by Steven Conte
All that remained to be done was to finalise his notes. Swiftly he wrote up the supply sergeant’s operation, mentioned the long delay between his wounding and the surgery and, after a moment of reflection, the reason why. Let his colleagues have a chuckle at his expense, he thought; he wasn’t perfect, and if it helped them comprehend how much pressure the unit was working under, so much the better. He leafed back through the patient notes he had made during the shift, pages and pages of them, certainly too many to review, went to close them but instead took up his pencil and below the final paragraph wrote a final phrase: Otherwise quiet.
* * *
‘A drink?’ suggested Metz.
Bauer eyed him with surprise. They had operated for nearly forty hours, and having just eaten supper Bauer was desperate for sleep. ‘That’s unlike you, sir. I’ve not known you to take a drink.’
‘There are plenty of things you don’t know about me, Captain. I don’t often drink, that’s true, but on rare occasions I make an exception. I do believe this is one of them.’
Bauer nodded and, too exhausted to object, followed Metz down the corridor to his office. He was tired beyond tired, his vision hazy, the floor unstable, the transmission from his brain to his tongue intermittent. Yet Metz was right: the shift they had just finished had been so interminable, so extreme, that going to bed without marking it would have seemed wrong, obscurely improper.
In the office Metz unbuttoned his collar, revealing his gold chain but not the lucky shrapnel shard. He sat down, invited Bauer to pull up a chair beside his desk, and from one of its drawers produced a pair of tumblers and some cognac. ‘For God’s sake don’t tell Molineux,’ he said, indicating the bottle. ‘I’ve had this since Paris.’
‘Thank you, sir, I’m honoured.’
Metz poured a centimetre of liquor into each of the tumblers, handed one over and raised his own. ‘To the Führer.’
‘To the Führer,’ Bauer repeated, too tired to think of an evasion. He took a polite sip, reached for a cigarette then remembered Metz’s prohibition on smoking in his presence. How much more he would enjoy this with nicotine, he thought. Metz’s hands, he noticed, were trembling slightly, as they had been towards the end of the shift, a symptom of the drugs he had taken to endure it, perhaps, or an effect of them wearing off. Still, Bauer thought, who was he to judge? Every officer in the unit, and probably every enlisted man too, had a crutch of some kind to help them get by: alcohol for Molineux, for Weidemann Bach, for Zöllner faith, and for Drexel messianic pharmacology. And for himself . . . what was he leaning on? Cigarettes, certainly. Also books, he supposed. Tolstoy currently. And Tolstoy’s fierce protector.
‘. . . a lofty place,’ Metz was saying, ‘and thus a lonely one. Do you see what I’m saying?’
‘Sorry, sir, I’m not sure I follow you.’
‘At the Olympian heights occupied by the Führer, the pressure must be immense, the loneliness by definition absolute.’
‘No doubt,’ Bauer said. Briefly he grappled with the problem of altitude and pressure, gave up and took another sip of booze.
‘I believe in my own small way I understand how he must feel: the burden of responsibility, the isolation of command.’
‘Is that so?’ Bauer said, striving to attend to what Metz was saying. Was he sharing a confidence? Such a thing had never happened before.
‘You know, I’ve not received a letter from my wife in over a month. No parcels. Not so much as a single note.’
‘The post, I daresay. What with resupply there must be limited space for mail.’
‘It’s kind of you to say so, Paul, but you’re wrong. The post is working perfectly well.’
‘Are you concerned about her, sir? Is that what you’re saying?’ Three months earlier a corpsman had gone home on compassionate leave after his daughter was killed in a British air attack. Metz was from Breslau, and Bauer asked him if the city had been bombed.
‘No, it’s too far east for that. I’m not worried about her safety. She’s perfectly well. I know because I’ve received two letters from my sister, who lives only blocks away. No, my wife is safe and well. She and I have grown apart, that’s all. The war hasn’t helped, of course, but even before it there were difficulties between us. You know what the life of a surgeon is. The hours. The call-outs. In my case I was also frequently away on manoeuvres.’
For some reason – nervousness, fatigue-induced hysteria – this last detail struck Bauer as terribly funny, so that he had to strain to keep his face neutral.
‘More cognac?’ Metz asked, offering him the bottle.
‘No thank you, sir. I haven’t finished this one. In fact I really ought to be getting to bed. Can barely keep my head up.’
‘Allow me to top you up just a little,’ Metz insisted. He recharged both tumblers then raised his own. ‘Prost.’
‘Prost,’ Bauer replied and sipped. They said nothing for a while, Bauer gazing into the lens of his cognac, his mind oddly limpid and serene. He heard men talking in the vestibule, some traffic on the stairs. It was still early evening, he recalled, not yet 20:00 hours.
‘You know,’ Metz declared, ‘for twelve years my marriage has been sexless.’
‘Oh?’ he replied, unable to think of anything else to say.
‘Yes.’
‘That sounds . . . difficult for you, sir.’
‘Is that what you think?’
What Bauer thought was that this was not a conversation he had ever envisaged having with Julius Metz. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘though if I may say so, sir, not particularly unusual.’
‘What do you know about it?’
‘From what I’ve gathered – from hints, the disclosures of one or two friends – desire in marriage often fades, if not for both parties then for one.’
‘And of course your wife was mortally ill, wasn’t she.’
‘Well, that’s true,’ Bauer said, taken aback by the bluntness of this statement, though Metz’s tone was factual, even friendly.
‘In my case I confess it was not my wife but myself who lost interest in the sexual act.’ Again Bauer felt an urge to laugh, even as he tried to judge what depths of sadness might have prompted these unlooked-for disclosures. ‘Of course,’ Metz continued, ‘unlike you I am the father of children. Three in total.’
‘I know that, sir.’
‘Not a large number, true, and admittedly all daughters, but even so. The last was born in the twenties. Later, when the Mother’s Cross was introduced my wife wanted a fourth child to qualify for Bronze. I told her no. We had already done our duty, I said. Exceeded the replacement rate.’
‘Though not to the extent of, say, Tolstoy.’
‘I’ve done my duty,’ Metz repeated. ‘By my wife, by Nature, by the Reich, and having done so I am under no obligation to continue. People fail to appreciate the physiological costs imposed by sexual congress, the high demands of the reproductive system.’
From habit Bauer tried to answer logically. ‘Doesn’t the system make those demands whether or not it’s being used?’
Metz sniffed. ‘Not at all. It’s the dissipation of bodily resources that’s dangerous.’
‘It sounds complicated,’ Bauer said, hoping to leave the matter there.
‘On the contrary, it’s straightforward.’
‘To apply in ordinary life, I mean. In a marriage.’
‘All that’s required is discipline,’ Metz said. ‘More cognac?’
‘No thank you, sir. In fact, do you mind if I go now? I’m really very tired.’
‘One moment. Just let me finish my point.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘This is no ordinary war we’re engaged in, Paul, but a struggle for national survival. Indeed, racial survival.’ Was this topic new, Bauer wondered, or somehow related to Metz’s marital life? ‘Militarily, industrially, spiritually, ideologically,’ Metz continued, ‘we and the Slavs are in a fight to the death. It’s us or the Slavs, Paul, us or the Slavs.’
; ‘Some of the Slavs are our allies, sir. Our comrades, even. My Hilfswilliger Yuri Demchak, for example.’
‘Some could be spared. Those who accept the yoke.’
‘Spared?’
‘Why not? As long as the overall numbers are regulated.’
Bauer thought of Katerina Dmitrievna, one Slav who would never accept the yoke, as Metz put it. Who would not be spared. But that was unthinkable. He would protect her, thought Bauer – marry her, if that’s what it took, as Winkel meant to marry Daria Grigorievna. My God, he thought, he would marry Katerina anyway. Abruptly everything was clear. Regardless of how the war turned out, he and Katerina would marry. It was simple, settled. He felt an astonishing sense of joy.
‘To find a historical moment of equal import,’ Metz said, ‘one would have to go back to the annihilation of Varus’s legions in the Teutoburg Forest, by which Germanness itself was preserved.’
‘But here we are the aggressors,’ Bauer pointed out, the Soviet Union appearing for the first time in his mind as the homeland of his future wife.
‘A war with Bolshevism and Jewry was inevitable. By attacking first we showed greater foresight and resolve.’
‘Presumably Varus thought the same.’
Metz smiled at him and shook his head. ‘Paul, Paul, what a prophet of doom you are. I used to believe you’d fallen prey to defeatism, but I now see that your pessimism is congenital.’
‘Why, thank you, sir.’
Metz chuckled and drained his glass. ‘No more of this tonight,’ he said, returning the bottle to its drawer. ‘God knows we’ve plenty of work ahead of us tomorrow. Do you think you’ll sleep?’
‘Tonight I know I will,’ Bauer said, putting his own glass down and nudging back his chair, preparing to stand.
‘Good for you. I wish I could say the same. For some nights now I’ve been receiving visitations.’
Bauer inwardly groaned. What new folly was this? Metz was looking expectantly at him. ‘What visitations?’ he asked.
‘From Count Leo Tolstoy.’
‘You’ve dreamed of him?’ he asked.
‘Not dreamed. Seen. He comes at night, an apparition, just as Frau Kälter described it.’
‘Sir, I can’t believe that. Surely you can’t either. Frau Trubetzkaya was making mischief,’ he said, the mildest term he could think of. ‘Whatever you’ve experienced, it must have been a dream.’
‘There you go again, Paul. More knee-jerk scepticism. It’s unscientific, close-minded.’
Ignoring this, Bauer continued, ‘Or an effect of the drugs you’re taking.’
‘That’s irrelevant, not your concern. As I’ve said before. I’m describing this phenomenon to you because you’re a man of science, a fellow surgeon.’
‘Which is why you should take my opinion seriously.’
‘Are you giving me that courtesy? Answer truthfully.’
Bauer sighed, too tired for tactfulness, and crossed his arms. Metz continued, ‘You’re not even curious? Your entire worldview might be mistaken, Paul. This could change your life.’
‘All right,’ he said, ‘let me take you at your word. How do you know it’s Tolstoy?’
‘From his photo, the one in the brochure. I assume he died in the room I’m occupying? You seem informed about the man.’
‘He died a long way from here. In a railway station. He had argued with his wife.’
‘Well, even so, he appears in my room.’
‘But why would he do that?’ he asked, listening to himself in disbelief – observing himself, as if from the ceiling, the suggestion of a bald patch on his crown.
‘Because he’s angry with me,’ Metz said. ‘For planting our dead around him.’
‘Then exhume them, sir. It was always a bad idea.’
‘Never,’ Metz said with a startling vehemence. ‘It’s a difficult site to reach. It’s too small. Need I go on?’
‘We can’t give way, not now – whatever the practicalities might be. He’s issuing a challenge. We can’t be found wanting.’
‘He’s dead, sir. Tolstoy is dead.’
‘But returned.’
Bauer threw up his hands. ‘Then I don’t know. Move out of the bedroom.’
‘And let him win? Are you mad? He’d only pursue me anyway. No, this is a contest I can’t avoid. And can’t afford to lose. If I hesitate, if I prove myself unworthy, the consequences would be grave – and I don’t only mean for the battalion. If we don’t prevail here, if we fail to vanquish Tolstoy, what hope do we have of winning the war? It is here, Paul, here,’ he said, bringing his fist down on the table, ‘that we have to assert our dominance.’
Bauer stared at him aghast, yet at the same time he felt . . . what? Not persuaded, certainly, but stirred. Metz believed that Tolstoy was back from the dead, and hadn’t Bauer himself sensed the great writer’s presence here?
Abruptly, somewhere in the house a woman started yelling. Metz leaped from his chair. ‘What in God’s name is that?’ he asked, drawing his pistol.
Bauer sprang up and followed Metz into the corridor, where the shouting grew louder. Katerina. Upstairs. In two or three strides he reached the bannister.
‘Stop!’ Metz screamed at him. ‘It might be a trap.’ He was wild-eyed, his collar askew. ‘Where’s the sentry, the goddamned sentry?’ he cried. Hans Zöllner sauntered in from the officers’ mess, looking puzzled and half-asleep. Metz yelled at him, ‘What’s wrong with you? For God’s sake draw your weapon!’
‘But, sir, it’s only Katerina Dmitrievna,’ Bauer said. The yelling upstairs was if anything getting louder, and now included the voice of at least one man.
‘She could have brought others!’
‘Others?’
‘There might be tunnels!’ Metz shrieked. From the vestibule the sentry appeared with his rifle unslung. ‘How’d she get in here?’ Metz yelled at him. ‘Through the walls?’
Before the sentry could react Bauer stepped past him, bounded up the stairs and, following the noise, rushed to his and Molineux’s room. Inside it were Katerina, Molineux and Daria Grigorievna, the last two naked, though Molineux had flung a sheet about him and reversed into a corner, brandishing a half-empty bottle of schnapps in self-defence. Katerina was in fact aiming her fury at Daria, who was pawing the wall while trying to unknot her underpants from her ankles. Clearly drunk, she tottered and fell face down on the floor.
‘Pozor vam! Shame on you,’ Katerina shouted. ‘Look at you. A mother. A grandmother now. Thank Christ your daughter can’t see this.’
Daria tried to get up but only managed to roll over, floundering and splayed. At Bauer’s shoulder Metz appeared, still waving his pistol. ‘My God,’ he cried, ‘what’s going on? Molineux?’
‘I can explain, sir.’
‘Sir, it’s not eight o’clock yet,’ Bauer said, interposing himself between Metz and the room. ‘They’re permitted to be here.’
‘Permitted?’ Metz screeched.
‘Not like this, obviously,’ he said, gesturing at Daria. ‘But they’re not violating curfew.’
‘I ought to shoot them now,’ Metz yelled, thrusting his pistol between Bauer and the doorjamb. ‘Cover that woman up! Cover her up or by God I’ll put a bullet through her.’
‘Sir, please,’ Bauer said, pressing down on Metz’s wrist. ‘The weapon could misfire.’
Katerina crouched over Daria and bundled her into a blanket. ‘Get out, get out, the lot of you,’ she raged. ‘Have none of you any decency?’
‘You tell us to leave?’ Metz yelled back at her. Behind him several spectators had appeared: Weidemann, Ehrlich, Drexel and Hirsch, and, worst of all, Sepp Winkel, his face rigid and pale.
‘Why not?’ Katerina said. ‘You’re the intruders. Rapists and bullies, all of you.’ She pointed an accusing finger at Molineux: ‘Rutting her in her sleep, he was, when I came looking for her.’
Molineux straightened his back, made a toga of his sheet and replied with the gravitas of a man unjustly
accused. ‘At first she was awake.’
‘You, I’ll deal with later,’ Metz said.
Katerina stood up. ‘Not a threat to my people, you said.’
‘You call that a person? Look at the state of her.’
‘He plied her with alcohol!’
‘We don’t have any alcohol,’ Metz replied.
‘What’s that then?’ she demanded, pointing at the bottle in Molineux’s hand. Metz glanced at the bottle, as did Molineux, who looked genuinely startled to find it there.
‘She must have brought it in,’ Metz said. ‘For all I know she’s a poisoner. I could have her shot.’
‘Sir, you’re short of sleep,’ Bauer said. ‘We all are. Let’s turn in for the night and deal with this in the morning.’
‘You Germans are pathetic,’ Katerina said. ‘Booze, cards, licentiousness, and why? You’re nervous wrecks. The war’s turning against you, that’s why. You’re like actors: you can’t bear a flop.’
‘So help me God, I’ll do it!’ Metz roared, aiming his pistol at her. ‘I’ll shoot her where she stands.’
In Russian Bauer said to her, ‘Please go now. He’s unstable. He might do as he says.’
‘Not without Daria Grigorievna.’
‘What are you saying?’ Metz demanded. ‘I won’t have it. Speak German.’
Katerina said, ‘He’s saying you’re unstable. Barking mad.’
‘That’s it!’ Metz screamed.
‘More baboon than man.’
‘Sir, she’s lying,’ Bauer said, stepping between her and the pistol.
‘Lying?’
‘To provoke you. For God’s sake be reasonable.’
The pistol was pointing directly at his chest, the barrel trembling, though Metz had both hands on the grip. Bauer’s chest contracted. How complex and compact were the organs there.
‘Whatever’s going on,’ Metz said, his voice as shaky as the gun, ‘I won’t put up with it.’
‘Feeling vulnerable, Herr Oberstleutnant? You should be,’ Katerina said.