by Steven Conte
In the morning he woke still thinking of Katerina, though alongside his happiness there was a sense of unease, a recognition that having a new stake in life also meant having something to lose. It was foolish, he supposed, to let this thought mar his mood, but years of dread and sorrow about Clara’s illness had taken their toll, and the best things in life now came with a quota of fear.
As he and Molineux were getting dressed, Hirsch appeared in the corridor outside their room. ‘Well, look who’s here,’ Molineux said, ‘the scourge of wit. What do you want?’
‘I asked him to drop by,’ Bauer said.
‘For what?’
‘To decide the fate of Europe.’
‘Nothing important then. I’ll leave you to it. But remember, Hirsch, I’ve got my eye on you.’
‘Don’t mind him,’ Bauer said when Molineux was gone. ‘He’s trying to cope, like the rest of us.’
‘By being nasty?’
‘By being provocative. But I agree it’s uncalled for.’
‘Hans said you wanted to see me, sir.’
‘That’s right. Take a seat,’ he said, gestured at Molineux’s bed and sat down on his own. ‘There’s no easy way of raising this, Volker, so I’ll just begin. I’ve had a complaint about you.’
‘A complaint?’
‘From Private Demchak.’
‘Yuri? About what?’
‘You can’t guess?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘He says you tried to touch him. Touch him sexually. This was in the sauna, he says.’
Hirsch looked, or pretended to be, amazed. ‘But that’s . . . crazy. I can’t believe . . . that is, why would he say that?’
‘Are you denying it?’
‘Yes!’
‘Then why do you think he’s come to me?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t explain it. He’s made a mistake. Or . . .’
‘Or?’
‘Someone has put him up to it.’
‘Why would anyone do that?’
‘Because they hate me.’
‘They?’
‘They all hate me.’
‘Now, now, that’s not true,’ Bauer replied, a little uncertainly, taken aback by the force of Hirsch’s loneliness.
‘Ehrlich, for one. He hates me.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘He always lurking around,’ Hirsch said. ‘Poking through my stuff. He’s got it in for me.’
‘He’s your orderly,’ Bauer said, ‘it’s his job to tidy up your gear.’ The fact that Bauer also distrusted Ehrlich made it no easier, somehow, to take Hirsch’s accusation seriously.
‘Or Captain Molineux.’
‘Now I know Molineux is rough on you, but I don’t think —’
‘Or Drexel. Even Metz.’
Bauer breathed in deeply and exhaled. ‘Even if all these people hated you – and I don’t believe they do – it seems frankly incredible to me that Ehrlich or anyone else would want to land you in such serious trouble. Or that Demchak would agree to make a false accusation.’
‘Why wouldn’t he? He’s their subordinate. They must have pressured him somehow.’
Bauer paused. They were getting nowhere. ‘Could you have done anything that Yuri might have misinterpreted? Touched him in some other way?’
Hirsch looked downwards, and his forehead flexed. ‘I suppose it’s possible I could have touched him accidentally,’ he said, and raised his head again. ‘We were sitting quite close. I wasn’t paying much attention.’
‘All right, but then the question arises – sorry, I need to understand what’s gone on here – why were you sitting so close to him in the first place? There was no one else there. For that matter, can you explain what you were doing in the sauna at a time set aside for the men?’
‘That was a mistake, I see that now.’
‘You didn’t know the roster?’ Bauer asked, guiltily recalling that not long ago he had also ignored the roster and intruded on Sepp Winkel’s time alone in the sauna. Not that anyone else would learn of that now.
‘I didn’t think it mattered very much. Obviously I was wrong about that.’
‘And sitting so close?’
‘When I went in it was crowded, and Yuri – Private Demchak – made room for me on the bench. Then the others gradually went away and it was just the two of us. I didn’t think of moving. It would have seemed rude.’
Bauer glanced about, suddenly fed up with having to play the interrogator. He turned back to Hirsch again. ‘However it came about, it’s placed you – it’s placed both of us – in a difficult position. You do know, don’t you, what the official penalty is? I mean, for homosexual conduct?’
‘I’ve never looked into it.’
‘Well, I’m sure you can guess. Not that there’s any question of it coming to that. I only mention it to point out how carefully this has to be managed.’
‘I’m not a homosexual.’
‘Very well. But regardless of what you say you are or are not, Private Demchak is refusing to work with you again.’
‘He says that?’
‘He does.’
‘That’s . . . unbelievable. We’re comrades.’
‘Not in his view. Not any more.’
Hirsch looked miserable, more distraught, apparently, at the thought of Demchak’s antipathy than at the prospect of being shot.
Bauer stood up, anxious to bring the conversation to an end. ‘Look, I’ll try to speak with him again. Explain to him there must have been a misunderstanding of some kind, that you’re terribly sorry and that nothing like it will ever happen again. All right?’ Hirsch was staring at the floor, lost in misery. ‘All right?’ Bauer repeated more sharply.
‘Yes, sir. A misunderstanding.’
My God, there was something so deeply dubious about Hirsch. It was nothing malignant, nothing bad, but it did emphasise the need to shield Hirsch from formal proceedings of any kind.
‘I’ll do my best,’ Bauer said. ‘In the meantime don’t do or say anything to Yuri that he might misconstrue. Not now, not ever.’
* * *
By chance it was Metz’s turn to operate, which gave Bauer an opportunity to placate Demchak before he next worked with Hirsch. Bauer’s first duty, though, was in the postoperative ward, where he had to break the bad news to the grenadier with cancer. The man took it well, or seemed to, and even chuckled, if only for a moment, at the absurdity of dying of natural causes. Would he be able to go home and see his children? Bauer told him he would, and this seemed to cheer him. Presumably the reality of the diagnosis was yet to sink in, but Bauer hoped that if he were ever confronted with his own impending death he would be able to behave with equal composure.
He spoke with Demchak in the hospital vestibule, lowering his voice whenever another corpsman went by. Demchak heard him out in silence. When he was finished he replied, ‘Sir, that isn’t good enough.’
‘Oh?’ Bauer said, disguising his annoyance. ‘And what would you prefer?’
‘He should go up on charges.’
‘For a misunderstanding?’
‘It was no misunderstanding.’
‘Hirsch says it was.’
‘The lieutenant is a pervert. If I have to, I’ll say so to the lieutenant colonel himself.’
Bauer narrowed his eyes at him. ‘You want Hirsch to go before a firing squad?’
‘If that’s the penalty, yes.’
‘You hate him that much?’
‘I don’t hate him at all.’
‘And yet you want him dead?’
‘They’re your laws, sir.’
There was a debate to be had here about politics and jurisprudence, but now was not the right time. ‘Have you thought about the damage you’d be doing to the battalion?’
‘What damage?’
‘Lieutenant Hirsch’s service is invaluable,’ he said. ‘Not only in surgery but as a dental officer. I thought you wanted to beat the Bolsheviks.’
‘I do.
That’s why justice should be done.’
‘You’ll have to explain your thinking there, because I’m certainly not following it.’
‘All right,’ Demchak said, his tone insultingly patient. ‘Ask yourself what we’re fighting for.’
‘Why don’t you tell me.’
‘We’re fighting to defeat Bolshevism. But what is Bolshevism? First and foremost it’s the Jews. Marx was a Jew. Intellectuals are usually Jews.’
‘But Volker Hirsch isn’t Jewish. Or intellectual, come to that.’
‘He’s a homosexual, and that puts him on the side of the Jews. Homosexuals, Jews, the intelligentsia – they band together in cities, and what do they do there? They hatch ideas like Marxism – ideas they then force onto others, however many they have to kill to do it. The point is we have to be morally superior to the enemy. If we aren’t, what are we doing? We want a better world, and Hirsch and his ilk don’t belong in it.’
Bauer regarded him for a moment then said, ‘I see you’ve thought about this. In fact, it seems to me you’re on the way to becoming something of an intellectual yourself.’ Demchak’s eyebrows rose at this but quickly resettled. ‘I’m a surgeon, not an intellectual,’ Bauer continued, ‘but like you I used to be a farmer, and like most farmers I have a practical side. You come to me with a problem, a problem that needs a practical solution. You’re not satisfied with the lieutenant’s explanation, so tell me, what would you be satisfied with? What if he went to another unit?’
‘And did the same thing there?’
‘Or if we transferred you. You said you wanted to go to a fighting unit. Maybe it’s time we looked into it. See if I can pull some strings. Your good German should help. And the blond hair won’t hurt. As you said, we need committed men at the front.’
Demchak hesitated, clearly considering the offer, only for his face to harden again. ‘Not at the cost of sweeping this under the carpet.’
Bauer contemplated him, this blond crusader, this Teutonic Knight, bent on purification by the sword. That he was ethnically Slavic was an oddity, a paradox that might explain some of his fanaticism, with the nightmare of his adolescent years accounting for the rest. Arguing with him was probably futile, Bauer realised, but he would give it one last go, both to save Demchak from his own zealotry and himself from a great deal of paperwork.
‘Remind me how old you are,’ he said, though he knew the answer already.
‘I’m twenty-two,’ Demchak said warily.
‘Me, I’m forty-one,’ he said, and paused, preparing his argument. ‘From the vantage point of forty-one, twenty-two seems . . .’ Ignorant? Simplistic? ‘Admirable,’ he said. ‘Twenty-two seems admirable in ways that make forty-one seem – feel – weary, unimaginative and in some ways confusing. In you I see clarity of purpose, the sort of clarity essential to winning the war.’
‘That’s just what I’m saying —’
‘But which will just as surely lose it if older, wearier men don’t also have their say.’ He thought of Bagration and Kutuzov in War and Peace, unflashy generals whose recognition of the limitations of command paradoxically made them more formidable. Demchak was looking guardedly at him. Bauer went on. ‘I’m not trying to convince you you’re wrong. I wouldn’t succeed. But I am asking you to accept that we all bring something different to the war effort. Let me deal with Hirsch. You’re clever, you’re energetic, and by age and temperament, yes, you’re probably better suited to combat than to standing beside an instruments tray and handing me forceps or gauze. So let’s find a way to get you under arms.’
‘In return for me saying nothing?’
‘Yes.’
Demchak shook his head, apparently not even tempted this time. ‘Sorry, sir, but I won’t bargain away my principles.’
‘Rather proving my point about your youth, don’t you think? An older man might be readier to bargain.’
‘Will you have Hirsch charged?’
‘No, I won’t.’
‘Because you’re homosexual yourself?’
Bauer felt the full venom of this, and the threat. ‘Perhaps because Lieutenant Hirsch is a fellow German,’ he said. ‘You’ve been clear with me and so I’ll be clear with you. If you take this over my head I will tell Metz you’re lying, that you have something against Hirsch and that you want to bring him down.’
‘You think I’m lying?’
‘What I think is of no importance. You’ve made that quite clear. What I’m saying is that if you go to Metz I will make things as difficult for you as possible. I will deny having had this conversation. I will accuse you of making sexual advances on Hirsch and then lying about it to protect yourself.’
‘So you are a homosexual.’
Ignoring this, Bauer said, ‘Who do you think Metz will believe? A Ukrainian Hilfswilliger or a fellow officer and surgeon?’ Demchak eyed him narrowly, and Bauer stared back with an appearance of calm. ‘I’d call that stalemate, wouldn’t you?’
* * *
‘Right away,’ Katerina said.
‘Why, what’s the problem?’ Bauer said, his delight in seeing her instantly blighted by her tone.
‘Daria Grigorievna went off with some of your enlisted men. Tikhon Vassilyvich saw them.’
‘Off where?’
‘To the Kusminsky Wing.’
He cursed. It was dark and getting close to curfew time; a benign explanation was unlikely. ‘This was how long ago?’
‘An hour at least. More.’
‘All right. I’ll get my coat.’
From his room Bauer fetched his greatcoat, gloves and cap and clattered back downstairs. Katerina was waiting for him in the vestibule. She opened the door and together they stepped out into the dark, passed the sentry on the porch and strode onto the snow. No wind. A heavy mist. Tooth-fracturing cold. The urge to hold her hand was great, but now was not the time; from the Kusminsky Wing came the noise of carousing.
‘Was she distressed?’ he asked. ‘Did Tikhon say how she looked?’
‘Your men had alcohol, so I’m sure she was pleased.’
Ahead of them the barracks loomed out of the mist, the cheering inside it increasingly loud. On the front steps the duty sentry greeted him with suspicious bonhomie; Bauer returned his salute then turned back to Katerina. ‘Better wait here.’
She scowled. ‘Better leave that decision to me.’
Together they went into the entrance hall and the noise of the revelry grew. Its source was the common room, whose entrance was crowded with corpsmen looking in, cigarette smoke rolling overhead. ‘Follow me,’ Bauer said to Katerina and muscled between them, entering a crush of men chanting and clapping in time as Daria Grigorievna, wearing only her drawers, danced drunkenly on a table at the centre of the room, boot polish smeared across her breasts. With no hope of making himself heard Bauer pushed deeper into the throng, followed closely by Katerina, men on either side of them quietening as they passed, though when they reached the table another half minute went by before the entire room came to attention.
‘Show’s over, gentlemen,’ Bauer said, as Katerina helped Daria off the table.
‘Why, where’s the harm in it?’ someone called – Norbert Ritter, Bauer realised, his grating voice slurred. Bauer sought out his face from the crowd, saw Ehrlich and Knoll and eventually made out Ritter, who hadn’t come to attention but was instead holding a mug between boot-polished hands.
‘No fraternising with enemy civilians,’ Bauer said. ‘Lieutenant Colonel’s orders.’
‘It’s not fraternising,’ Ritter said. He grinned and glanced around the room. ‘It’s cabaret.’
Widespread laughter, giving Bauer time to hope there was no afterlife from which Sepp was watching on.
‘Where are her clothes?’ Katerina called. No one answered her.
‘Where are the lady’s clothes?’ Bauer repeated.
‘The lady,’ Ritter sneered. ‘What’s it to you anyway?’ he asked, and waved his mug at Katerina. ‘You’ve got pussy of your o
wn.’
The laughter this time was less rowdy. ‘Sergeant Major, you’re drunk,’ Bauer said, avoiding Katerina’s eye. ‘Get out of here and sober up.’
Ritter didn’t move, and abruptly Bauer’s greatcoat felt too hot, the fiction of his rank unpleasantly exposed; then Ritter did move, looking theatrically scornful and disgusted, opening a path through the crowd to the door.
Bauer gazed about the room. ‘The clothes,’ he repeated. There were murmured consultations and then from somewhere on the floor the clothes appeared, Daria’s dress partly ripped and with buttons missing. ‘Now clear out of here, all of you,’ Bauer said.
There was a general movement towards the door and with it more talk, mostly grievance, a low hubbub of complaint. By the table Katerina was supporting Daria by the arm; already she had boot polish on her jacket and face. Bauer asked if she needed help, and curtly she refused. He would be just outside, guarding the door, he told her.
Most of the men had dispersed, but about thirty, including Ritter and Ehrlich, had taken their drinks into the entrance hall and onto the stairs and were growing raucous again. Ritter wasn’t the only one with blackened hands. From the common room came the sound of Daria and Katerina arguing, to which the men raised a mocking cheer. Bauer wondered if Daria’s drunkenness ever took a violent turn; he guessed she weighed at least a third more than Katerina.
The women emerged a few minutes later, Daria dishevelled, one arm hooked around Katerina’s shoulders. Both women’s faces were streaked with polish, Katerina’s even more than Daria’s. Bauer went forward to help them just as Daria sagged, pulling Katerina down on top of her. In the hilarity that followed Bauer could make out Ehrlich’s high and irritating laughter, like a terrier’s bark. Did Ehrlich have a mother, Bauer wondered, who doted on that laugh, who always smiled when she heard it? Possibly, he supposed.
In a world-weary tone he called for quiet, then set about organising a sled to carry Daria to the estate’s front gates, where according to Katerina the steward was waiting with a sleigh. Her manner was distant, her sentences short, the gap between them more than Bauer could bear.