To Die in Spring

by Ralf Rothmann

  He was a little early. He pushed a basket full of umbrellas aside with the tip of his boot and ordered a beer from the woman by the tap, a thin old woman with her hair in curlers. At the other end of the counter, next to a telephone with scraps of a poster saying ‘The enemy is listening!’ still stuck to the wall above it, Elisabeth was drying cutlery. She exchanged a quick glance with Walter but didn’t interrupt her conversation with a customer whose suit looked new, very smart, made to measure. She too was wearing new clothes, a dress and high heels, but her seamed stockings were already laddered.

  ‘It isn’t the end of the world . . .’ The accordionist struck up the first slow bars of the popular song, and the man talking to Elisabeth drained his brandy glass in one go. With pomaded strands of hair falling into his face, he twisted a ring from his finger and dropped it in the empty glass; Elisabeth tapped her temple and reached over the counter to straighten his tie, a sweat-drenched knot. As she did so she said something to him that sounded like an admonition, and at last the man nodded sadly, stroked her cheek and tottered outside.

  She put the ring in her pocket, took Walter’s beer from the landlady and approached him. As she did so, however, she kept an eye on the smartly dressed man’s departure, as if she were concerned about him, and sure enough, just before he reached the door, he tripped over the accordionist’s hat, and Elisabeth gave a half-smile. Her black hair was longer than before, and she had shaved her eyebrows and drawn in much more dramatic lines in their place. She was wearing lipstick, too, and it was only when she was standing right in front of Walter that she looked him in the eyes. ‘Nice uniform.’ She set his glass down. ‘So where have you been all this time?’

  Her charcoal dress had a wide collar, and there were pearls, framed in gold, in her earlobes. ‘Me? Why?’ Walter sipped from the foam. ‘On a spa cure, of course. Didn’t you get my letters?’

  ‘What letters?’ she asked, lighting a cigarette and studying the bottles on the shelves as if checking stock. She pulled a shred of tobacco from the tip of her tongue as Walter carefully ran his finger along the rim of his glass.

  ‘Well, I didn’t get yours either,’ he said. ‘They probably fell into enemy hands. All those passionate declarations of love . . . The enemy’s going to be bursting with envy. I’m sure you wrote me lots, didn’t you?’

  At first she didn’t reply. Resting her right elbow on the palm of her left hand, with her cigarette at eye level, she looked into the room. Her high heels had altered her posture: she looked prouder, with a confidently protruding bottom, and her breasts seemed bigger as well, which might have had something to do with the very pointed bra she was wearing. In spite of the smoke, Walter could smell her perfume, Old Lavender, and her blue eyes sparkled sternly when she asked, ‘So what’s all this, weren’t you supposed to bring me something nice? Something embroidered?’

  He frowned and drank again. ‘Could be,’ he said and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘But you were supposed to tell me your size, weren’t you?’

  Chuckling, she tapped the ash off her cigarette. ‘Oh, Christ, I don’t believe it! These farmers . . . The man goes to war and doesn’t even bring me a back a blouse. But OK, it wouldn’t have fitted anyway. Those women on the Puszta are a special breed, aren’t they? Plump and fiery, from all that spicy food. Did you take them to the pictures? Or dancing?’

  Walter shrugged. ‘I only saw nurses. And prisoners in the camps.’

  A bald man with a white fringe of hair pricked up his ears and leaned over the corner of the counter. He had big, bulging, bloodshot eyes. ‘It was wrong!’ he growled and drew on the cardboard cigar-holder. ‘All that stuff about the Jews was wrong and stupid, kids, I’ve always said as much. Hitler shouldn’t have locked them up in camps. And he certainly shouldn’t have killed them.’ He stuck out his damp lower lip, blew smoke into the air above him and waved his index finger like a pendulum. ‘If they’d put a Jewish family in every attic, in every factory, on every bridge, or if they’d done the same with all those politicians, or the spies, I swear to you, not a single bomb would have fallen on our cities!’

  Elisabeth, who was brushing her cigarette along the edge of an ashtray, raised her head. The fine wrinkles on her nose seemed to form a little rectangle, and her voice sounded unusually curt when she said, ‘That’s enough, Willi! Politics stay outside – when will you finally get that into your head? Any more of this and you’ll have me to deal with. You’ll be right out that door, you hear?’

  She stared at the bald man, who finally flinched. ‘Yes, General! I beg your forgiveness.’ He held his fingertips to his temples. ‘Any chance of the same again?’

  After she had brought Willi a beer and a schnapps, she rejoined Walter. Wide sunbeams fell slanting into the smoky room and made the ceiling look higher. The faces of the people in the shadows could hardly be seen now, and the ones in the light looked like shadows. Cigarettes glowed here and there, and even though it was noisy, Walter thought he could hear the faint sound of Elisabeth winding her watch. For a long time neither of them knew what to say, but there was nothing disconcerting about the silence – quite the contrary. Walter touched the rim of his glass again. ‘What’s up with it?’ she asked at last and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Broken?’

  ‘No,’ he murmured. ‘I’m just surprised. It feels so thin, so fragile.’

  She hung her apron in a cupboard and looked in the mirror on the inside of the door. ‘Beer glasses are like that. They’ve always been delicate.’ With her hair loosened, she smoothed her dress and smiled at Walter. Above the white collar, her teeth looked greyer than he remembered. ‘Come on, I’ll show you my room. It’s just up here, with a window overlooking the lock on the canal and my own bathroom.’ And as he finished his beer she gave a sign to the woman at the tap and added under her breath, ‘There’s only cold water, but at least it means you won’t burn your feet . . .’

  She lifted a panel of the counter and emerged on the other side, and hand in hand they pushed their way through the crowd. They climbed a narrow flight of stairs with coir runners to an attic floor with navy bunting and dusty model ships hanging from the ceiling and with what must have been at least a dozen doors. A ginger cat came towards them – a thin creature with a quivering, upstretched tail – and darted away in alarm when Elisabeth hissed at it. ‘This is my kingdom,’ she said, taking a key from her pack of cigarettes.

  It was a little garret, a small bedroom, with a mirrored wardrobe and a bed with a carved headboard. On a shelf on the wall there was a tin cup holding an immersion heater, and a bunch of roses wilting in a window niche. The parchment shade of her lamp was scribbled with numbers, phone numbers, perhaps, and no sooner had Elisabeth closed the door than Walter pulled her to him. He wrapped his arms around her waist, but she turned her face away and pushed him back. ‘Hey, hey, hold your horses! You’re scratchy . . .’

  Groaning, she slung her shoes in the corner. Then she put her watch on the bedside table, unbuttoned the collar from her dress, and pulled two white cloths out from under her armpits. She wanted to look as delicate as a young girl as she stood before him in her stockings and entwined her fingers behind his neck to kiss him her way, very gently. After that, her lips were paler, with only a little red in the corners, but the blue of her eyes looked darker. She lay down on the bed and smoothed the empty space next to her. Seabirds cried above the roof.

  ‘What did the man with the tie want from you?’ Walter asked, hanging his jacket on the door handle, pulling his boots off, lying down next to her. The stains on her pillow smelled of hair-cream or pomade, fine quills poked through the pillowcase. ‘Why did he give you his signet ring?’

  A gurgling sound came from the bathroom, which had no door, just a yellow, waxed cloth curtain. Plates clattered in the kitchen below. She pulled a bit of fluff from his hair. ‘Black Market Freddy? Oh Christ, he’s a sad case,’ she said. ‘A soak. He always leaves that bauble here so that he has an excuse to come back to the pub the
next day. He was just flirting with me.’

  ‘Really?’ Walter stared at the water stains on the ceiling and the holes in the plaster with straw hanging out of them. In one spot, the rusty joints of the tin roof were exposed. ‘I’m sure he’s quite a catch. You can tell he’s loaded.’

  She unbuttoned his shirt and touched his chest. ‘Yes, he’s rich, all right. And he looks after himself. Reeks like a pharmacy and rabbits on endlessly. He says I’m his dream girl, and always calls me “Gypsy Queen”.’

  ‘And why did you turn him down?’

  ‘What makes you think I did? He’s one of many admirers, my friend. All I did was tell him he’s too short for me. That I need a tall man. Have you always had hairs on your chest?’

  Walter lowered his chin and looked down at himself. ‘No idea. Probably . . . I’m getting the feeling it’s not a good idea to be too sensitive around you – have I got that right? That Freddy might have a growth spurt, one of these days, or I suppose he might have other, hidden charms . . . What about me, am I tall enough for you?’

  Foghorns sounded in the distance, and Elisabeth blushed. Or perhaps it only looked that way: evening sunlight glowed in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe. ‘Of course there are taller men . . .’ she said, and moved the flap over his fly to one side. ‘Well, look, what have we here? A real zip fastener?’ She ran the back of her painted fingernail along the brass teeth. ‘They’re always in a hurry in America, aren’t they?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I’ve never been there. At least it means you don’t lose as many buttons.’

  His fingers trembled as he tucked some strands of hair behind her ear. Her hair was thin, and blunt from the curling tongs. ‘Have you ever thought about our phone conversation, Liesel?’

  She opened her mouth, apparently perplexed. ‘What’s there to think about it? All I heard was someone saying “I’m back”, and then a kind of stammering on the line . . . Was that a phone conversation?’

  Walter sat up, the old bed creaked, and when Elisabeth raised her head and opened her little eyes, as anxious as before, he saw the shadows of her shaved eyebrows beneath her make-up. ‘Listen,’ he said hoarsely, ‘I only had a few coins, there was this sign that said “Keep it short!” and there were people waiting outside . . . I mean, if you really want, we could do it in church. Frau Thamling would lend us her wedding dress. She showed it to me, you’d hardly notice the smell of mothballs. And I’m sure my mother would send us rings. We’ve known each other for a while, and it might just work out. Being part of a couple is easier, and nicer too in a lot of ways. You’d just have to come with me to the byre . . .’

  He took her hand, and for a few heartbeats she didn’t say anything. The curl fell over her ear again and she sighed deeply. ‘God almighty, if that doesn’t beat everything,’ she said at last. ‘Even that spiv. Who’d have guessed?’ Although she seemed to be amused, her eyes looked disheartened. ‘“You’d just have to come with me to the byre”! . . . I don’t think anyone’s ever had such a romantic proposal!’

  She pulled away from him, and he sank back against the headboard. The carvings pressed into his back, the wooden fruits and flowers. ‘So?’

  But Elisabeth, resting her chin on her hand, was busy with his zip again, pulling it up and down. ‘So what?’ she replied. ‘Don’t ask such stupid questions! Who gets married at seventeen if they don’t have to? And anyway, I’m glad to be in a town at last. I like it here, I’ve got friends, clothes, pretty shoes. The boss’s daughter never came back from Neuengamme, so I can wear her stuff. On Sunday I walk to the harbour, to the ocean liners, where the sailors in their white uniforms whistle at me – and you want to drag me back to the sticks?’

  He nodded thoughtfully. ‘The farm is in great shape, I can promise you that. Near Schleswig, I took a look at it yesterday. Thirty-five dairy cows and a bull, a prize-winning bull at that. His name’s Mozart, like the singer. But they’ll only take on a married milking couple, of course, to save on a farm hand.’ He slipped down deeper and nestled against her. ‘We can live rent-free in a little house on the edge of the field, you know. Three well-furnished rooms plus garden and wages in kind, which means one pig a year, geese, eggs, flour. No one to tell us what to do as long as we milk, keep the byre in order and bring the milk to the dairy in Böklund. There’s a horse cart for the churns. And there’s a dance with different bands every Saturday – then on Sunday I could look after the cows on my own, and you could sleep in. What do you say?’

  She didn’t reply, just clicked her tongue indignantly, and when Walter got his breath back she grabbed him by the ears and whispered into his mouth, ‘Just shut your trap, will you?’ Sharp fingernails, a painful grip, but her lips were softer and fuller. She pulled her dress over her head, undid her bra; he took off his trousers, still lying down, and then he felt the buttons of her suspenders on her thighs, the cool nylon seams, and her black curls tickled his cheek as she said, ‘And now pay attention . . .’

  Shadows darted through the room and turned into seagulls when they brushed the mirror. The bed wobbled, the head struck the cast-iron radiator, and Elisabeth, with the tip of her tongue between her teeth, didn’t close her eyes as she moved, or only briefly, at the very last moment, when she also closed her mouth tight. And a little later they lay still, side by side, staring at the ceiling and waiting for their heartbeats to subside, for the sweat on their skin to cool and the quiet sadness for which they had no words to fade. Darkness fell slowly.

  *

  They slept for about an hour and woke up when a beam of light flashed through the window from the canal. Elisabeth sat up, rolled off her stockings and opened her flesh-coloured garter belt. The hanger on which she had hung her dress had a crocheted cover. The miaowing of the cat came from the corridor, its scratching at the door, which only fell silent when she threw a shoe. She pulled a half-full bottle of wine from behind her roses and showed Walter the label, a fat monk. ‘Doesn’t he look like old Hunstein, the farmers’ leader? What a bastard he was, incorrigible. His forced labourers finally lynched him. The rope broke twice, and in the end they had to use fencing wire.’ She bit her lip to keep from smiling. The cork broke when she pulled it out; she removed the remainder with a pair of scissors, filled a tin cup and held it out. ‘You first, you’re the guest. I’ve already raised a glass. Let’s drink to Fiete.’

  The wine was almost black, and though it smelled good, it tasted strangely metallic. Elisabeth lay down beside him again, snuggled against his shoulder, stroking the hair on his chest. As she did so she looked dreamily out of the window, and Walter drank again, but his mouth felt drier with each sip. His teeth were on edge as well.

  ‘Deserting . . .’ Elisabeth said softly and slowly, as if speaking a foreign language. ‘Crazy, don’t you think? Why would he do something like that when he knew how dangerous it was? He was usually so clever . . . Couldn’t you have kept an eye on him?’

  Walter frowned. ‘Was I his big brother? He was fighting in a completely different unit.’

  She studied him. Her scent of lavender had almost fled.

  ‘I warned him, of course,’ Walter went on. ‘Everyone was afraid of Siberia, of forced labour camps . . . But the Hungarian-Germans couldn’t be trusted to hide you . . . they only pretended to be on our side . . . they’d blow the whistle on deserters as soon as their backs were turned . . . and the military police were all over the place, searching every barn and bog. Fiete had no chance on the plains, which are so flat you can see in the morning what’s going to happen in the afternoon . . . But he didn’t listen to me – he just wanted to get back to his Ortrud.’

  She gently stroked his cock. ‘And what about you? Didn’t you want to come back to me?’

  Some wine dripped into the hollow of his throat as he handed her the cup. ‘Of course I wanted to get away. But I wasn’t on the front lines . . . I was just standing around while all that madness went on. I barely fired a shot . . . or only one, to be precise. So I was
in less danger of dying in battle than of being executed if I tried to run away.’

  Elisabeth sat up; her pearls shimmered dimly, the light from the lock on the canal shone in her hair. Her cheeks pale, she stared sightlessly into the distance, and while she drank her eyes glistened. ‘But who –’ she asked hoarsely – ‘who could bring himself to do something like that? I mean, the men who shot him, weren’t they comrades, boys like Friedrich? Didn’t they have any qualms about killing him? They aimed and fired, just like that?’

  Walter closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Yes, what an idea. What have you got left? Either you carry out the order or you refuse to . . . and if you refuse, that’s your own death sentence, which will also be ruthlessly enforced. That’s you up against the wall. There’s only one consolation, a faint one – in one of the rifles there’s always a blank, at least if it’s a comrade who’s due for the chop. So everyone in the firing squad can imagine he wasn’t responsible. A matter of morale . . .’

  Elisabeth set the cup down beside her ashtray and waited for Walter to go on, but he was done. The floodlight on the lock went out. ‘Were you there?’ she asked in an undertone, almost whispering. ‘Did you see it?’

  His stubble rustled as he ran his fingers over his chin, and it might have been because of the sudden darkness that his human silence seemed somehow more audible than the room’s own, natural stillness. The repeated mewing in the corridor didn’t change any of it, and neither did the foghorn outside, so close and tuned so deeply that the thin panes shook. ‘I saw a lot,’ he said at last and swallowed. ‘Too much, if you ask me. But that was the war.’

  Elisabeth wiped her eyes. She’d put her thumb on the switch of her bedside lamp, though hadn’t turned it on yet. It seemed that she must have been concentrating closely on Walter’s answer, for a time, drawing her lower lip over her upper as she often did when she was thinking. Soon, however, she shook her head – a short, energetic movement, as if she were crossing something out inside herself – blew a curl away from her forehead, and said quietly, ‘Poor boy. He deserved better.’