Outside Verdun

by Zweig, Arnold; Rintoul, Fiona;

  Although he was mentally focused on his wound, which was healing slowly but healing nonetheless (the skilful surgeon had folded artificially long strips of skin over the site of the operation), Pahl had been curious to meet the tall lieutenant and was delighted when Kroysing came by every day after his first visit to chew the fat with him – i.e. to have a chat. Pahl’s reputation as a thinking man had spread much more quickly in the hospital than in his company. For in hospitals people have a lot of time and few distractions. Authors could easily write novels about the conversations that take place among patients, whereas busy people usually talk to hide their thoughts and advance their aims. Kroysing wasn’t an engineer now but a patient, and he thought carefully, moving his head slowly, as he engaged with the questions that the recumbent typesetter put to him in a polite but facetious tone – very tricky questions. What, for example, did Kroysing, as an engineer, think about the fact that if he invented something while working for some company or other, the patent would not belong to him or the general public but to the company? Did he think that was reasonable? Sitting on Pahl’s bed, Kroysing the engineer did not think that was at all reasonable. He took the view that engineers around the world, though perhaps initially in one country, should band together to make sure they got a share of the profits from their inventions. However, Kroysing was under no illusions as to the viability of such lovely ideas, because it was almost impossible to get engineers to cooperate on anything as they were so competitive. That meant people had to be persuaded that they needed Kroysing the engineer as much as Kroysing the engineer needed them; it would then be possible to rely on the well-developed self-interest of those industrial lords.

  It was all very entertaining – the patients in men’s ward 3 listened avidly as the little hunchback presented arguments and counter-arguments, and the tall lieutenant answered him back, glowing with pleasure. Finally, backed into a corner, the lieutenant said that he didn’t give two figs for cooperation and if a man didn’t know how to help himself then he must be left to flounder. He, personally, was not one to be discouraged, and that was the main thing. A real man was a lone wolf, as in the old saying: God helps those who help themselves, and if not there’s always the fire brigade. Whereupon Pahl had pointed out that solidarity and mutual assistance in life and death situations were an essential prerequisite for a fire brigade. Neither of them was prepared to give in, and it became increasingly clear that reason and the facts were on Pahl’s side. He was right and that was all there was to it, whereas Kroysing, snapping around him like a sheepdog, was his own argument and his own person was the best evidence he could offer for this thesis.

  In the end, they laughed and agreed to continue their discussion after the war, Pahl at the head of a horde of power-hungry slaves and Kroysing as satrap of the rapacious captains of industry – to use the language of opposing newspapers. Then they’d see who was right – who was stronger and more forward-looking, and could be relied upon to replace all the human lives that had been destroyed. Kroysing wanted to bring in the military; Pahl thought the military would long since have been transformed inwardly into proletarians in uniform. And so they parted on good terms, each with much food for thought, though they didn’t show it.

  Pahl’s thoughts, as he tossed from side to side turning his face to the blue sky in the window, were as always focused on the essential dilemma of how to reawaken in the engineer and his kind the sense they’d had in their youth that they mustn’t squander their gifts. How could you teach them to see beyond their education – their training to act as faithful servants to the religion of private property as manifest in all the raw materials and natural forces that had been torn from their original owners – everyone? On the horizon Pahl saw a vision of suffering humanity awaiting its freedom and felt dizzy because he wasn’t strong enough for the enormous task that awaited him at home. Because life on the breadline – cramped housing, poor food, lack of time and education, insufficient schooling, monotonous work, lack of hope and longing for the comforts of the middle classes – paralysed or perverted whatever ideas, talent and special qualities slumbered in the vast army of the exploited. Bertin had once explained to him that Christianity had triumphed because it had awakened self-awareness in women, slaves, prisoners of war and children, had unleashed and unfettered their abilities to the benefit of the community. In this, as in so many other respects, Christianity was a precursor of socialism. Would he live to see a time, 20 years after the war, when one or two liberated nations had been able to show what colossal creative forces lay within them, after this frenzy of destruction?

  When Kroysing returned to the room, Sister Kläre was clearing up and Lieutenant Flachsbauer had been taken down to the massage room to try out a few simple appliances and would be gone for half an hour at least. Kroysing was bristling with tension, and the engine of his will crackled and sparked. He sat on the bed and looked at this woman sluicing the floor with a pungent solution of Lysol. ‘Well, Kläre,’ he said abruptly, ‘what’s to become of us?’

  Frau Colonel Schwersenz turned her beautiful nun’s eyes on him in shock. Had she hidden her feelings so badly? ‘What can I do for the young gentleman?’ she asked in servant’s mode, mocking both of them.

  He looked at her sadly. ‘Come off it,’ he said. ‘Let’s put all that nonsense to one side and look at the matter honestly. If I were a foreman and you were a maid we’d have come to an agreement long ago and we’d now be considering how and on what basis to get married. Our situation is more complicated because we’re distinguished people.’

  Sister Kläre felt herself flush with fear. ‘Lie down, Lieutenant. Rest your leg and don’t say things you can’t answer for.’ At the same time, she was ashamed of this inhibited avoidance tactic.

  Kroysing lay down obediently, watching her fixedly. ‘Kläre,’ he said, ‘you know how things are. There were three men in this room who loved you. One of them has trundled off, the best and weakest of them, and now sleepy old Flachsbauer may dream of you his whole life long, which will do him good as he won’t get you. I’m the one who’s either going to marry you or snuff it.’

  Sister Kläre made as if to push him away. ‘You’re a blackmailer. You’re like a mad vice.’

  But Kroysing shook his head: ‘I’m just telling it as it is. I’m mad about you Kläre, not just in that way but in all conceivable ways. When I think of having you beside me day and night for the next 20 years, I feel I could jump on to the ceiling and bang the walls. You know that. You’re not a coward. You’re a real woman and your heart’s in the right place. I’m not trying to blind you with romance. I’m not producing flutes and violins. I’m not trying to stroke your leg or put my hand on your breast…’

  ‘You’ll get a cuff round the ear if you do, Lieutenant.’

  ‘…but I can’t sleep for asking myself how I’ll feed us and arrange accommodation. As long as the war lasts, I have to go where GHQ sends me. At the moment I’m just an ordinary sapper lieutenant but in nine months I’ll be a famous airman – or a pile of ashes.’

  Sister Kläre looked at him wide-eyed, then she closed her eyes, took two steps towards the bed, opened them again, realised she had a wet cloth in her hands, wrapped it round the scrubbing brush and finished mopping the room.

  He carried on talking as she mopped, and she felt his eyes following her every movement. ‘When the war is over and we’ve both come through it, you without having caught any diseases and me without having broken my neck or my big nose – when we’re back in Germany and everyone’s celebrating victory, what can I offer you then? That buckled lad Pahl next door is no fool. What prospects does an engineer have? As a boy, I always dreamt of being a ship’s captain in the merchant navy. I thought it would be wonderful to stand on the bridge and command some great white tub from port to starboard, from the top of the mast to the bilge – to be responsible for it. Of course it never occurred to me that the captain doesn’t own a single rivet on the ship. Now I know that a captain is really
a modestly paid transport engineer with few options for advancement, even if his wife can travel round the world first class. So what do I really have to offer you apart from myself? A nice four-bedroomed house in Nuremberg or Augsburg, a couple of lovely old people as in-laws and with a bit of luck a car if the company provides one? I think I’ll manage to get one.’

  Sister Kläre suddenly fell back into the cockiness she’d rediscovered in the field after 15 years of marriage. ‘Really?’ she said innocently. ‘Well, that would be necessary. For without a car – I’m afraid I couldn’t be happy without a car, Lieutenant.’

  Kroysing fell for it. ‘That’s just it,’ he said despondently. ‘I imagine you couldn’t be. I don’t know how you lived before you came here. People say you’re from a rich family and your husband was a staff officer. We’d have to cut right back, Kläre. Not everyone can live like that.’

  Later, Sister Kläre often remembered the absurd, sweet joy that flooded her during those morning hours on the 20th of March – the calm, collected way the young man wooed her, which he seemed to find as natural as the healing gun wound in his leg.

  ‘It’s nice of you to acknowledge the existence of my husband, Lieutenant Kroysing.’

  ‘There’s divorce,’ he answered curtly.

  ‘And there are Catholics,’ she said in the same tone.

  Kroysing sat on the bed and peered at her. ‘Kläre,’ he said hoarsely, ‘you’re not going to tell me there can’t be anything between us because you’ve been married for a few years.’

  ‘A few years!’ said Sister Kläre. ‘Fifteen years!’ And that numeral inspired her to think of all the terrible difficulties of the situation. ‘You don’t just separate after that long because you’ve found someone younger who wants you. You’ve had a life together, and that deserves respect and consideration and a place in your heart. I’m not some kind of hussy who skips from bed to bed with no baggage. No, my dear friend, there’s a lot to think about, a lot of dissenting voices that must be considered, a lots of barriers. And if I’m to take your proposal seriously—’

  ‘Kläre,’ he cried, standing up on one leg with his injured leg bent under him, supporting himself on the bed with one hand and reaching out to her with the other.

  With a happy but wistful laugh, she backed towards the door. ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ she said firmly.

  ‘I’m sick of thinking,’ he cried almost angrily. ‘First she wanted to think about whether she could make a telephone call and save my friend, and now she wants to think about whether she can end her marriage and marry me. Well, my extremely thoughtful lady, I believe in acting quickly. If you’re prepared to marry me, phone the crown prince before midnight tonight. If you don’t want me, all you have to do is say tonight that you’d prefer to phone him in the morning. Agreed?’

  She nodded and was about to repeat his final word, but Kroysing made two sudden hops across the room on his good leg, wrapped her in his long arms and pressed his mouth to her parted lips, felt her go soft against his chest then stiffen, let her go and said: ‘To have is to hold,’ and hopped back to the bed like a long-legged grasshopper. She took her bucket and scrubbing brush and left the room without a word, like a pretty housemaid who’s just been kissed. Kroysing felt his heart hammering against his ribs. She’ll telephone, he thought triumphantly. She’ll telephone tonight and her name will be Frau Kroysing as surely as mine is Herr Kroysing. Immediately afterwards it occurred to him that she’d definitely ask Father Lochner’s advice. He’d have to get the priest on his side. He could not deny that Niggl had become completely irrelevant to him in that moment. He laughed inwardly. It would pain him, but if Sister Kläre married him and Father Lochner helped her to get her present marriage dissolved he’d abandon his vendetta against Niggl.

  In a fairly large field hospital, the staff working to relieve human suffering and return wounded men to full strength are kept fully occupied in the morning. That underlying reality doesn’t change whether you view the process as a way of rehabilitating slaves to work and fight for the ruling class, as Pahl did, or a way of summoning all Germany’s strength in the battle for her very existence, as Kroysing did. The sometimes terrible ceremony of changing bandages, with its groans, clenched teeth and curses, its snarling and coaxing, passed on, which is to say it moved from room to room. Nurses carried buckets of festering wood pulp out to be burnt. Sometimes, if the healing process had gone wrong and there was excessive granulation in the wound rather than firm, new flesh, cauterisation was required. Then the silver nitrate probe or small, sharp scrapers were brought out, and great suffering ensued. Other, more fortunate men toiled in the gym where their injured limbs were gradually restored to the purposes for which nature intended them through exercise. Once it has realised its potential, human material, that baffling, growing, animate cell tissue, is doomed to rejoin the Earth’s surface – that underlying impulse is inherent in its target form, just as butterflies, flies and bees are driven to fertilise flowers. Sometimes it seemed as though the planet itself wanted to be stimulated to preordained levels of performance – a frenzy of raw materials and forces – so it might offer ever-improving living conditions to rational beings. Perhaps that was why it incited the nearly two billion cells called humanity to excessive activity and conflict. It wanted to spur the higher, more rational, more forward-looking ones on, while provoking resistance from the lower, wilder, more instinctive ones, so as to squeeze as much as possible in the way of inventions, discoveries and harvests from both. Aviation, chemistry, medical science, warfare – all had advanced in leaps and bounds. New means of communication had brought communities together that previously had hardly known of each other’s existence. Biased social systems had come crashing down, and those who did not understand how to deploy all available forces within their borders in the struggle for existence were doomed to defeat, whatever the existing privileged classes might say. Services rendered could always be repaid with ingratitude, promises could be turned around and chartered rights rescinded. Why not? People did not have a very well developed sense of civilised behaviour. They barely understood what it was for. It was easier to appreciate technology. It helped with killing.

  On this basis, the engineer and the priest understood each other very well. Each considered the other to be the champion of a weaker cause. Happily, their meeting took place in an atmosphere of vague agreement that members of the global household had an important duty to respect the individual. For they knew that nature only works in species, kinds, races and large groups; the requirement placed on men by nature to respect the individual was thus all the greater. For as it battled to enrich its homeland, humanity had need of individuals as if they were the purpose of earthly fertility and the battle for existence. And while the engineer and the priest conducted their cheerful argument, the medical officer sat with some wounded man who had been put in special rooms to test whether water promoted natural healing. The water did help. Man’s fluid composition seemed to respond gratefully to it. Out in the courtyard, flocks of white and tan chickens cackled, pecked and fluttered, commanded by a couple of cocks, pigs grunted by a row of sties, and enormous long-haired Belgian rabbits with soft eyes and fur hopped about. March light sparkled down on them, and their animal hearts thrilled with joy. They did not divine their purpose, which would bring their joyful existence to an end, or that it was only because of that purpose that they existed in the first place. In certain rooms, wet laundry was being rubbed down on corrugated iron; in others, food was being cooked for several hundred people. A ruddy-faced matron bent over a ledger and noted down figures. A horse-drawn wagon panted up the hill, bringing tinned food, ration bread and the post in a large sack. That created a lot work; it had to be sorted, distributed and read – but it also radiated healing. Pahl the typesetter received a letter, which he read with a strange smile. His application was already in progress and would doubtless be successful. His unit, the replacement ASC battalion in Küstrin, had emerged from obscurity. On
ce it had established what pension the grateful Fatherland owed him, it was going to order that he be sent home, formally and solemnly discharged, transferred back to civilian life and his profession. As a typesetter doesn’t exactly need his toe, the compensation for his wound wouldn’t be very high; nonetheless, Pahl was now a pensioner, and so there was a limit to how bad things could get. The soldiers sang that this campaign was no express train, but for him it had come to a halt. For the others it would rattle cheerfully on. It had been as little detained by the Kaiser’s peace initiative as by President Wilson’s messages or Pope Benedict XV’s prayers – this capitalist war about the redistribution of world markets. You couldn’t say that the capitalists had started it, but they had made the aristocratic land-owning class in the three empires into masters of a military machine so strong that once it had been set in motion it could only come to a standstill when it had extinguished them and itself. Capitalists couldn’t make peace. Neither could feudal states. They paid for it with their own collapse. Only nations could make peace, when the blessings of a lost war had made enough of an impression on them. The Russians would prove that.

  Lieutenant Flachsbauer also received a letter, read it, sighed and placed it under his pillow. So did Lieutenant Kroysing. His letter was from his mother, as his father had delegated letter writing to her some time ago. She was looking forward to him being transferred to a Nuremberg hospital and asked him to hurry the process along. She was having nightmares and clung to every bit of news from him. She felt that he would only be safe from the murderous claws of war when he was in her arms. Kroysing frowned: people at home really knew how to lay it on thick. Claws of war! That kind of talk should be left to washerwomen. He wondered what exactly she thought was going to happen to him here. The Verdun front had lost its importance, and there had been no more talk of long-range guns from the Frogs. And the Red Cross flew its flag and had painted a cross on the roof to prevent air attacks. He decided he’d better wait to tell his parents about his transfer to the air force in person when he had some proper leave.