by John Smolens
“And Ruup is going to convey this information to Berlin?”
“Yes,” Vogel said. “It is not uncommon that messages be sent home through ill and wounded soldiers. It’s an excellent form of communication, one the Americans can do nothing about.”
“And in exchange for his services Ruup might be protecting his own family—but he told me his parents and his brothers were all dead.”
“The wages of war,” Vogel said. “Very unfortunate.”
“So who’s he protecting?”
“He writes to a girl in Leipzig. He never mentioned her?”
I shook my head. “But your men know about her because they inspect everything before it goes out in the mail.”
Vogel didn’t bother to confirm this; he got up and came around the makeshift desk, his hands clasped behind him. “Captain,” he said quietly. “I also wish to talk with you about another important matter: the football team. As captain and coach of the team, you will have to replace Ruup in the match on Sunday.”
“That’s right.”
“Who will you use?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“I would like to make a suggestion,” Vogel said. “Gunnar Staudt.”
“He’s not even on the team.”
“There is now only one German, your goalie, Rudi Brandt. I fear that he might feel alone, playing for a team comprised of Czechs and Hungarians and Poles and Italians—and even one Russian.”
“Kommandant, we have the best men playing on this team. I made that clear when I agreed to coach the squad. There would be tryouts, and players would be selected strictly for their ability on the pitch.”
“How democratic of you.”
“Au Train is a small camp,” I said, “yet we are still undefeated.”
“I know. Quite remarkable. But we are playing this other small camp, from a place called Germfask. Brandt has requested that we give some other men an opportunity to play. Saturday afternoon the Red Cross inspectors will be here. It only makes sense that a camp that is comprised of nearly 90 percent Germans should field a team that is more representative. It would be the democratic thing to do, no?”
“Football, Kommandant Vogel, is not democratic.”
One afternoon during that week, Adino and I were cutting brush so that the other men could get farther up the hill to a fresh stand of trees. As we climbed higher, clearing a path, the sound of the men and their saws below became faint, absorbed by the woods. It was very peaceful up there, and at one point we paused to rest. Adino went over behind a bush, unbuckling his belt and pulling a wad of toilet paper from his pocket. While he was gone I stood and looked about; it was very quiet, the air still—so still it didn’t seem to exist. There was a stand of birch with luminescent white bark curling in places away from the trunk, and black knots that made me think of eyes, the kohl-painted eyes of Egyptian queens. We would divert the path, though it probably wouldn’t save the birches. So I studied those trees as though they were beautiful women I would see naked only this one time, or like the great works of art in museums and galleries in Italy. The birches were more beautiful because I knew they couldn’t be saved. Little in this war could be saved, even a stand of birch trees.
Then something changed; a greater quiet seemed to come over the woods. A powerful quiet that I didn’t understand. It made me alert, and I picked up my axe, which I had leaned against the trunk of a maple sapling. From higher up the hill there came a rustling of leaves and the sound of something running fast, crashing through the brush. Though I couldn’t see anything, I could follow the sound as it moved through the woods, until it stopped abruptly. There was a high, piercing cry, and then it was quiet again.
Adino came out from behind the bush, fastening his belt. He’d heard it, too. He didn’t say anything and he looked startled. I began climbing the hill—it was so steep in places I had to claw my way up, grabbing at roots with my free hand. Adino followed, until we reached an outcropping of rock. We stood on the ledge, scanning the hill above us.
And then I saw it. I wasn’t sure at first, the way it blended in with the ground cover about twenty yards away, but when I nudged Adino’s shoulder he saw it too and took a step backward—I grabbed his sleeve before he fell off the ledge. We remained absolutely still then, my hand clutching his jacket, looking up into the woods where a wolf was eating a small animal. A hare, I thought. The wolf was completely preoccupied, tearing and pulling with its teeth. Its snout was bloodied and there was fur hanging from one corner of its mouth.
The wolf looked up, its eyes fiercely curious. There are moments in life when you look into the eyes of another living being, a parent, a lover, or perhaps someone who is a threat, some opponent, and in that moment you not only see their eyes, but you are looking right into them—you are staring into their very being, and you’re convinced that they are doing the same. It is a disquieting moment. You are not yourself, and yet you are, and you feel utterly exposed. Everything is revealed: the truth about you, about what you are and what you aren’t, it’s all there to be witnessed by the eyes that are locked upon yours. To do this with another person is one thing, a most rare thing. It often reveals love, or at least some deep understanding and caring for the other. But it can also expose a pure desire. Once, when I was in Africa, I came upon a soldier who had been wounded. There had been shelling, and a piece of steel protruded from his bloody chest. He was German and he was lying on the side of the road as vehicles passed—we were withdrawing. But when I heard him speak, I stopped and knelt down beside him. I couldn’t understand what he said, so I opened my canteen and gave him a sip of water, most of which ran down his chin. I thought I should try again, try to get some water down his throat, but then I looked in his eyes. They were pleading with me, and at first I didn’t know what he wanted, but then I realized that his entire body had gone rigid, that he was dying, and his eyes were saying to me that he wanted to live, he only wanted to live. And then his eyes changed, they turned hard and unseeing, and his body seemed to lose its tension.
But now I was looking into the eyes of an animal—a wolf, I knew it was a wolf. There was a clarity and intelligence in its stare that I couldn’t comprehend. Its stare was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. There wasn’t exactly an emotion in its eyes, but there was an awareness, of me, of itself, of this moment that we shared. It was the only moment, a moment that ruled out every other moment. I didn’t feel anything. Not fear, certainly, though perhaps there was curiosity. The fact was, though I was aware that Adino and I might be in danger, I didn’t want the moment to end.
Calmly, the wolf lowered its head, picked up its quarry in its mouth, and bounded off into the woods. We listened to the leaves rustle as the wolf climbed the hill, and then there was silence again.
“That’s not like the other coyotes,” Adino whispered. “I wanted to sing but I couldn’t.”
We saw coyotes frequently, particularly outside the camp fences, where they were always looking to scavenge for food. “I don’t think so,” I said. “Much too big. It was beautiful.”
“And so alone. Solitary.” Then he laughed nervously. “With blood on its snout.”
That night in the mess hall, we told the other members of the football team about what we had seen, and they didn’t believe us. Of course, it was only a coyote. There were no more wolves in these woods. They now were nothing more than a mythical presence.
After dinner, while we were out in the yard smoking, Adino and I approached one of the older guards, a man named Walter. He was related in some way to the Shepherd, and it was clear that he was knowledgeable about hunting. More than once he had expressed disgust at the practice of shooting deer with machine guns—not because he didn’t believe in killing deer, but because doing so with a machine gun was an insult to the animal. We told Walter what we had seen, and he questioned us about the height and length of the animal, the size of its paws. Adino and I both were certain that this animal was easily twice the size of a coyote.
Walter had a deeply lined face and sad eyes, and he often looked at us with a kind of sympathy that the other guards lacked—they usually didn’t really seem to see us. He had smoked yet another cigarette down until it was a stub pinched between his yellowed fingers, and then, dropping it on the ground, he said, “You saw a wolf. Most of us roam these woods all our lives and we don’t get to see one.”
“But they’re no more,” I said. “Ex . . . extinguished, no?”
“Extinct,” Walter said. “No, the wolf is still out there. I’ve never seen one, but I’ve seen signs. Tracks in mud. We’ve about killed ’em off. One day there’ll be packs of wolves in these woods again.”
“You really believe that?” I asked.
Walter nodded as he left us. “But I won’t live to see it.”
The routine of the days and nights made time an adversary. Americans call it doing time. But I didn’t look at it that way. Time in Au Train was a wheel driven by hunger, thirst, physical exertion, weariness. Time moved forward, but I remained stationary—it was the train, and I was standing on the platform unable to board because the locomotive, though it might slow down, never stopped. Sleep and monotony were strange bedfellows. I had dreams that caused me to awaken, startled, confused, soaked in sweat. They would fade within seconds, and during my waking hours I’d try to recall something from them, but they fled, went wherever dreams disappear to, leaving me feeling deceived and abandoned because I suspected that somewhere in my dreams I experienced a sense of freedom that I never had when I was awake. Days were interminably long, yet weeks seemed to evaporate. Months didn’t just pass, they vanished, and you wondered if you’d even lived them. Summer was brief and fall soon gave way to winter. December first we had about eight inches of snow on the ground. The temperature often dropped below zero at night, and we were issued heavy wool coats for our days in the woods. Though some men made an attempt at wreaths and decorating trees, there was no real sense that Christmas was approaching.
News from the outside world, news of the war, was sporadic, contradictory. We were never sure what to believe. A headline, glimpsed in a newspaper, would bolster or destroy the day. As we approached Christmas, Faenza fell under siege as the Allies moved north, but then their advance stalled when torrential rains caused flooding in the Lamone River. Within days the headlines in the Marquette Mining Journal shifted from joyous optimism to horrified despair. The war, which some had believed would be over by Christmas, suddenly seemed destined to continue as the Germans mounted a counteroffensive, reportedly moving old men and boys to the front lines. When speaking to the men in the mess hall, Vogel never mentioned this fact, but he often said that this war of attrition would allow Germany time to finish the development of a new weapon, the V-2 rocket, which would certainly lift the Reich to victory.
Il calcio—football, or, here in the States, soccer—kept Adino and me sane. Every day while lumbering, every night while lying awake in our bunks, we talked about the team, its strengths and weaknesses, the various plays and strategies we could try. Practice provided a sense of release from the oppression of being a prisoner, and the games often resulted in a most welcome sense of exhaustion, as well as the exhilaration of victory. Adino believed that the two most important things in life were sex and football. He often said that without il calcio his longing for his wife Maria would overwhelm him and he would kill himself. Had he lived in peacetime, I’m sure he would have been an outstanding player for one of the great Italian teams, Juventus, or one of the clubs in Milan, A.C. or Inter. I had never seen someone use the entire foot the way he did; had never seen such accurate backward passes with the heel. There were times when he would approach you and his legwork would seem to make the ball disappear momentarily. It was on his left, his right, between his feet; he appeared to overrun it, and then, miraculously, it was back in front of him, and he was poised to strike. He was not a tall man, no more than five-foot-six, but he had broad shoulders and sinuous, muscular legs, Michelangelo legs. There was both power and lightness to his movement, and nothing ever seemed predictable. Our offensive philosophy was built upon one concept: get the ball to Adino.
Our last match of the season took place on Christmas Eve. In order for the game to be played, the members of the team had to clear the snow off the field. Previously, our opponents had been teams from other prisoner-of-war camps in the Upper Peninsula or northern Wisconsin; but this time we faced Americans. They were prisoners in their own country, and they wore red jerseys with CO Bombers hand-painted in white letters on the front. Some of my teammates didn’t understand what the CO stood for, and I tried to explain the concept of a “conscientious objector,” but they just stared at me in disbelief.
Marek Haltof, our steadfast Polish midfielder, said, “They didn’t want to fight, so the American government put them in their own special work camp up here?”
“Their refusal is based on religious or moral beliefs,” I offered.
The Hungarian forward, Victor Skowalski, said, “They don’t just shoot them?”
The others nodded in agreement, and I said, “Let’s just concentrate on the match.”
When we took the field, the other Au Train prisoners, standing along snow-banks on the east sideline, were unusually restrained. In fact, what little applause came from them quickly subsided, and it was clear that they were following the example set by Vogel and his men, who surveyed the field impassively, their arms folded. Equally curious was the reaction from the other side of the field. Ordinarily, a small crowd of Americans came out from the surrounding villages to watch the matches through the high barbed-wire fence. They were always quiet, but this time there was enthusiastic applause as we took our positions.
Adino looked over at me and, placing his hand on his heart, said, “Dante! Our hero!”
“Shut up.” But I scanned the group of Americans and realized it was true: the Americans were applauding me. Except Chiara. She was there with several other girls and boys, leaning on the hood of a yellow convertible. When I noticed her, she looked away from me. Her hair was tied back in what Americans call a ponytail, which allowed me to see more of her face, the graceful line of her jaw, her full mouth. Suddenly everything was changed: I was accustomed to playing these matches for the pure sake of the game, but now I was keenly aware of Chiara’s presence. I wanted to play well for her, which only made my movements seem self-conscious and awkward.
The game began, and the CO Bombers proved to be unlike any other team we had faced. We were accustomed to playing teams that were physically equal or even superior to us, but they were invariably disorganized. Quickly our positional play, passing, and speed would allow us to take control of the game. The Americans were not particularly strong (though we understood that they too spent their days cutting down trees, several looked like they wouldn’t last two minutes wielding an axe), and they were remarkably slow. But they understood positional play, and only a few minutes into the match it was clear that they had managed to establish an excruciatingly deliberate pace to the contest. We could barely connect a pass, and seldom penetrated beyond midfield for any sustained period of time. And there was something else disconcerting about this team: many of the players didn’t look like Americans. They wore unkempt beards and mustaches, and when they spoke to each other they used English words I’d never heard before. I quickly realized that they were well educated, and that we were in trouble.
Then they scored on a long, lazy shot, which bounced once before it reached the crease—our goalie, Rudi Brandt, dove to his right and got both hands on the ball, but it rolled past him and into the goal. He was usually reliable; it was a bad goal. But even more curious was that the American spectators began to boo. They were booing the COs, while across the field the prisoners looked on quietly.
The game built in intensity. We began to move the ball better, connecting passes and getting some shots on their goalie, who looked like he was about seven feet tall. He had good reflexes and twice stopped Adino cold. About a half ho
ur into the match, they scored again. This time the ball went between Rudi’s legs. Adino went to him, swearing in Italian and gesturing. I quickly separated them, pushing Rudi back toward the goal.
“What’s the matter with him?” Adino shouted as I escorted him up the field. He had to shout because the Americans were booing even louder now. Some threw things over the fence at the COs, and one of their forwards was hit on the shoulder with a ripe tomato. “What is going on?” Adino screamed.
“Just play.” On the east sideline, Vogel beamed with satisfaction. I signaled to the Shepherd, the referee, that I wished to make a substitution. At the sideline I said to Dimitri Sabaneyev, “You play goal.” The Russian didn’t move—he’d never played that position before. “Just get in there!” I yelled. After Dimitri ran out to our goal, Rudi came off the field reluctantly, glaring at me.
Several minutes later, we scored on a corner kick. I arched the ball toward the crease, and Adino headed it into the goal—a beautiful play.
During halftime we gathered around the large rock at one end of the field, where we always rested and drank water. Usually the players sprawled on the ground while I sat on the rock, discussing strategy. But this time I said nothing. We just rested and watched what was going on down the field. The Americans beyond the fence were taunting the COs, calling them “conchies,” chickens, and faggots. The COs ignored this, and some seemed even to enjoy the attention, smiling and waving back at their countrymen.