To Die in Spring

by Ralf Rothmann

  ‘Why aren’t you standing to attention, private? What’s up?’ Walter straightened his back. He nodded towards the bright stained glass of the commander’s broad office door; the handle was an ivory fish that looked as if its scales were made of dirty fingernails. ‘I would like to speak to Herr Hauptsturmführer Greiff, please. On a personal matter.’

  ‘Oho!’ said Troche, himself an Unterscharführer, a gaunt man with a scarred face. ‘A personal matter . . . That does sound very exciting. What might it be this time? A trip around the Alps? A seaside holiday by the Adriatic?’ He whipped open the duty book to its last few pages, crossed something out and said, ‘You’re having far too nice a time of it, young man! Now, ride like lightning to Győr and get the rest of the medicine from the field hospital, and bring back a receipt. I want to see you in two hours, dead or alive. Get out of here!’

  He spat a chewed match on the floor and turned the telephone crank, but Walter stayed where he was. Eyes lowered, he clasped his hands behind his back and persisted: ‘Please, I’d like to talk to the Hauptsturmführer. It’s urgent. I helped his son, and he assured me I could approach him any time. It’s about a comrade this time, not about me!’

  But the officer gestured to Walter to be quiet. He moved two red flags and put through a few coordinates, speaking loudly to overcome the sounds of shooting, wailing and crashing that rang out of the receiver. His secretary, with sleeve guards over his uniform, raised his head and pointed to the text he was in the middle of typing. ‘Old Greiff went up in smoke yesterday,’ he said. ‘Along with the last bridge. You might find something on the shore, I suppose – a heel or maybe even an ear you could whisper your problems into . . .’

  He contorted his mouth into a bilious grin, and Walter turned round and looked into the hospital room where a nurse was kneeling on the floor taking the bandages off a dead man to use them again straight away on a living one. Walter hesitated, stared for a moment at the tips of his boots, the jagged soles to which soil was still clinging, and at last he took a deep breath, reached for the ivory handle and found himself – he knocked and walked in simultaneously – in the commander’s room.

  It was a drawing room with burgundy fabric wallpaper and pale frescoes on the ceiling, and the two-tone block parquet made it look bigger than it was. In it were a kind of sofa with only one armrest, a big old globe, shelves full of rolled-up maps and files, and a desk. The inside shutters, painted with garlands, were closed, and the officer sitting in the lamplight didn’t look up. He just flicked the pages of a book and said, ‘Finished already?’

  He wore braided shoulder boards, his collar patch was framed in silver and one of the four stars it bore had a brand-new sheen: a Sturmbannführer, a fat man with fair hair and horn-rimmed glasses. He didn’t look up until Walter clicked his heels together and saluted. His wide lips were slack, his mouth bored. ‘Well now!’ he said. ‘Who let you in?’ According to the sign on the desk his name was Domberg, and his ill-shaven double chin wobbled along when he shook his head. ‘Are you in my company? Or do you want to shoot me?’

  His voice sounded strangely thin and defensive; but in fact it was that of a man who was used to having his quiet observations listened to, and Walter couldn’t help smiling. ‘Shoot you? Why? I’m not even carrying a gun.’ But then he cleared his throat, gave his name, rank and serial number and said, ‘I’ve come for a comrade. He’s in the basement with the turnips.’

  Domberg nodded and went on flicking through the pages of the book, a big leather Bible full of hand-painted initials and golden haloes, as the groans of the wounded came through the door. ‘About, not for,’ he said, reaching into the drawer and lighting a cigarette. ‘You have come about a comrade. How much schooling do you have?’

  He put his Triplex lighter down in front of him, and Walter, who forgot for a moment to stand to attention, shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who do you mean, me? Well, normal,’ he replied. ‘Horst Wessel elementary school, Essen-Borbeck. I’ve come about Fiete Caroli, Sturmbannführer. Friedrich Caroli, I mean. He’s to be executed tomorrow, and I would like most respectfully to ask you to—’

  The officer raised his hand. The pale blue smoke drifting over the table smelled for a moment like perfume, sweet and sharp. ‘Elementary school may be normal,’ he said. ‘And I know many consider it sufficient . . . But it’s not enough, young man. Listen to yourself: most respectively! What a mangling of the German language. One is respectful – that word, particularly for a soldier, contains all levels of meaning – or else one is not. One may be more alive than one’s fellow man, but no one who has been shot is more dead than another . . . do you understand?’

  Walter nodded hesitantly and said, ‘Yes. I’m sorry. I would just like to ask—’

  ‘No!’ the officer shouted, and unscrewed the lid of a dented metal thermos. ‘Stick to the subject, if you would be so kind, private! How can you be in my troop if you have difficulties with elementary grammar? Now: about, in the German language, takes the genitive case. What is the genitive? Or is it genius? Or genital?’ Lips pursed, he stuck out his chin; his eyes were grey, with dark pupils. ‘So? I’m waiting for an answer.’

  Walter, who was feeling hot, had to swallow. ‘Well, it’s a case,’ he said and ran his hand over the back of his neck. ‘The genitive case, the second one. First there’s the nominative case and after that the accusative and the dative.’

  Domberg poured coffee into a cup with painted roses – real bean coffee, apparently – and put in a spoonful of sugar. ‘So, Germany isn’t quite lost after all. And what do you think is the point of that genitive case? Of what use might it be?’

  He stirred his coffee, studying Walter, and drew once more on his cigarette, letting the smoke out very slowly through his nose. The crystal droplets on the edge of his lampshade trembled slightly every time a tank or a bulldozer crossed the farmyard. ‘It’s no use at all!’ Domberg said and grinned. ‘The language manages perfectly well without it. Because if you write “the cowardice of my friend” or “my friend’s cowardice” it makes not a whit of difference, does it? We both know what it means.’

  He raised a finger and arched his brows. ‘And yet, and yet . . . It does something to us, that genitive does. It changes our attitude. History’s prisms, the day’s last glow – can you hear that? That quiet bronze tone?’ He arched his finger. ‘It refines our souls, young man, and teaches us the meaning of intellectual nobility. The principle of leaving nothing to chance and not always taking the easiest path – that is the genitive! Do you see that?’

  Walter nodded, and the officer bent over the table and flicked through the notebook that lay beside his cap. ‘So, what was your comrade called? Caroli? Friedrich Caroli? A lovely name, isn’t it? One for whom peace – Frieden – is enough. He was the north German with the poetry in his pocket, I remember.’ Eyes narrowed, he looked up to the ceiling and moved his lips mutely for a moment. Then he raised one arm and waved his hand through the smoke, declaiming, ‘God has leisure. / Others were left to do a hard day’s work / My fate to rest beneath the feet / of the grieving, loquacious winds // And if the ancient grape / the black grape, returning dusty and warm / always revives my faith / Sigh no more, God will not grow poor.’

  Domberg smiled crookedly, revealing a canine. ‘That Loerke isn’t bad, your comrade has good taste. But in the end, what can we do? He has executed himself. It’s out of my hands now, I fear. Nothing I can do.’ Coughing, he closed the notebook, stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette and folded his fingers over his belly. ‘Our Führer put it well: a soldier can die, but a deserter must die. Request a visitor’s pass and go see him, young man. He’ll soon know more than the rest of us.’

  He pointed to the door, took a drink and flicked again through the pages of the illustrated volume. Their gold edges flashed like blades. But Walter didn’t move, and when Domberg blew a gauzy sheet of protective paper off a picture of the Madonna and asked in a strangely muted voice, as if he hadn’t opened his mouth, what e
lse Walter wanted, he even stepped towards the table, took off his cap and said, ‘Please, Sturmbannführer – Fiete didn’t want to desert, I’m sure of it. I know him, we used to live under the same roof and work together, up at the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. He’s a clown, he doesn’t think three steps ahead, and when he first joined us at the farm he didn’t know a rake from a pitchfork. But the animals liked him, the calves licked his hands, and that’s got to mean something. I mean, he’s a great fellow, a brave soldier, he always had energy during basic training, and he shot more accurately than lots of people – more than me, even! He’s delicate, but he isn’t a coward, on the contrary – he’s never shied away from dirty work . . .’

  The officer struggled to hide a yawn; his chin crinkled, and he folded his arms and crossed his legs. The black tips of his boots flashed from under the table. ‘What work exactly? What did you do?’

  Walter gulped. ‘We . . . We’re milkers. Or at least I am, I recently took my apprentice exam. Fiete’s just starting out. He was at grammar school before. We worked at Major General van Cleef’s farm near Sehestedt, and we’ve—’

  ‘Milkers?’ the officer interrupted. ‘What a fine and honourable job. In fact, I come from the country myself, near Königsberg. Three hundred hectares. Mostly wheat, but also milk cattle. Our milkers were always innocent fellows, tanned, with marvellous biceps. You could have dropped a knife on them, point first, and it would have bounced. The girls in the hay had fun with them too, with all that junket they ate.’ Chuckling, he rubbed his chin. ‘But let’s not mince words: will people still need milkers in future? Isn’t it yesterday’s work? Soon it’ll be done by machine, don’t you think?’

  He leaned to the side and ate a spoonful of sugar direct from the pot – a quick, greedy movement – and relieved by his cordial tone Walter shook his head. ‘No, that’s not going to happen, Sturmbannführer. I don’t think so. You learn for three years solid, and to get an udder properly empty you need not just strength but sensitive fingertips. Otherwise you leave remnants in the teats, and everything gets inflamed. Every cow wants to be milked differently, and if you do it wrong she kicks the bucket over. And there are other things you have to do: bring the bull to the heifer and take care that he doesn’t break her back, help with the birth and recognize and treat illnesses. Or carry out emergency slaughters or cut dead calves from their mothers. And there are no machines to do that.’

  The officer curled one corner of his mouth, which still had a few sugar crystals stuck to it: it almost looked like a smile. Light caught in the pale tortoiseshell frame of his glasses and gave them a reddish rim, but when he took them off his eyes suddenly looked much closer together, and as he stared coldly, fine wrinkles swarmed beneath them. Walter regained his composure, took a breath and said, ‘Fiete, I mean Friedrich Caroli, is wounded, Sturmbannführer. He got a splinter and suffered from very severe pain that didn’t let him sleep, and people do stupid things when that happens . . . He’d probably taken all kinds of tablets, and mixed them with alcohol. I’m sure he did that, in fact – he has no sense of moderation. His brain was fogged and he just wanted to get some fresh air, I think. And suddenly the Feldjägerkorps were standing in front of him.’

  The other man clicked his tongue quietly and poured himself another cup of coffee, as Walter lowered his head and continued: ‘He’s just turned eighteen, Sturmbannführer. His parents were burned to death in Hamburg, in the air raids, and his girlfriend has applied for a long-distance wedding. She’s pregnant . . . I know her, she’s a really fine and respectable girl, Ortrud, she’ll whip him into shape . . . Please, don’t have him shot!’ He closed his eyes for a moment, twisted his cap and added more quietly, ‘I’ll take his place if you like. You can send me to the front, to wherever he was going to be deployed. He can drive a tractor, so he’ll be able to deal with a Krupp or a Borgward, and you wouldn’t be short-handed here . . . He’s my friend, Herr Domberg, I mean Sturmbannführer, a really valuable human being. He’ll put everything right.’

  Steam rose from the open thermos, and the officer stared at the picture in his book, the Madonna in her blue robe, reading in a field of flowers. When he drank, a drop of coffee ran down the cup, but then hung from its underside. ‘Your friend, your dear friend . . .’ He shook his head; his nostrils twitched. ‘How long do you think I need to go on hearing that, private? Come to your senses! You’re speaking up in all seriousness for a boy who wanted to leave you and your comrades in the lurch? Who doesn’t care whether the Russians invade our homeland, kill our best men, dishonour our women and tread German culture into the mud? A traitor to the Fatherland? You’re standing here defending cowardice and telling me seriously that this criminal was a good man because your calves licked his hands?’

  The drop of coffee fell on the book that the Madonna was holding in her lap, although Domberg didn’t notice. Walter wanted to say something, but the officer raised his chin and put his glasses back on; when he spoke, his voice had taken on a glassy edge: ‘Listen to me, Urban! Apart from the fact that I could cashier you for your partisanship on this boy’s behalf: in war it is not about what someone wants, feels or thinks, in war the only thing that matters is how someone acts – you must know that, no? And this man, who wears on his belt buckle – as we all do – the words My honour is loyalty, has done the worst thing a soldier can do – he wasn’t even cowardly in the face of the enemy! Oh, no! That would be understandable, under certain circumstances. Instead . . . Well, if a bullet catches you tomorrow, it’s probably because unprincipled boys like him have thrown in the towel.’ He looked at the cap in Walter’s hand. ‘And now put on your cap and close the door behind you! My patience has limits! You and your bunkmates will shoot your friend tomorrow morning, as you’ve been ordered to do, and if you refuse, or get it into your heads to play sick, you can go to the wall too. Is that clear?’

  Domberg waved Walter out, a movement from the wrist that bumped against the rocker blotter beside his lamp. The shadow of its handle, a small bronze eagle, slid enlarged across the wallpaper, and without being aware of it, Walter took another step forwards, to the desk. His eyes were moist, stinging, and his pulse thumped so hard in his ears that he himself could barely hear what he was saying between clenched teeth. But Domberg, who had turned the page of his book, only shrugged. ‘“Why, why . . . ?”’ His voice was soft and defensive again now, and he lit a new cigarette and sighed as he exhaled the smoke. ‘Out of humanity, of course. Because you’re his friend, as you say. You’ll take good aim so that he doesn’t suffer.’

  *

  The bell in the village church was ringing for evening Mass when Walter came back from Győr. It was still raining, and after he had unloaded the medical supplies he picked up a breadbag and ran to the basement. Blood on the steps, the outline of a boot in a dried pool, brownish scrapes on the plaster. The guard, a different one, was cleaning his teeth with a wood chip. He gave a start when Walter handed him his handwritten visitor’s permit. ‘It’s even got a stamp on it,’ the guard said as he opened the metal door. ‘How elegantly the world ends!’

  The turnips smelled sweetly earthy, and Fiete’s coat buttons shone in the beam of light that fell into the darkness. One of the two fezzes lay crushed on the floor; Fiete got slowly up from his bed, a pile of straw. He clung to the wall and knocked over a bowl; the guard closed the door again and said, already half behind the metal barrier, ‘Keep it brief, comrades. It says ten minutes on the chit.’

  The lock snapped shut, and in the sudden silence the sound of rain grew louder. The last of the daylight shone above the field, and without saying a word Walter unclipped the rolled-up blanket from his belt and threw it on the straw. Then he took a candle from his breadbag, lit it and opened the brandy that he had bought from the quartermaster, an Italian brand. His hand was trembling and the screw top clicked quietly against the glass as he avoided his friend’s eye, the frightened question in it. Walter looked up mutely at the bars with their twisted thorns. A draught stirr
ed the dusty cobwebs under the blanket.

  Fiete, whose chest sank, shut his eyes for a moment. He grasped the bottle with both hands and took a sip. They sat down on the straw and Walter took a bar of chocolate, a corner of bread, some dried sausage and two packs of cigarettes from the breadbag, a special tobacco mixture. He had also managed to drum up some sulphur ointment, and while he squeezed some from the tube he looked round; there was no one else in the room, the extent of which one could only guess at in the sparse light. The shadows of the piles of turnips reached almost to the brick vault, where moss and grass hung from the cracks.

  ‘Where are the two Bosnians?’ Walter asked quietly, but Fiete, with the bottle between his knees, only gestured vaguely. Walter asked him to lower his head and rubbed the ointment on the scratches amid the stubble. Then Walter unbuttoned Fiete’s coat and shirt, lifted his healthy arm and checked his armpit. Countless nits were stuck among the sweaty hairs, smaller than sesame seeds, a feeling like sand under his fingertips; he took his comb from his pocket, raked the nits out as best he could, and rubbed some ointment there as well. It burned under his fingernails.

  Guns sounded through the rain, light artillery beyond the Raab. Again and again the noise was drowned by the wind, and Fiete now drank in longer draughts, the brandy spilling from the corner of his mouth and dripping onto his collarbone and the encrusted bandage. But when Walter suggested putting on a new one – he had brought bandages with him – Fiete didn’t even shake his head. He just looked at Walter silently, askance, apparently full of bitter amusement, and tapped a cigarette out of the pack.

  Cheap tobacco crackled over the candle flame, and Fiete’s first drag was followed by a fit of coughing, after which he spat out mucus and a little blood. Eyes gleaming, he stared at the candle on the floor, its little white flame, beneath which the candle wax melted like water. ‘Well,’ he said thickly and took another drag, ‘I tried.’ He licked his cracked lips and repeated the words, louder, as if against the rain and the gunfire outside. ‘At least I tried, damn it! And that’s what counts, isn’t it?’