffering. In the letter’s formulaic composition, he felt her reproaching him, a reproach that whispered how he was the one who’d insisted August become a soldier. It wasn’t in the tone of the letter; it was in its absence of tone. But maybe a mother always assigns blame when she loses a child. What about fathers?
He remembered the adage “A man who fears death cannot enjoy life.” Had August feared death? Suddenly Karl felt that he’d never really known his son. Who was August? Did Karl know his favorite color or, for that matter, his favorite food? Did he actually know him at all? The answer had to be no. They’d spent so many years together, and yet they had been strangers. He began rubbing his palms against his face, as if trying to erase his thoughts. His rough, dry skin itched beneath his stubble, making him rub even harder. It hurt. He closed his eyes and squeezed his head between his hands.
He understood Gerhard better now. He’d never comprehended what it had been like for his brother when he lost Laura and Emma, but now he felt that crushing sensation, a lingering pain, as if all of his organs had contracted. Gerhard had tried to explain the feeling to him, but he’d never understood. He’d wanted to help Gerhard back then, but he couldn’t. He’d just made a halfhearted attempt to appear understanding about something he didn’t grasp. Back then he simply didn’t know any better. But now he missed his brother, and he missed August.
The letter was still before him when he opened his eyes. Some unlucky party official had had the dubious honor of knocking on the door of his villa by the Alster. He imagined Ingrid receiving the news. Sobbing, leaning against the door frame as the official uncomfortably wished her a good day. Had she sat down immediately to write the letter, or had she been unable to? He could understand if she hadn’t been able to, but something inside him believed he had a right to know as soon as possible.
He was scared of himself. How could he think so rationally and be so calm? Did death mean nothing? The crushing sensation that pained him from head to toe provided him with his answer. Death meant everything. It meant his son going from present to past tense. From flesh and blood to memory. From a living embodiment of his and Ingrid’s love to a photo album of his recollections. He cried.
He recalled things he and August had done together, but he couldn’t think of many. Had he been a good father? He supposed it was only logical to ask that question when you no longer had a chance to change anything. One thing was certain: Karl had never understood his son, had never connected with his sullen temperament.
Petrus Keil entered his tent, and Karl gave him an abject glance. Keil, who’d succeeded Piroska as second in command, nodded and sat down. He lightly patted Karl’s leg to let him know that he empathized, that there was no need for Karl to explain. They sat for some time. Slowly, Petrus Keil began to transform. His round, steel-framed glasses disappeared; his short, dark hair grew long, blonder, and began to curl; his skinny face with its prominent cheekbones became longer and stronger, as did his nose. Paul Piroska was with Karl now. He wanted to hug Paul, throw himself around his neck, but right then his skin vanished from his face, torn off as if someone had ripped it from his throat. His skull appeared, and where his eyes had been there now crawled fat, well-nourished maggots. White, sleek larvae that wriggled out of every orifice.
Karl felt as though he no longer had any eyes, only tears, tears large as eggs, and he could no longer see. He was blind. Everyone died, everyone died, and at that moment it struck him how fragile life was.
Keil, who must have seen the terror in Karl’s face, stood, looking uncomfortable. He cleared his throat timidly. “Colonel Wolter wishes to speak with you.”
Gently, he helped Karl to his feet. Karl smiled apologetically, adjusted his uniform jacket, and dried his eyes with his sleeve.
Near Isjum, Ukraine, January 16, 1943
In May 1942, the Seventh Panzer Division had arrived in France. When Karl had seen the men—or those who were left—he had been amazed that such threadbare men had been capable of holding the Russians at bay. Exhausted, both physically and mentally beaten, they had been allowed to rest. The division was held in reserve for a few months, and the men used those months to recuperate. Then, following the Allies’ landing in North Africa, Adolf Hitler decided to occupy all of France, and the panzer division was ordered south. On December 22, 1942, the division left Marseille, and they celebrated Christmas on a train heading back to the eastern front. Most of the men had been there before, and those who’d joined them in France listened in horror to the stories that were told.
And now he sat here, in a canvas tent, while everyone around him was buried. It was insufferable. He missed Paul. In that case, Karl himself had been the shy messenger at the front door, bringing the same news he’d received the day before—only for someone else. His letter to Liesel had been rubbish. Karl had written that Paul died a hero’s death for the führer, the people, and his fatherland, but the truth was that his death had been anything but glorious. It had been disgraceful. Paul’s bowels had loosened, and Karl had chain-smoked on the truck’s tailgate to cover the stench.
Colonel Wolter, the new supply officer who’d replaced the fallen Helmut Strunz, sat at a little table with an adjutant. They drank coffee out of dented metal mugs. Strunz had been a cautious, thorough, and very punctual man, but Wolter was quite different. He was a brusque man who spoke his mind, and the men were afraid of him.
Wolter ordered Karl to go to the depot, get four trucks, and report to Major Kuhlau in Isjum, where a special delivery awaited them. It was to be transported—discreetly—to Kharkov. He blinked at Karl knowingly following his last sentence.
The trip to Isjum was uneventful. He drove with Keil, but they didn’t talk on the way. In Isjum they picked up their cargo: seventy-eight Ukrainian and Russian women. Karl guessed that the youngest was fourteen and the oldest between thirty-eight and forty. They helped the women into the truck beds, where they all had to stand since there were no seats or benches. Then the two men climbed back into the cab, and Keil popped the engine into gear.
“I don’t like this at all. We can hardly pretend we’ve been overpowered by seventy-eight women,” Karl said, shaking his head.
“What the hell is the army going to do with seventy-eight women in Kharkov?”
“What do you think German soldiers want to do with young women?”
“You’re not saying . . .”
Karl lit a cigarette and exhaled a thick column of smoke. “Right now, we’re a couple of pimps.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“They’re freezing back there.” Karl took another drag.
“They’ll be warm soon enough.”
He often felt that the war was eating him up inside. No longer was it about Germany or victory or defeat, but about Karl—Karl’s survival. He began to wish he would be wounded so that he could be sent home. A bullet through the leg would be a blessing. He’d reached the point where a limb seemed a reasonable trade-off for escaping the war. That’s why he’d become reckless. It didn’t matter anymore, and maybe it would all be over soon.
Near Isjum, Ukraine, February 22, 1943
They emerged from the morning mist. At first they were just silhouettes, but before long the horses galloped past Karl, their hooves pounding the soft earth like small explosions. There was a clear hierarchy among the graceful creatures. A dapple gray seemed to be their leader. Every time it cantered or came to a halt, the others followed suit. A golden-brown mare stopped and looked at Karl, its tail swishing rhythmically back and forth. It trudged toward him trustfully, and he gave its muzzle a friendly pat. The beautiful animal snorted thickly, and he felt its warm breath against his hand. It tilted its head to the side, studying him. Between its pleasantly soft brown eyes was a round white mark that hypnotized him like a third eye. If a woman had looked at him that way, he would have given up everything he owned to follow her to the ends of the earth. He liberated himself from the horse’s intense stare and thought of Ingrid. He wasn’t the kind of man to leave his family in the lurch. And certainly not for a horse.