Kruso

by Lutz Seiler

  Kruso was awake now, but only rarely opened his eyes. Ed mashed white bread, milk, and some buckthorn juice into a pap. Buckthorn was good for everything, the islanders claimed. He added sugar and two painkillers he had found in Krombach’s first-aid kit along with a bottle of iodine and a few grey compresses. Following an intuition, Ed also mixed into the mush a few leaves from Kruso’s dried herbs, which he had solemnly called ‘the season’s final harvest’.

  The way one feeds an infant, Ed tapped the spoon on Kruso’s upper lip, and, as if the reflex lasts throughout one’s life, Kruso opened his mouth, but only a little. Ed wiped off a bit of the pap and tried to push the food deeper into Kruso’s mouth with the back of the spoon, which he finally succeeded in doing. Kruso swallowed, opened his eyes, and immediately began talking.

  ‘The task of the East, Ed, I mean of the entire East, starting from the Kazakh yurts, from my mother’s circus tent in Karaganda, you know, from there to here, to this island, this ark …’ he choked and spat, evidently the mush was doing him good, ‘will be to show the West a path. A path to freedom, understand, Ed? That will be our task, and the task of the entire East. To show them, who have come so far with technology, economically, with infrastructure …’ he swallowed and continued more emphatically, ‘who have come so far with their highways, production lines, and Bundestags, to show them the path to freedom, the lost side of their … their existence.’ He choked again, then had a coughing fit, as if an invisible giant had grabbed his shoulders and were shaking him furiously for a spell.

  ‘Pscht, pschschscht,’ Ed said, but immediately fell silent when he noticed Kruso’s cutting look.

  ‘It is our task, Ed. To protect the roots from the ashes coming now in unbelievably sweet-smelling avalanches, unbelievably enticing, mild, attractive ashes, you see, Ed?’

  In his embarrassment, Ed tried to keep feeding him, but Kruso had stopped swallowing. He just pressed his lips together and squeezed some of the mush out again.

  ‘Freedom attracts us. She recognises her helpers. She recognised you, too. She recognised you, Ed!’

  Ed wiped the yellowish ooze from Kruso’s stubble as best he could, and wiped his chest. This time, the ablution in the afternoon, flitted pointlessly through Ed’s mind. He gently coaxed his friend.

  ‘We must also eat, Losh. To regain strength, I mean, against the ashes, I mean, who else would know how …’

  Because Ed didn’t have much to say in this direction (although he did, as so often, feel a profound desire to agree with his companion, to be one with him despite the estrangement), he began reciting Trakl. He had forgotten a few of the verses and even some entire poems. It wasn’t bad. He hummed lines and rhymes from other pieces, from the now flimsy compendium of his verse hoard; he hummed it all to himself as if it had never been anything but a single tender melody tuned to a single despairing tone — his own personal tone. Kruso’s poems were also a part, even passages he hadn’t even known existed before. Something like a poem of his own — as if he himself had begun to write.

  His spoon touched Kruso’s mouth, and the Sesame opened.

  ‘That’s good, Losh, very good,’ Ed murmured. ‘We’ll get there.’

  On the way to the dishwashing station, Ed felt stronger and almost content. He rinsed the rest of the mush out of the cup and filled it with water. He dipped his uninjured hand into the cup and felt the stream of water. Little brother, what are you doing, are you asleep or awake? He turned two or three times towards the open doors of the dumb waiter, where there was still a puddle. When he returned to the cubbyhole, Kruso seemed to be himself again. His head lay askew on the pillow. His left eyelid started to tremble. When he opened his eyes again, the eyelid stuck halfway for two seconds.

  ‘Are you hurt, Ed?’ He reached for Ed’s injured hand.

  Fever shone on his face like a mask. There wasn’t the slightest trace of the hatred with which he had tried to push Ed’s head into the drain.

  ‘This belongs to you, Ed.’ He held the photo out to him. It was crumpled and stained with sweat or Exlepäng.

  ‘No, Losh, please, you should keep her with you now, I mean …’

  ‘Take it back. She’s watching over you. Until the next allocation, let’s say.’

  The photo was now just a scrap. A precious scrap as long as the gentle smile was recognisable. Our very own dead, Ed thought.

  ‘Let’s just put her right here, next to the bed, I mean for both of us.’

  Kruso’s expression changed. Ed snatched at the photograph, but Kruso would not let go. He held on tight and looked Ed in the eye.

  ‘She’s out there somewhere, Ed. You can use my binoculars. Use the lights to orient yourself. Think of the green light. And if ever I’m not here for a while, then — take charge. Promise me that. Promise me, now!’

  As if an electrical circuit had been cut at that very moment, Kruso closed his eyes and fell silent.

  ‘I promise,’ Ed murmured.

  He put the photograph back on the chair. Drops of wax, of sweat, the crumpled face. It pained him.

  Anyone, any kind of help. Ed looked at the clock. He swore. What possibilities were there? Finding a doctor among the tourists? Since early November, the island had seemed empty. There was certainly a retired doctor somewhere, slicing his bread and listening contentedly to the sound of the waves. Vosskamp’s ridiculous medical centre wouldn’t have anything more than Krombach’s first-aid kit, and the hospital in Bergen was too far away.

  He took the telephone directory out of Krombach’s desk.

  Ed wasn’t used to using the telephone. He had never had one at home. Speaking into a device with no counterpart seemed unnatural; it seemed artificial, almost abnormal. Ed remembered his first telephone call, when he was a child, in the village co-op. The woman had leaned over the counter with the candy jars and held the receiver to his ear. His mother’s voice hit him like a blow. He could feel her in his ear, but she wasn’t there. He hadn’t been able to say a word even though everyone in the store was encouraging him to speak — not a single word.

  The directory’s dirty yellow title page (an edition from 1986) was covered with dotted lines — an attempt at a geometric representation of long-distance telephone connections, it was easy to see. An imaginary construct with little telephones perched on each junction like spiders in a web. A larger animal resembling a rotary dial had already got itself trapped. A pitch-black, monolithic telephone receiver, tipped upward, loomed over it all like a rare idol or god, half-encircling the telephone network and threatening to drag it all into the abyss.

  On the first page, there was a list of ‘Acoustic Warning Signals’: nuclear alarm, air-raid siren, chemical alarm, and all-clear signal. This was followed by a page of regulations, which Ed skimmed quickly, then the ‘Instructions for Use’. ‘In the interest of general courtesy and increased accessibility: KEEP IT SHORT!’ was printed in bold. Ed dialled the number for medical emergencies. A voice answered with the request ‘Information?’ This was strange, but maybe all services were directed through the information desk. There was static, and some kind of counter set in. Yet something else irritated Ed. He pressed the receiver to his ear. He was sweating.

  ‘My name is Edgar Bendler. I’m an employee of company vacation home Zum Klausner, ummm … on Hiddensee, regional district Rostock, municipal district Rügen.’ He spoke in a very loud voice and spelled the address.

  ‘Yes?’ the man answered, and Ed immediately knew.

  ‘Rebhuhn?

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand you. Please state your concern.’

  ‘Rebhuhn, you swine!’

  ‘Hello, who is speaking?’

  A click, and the busy signal sounded, droning in Ed’s ear. Kruso’s arm waved weakly in the air and dropped back down. ‘The traitors are everywhere now, even on the telephone. They listen in on everything, the lowlifes. Even the sea is one of the w
orst traitors, Ed, did you know that? Flow, flow onward, many hours!’

  Kruso listed, apparently at random, the places he called the ‘root sources’: Plauen, Gotha, Pécs, Brno, Kraków, Kursk, Pavlodar, Karaganda …

  Dusk was falling.

  Ed turned on the light and unplugged the heater. He got a glass of water from the bar and gave it to Kruso to drink.

  ‘Water is the worst traitor of all, Ed. I mean deep water, did you know?’

  He coughed again. His condition was worsening. He had strange spots on his skin, and the dark circles under his eyes spread their shadows into his cheek area.

  ‘It’s a shame, a real shame, old onion,’ Kruso murmured.

  The bar suddenly seemed very far away, and the muffled sound of his footsteps on the floorboards was no longer enough to instil him with any sense of confidence. The rooms slowly began to dissolve; the season was over.

  ‘Ed, Ed? The Dornbusch is burning.’

  Ed sat at the desk for a time and then crept into the bed. His companion had turned away and pressed his forehead against the wall. Kruso moaned and groaned until exhaustion pulled him into sleep. Around midnight, he had another shivering fit. Trembling, he babbled barely comprehensible phrases about his mother the tightrope artist and about the three bears on the Mischka chocolate wrapper. Russian Military City Number Seven also came up, as well as someone Kruso called the ‘fountain master’, the fountain master of Sanssouci.

  ‘The seed of true freedom, Ed, thrives where man is not free.’

  His voice grew softer. In the end, it was mere whisper, a stuttering breath.

  Ed tried resolutely to transmit some warmth to his friend, but the chills were simply too tenacious. Sometimes, it seemed that Kruso was trying to push him away, to shake him off. Then Ed held him tighter and whispered the poem, ‘Evening returns to ancient gardens; Sonya’s life, blue stillness. Wild birds’ migration …’

  By and by, calm returned. Only the dull vibrato of Kruso’s forehead against the wall, as if he could not stop sending his SOS in Morse code, into the Klausner’s foundations.

  Ed decided to carry Losh down to the harbour in a cart the next morning in time for the first ferry. From there to Stralsund, then to the hospital. Maybe it would even be possible to manoeuvre the cart into the cubbyhole and right up against the bed. That way I can manage, Ed thought. He placed his lips on Kruso’s sweat-soaked back. Then on his ear. Then his lips again. For a second, the smell of Christmas cookies. Cinnamon. Ed’s shoulders twitched, then the feeling flooded over him. Without making the slightest sound, he did not hold back his tears.

  TAKEN HOME

  The personnel table was loaded with trunks and suitcases engaged in a heated discussion about God and the world and the new travel destination. They were all worked up because none of them could really know what to expect out there on Møn or Hawaii, or in Shanghai. Even Ed’s worn faux-leather bag spoke up. Until Godfather Death entered the room and they all fell silent.

  ‘That’s not Death,’ Krombach’s hard-shell suitcase whispered, ‘it’s just the ferryman.’

  Just the ferryman, Ed dreamed.

  A star approached him from the darkness.

  Until Ed understood what had happened, everything seemed to happen in quick breaths. The large silhouette next to the bed. A coat opening. A belt buckle with the Soviet star. It bumped the glass on the table, and the glass was transformed into a softly ringing grail, full of the music of parting.

  ‘We waited all night, I’m so glad you’re … We waited and …’

  Against the light from the desk lamp, Ed could only make out clearly half of the large figure at first. A grey-haired giant, a knee-length coat draped over his shoulders, as a commander would wear it. Half-dazzled, Ed raised his eyes to the broad, shapeless epaulettes. The empty sleeves and the glowing red strip on the hem of the coat — there was no doubt: a general. Ed still lay under the covers, as if paralysed. Kruso had turned in his sleep and wrapped his right arm around Ed’s shoulders — as if he wanted to hold him or protect him.

  A second soldier, in a sailor’s uniform, entered the room and immediately pulled back the covers. Kruso’s grip tightened, but to no end. The sailor pulled Ed from the bed. Then he started examining Kruso, who was breathing heavily but no longer seemed to be shivering.

  As if Ed were now part of the troop, he took up position next to the bed and tried to give his report: ‘We waited all night, the telephone was dead …’ Just then, shame washed over him. His companion exposed and he — half-naked, a lump of misery, his hands along his trouser seams — had been wearing trousers.

  Even the general appeared embarrassed. He picked up the bottle on the table and read the label.

  ‘Ex-le-päng?’

  His voice: a dusky rolling sound.

  ‘Sixty per cent alcohol,’ Ed blurted out, relieved to have the opportunity. ‘I rubbed Losh, I mean … I rubbed some on Alexander, he had the chills, he’s — injured.’

  Ed gestured towards Kruso’s head and touched the spot on the back of his own. The general dropped the half-full bottle distractedly into his coat pocket. With a slight bow, Ed gestured towards the host of extra bottles in the cabinet, but the large man didn’t notice his offer, or overlooked it.

  His entrance seemed solemn, not like the response to a distress call. He gave orders only using his eyes. A thin brown strap crossed his chest diagonally from his right shoulder to his left hip, where Ed presumed he had a weapon.

  Kruso groaned, and the soldier gave a sign. He had inserted an IV and set up a drip, which he waved around the room as if that were part of the treatment. Ed shrank back in alarm, but the general, who had approached him with rapid steps, only reached for the photograph on the chair. The scrap.

  The general’s face. Ed recognised Kruso’s large, vulnerable cheeks, their endless expanse, grey and sere, Kazakh steppes, with a camel and on the camel, Sonya and Kruso, the siblings, on their way to the Aral Sea. But they never reached it, because with their every step, the sea’s shore retreated a bit.

  What happened back then? Ed asked.

  The question was too vast for Krombach’s cubbyhole. Even though he had only asked it in his thoughts, it inundated the room, and the general stepped back abruptly. He had put the photograph back. The medic, who had managed to fasten the drip onto the handle of the office cabinet, followed the general.

  In the bar room, there were even more soldiers. Soviet sailors. They sat tiredly at various tables as if they’d already been waiting a long time for their orders. When the general appeared, they sprang to attention and spread a cloud of a sour odour. On command, they broke the legs off the personnel table; the medic gathered up the tablecloths, taking care not to let any ashtrays fall on the ground. The blows to the table were given purposefully, almost solicitously, from which Ed concluded that this was not an act of retribution or a retaliation campaign.

  8 November, SR 7:09, SS 4:18. This is how the entry in the diary would have read, but Ed had not used his provisional diary and it never got truly light that day. Like the last forgotten guests of an endless autumn, the frigate captain and two of his soldiers sat on the terrace. When the general appeared, Vosskamp sprang up and saluted. One of the soldiers didn’t manage to get his weapon over his shoulder, so he held it upright in front of his chest and froze in that position. The general tapped the visor of his cap and called something in Russian over the beer-garden tables. ‘Plechom k plechu,’ the frigate captain yelled back, which silenced the few birds that had decided to take on the morning. Vosskamp saluted once more to the general’s back, but was already looking at Edgar as he did. Ed sensed his incomprehension but also his benevolence — the look of a shocked parent.

  Plechom k plechu.

  The medic had bound Kruso to the personnel table top with tablecloths. Their large flower pattern was covered with food and beer stains interspersed with
black-rimmed cigarette burns, which Ed briefly took for bullet holes.

  Now it was the general who was holding the drip (life) in the air as they made their way down the stairs to the sea. With motions of his free hand, he directed the bearers, who slowed and walked in step as is customary in the burial of the important dead. The medic had hurried a few metres ahead to call out the many loose or missing steps. And at the end came Ed, like a useless child skipping behind the procession without understanding what was really happening. Nonetheless: he carried the bag, the hospital bag. Nonetheless: he understood the bag. Containing just the basics, it was not that heavy. No one had asked about it yet.

  Kruso hovered, feet first, between the soldiers, like a pharaoh on his final journey. Certain sections of the stairs forced the bearers to tilt the makeshift tabletop stretcher at a steep angle, as if they wanted to show the sea the victim or the victim the sea one last time, from the horizon to Denmark, which floated invisibly in the fog, or to the water of the Baltic Sea, which lay inert and with November’s chill behind the head-high sea buckthorn bushes that had overgrown the flight of stairs down the bluff. Yes, for a moment it seemed to Ed as if they were holding out to the Baltic Sea a saint, a martyr, whose body they were about to consign to the tide in order to calm the storm and to end the patrol boats’ confusion and, finally, as a sign of freedom and proof that it could be attained right here, in our time, and not just on Møn, Hawaii, or elsewhere — yes, Kruso had to be sacrificed, sacrificed for the future of the island …

  Ed had no idea how such revolting madness could have entered his head. He grabbed his forehead. Maybe he had breathed in too much Exlepäng that night, had smelled Kruso’s neck for too long; maybe he had simply gone crazy.

  ‘Losh!’

  The soldiers were still holding Kruso out to the sea.

  Last of his kind, last living representative, careful, careful! the insanity whispered to the steps on which Ed’s feet appeared with fine regularity, feet and steps in endless number, but no, of course not, he had counted them more than once on his lunch breaks before the high season, sweating, breathless, be careful 294 times, the whisper filled Ed’s head.