Something seemed to be bubbling in Fiete’s bronchia and Walter nodded hesitantly. A shape moved in the darkness, and Walter narrowed his eyes to see more clearly. A rat scuttled over the rim of a supply case, a black creature with a lighter tail; it retreated among the turnips when Walter threw a lump of plaster. He saw there were tooth marks gnawed into the sweet centres of the vegetables. He cracked a few nits that were still stuck to his fingers and said, ‘Who knows . . . Perhaps the Russians will be here sooner than we think. Maybe even tomorrow morning.’
The wax flowed onto the stone floor, and Fiete, frowning, shook his head. ‘That wouldn’t help – they don’t distinguish between volunteers and forced recruits, Ata. They shoot every SS man on sight, haven’t you heard?’
Drinking, Fiete stared at his clogs. The wood was cracked and lined with leather at the ankles, and he pressed the tips together and groaned, ‘Christ, what am I doing here. I mean, if I’d voted for Hitler, like most of them . . . But I wanted nothing to do with this mess, any more than you did. I have no enemies, at least none that want to kill me. This is a war for cynics, who don’t believe in anything but might makes right . . . when in fact they’re only mediocrities and weaklings, I found that out in the field. Kick downwards, bow and scrape upwards, and massacre women and children.’ With his cigarette in his mouth he squeezed some ointment onto his fingers and said more quietly, as if to himself, ‘And those are the men who’ll be allowed to blow out my light.’
He put his hand into the waist of his trousers and rubbed his pubic region; both Fiete and Walter gave a start when a door banged nearby. Voices could be heard, drunken laughter, a dog barking. ‘“Milli”, her name is,’ someone called, ‘Melitta in fact. She’ll throw the bone saw at your head!’ With his lips almost white, Fiete closed his eyes and sank against the worn plaster of the wall. A moment later the men went away; the corridor was quiet again apart from the footsteps of the guard, who whistled sometimes to drive away the boredom. Every few heartbeats the chink in the doorway darkened.
Fiete gulped. ‘The strange thing is that I’ve often dreamed of being shot,’ he said. ‘Over the last few years I’ve been shot again and again, and sometimes it was even an act of kindness, of deliverance. For example, if I’d lost my will to live, or was heartbroken, or world-weary or whatever . . . Peace at last, I thought – you can all fuck off, you idiots. But mostly I sat up straight in bed with my hands on my chest and could hardly breathe.’
The cigarette had gone out and Fiete held it to the flame again. ‘My father was a doctor, a medical researcher and orderly, did I ever tell you that? In the last war, long before I was born, he was injured several times – snipers. He had a bad limp. And later, when he’d been taken prisoner by the French, somewhere on the Rhône, they made him dig his own grave three times. They’d blindfold him, so he thought he was about to be executed. They yelled orders, loaded their carbines – but then the Frogs just pissed in the hole and he had to fill it up again. He was a good fellow . . . he cried a lot when he talked about the war.’
Fiete spat out some tobacco. ‘And once, when I mentioned my dreams, he told me that the cells of our bodies have memories, semen and ovaries too, and that’s what gets passed down. If you’re mentally or physically injured it does something to the next generation. The insults, the blows or the bullets that hit you also injure your own unborn child, so to speak. And later on, however well you bring them up, they’re terrified of being insulted, beaten or shot. At least in the subconscious, in their dreams. It makes sense . . . it’s logical, don’t you think?’
He flicked away what was left of his cigarette and took another drink. A fine spray of water was blowing through the bars now. Walter smoothed some of the cooling, almost solidified candle wax back up around the wick. ‘What about the one who has to do the shooting?’ he asked tonelessly, after clearing his throat. ‘What does he inherit?’
At the edge of the field outside they could see a guard walking past in a hooded coat. A few straws slipped into the wax and caught fire. Fiete scratched the back of his neck. In the glow of the rising flame his face looked for a moment as it had before, like the face of an elegant girl, half covered by the shadow of his arm, and he smiled dully and said, ‘How should I know, captain. Probably a great sadness.’
The rain grew quieter. A single chime rang in the village. Fiete handed Walter the bottle, drew up the blanket under his chin and rested his head on his friend’s shoulder. Walter sipped at the brandy, which burned his throat and stomach but didn’t warm him. Holding his breath, he closed his eyes when he felt his friend’s hand touching his cheek, neck and chest quite unselfconsciously, unconcerned about encountering opposition. It was a silent assurance – a final one, in fact, and Walter averted his head to hide his tears.
Fiete coughed again. ‘Do you remember that sick dog in Malente, Ata? That stray street dog with the frothing mouth? How it came charging across the playground at training school with bloodshot eyes and everyone shouted and ran away? Christ, he was a brute! He panted as if he’d swallowed something red hot. And suddenly I was the only one standing there, with my back to the wall, and he hobbled over to me like the devil himself. Remember?’
Tracer flares rose into the sky outside, and Walter nodded. Fiete spat more mucus. ‘I was almost fainting with fear. Why me? I wondered at the time. Why me of all people, damn it? Everyone was gawping from behind the window, and I actually saw myself dead or in hospital, and I thought – but it was more of a feeling than a thought – yes, just a moment, why not? Why not me? And suddenly I was filled with a freedom, Ata, like I’d never experienced before. I felt very light. I didn’t feel fear any more – or, anyway, felt it a lot less – and that beast from hell, that poor dog, actually turned round . . .’ He shook his head and snorted quietly. ‘Crazy, isn’t it? He’d have finished me off in no time.’
Walter, giving Fiete back the bottle, didn’t say anything, couldn’t think of anything to say. His friend tipped down what was left of the brandy and threw it into the turnip pile, where it landed intact – there was no crash of breaking glass – though it started some of the vegetables rolling, culminating in a dull thud that sounded like wood or bones, and which was itself followed by a cloud of dust. Greyish brown, the dust billowed through the cellar, the candlelight; the spicy smell of soil came from the field, dried in the sun, the autumn of the harvest, and Fiete pressed himself against Walter again and closed his eyes.
His breathing was heavy and slightly wheezy, and the vein in his neck throbbed quickly; Walter could feel the boy shaking, could feel his fear. He peeled wax from his fingers and listened: not a sound in the corridor. The guns on the other side of the river had fallen silent as well; perhaps they might both have nodded off briefly on the straw. To Walter at least, with the cold wind on his back, the squeaking somewhere underneath the turnips sounded like the hissing and whistling of damp logs in childhood campfires. His friend threw part of the blanket over him. ‘You’re shivering,’ Fiete whispered.
At that moment, the key turned in the lock. The corner of the door scraped on the stone floor and the thin metal, a corner of iron, curved inwards and then regained its shape with a snap.
Fiete sat up, grabbed Walter’s wrist to look at the watch. Behind the cone of light stood several soldiers. The Sturmbannführer’s adjutant carried in a paraffin lamp on a wire and set it down next to the candle. Then he pulled his gloves off, put them in the pockets of his leather coat and winked at his two subordinates. ‘Some might speak of luck,’ he said. His rousing voice, used to issuing orders, echoed under the vault. ‘You need someone to put in a good word for you, Caroli.’
As if intoxicated by the smell of the turnips, moths fluttered into the room from the corridor. The boys looked at each other, and Troche grinned tartly as he bent down and gave the condemned man a yellow envelope. ‘With greetings from the boss. Unusually, you are being given permission to inform your closest relatives. No more than twenty-four lines, readable. No pl
ace names, no names of comrades or officers, nothing about martial law. Stick to the lines and don’t write in the margin.’ He pushed up the peak of his cap and looked inquisitively into Fiete’s face. ‘Have you got that, young man? Name of the recipient on the other side.’
Fiete’s eyebrows twitched, but he didn’t say a word. He stared past Troche, eyes goggling, at the wax around the wick, flowing again, and it was only when Troche gestured to Walter to leave the room that he slumped in on himself and took a deep breath. ‘No, wait!’
He reached for Walter’s arm. His pale face contorted with fear, he clawed his hand into Walter’s uniform and stood up with him, one foot slipping from its clog. Walter supported Fiete, helped him back into his shoe, and hung the blanket back around his shoulders. With trembling fingers Walter brushed a piece of straw from the fabric, an ear of wheat like gold seen through tears, nodded to Fiete and drew him carefully to him. He’d never embraced a man before, and Fiete, who seemed incredibly slender in spite of the blanket and the coat, and whose chin was still youthfully smooth, rose on tiptoe and said into Walter’s ear: ‘Good luck, captain. Thanks for everything. And say hello to Ortrud, all right? Say hello to everybody. It’ll all be over tomorrow.’
Then he coughed, fought to suppress any further coughs, and asked hoarsely, almost wheezing, ‘Will you be there?’
He was panting now. Gravel crunched under the guards’ boots, and Walter held his friend tighter, kissed his temple. Fiete’s eyes closed and his cracked lips moved without making a sound, as though his throat was paralysed. As Walter pressed his cold brow against Fiete’s, which was drenched with sweat, and ran his hand over the stubble of Fiete’s hair, he couldn’t even swallow. Fiete groaned through gritted teeth, and Walter patted him gently on the back and repeated: ‘It’s fine, Imi. They’re all idiots. Tomorrow nothing will hurt you any more.’
The wind blew through the bars, the soldiers in the corridor held a whispered conversation, and both Walter and Fiete had stopped crying by the time they parted at last, looking at each other for another few heartbeats. Their eyes darkened, just a little, but enough that their colours, pale blue and greenish brown, could no longer be told apart. Troche stamped out the candle stub with his heel and clapped his hands. ‘Right, off we go, we haven’t got all night!’ he said. ‘Write your letter, Caroli!’
Fiete looked round, supporting himself on the wall. Grains of sand trickled from the rotting plaster. ‘What do you mean? Now?’ Raising his scabby eyebrows, he pulled the blanket up under his chin. ‘You want me to write it now?’
‘Of course!’ said the adjutant and reached into his coat pocket. ‘Why do you think I’m hanging around? I’m waiting!’
He took out a fountain pen, unscrewed it and once again ordered Walter to leave the room. Walter nodded to the condemned man, accidentally kicking a discarded belt on the floor that lay beside the fez. The buckle rattled as he stepped backwards, his shadow broadening on the floor and the wall, losing itself in the dark behind the bars. ‘So, till tomorrow,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I’ll be there.’
But Fiete didn’t look up. He had set the piece of paper down by the paraffin lamp and now wrote kneeling, with his forearms on the floor. The blanket had slipped down to the back of his neck and his head was barely visible. The corners of the blanket covered his hands, and the emblem on the cap of the fountain pen, a kind of snowflake, shimmered dimly. ‘Thank you,’ he said, and went on writing.
*
The temperature dropped during the night, and in the morning thin ice lay over the puddles. Half sunk in the morass, an anti-aircraft gun stood on the mound beyond the field. The first birds sang and the pale reeds swayed as an old boar walked to the water. A massive beast with bristles that stood on end, dew-drenched, on the back of its neck, it raised its snout and sniffed, then studied the fir trees on the opposite shore with narrow eyes before bending down and browsing on the duckweed. Its ear-tips twitched, its tail twirled contentedly. Then it rolled grunting in the mud, the smell of ammonia filled the air, and after rubbing its steaming hide and sharpening its long tusks against an oak tree – the bark cracked and split, teeth squeaked against the white wood – the lonely bath was soon over, and the boar vanished as quietly as it had come.
Frost lay on the two graves behind the barn – narrow heaps bearing the boot prints of the soldiers who had tramped the earth down the previous day. The men sat at the end of the long table eating jam and bread, and Jörn was pouring tea for them from a big metal jug. He wore fingerless gloves and a field cap with earflaps, and while the apprentice tanner and the schoolboys were fanning their cards, Jörn waved Walter over and held out a cup. ‘You look awful. Didn’t you get any sleep?’
At first Walter didn’t reply, or only with a brief movement of his head, then he joined them. Five cleaned and oiled carbines with walnut stocks and oxidized barrels leaned against the wall with five helmets hanging from their muzzles. Walter wrapped his hands around the hot metal cup and said, ‘I tried to see him again . . . but the guards . . . Forget it. Sometimes I could hear him coughing in the hole, and it sounded as though he was already under the ground.’
Jörn looked Walter over carefully, reached his arm across the table and tried to feel his forehead with the backs of his fingers, but Walter flinched away. Jörn poured some schnapps into Walter’s tea from his silver hip flask. ‘Don’t think about it too much,’ he said. ‘Your darkest hour is just dark and that’s that, these days you’ve just got to chalk that one up to fate. And for the lad, it’s probably not as bad as you think. At university, I jumped off the scaffolding once, from the second floor, and I can’t remember how I even got up there. I had already lost consciousness before I landed. It’s a kind of mercy if you’re about to have a hard landing.’
An officer shook the posts at the top of the field, three alder trunks, to check their soundness. A stethoscope dangled from the pocket of his fur jacket.
Jörn rubbed and kneaded his fingers. ‘Well, Christ on a bike, there I was thinking spring was on the way! Where’s your coat? Aren’t you freezing your arse off?’
Walter, eyes closed, drank again. The tea was very sweet, so much so that he could barely taste the schnapps. ‘Fiete has it,’ he said into the cup, then added quietly, ‘I’m going to try and miss anyway . . .’
The schoolboys were biting into their rolls and arguing about the sequence of the game, but Florian, the apprentice tanner, had heard what Walter said. He ran the corner of a card down his Adam’s apple and said, ‘Don’t be an idiot – he’s going to die no matter what. They’ll count the bullets, and if there’s one missing they’ll send us all to the front before lunch. This very evening we’ll just be guts lying in tank tracks.’
The schoolboys looked up and Jörn folded his arms in front of his chest; he spoke quietly, almost conspiratorially. ‘He’s right, Walter. Don’t drop us all in it! Fiete will go on living in the next world, believe me. In a kind of dream that you don’t ever have to wake up from. I bet he won’t even recognize us.’
He pointed to the carbines with his thumb. ‘And one of them will be a blank anyway. So anyone can imagine . . .’
He didn’t finish his sentence, and Walter looked at him. ‘How do you know that?’ he asked, but didn’t get an answer. The horse in the corner turned its head.
The Sturmbannführer entered the barn, then, leading a little retinue, his adjutant clicking his fingers. The soldiers climbed over their benches and stood to attention, and Domberg, his glasses dusty, his eyes red in their deep cavities, raised his unshaven chin and studied the row man by man. He even straightened a belt buckle and adjusted a collar. It was only when he came to Walter that he relaxed his gaze. Then he looked at his watch and put his hands in his pockets.
His coat stretched over his belly and his fatty neck wobbled when he barked, ‘So, gentlemen, I expect manliness and character. There are situations in war when you have to be stronger than your own scruples. Anyone who gives up on our fateful struggle at
this crucial hour gives us all up for lost, and has squandered the right to live in our midst. Let’s be clear about this – the man who will shortly stand facing your rifles is not a comrade but an enemy. He has trodden our honour and loyalty underfoot, and for that there can be but one punishment.’
Sirens sounded in Győr, an air raid. Domberg straightened his glasses and threatened his troops with a finger. ‘By the way: in case any of you were thinking of refusing the order, I must remind you that such a man would receive no sympathy from me.’ Though his tone of voice was now quite conversational, it sounded, if anything, more penetrating than before, as if his words were themselves made up of icy air. ‘Such a man would know, I hope, where he too would be made to stand.’ His tongue slipped along the bottom row of his teeth. ‘Is that clear to everyone?’
As one they all said, ‘Yes, Sturmbannführer!’ and he saluted them limply, giving more of a wave, hardly moving his arm, before nodding to his adjutant and leaving the room. As he did so he clapped the horse in the corner on its dusty neck.
Troche, whose scars were paler that morning, paler even than the rest of his face, took off his cap, put on a steel helmet and gestured to the squad to do the same. In spite of the leather inner linings, the cold metal of the helmets could be felt on their shaven heads, and as they fastened the straps Troche pointed to their weapons and said, ‘So, let’s sort this thing out. I’m sure everyone knows the rules of the game. You stand shoulder to shoulder, release your safety catches at the same time, aim for the chest, and wait for my order. No one is to look the criminal in the eyes, no one is to address a word to him. So out you go now, take up your positions!’
To Die in Spring Page 13