by Steven Conte
‘High up how?’
‘A minister. Justice. They must have been desperate; he wasn’t even a lawyer and in his home life was something of a bully. An anti-Semite too. That alone I couldn’t forgive him for. Such a vulgar prejudice. You know, you’re the first foreigners I’ve encountered in years. Imagine, then, my disappointment.’
‘You were due to go to Paris,’ Bauer prompted.
‘And so I slipped away.’
‘Just like that?’
‘And never saw them again.’ Her tone was neutral, and because she was ahead of him he couldn’t read her face.
‘Did you miss them?’
‘Not at first. I thought the whole world was about to go communist, and that my family and I would reunite – that even my father would realise his mistake. I’d read Proudhon, I’d read Engels. I’d read Das Kapital from cover to cover and thought I understood it. My task, I believed, was to fan the flames of revolution until the whole globe caught fire.’
‘Quite an ambition for a seventeen-year-old.’
‘I was in a hurry. History was happening and I had to help.’
‘So you slipped away,’ he said.
‘Quite easily in the end. I got plainer clothes, caught a train, hitched a ride on a cart and then walked through the night. In the morning I reached the Red Army.’
‘You weren’t afraid?’ he asked.
‘No. Why would I have been?’
‘You were seventeen. A girl, alone.’
She stopped and turned around. ‘Afraid I’d be raped? Tell me, what is it about you Germans – pleased to do it, shy to give it a name?’ Fortunately she didn’t wait for answer. ‘The truth is I didn’t believe that Bolsheviks could be rapists. Oh, I’d heard otherwise – from my father, for starters – but I’d dismissed it as propaganda. Of course, now I see the risks I was running.’
‘Did they identify you?’
‘I didn’t hide who I was. I assumed the Revolution was for everyone, and my sincerity must have told in my favour. A spy would have been more circumspect. Imagine the idealism streaming out of me, a protective glow, imperceptible to the eye.’
‘Like Joan of Arc.’
‘Ha! But less holy. More like a forcefield, as the science fiction writers say, a shimmer of ignorance. Or maybe I was just lucky. Certainly I chanced on a unit whose commander was welcoming and intelligent.’
‘Oh yes?’ he said.
They had arrived at the bottom of the hill. She peered back at him and said, ‘If I were you, I’d pick up a handful of snow.’
‘Why?’
‘Your nose, it’s gone white. The start of frostbite.’
He touched his nose, felt nothing and scooped up a handful of snow.
‘Now rub your face with it,’ she said.
‘Really? This isn’t another allegory?’
‘It’s first aid, but what do I care? You can listen or not.’
He pressed the snow against his nose, half convinced she was trying to humiliate him but alarmed enough to do as she said. Treating frostbite with cold felt plausibly counterintuitive, a vaccination of sorts.
‘That’s right,’ she said, ‘but harder. Harder. Till it hurts.’
He rubbed but still felt nothing in his nose, rubbed until his lips and cheeks were aflame and the snow on his palm fell apart.
‘Get more,’ she ordered.
He picked up another handful and mashed it on his face until he began to feel a burning sensation on his nose. ‘I think it’s working,’ he said.
‘Keep going.’
For another half-minute he kept rubbing, his face feeling more and more aflame. ‘It’s starting to hurt,’ he said.
‘Let me see.’
He lowered his hand and presented his nose for inspection. His face must be scarlet, he thought, which he supposed was the point.
‘Now dry it,’ she said. ‘You have a handkerchief?’
He did, and again did as he was told.
‘Now let’s keep moving,’ she said. ‘You should get indoors.’
They continued back the way they had come, with the welcome difference that the wind was at their backs. Even so he began to shudder again. If he’d been at risk of losing his nose, he thought, how must it be for the men at the front?
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t say thank you.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
‘You could have said nothing.’
‘It’s my duty to kill you, Captain, not to ruin your looks.’
They turned right near the Kusminsky Wing, from where Bauer could make out the hospital’s small second storey.
‘And would you?’ he asked, trying to sound light-hearted.
‘Would I what?’
‘Kill me?’
She appeared to think the matter over then said, ‘Reluctantly I’ll have to say no. How many of my staff would be shot if I killed a German officer. Ten? Twenty? Frankly, you’re not worth it.’
‘But if there were no consequences,’ he persisted, ‘for you or anyone else?’
‘Fishing for compliments, Captain? Nice enough not to kill? You’re setting the bar exceedingly low.’
‘All right, leave me out of it. Hypothetically, if you could get away with it, would you kill a German for your country?’
‘If I could get away with it, most certainly.’
‘I don’t believe that for a moment.’
‘So much the better for me.’
‘Faced with the reality, you’d hesitate.’
‘Why? Because I’m a woman?’
‘Because you’re a human being,’ he said. Seeing her sardonic expression, he added, ‘A civilised one, I mean.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Captain, but as it happens I’ve already killed for my country.’
He looked sideways at her and the wind slapped his cheek. Her expression was solemn. ‘Not recently,’ she said. ‘And at a distance, which I daresay made it easier.’
‘In the Civil War?’ he guessed.
‘I operated a machine gun for a time.’
‘Where was this?’ he asked, hoping to catch her out.
‘Along the Don. September 1919. They were Cossacks I killed. At the time they were on foot.’
‘How many?’ he asked.
‘Five went down, that I counted. Two slithered away. Three of them stayed where they were.’
The strangeness of others, their alienness, he thought. The hospital was coming into view.
‘Have I shocked you?’ she asked.
‘Not at all,’ he lied.
‘I’ve shocked you. Good.’ She made a pistol of her right glove and aimed it at his belly. ‘Those graves, I want them stopped.’
‘As I said, I’ll do my best.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘I can see that,’ he said, nodding at her phantom gun.
‘Good,’ she said, and fired, a gesture slightly blunted by the lazy recoil of her hand.
FIVE
‘I’m the ping-pong king of Bavaria,’ Pflieger said, batting a table-tennis ball against the wall. ‘None of you stand a chance against me.’
‘Oh yes?’ said Norbert Ritter. ‘I’m fairly handy myself.’
Bauer paused at the door of the quartermaster’s store, a large room at the hospital’s northern end. Standing at a trestle table that served as a counter were Pflieger and Molineux; on chairs behind it, Ehrlich and Ritter, the latter lounging in an unquartermasterly way, reminding Bauer of a silverback gorilla that he had once seen with Clara at the zoological gardens in Berlin.
‘Bauer!’ cried Molineux. ‘You’re not still working, are you? You’ve been at it all afternoon. Give it up. Come and see our spoils.’
‘I’m looking for Metz,’ Bauer said. ‘Any of you know where he is?’
‘His office?’ Molineux said.
‘No, I checked there.’
‘He’s in the motor pool,’ Ehrlich said. ‘Went with Winkel.’
This was odd. Despite
a let-up in casualties there was plenty of work to do at the hospital.
‘Actually, I’m out of practice,’ Pflieger continued. ‘I gave up the game. Lost a match to a Jew boy, a typical Yid. I said to myself, “This isn’t really a sport.”’
‘We found all this in the cellar,’ Molineux announced. ‘Bats, balls, a net, a table. Who would have thought? No vodka, alas.’
Bauer tried to picture the author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina playing table tennis. No, it was impossible. Nor did it seem likely that such equipment had been brought here by a Bolshevik, especially one as serious as Acting Head Custodian Trubetzkaya. No, it must have belonged to Tolstoy’s children or, more likely, to his grandchildren, either towards the end of his life or in the seven years between his death and the Revolution.
He asked Ehrlich what had taken Metz to the motor pool.
‘You’ll have to ask him yourself. Sir.’
‘I’m asking you.’
‘The lieutenant colonel didn’t say,’ Ehrlich said.
‘And wait till you see this,’ Molineux said, unknotting a calico bundle on the table before him and revealing a large mortar and pestle – brass or bronze, tarnished, the mortar hardly smaller than a dinner plate. ‘A real beauty,’ he went on, taking up the pestle and grinding an imaginary substance in the bowl. He turned the mortar upside down and cupped a hand over its underside ‘Just needs a little polish, that’s all.’
‘You’re aware of the standing orders against looting?’ Bauer said.
‘Steady on,’ Molineux said, looking hurt. ‘The Bolsheviks don’t believe in private property. This isn’t looting but requisitioning enemy assets.’
‘For Pabst?’
‘Why Pabst?’
‘Our cook,’ he said.
‘Oh, that,’ Molineux replied. ‘Pabst be damned. Pabst has cooking utensils coming out of his arse. Flavour enough for anyone. No, this will do nicely for my wife – she’s all for private property.’
‘I’m relieved to hear it,’ Bauer said. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find Metz.’
The gravel road to the motor pool had been reduced to two tracks of ice through the snow. The motor pool itself, a former coach house, was a long, low building situated near the gates, with three sets of carriage-sized wooden doors. Outside it were several lorries and a sentry stamping on ice, his head wreathed in the steam of his breathing. Bauer saluted and went inside. An ambulance. A military-brown Soviet limousine. Winkel and Metz were bent over the limousine’s engine, while beside them stood Fabian Drexel, the battalion’s pharmacist. Had someone declared a day off? Bauer wondered. Winkel was a gifted motor mechanic, but Drexel’s presence here was puzzling. Bauer coughed a little and all three men looked around.
‘Ah, Bauer, how good to see you,’ Metz said. ‘What do you think of the . . .’ He turned to Winkel. ‘What is it again?’
‘A ZIS-101,’ Winkel said, clearly enthused.
‘A ZIS. That’s it. The Soviets have kindly left it for us. What do you think? A beauty, isn’t she?’
‘Did they also leave fuel?’ Bauer asked.
‘Now, now, there’s no call for sarcasm. Compared with a lorry or a tank this won’t be thirsty at all.’ To Winkel he said, ‘Can you get her running?’
‘I think so, sir, but it might take a few days.’ Catching Bauer’s eye, he added, ‘Not full time, just off and on.’
‘Excellent,’ Metz said. ‘Then I’ll leave you to it. Now, Captain, to what do I owe the pleasure?’
‘I was hoping to speak with you, sir.’
‘Then feel free to join us. Lieutenant Drexel and I are on our way back to the house.’
Bauer glanced at Drexel. Thirty years old. Stocky. Dark hair on the back of his neck. Spectacles. A wide mouth and – by cruel coincidence – overactive salivary glands.
‘All right,’ Bauer said. He had planned to speak with Metz in private, but why shouldn’t Drexel hear what he had to say? They left the motor pool and Bauer got straight to the point. ‘Yesterday I visited the cemetery. It’s too small for our purposes. If we stay for more than a few weeks it’s going to overflow.’
‘You forget that in a few weeks’ time we’ll be in or near Moscow,’ Metz said.
‘And if Yasnaya Polyana becomes a base hospital?’
‘Good God, Bauer, try to be an optimist for once. Our job is to keep the cemetery small.’
‘There are also propaganda implications,’ Bauer said. ‘As Frau Trubetzkaya pointed out, even in death Tolstoy remains a major figure for the Soviets.’
‘What of it?’
‘We’ll be goading them unnecessarily.’
‘More than we already have?’
‘I take your point, sir, but why magnify their hatred? They’ll only fight us that much harder.’
‘I can’t agree with you,’ Metz said. ‘The propaganda advantage is ours. We control this place, and by asserting our authority here we strike a blow against the enemy. If we’re to call ourselves the master race we must act like it. “German swine” that woman calls us, and do you know why? Because we Germans are too humane. Look at our great men: Wagner, Beethoven, Goethe, Schiller – and yet she calls us “German swine”. She exploits our fundamental decency to mock and abuse us. Watch her, Bauer. See she doesn’t get the better of you.’
They were drawing near to the main house, where in addition to a sentry there were corpsmen about, and although it was starting to snow Metz stopped to emphasise his point. ‘We won’t secure our position here by showing weakness, Captain. Lieutenant Drexel, don’t you agree?’
‘Yes, I do, sir,’ Drexel said, then sucked back on surplus saliva.
Bauer glanced at the pharmacist’s large square face. A bulbous nose. Wet, rubbery lips. Quite possibly he genuinely agreed with Metz. ‘Sir, humiliating the enemy isn’t a sign of strength,’ Bauer said. ‘If anything it’s the opposite. One day we’ll have to live with them —’
‘Who says?’
‘Well, isn’t it inevitable?’
‘You know, Bauer, your problem is that you lack imagination, and do you know why that is? It’s because you’re backwards looking. Oh, I don’t mean as a surgeon – professionally you’re sharp enough, and I commend you for it. But you suffer from a sickly attachment to the past. That book, for example.’
Bauer guessed at once which book he was referring to. ‘War and Peace?’
‘Corporal Ehrlich tells me you made him surrender it to you.’
That Metz was raising this in the presence of a junior officer was annoying. Had he planned it this way?
‘I thought it might be a first edition, sir. Of the translation, that is. And I was right about that.’
‘I don’t care what edition it is. I ordered it destroyed.’
‘I thought if you knew of the book’s true significance you might change your mind, sir.’
‘Yet you failed to tell me about it.’
‘To be frank, sir, I forgot about it. There’s a lot going on.’
‘Indeed there is. In the present, Bauer. The present. To forge a better future. And yet here you are mired in the past. Worse – the enemy’s past!’
‘Sir, this is a work in German,’ Bauer said, ‘a translation by the great Ernst Strenge.’ In fact before opening the book he had never heard of Strenge, and he had no idea whether or not his work was esteemed.
‘A translation of a Slavic book. A book, moreover, about a Slavic victory.’
‘Permission to speak, sir?’ Drexel said. Bauer and Metz both looked at him.
‘Go ahead,’ Metz said.
‘I think it’s possible that, apart from ignoring your orders, the captain has done the right thing.’
‘Oh? How so?’
‘By securing a trophy of war. If this book is as significant to the Bolsheviks as the captain makes out, it perhaps belongs in a museum. As a historical relic. A curiosity. Otherwise people might forget someday that the Slavs once thought themselves unconquerable.’
&
nbsp; ‘Interesting,’ Metz said. ‘I do seem to recall reading years ago about an exhibition in Munich of degenerate art. You mean something like that?’
‘Something like that,’ Drexel said, then visibly swallowed some more spit.
‘A Reich Museum of Superseded Cultures,’ Metz said. ‘You might be onto something, Lieutenant.’
‘And if this estate has such special significance for the Soviets, our occupation of it is likewise significant. Possibly deserving of commemoration.’
An unfocused expression had entered Metz’s eye, giving him the chiselled look of a Roman emperor in marble. ‘Very well,’ he said at last, ‘I’m persuaded. Bauer . . .’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Secure the book. Perhaps hand it over to Quartermaster Ritter for safekeeping.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘But be warned: subvert my orders again and I won’t be so tolerant.’
‘Yes, sir. And the graves? Shall we relocate them?’
‘Good God, Bauer, were you listening to anything I said? Not one step backwards! Come on now, let’s get out of this infernal snow.’
* * *
The casualty rate continued to be manageable, and because the following day it was Metz’s turn to do surgery, Bauer lingered at the main house in the hope of seeing Katerina Dmitrievna. Outside there was another gale blowing, making it possible she wouldn’t come, but after writing letters in his room for half an hour he was rewarded by the sight of her coming up the drive, accompanied by the head housekeeper, a woman of similar height but much larger girth. The wind was at the women’s backs, bullying them forward, forcing Katerina to keep braking with short, jarring steps. A coil of her auburn hair, escaped from her ushanka, was frantically whipping her face.
Quickly Bauer put away his notes, tucked the estate’s German copy of War and Peace into his greatcoat and went downstairs, arriving in the vestibule just as the women opened the door. With them came a blast of wind, causing the tasselled floor runner to rear like a snake and strike at their knees. Bauer sprang forward and stomped on its neck, then shouldered the door shut behind them. Katerina was laughing – not in the sardonic way he’d become used to, but joyfully, without reserve. Her hat and her coat were spangled with ice. ‘It’s freezing out there,’ she cried in Russian. ‘Even for me it’s freezing! Much more of this and I’ll have to start pitying you,’ she added in a more familiar vein. Bauer bowed a little. The housekeeper bobbed, and in response Katerina tapped her on the arm. ‘None of that, Comrade. He’s a trespasser, not a guest.’