—Don’t rush me, Grandmother Please, I beg you, give me time, let me tell the story in my own way and at my own speed, and above all, trust me to guide you through it. Tomorrow we’ll say good-bye, who knows for how long, who knows if not forever—and believe me, Grandmother, you’re getting the shortest and quickest possible version I can give you, I even have it outlined here on my palm, station by station ... so please, be patient with me, because now that we’re starting up the trail again you’ll see that the direction I took that night, which certain individuals insisted on interpreting as a cowardly flight from battle, or at the very least, as a panic-stricken error, was from my point of view a deep penetration, a nocturnal sally into the bright womb that Koch lectured me so brilliantly about. Because now I know that if someday we’re called upon to justify this horrible war that we started with the clearest premeditation, to justify the blood, the suffering, the conflagration that we’ve spread everywhere, we’ll know what to answer and won’t just have to stand there mumbling sheepishly like after the last beastly war, when we were accused of invading France to force our blood on the French and English without anyone, not even us, realizing what we were up to, which was to drive south as we’ve finally done, to ancient Hellas, to this island of Crete, this most wonderful place that has been from the start, Grandmother, in my own humble opinion, the true grail of our German soul, whose deepest desire, to put it most simply, is to exit from history by hook or by crook, if not forward then backward, so that if the French, back then, in the first war, hadn’t insisted on stopping us at the frontier, we would have rushed through their country without damaging it in the least, just like, yes, like tourists of sorts, because deep down we Germans are nothing but the most passionate tourists who sometimes must conquer the countries we dream of in order to tour them unhindered, with the thoroughness to which we’re accustomed...
—No, I’m not joking ... certainly not now...
—That could be. Perhaps it’s just a fantasy of mine. And perhaps it’s not. At least let me finish explaining myself before you judge me ... Here, hold onto me tight while you take this step. The trail gets narrower here...
—I am not stalling...
—I’m getting to that ... just a few more steps, there’s a chair waiting for you up there ... this is the second station, Grandmother...
—I brought it up here this morning, just for you.
—Why not? Don’t you think you deserve it?
—Of course I’ll return it. But now sit down, please, yes, right over here, and take these binoculars and focus them as is best for you on that broad valley down there ... yes, there, on that little woods and the hill behind it ... exactly...
—To the right of that village, Grandmother, where the hill grows slightly darker...
—Perfect.
—They’re not rocks. It’s an archaeological site.
—Exactly. Exactly. That’s ancient Knossos you’re looking at, Grandmother, Knossos in all its glory...
—How can you not remember? The legendary Labyrinth ... the palace of King Minos ... Then did Zeus first father of Minos, protector of Crete
—Homer.
—From the books you sent me. And thanks again for going to the trouble.
—Of course I read them.
—I know, you can’t see much from here, but I wanted you at least to get a glimpse of it. I can’t tell you how much I’d love to take you on a tour of that wonderful place, which I’ve become a student and a patron of these past three years, but Schmelling strictly forbade it. He’s afraid to risk you in a partisan attack, and I couldn’t get him to relent. You have no idea how worried he is about your safety—he almost wouldn’t allow me to take you up this hill. He didn’t rest easy until he had posted those five half-prisoners down there, those ex-Italian soldiers whom you see sitting at the bottom of the hill and keeping an eye on our little excursion.
—Yes, just for us. Why not? What else do they have to do? When we were winning the war, they were too lazy to fight it with us, and now that we’re losing it, they’re too lazy to run away. But enough of them, Grandmother. From here you have a clear view of the route I took that night. South! But I wasn’t, perish the thought, deserting the field of battle, I was simply taking a leave of absence from it until the dead wolves in their chutes were reinforced by some living ones. And in the meantime, Grandmother, having honestly sworn by Opapa’s memory not to be taken prisoner, I decided to penetrate even further, just as I was, all bruised and scratched and aching, and above all, keep in mind, exceedingly nearsighted, into the mountains, to look for some private battlefield of my own that might do until I obtained new glasses. I walked blindly on in the darkness, guided perhaps by the spirit of old Koch, which may have heard itself invoked when I jumped from the plane, making my way over fences and through orchards with the crickets sawing all around me. I must have walked a good five kilometers, although it seemed like thirty to me. And then all at once, without any warning, I found myself in the ruins of that wonderful palace of the Labyrinth, whose immense significance, Grandmother, I sensed immediately even though it was built three thousand five hundred years ago and I couldn’t see it very well, so that I plunged into it faint with excitement, climbing up and down the chipped marble stairs from hall to hall and passing through the reddish columns that divided the rooms, in whose corners, by the dim, flitting starlight, I saw huge clay urns glazed with colors so magnificent that I could make them out even in the darkness. And painted on the walls, Grandmother, were slender-waisted youths and maidens in a long line that followed a beautiful, enormous red bull, whose huge V-shaped horns I already had seen on the roof of some ruin. And it was then, Grandmother, walking as though in a dream in that dark silence, that I suddenly felt very close, but unbelievably close, to the Führer, to our own Hitler, because although I still had no idea where I was, I already had guessed the secret purpose of the bloody expedition he had sent us on from afar. He was not looking to decimate the English in Crete, or for a jumping-off point to Suez—those were just excuses for his generals, so that they would order their army to this place. No, Grandmother, the Führer was obeying old Gustav Koch’s imperative to look for that most ancient source at which, Grandmother, I, Private Egon Bruner, had arrived all by myself, the first German arrow to be shot from that great bow, a one-man conqueror in the night. Which was why, Grandmother, in the spirit of the sixth commandment, I decided right then and there that this was the place I was going to fight and die for...
—No, not to fight for those ruins, Grandmother, but for what might be resurrected from them, for the new man we talked and thought about so much on those long winter evenings back in ‘39 when I was studying for my German history exams. You already knew for sure then, Grandmother, that a world war was unavoidable, and you were worried about being blamed for it as we were for the last one and left without justification while the fruits of victory rotted in our hands ... And so I thought that perhaps here, on this island of all places, the rationale that my grandmother was looking for might be found, which is a thought that I’ve been gnawing away at for the last three years...
—I swear.
—But what makes you say I vanished? I never did ... how did I?
—But I was simply cut off ... I had lost my glasses ... and I misread the battle, because I confused south with north...
—How can you say such a thing, Grandmother? You, who pushed for the transfer of a nearsighted person like me to a unit of tigers and wolves...
—Not at all! If I really had deserted, I would have been court-martialed and shot at once ... It’s unimaginable that you should judge me more harshly than the general staff of the 7th Paratrooper Division. Why can’t you see that I was saved by a miracle, and that it’s a miracle that I’m standing before you right now? From a purely military point of view, it would have been far easier to die with the thirteen hundred other pack wolves who were killed in the first twenty-four hours on that triangular battlefield you see down below y
ou...
—Yes. One thousand three hundred. It’s a number I happen to know by heart, and you’ll soon see why...
—Soon ... if you let me tell my whole story. I’m beginning to think you’d be happier if I were one thousand three hundred and one...
—Because you’d finally think I had something in common with the real Egon...
—I meant...
—Never mind...
—I’m sorry, Grandmother ... I really am...
—I’m sorry...
—Because I know that deep down you’ve never come to terms with the basic fact of my existence...
—Sometimes I can’t help thinking that...
—Well, then, I was wrong, and I have to ask you once more for forgiveness, Grandmother. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry: I’ll say it a thousand times before I let this day with you be spoiled...
—How? Why? On the contrary, on the contrary, Grandmother, I never dreamed of dishonoring Egon, far from it, I was acting for the glory of Germany. Who if not I, Grandmother, shared your anguish from the time I was a child over the unfair blame put on Germany for that pointlessly beastly first war, a blame so great that I even imagined it weighing on the soil of his grave in France, in that field full of crosses...
—Of course I remember that visit. I even remember how awful those French peasants were in that village of Mericur, when they saw Opapa standing in his white uniform and saluting his son’s grave.
—But I do ... why shouldn’t I? How old was I?
—That’s all? Really?
—You see? And I really do remember it, honor-bright as only a child can be when dreaming of the day when someone in white uniform will come to salute his grave ... so that not only haven’t I forgotten Egon’s death, I’ve done everything to make it more meaningful...
—It wasn’t the fatigue, Grandmother It was the isolation that I wasn’t used to. Why, from the day I was drafted until that night, I never had a moment to myself. I was surrounded all the time by the wolf pack, wherever I went I marched in line under some officer’s watchful eye, if it wasn’t one set of orders or superiors it was another, day in and day out, in the end I was even dreaming other people’s dreams ... and now, all of a sudden, without the slightest warning, I was totally alone, in a strange landscape, without a single German in sight, and worst of all, Grandmother, without an officer to tell me what to do. And so my first task was to find myself a CO, which I did, for lack of anyone better, by commissioning myself, a promotion that was so successful that I bowed to its authority immediately and ordered myself to prepare a strategic position behind those huge urns that could double as a hideout and a lookout. And since without my glasses my combat capabilities were inevitably restricted, I opened my stretcher, Grandmother, lay down on my back, and ate my first battle rations to the song of the crickets while staring in a trance at the sky, which was full of glorious new stars that you’ll soon be seeing for yourself. And thus, at the end of the first day of battle, on the night between the twentieth and twenty-first of May, 1941, I fell into a deep, almost prehistoric sleep, from which I was awakened in the morning by the whinny of a mule that had been led into the palace by two Greek civilians—whom, on the spur of the moment, I took prisoner at once, jumping out of my hiding place.
—Yes, I had to take them prisoner, and in a minute you’ll understand why. But first, if you’re rested, why don’t we go on to the next station. I promise that from here on the trail is much easier going. We’ll swing around now to the western side of the hill and look down on the city ... here, let me help you up...
—No, it won’t get dark for quite a while. We started out at four, and we’ll be back at seven sharp, untouched by darkness and in time for Bruno Schmelling’s dinner...
—Don’t worry ... I’ll send one of the Italians tomorrow to fetch it...
—It’s all right ... it really is...
—No, I won’t forget. But really, Grandmother, instead of worrying about that wretched chair, why don’t you look at the fabulous view now coming into sight in the special light this place has whose clarity is so great that it sometimes stretches my mind almost painfully. And listen, Grandmother, to some poetry that I memorized: There is a land called Crete amid the wine-red sea,/ Beauteous, fertile and girdled by water,/ Settled by peoples innumerable and boasting of ninety cities / Many are the tongues there spoken,/ And on it is Knossos, citadel of royal Minos,/ Friend of mighty Zeus Nine years did he rule there... etcetera, etcetera ... ha ha...
—Maybe...
—Maybe.
—Just like that ... I felt like it. But hold on to my belt now and listen to that Greek ship tooting away down there as it enters the harbor. When I hear those ships’ horns in my sleep at night, I sometimes think that I’ve managed after all to board one of Father’s warships...
—I mean, Grandfather ... I was thinking of Opapa...
—Perhaps you’re right and I’m purposely dragging out the story. And it may well be, Grandmother, that already then the first seed was sown of what you call my “vanishing” and Schmelling calls my “entanglement,” although I simply call it my POWer play. Because the minute I saw those two Greek civilians, the truth about whom I couldn’t have imagined then in my wildest dreams, coming into that big room...
—I’ll get to that ... in a minute...
—No, that’s a surprise ... I have to keep you in suspense to make sure you’ll stay with me to the end...
—Soon ... soon. Anyway, these two men were leading a mule loaded with two or three saddlebags that they meant to hide up there for a rainy day, because they, Grandmother, hadn’t the least doubt that we Germans would win the battle that was still going on. And knowing the place well, they realized immediately, by the way the urns had been moved, that someone was hiding there. They froze ... and before they could run off to tell the English—who, because of the silence, I thought had won the battle—I decided to take them prisoner rather than be taken one myself, and so I jumped out of my hiding place with my schmeisser pointed straight at them, at least as far as my vision permitted, and yelled at them in English to surrender
—Hands up! That’s what they taught us in Athens to say to any Englishman trying to strike up a conversation...
—Kill them?
—But what for, Grandmother? They were civilians, and in May ‘41 killing civilians wasn’t standard procedure yet. No one knew at the time that they were our worst enemies...
—Two, a father and son. And of the two of them it was the son, who was only a few years older than me and looked like one of us, well built and blond with a rather pleasant face, who panicked at the sight of my schmeisser, while the father remained cool and collected, perhaps because in any case he looked like a ghost who had just stepped out of a grave in the palace. He had on a dusty black suit and a thin, striped tie that was knotted around his neck like a rope, and he was bald and wore glasses ... which, to tell you the truth, Grandmother, was reason enough in itself for my preemptive strike...
—Of course ... although as soon as I snatched them off his nose and put them on my own I saw that I needn’t have bothered, because the same world that had been all big and blurry now became as tiny and far-off as if I were looking through a telescope. Not that I returned them to him, because I confiscated them and stuck them in my pocket for further examination. I could tell from the glimmer of a smile on his face that he realized at once that the black scorpion that had fallen on him was a German paratrooper with the bad luck to get lost and lose his glasses, which seemed so perfectly natural to him that right away, without waiting to be asked any questions, he began chatting politely in simple but quite understandable German. He began by introducing himself as a tour guide to the old palace who had come up there that morning to see if the fighting hadn’t ruined his ruins, to which he added that he would be glad to take me home with him to look for a better pair of glasses ... and seeing that I looked doubtful, because I suspected a trap...
—Exactly.
—Exactly ... and so right away, no less calmly than before, he suggested sending his son for the glasses and remaining with me as a hostage, which was far too logical and fair an offer for me to turn down, Grandmother ... at which precise point my odd relationship with those two men began...
—In a minute ... I’m getting to it...
—No, they’re not around anymore ... but wait ... just wait...
—No, you’re wrong. It wasn’t a trap, and it was no fault of their own that the battle was over by the time I got back to the battlefield. You see, I still was convinced that the island was swarming with English, and although I was determined to put up a fight and not be taken prisoner, how could I fight without my glasses? And so, as I said, I gladly accepted that German-speaking ghost’s offer to be my hostage, although I took every precaution and made him descend to an inner room of the palace, where I tied his hands and legs thoroughly with first-aid gauze and then, seeing as how he was very small and slender, helped him to climb into one of those giant urns, in which I could be sure he would stay put. As for his son, who was white as a sheet and too frightened to move at the spectacle of his father being trussed up so efficiently, I sent him off to fetch the promised glasses, although not before ordering him to bring his mule to a oack room too and to leave it tethered there as an additional deposit...
Mr. Mani Page 11