by Steven Conte
Her eyes were shining and it occurred to Bauer there was no period in his own life that he looked back on with such passion.
‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,’ Katerina said. ‘You’re probably a Nazi. Are you a Nazi?’
‘No, I’m not,’ he said. ‘In the election that brought Adolf Hitler to power I voted for the Social Democrats.’
She pretended to recoil at this. ‘Oh, good grief, one of those. If it gets out I’ve talked with a petit-bourgeois socialist I’ll be shot when our forces come back. And here I was worrying about Daria Grigorievna.’
Simultaneously they looked over at Daria, who was still nursing her grandson, Winkel hovering solicitously at her side.
‘Then you’d better hope we’re not driven back,’ Bauer said.
‘Oh, you’ll be driven back all right.’
He should have grown used to her patriotic certitude, he thought, but the more plausible her predictions, the more wounding they were. ‘You should write about the twenties,’ he said. ‘You’re so eloquent about them.’
‘No, no. My writing days are over.’
‘That seems a pity. A waste.’
‘My genre now is silence.’
‘Well, that’s untrue,’ he said.
Ignoring the dig she went on, ‘I lack the drive, the egotistic conviction that the world needs my voice in its ear. Tolstoy, of course, had oceans of that.’
‘There you go again, comparing yourself to Lev Nikolayevich. If you’re to write again you’ll have to break free from his clutches.’
Before Katerina could reply, the other conversation stopped. Irina Petrovna was stirring. Bauer half stood but Katerina drew him back down.
‘You should wait,’ she said.
‘I need to check she’s well.’
‘Yes, but first let her meet her son.’
* * *
When next morning Metz asked him to report to his study after breakfast, Bauer was unsurprised. ‘Bring Frau Kälter with you,’ Metz said.
‘If she’s here, sir. But really that won’t be necessary.’
‘I’m the one who decides what’s necessary, Captain.’
‘Frau Trubetzkaya’s role in the affair was minor.’
‘What affair?’
‘The birth. Frau Trubetzkaya only told me about it; I was the one who decided to respond.’
‘And you were wrong to do so without consulting me,’ Metz said. ‘Don’t do it again. But this is more important than that. Report with Frau Kälter to my study at 08:00 hours.’
Mystified, and on balance not relieved, Bauer ate breakfast, waited for Katerina to arrive and, when she did, explained what Metz had said.
‘It’s like school,’ she replied, sounding amused. Irina Petrovna was doing well, she added, and so far seemed free of infection. Her baby was feeding well.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Bauer said, gazing at her to assess whether anything had changed between them. A new ease, he hoped. Greater cordiality.
Ehrlich was waiting for them outside Metz’s office. He showed them in and then withdrew, pulling the door shut behind him. Metz at his desk. Two empty chairs in front of it. A fire burning in the grate. Metz directed them to sit, then without preamble began speaking to Katerina: ‘The night we arrived you mentioned haunting, that the ghost of Leo Tolstoy might appear.’ Katerina raised an eyebrow, said nothing, and Metz went on. ‘Were you telling the truth?’
Bauer glanced sideways at her, but neither she nor Metz noticed.
‘Come, come,’ Metz said to her, ‘you weren’t shy about it then.’
‘What would you like to know?’
‘Whatever you can tell me,’ Metz said. ‘How often the apparition appears; what form it takes; whether it speaks, and, if so, what it says.’
‘Why? Are you being haunted?
Metz hesitated. ‘I’m curious, that’s all.’
‘As I told you before, I’m not prepared to reveal the house’s secrets to an enemy occupier.’
Metz smiled tightly, got up and went over to the fire, took a poker and started prodding at the flames. Bauer wondered if the Wehrmacht had protocols for dealing with a superior who had lost his mind. Fortunately Metz returned the poker to its hook and sat down again. ‘The captain tells me you want medical supplies for your village.’
‘Yes,’ said Katerina swiftly. ‘And food.’
Metz chuckled. ‘Madam, we are doctors not greengrocers.’
‘Maybe, but I’m only asking for the partial return of what your countrymen have stolen.’
Metz huffed at this then said, ‘Bauer, what do you think? A goodwill gesture to the natives?’
‘An astute move, sir. A clever move.’
Metz turned back to Katerina. ‘Very well. I’ll take up the matter with our quartermaster.’
‘And the medical supplies.’
‘A small quantity of those as well. You drive a hard bargain, Frau Kälter.’
She acknowledged the compliment with a nod.
Metz said, ‘So, go on, tell me: what do you know about this ghost?’
‘Sir, I’m all in favour of helping the villagers,’ Bauer interrupted, ‘but this business of a ghost is plainly . . . well, ludicrous.’ He glanced at Katerina and saw she was looking serene. He could hardly blame her for exploiting Metz’s credulity – might even have found it amusing if Metz had not been a compatriot and a colleague.
Metz was smiling good-naturedly. ‘Why so narrow-minded, Captain? The universe is mysterious, its possibilities infinite.’
‘Not infinite, surely.’
‘Bauer, if science were left to you and your ilk – the dreary so-called realists, the humdrum thinkers in prose – human progress would cease. Yes, the spirit realm may be largely opaque to us at present, but I have not the slightest doubt that scientists will one day uncover its laws and learn how to monitor what goes on there.’
‘You say that with such confidence, sir.’
‘And why not? Frau Trubetzkaya has evidence.’
‘Well, I can’t say I’ve seen the ghost personally,’ Katerina said. ‘But I’ve spoken with several who have. Former servants of his.’
‘And how long ago were these sightings?’ Metz asked. ‘The first was seven years after the count’s death. This was only months before the Revolution. In fact he foretold it.’
‘He did?’
‘Remarkable, isn’t it.’
What seemed remarkable to Bauer was that Katerina had spoken personally with former servants of Tolstoy.
‘But how did he appear?’ Metz asked. ‘As himself?
‘As he had been in the year or two before his death. An elderly man.’
‘Indistinguishable from his appearance in life?’
‘The witnesses say he appeared to be made not of matter but of light, less like a man than a man’s image on a cinema screen.’
‘Transparent?’
‘Not transparent, but strangely unstable. The edges of him trembled, they claimed.’
They claimed – as if Katerina herself wasn’t wholly convinced. A cunning touch, Bauer thought. What she was up to, he had no idea.
‘There was more than one witness, then?’ Metz asked.
‘Of course. But only those who had known him in life could perceive the ghost.’
‘My God,’ Metz said. ‘I’ve never heard of that.’
‘Though there were others,’ she went on hastily, ‘who hadn’t known the count but who nevertheless heard him talking or moving about.’
‘And did any of them try to approach this apparition?’ Metz asked. ‘To touch it?’
‘No. No, they didn’t. Not because they were afraid. They weren’t. It’s just that Tolstoy’s people, servants and peasants alike, were – indeed, still are – much closer to the spirit world than we are. We moderns, if you see what I mean. No, it was deference that held them back, their habitual respect for the count.’
‘Are any of these people still alive?’ Bauer asked.
>
‘Yes, two or three.’
‘Including any still here?’
‘I’d prefer not to say. It’s a private matter really, between them and Count Tolstoy.’
Bauer fixed her with a penetrating stare, which she answered with a winning smile.
‘All that can wait,’ Metz said. ‘What I’d like to know is how this ghost of yours foretold the Bolshevik uprising. Prediction or prophecy? Informed opinion or an insight gained from the beyond?’
‘Or a lucky guess,’ Bauer said.
‘Captain, if you’re not going to take this seriously you can leave,’ Metz said. ‘In fact, consider yourself dismissed. Frau Kälter and I have much to discuss and can do without your puerile interventions.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Bauer said and got up, surprised by how disappointed he felt. If the realm of the occult held little interest for him, the woman pretending to know about it certainly did.
* * *
At the hospital Bauer went to see Weidemann in his office. He felt furtive, and this annoyed him. He disliked subterfuge. One of the clerks knocked on Weidemann’s office door, paused for a moment then entered, releasing the sound of opera from inside. Evidently Weidemann had brought his gramophone to work. Seconds later the clerk reappeared and said that, yes, the major was willing to see him. Bauer entered the office, a smallish room with a pair of tall south-facing windows, which even at this time of year let in plenty of light. A desk, two chairs, a small filing cabinet. An ammunition case on which the gramophone was sitting, its metal larynx stretched open in song. Weidemann was reaching for its dials, but instead of switching it off he lowered the volume a little, leaving the voice of a soprano wafting from the horn. Bauer didn’t recognise the tune.
‘You don’t mind?’ Weidemann asked, swivelling around in his stiff-necked, mechanical way.
Bauer told him he didn’t, they both sat down and Bauer got directly to the point: Metz’s behaviour was becoming erratic; Drexel was injecting him with drugs.
‘What kind of drugs?’ Weidemann asked.
‘Some concoction of Drexel’s,’ Bauer said, and explained what he knew, including that Drexel was dosing not only Metz but also himself and Norbert Ritter, supposedly with formulas tailored to each man.
Beneath his flared white eyebrows Weidemann’s gaze was unfriendly. ‘And what do you want me to do about any of this? Relieve Metz of his command? You’re aware he outranks me, I suppose?’
‘Of course, sir. I wasn’t thinking of anything as drastic as that.’
‘Then what?’
‘I was rather hoping you might have thoughts about the situation. Ideas I haven’t considered.’
‘Is his performance in surgery affected?’
‘Not that I’ve noticed.’
‘Then I recommend you forget about it. Half the Wehrmacht is on amphetamines, Captain. Half the country probably. That’s why we’re winning the war. For all I know the Führer himself is a dope fiend.’
Bauer looked at him, startled. Such a statement could get a man into serious trouble. Since Dieter Clemens’s death Bauer had resigned himself to being the only man in the company who was critical of the regime. Had he been mistaken about that? ‘There’s something else,’ he added.
‘Go on,’ replied Weidemann.
‘As you know, the lieutenant colonel is superstitious.’
‘Yes, I’m all too aware of that.’
‘And when we arrived, do you remember how Katerina – Frau Trubetzkaya – tried to tell him that his bedroom was haunted?’
‘Some nonsense of that kind went on, I recall.’
‘Well, it’s still going on,’ Bauer said, and described how Metz had summoned Katerina that morning to ask about the presence of Tolstoy’s ghost in the house. ‘And he was serious, utterly serious.’
The gramophone had begun to play an aria that Bauer did recognise, though he couldn’t name it, his knowledge of opera being minimal.
‘“Nessun dorma”,’ Weidemann said, following his gaze. ‘This is Turandot.’
‘I thought I’d heard it before.’
Weidemann looked at him pityingly then said, ‘Does Frau Kälter believe in this ghost?’
‘Of course not. At least I have no reason to think she does.’
‘Then why indulge Metz with it?’
‘I’ve been asking myself the same question. It amuses her, I think. She enjoys demeaning him. It’s a form of retaliation – against him, against all of us, I suppose. Though I’m not blaming her,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Metz is begging to be humiliated.’
‘And therein lies your answer,’ Weidemann said. ‘There is no law, civil or military, against a man being a fool. Indeed, in the army it’s often an advantage. Forget about it, Bauer, that’s my advice. Let Metz be Metz.’
‘You weren’t doing that the night you criticised his astrological beliefs.’
‘And look where that got me. Nowhere. No, there are enough ills in the world without taking on other people’s. Keep your head down, Captain. It’s the only way to stay sane.’
‘Even if Metz is going crazy?’
‘To lose his command Metz would have to be drooling and soiling his pants, and only then in the presence of a superior officer. You know what the army is like. Focus on your own job, Bauer, that’s all you can do. Don’t look left or right. Obey orders and let someone else fret about the rest.’
Weidemann rose from his desk. Clearly the interview was over. Bauer stood up and thanked him for his time. You know what the army is like. But did he? Did Weidemann? Belonging body and soul to the military was bad enough; shedding concern for its personnel felt like one sacrifice too many.
As he left the office the opera swelled, and in the doorway he turned and caught a glimpse of Siegfried Weidemann by the gramophone. In one hand he was wielding an imaginary baton; his eyes were closed, his expression beatific.
ELEVEN
He was woken the following morning by the dazzle of an electric lamp that Molineux had set up beside his bed.
‘For Christ’s sake, Hermann, show some consideration.’
Molineux groaned. ‘My God, what a headache.’
‘Turn off the damn lamp.’
‘I need a glass of water.’
Bauer checked his watch. ‘It’s four in the morning. Get your water and go back to sleep.’
‘As if. Hear that barrage? Someone’s getting it in the neck.’
‘All the more reason to sleep while we can.’
Molineux fetched some water, returned to his bed and switched off the light. But Bauer was awake, the damage done. Soon Molineux was asleep again, snoring in concert with the guns around Tula, whose shock waves were perceptible through fifteen kilometres of earth, the foundations of the house and the frame of Bauer’s bed.
At 05:00 hours Winkel knocked on the door and announced that there were casualties arriving in less than an hour, and by 06:00 hours Bauer was at the Volkonsky House amid all-too-familiar scenes of pierced and torn and dismembered flesh, groans and pleas and imprecations, the stink of faeces and sweat. His first patient was a grenadier with a gunshot wound to the lung. Though conscious, the grenadier’s breathing was laboured and he was coughing blood. He was severely shocked. Zöllner set to work to transfuse him, and when the line was established Pflieger and Demchak stretchered him into the operating theatre. There Bauer bent over and, addressing him by name, told him his prospects of recovery were good. His was a Heimatschuss, a home-wound, Bauer told him, the sort of harm that a man might welcome. The grenadier nodded forcefully – a promising sign – then wheezed, exhaling misty blood. Bauer squeezed him lightly on the shoulder, stepped back to make way for Lieutenant Hirsch and, with his usual sense of foreboding, let him administer the anaesthetic. Pflieger and Demchak scissored off the unconscious man’s uniform and Bauer returned to the reception room to choose a follow-up patient, which as usual meant confirming the selection already made by Winkel, whose decisions about triage were rarely wrong. The reception r
oom was rapidly filling. Metz and Molineux were examining their own first patients, and young Zöllner was busy setting up more transfusions. Weidemann was there, and in the curtained-off corner a visiting pastor was ministering to a panzerman whose wounds had been judged unsurvivable.
Back in the operating theatre Bauer found the grenadier readied for surgery, masked and draped, his chest shaved and radiantly lit. The entry wound was four centimetres below his left nipple, which it slightly resembled. There was no exit wound. Bauer washed his hands, took up a scalpel and began excising the damaged tissue around the wound. The bullet had struck the seventh rib, breaking it cleanly before continuing into the chest, piercing the pleura and penetrating the left lung’s inferior lobe. Fortunately Hirsch had administered a good anaesthetic. With Pflieger swabbing the wound as required, Bauer followed the bullet’s path, excising blood clots and damaged tissue which if left undisturbed could precipitate a stroke. In the background Metz’s first patient had begun to shriek, a distraction Bauer was able quickly to ignore, having all but forgotten the calm of peacetime operating theatres. The grenadier’s bullet had gone deep into the lung and come to rest in the dorsal side of the pleura. Exchanging his scalpel for forceps he extracted the bullet and, knowing he was going to be too busy to reunite patients with their missiles, tossed it onto the floor. With catgut he repaired the damaged walls of the lung but left the rib to set by itself. He closed the wound and dressed it then checked his watch. Operating time, thirty-seven minutes. Demchak and Pflieger picked up the grenadier’s stretcher and carried him away, and in the gap between operations Bauer wrote up his notes, aiming for the precision and economy essential to the patient’s future care.
When he re-entered the reception room most of the wounded who were conscious turned and stared at him intently. Doing his best to assume an air of confidence he selected a third patient before returning to his second, a Landser with mortar wounds to one arm, his pelvis and chest. The man was grossly shocked, a result of the toxins spreading from dead and disorganised tissue which, if not speedily excised, would destroy his kidneys. Two of the wounds were huge and all were contaminated not only with soil but also with fabric from the Landser’s uniform. Automatically Bauer went to the sink and washed his hands, then with the aid of X-rays he located and extracted each projectile. Next he debrided dead tissue, scooping it like crabmeat from a tin, creating surgical wounds where before there had been only chaos and dirt. From Metz he had learned not to suture unless absolutely necessary, since the tension it caused often resulted in infection. Instead he injected each wound with sulphonamide and dressed it, trusting the flesh to granulate naturally. Operating time, forty-eight minutes.