The Turncoat

by Siegfried Lenz

  “No, no.”

  All at once, his face relaxed. He turned to her and kissed her on the cheek and laid his heavy hand on her round shoulder; he could feel her skin under the thin fabric.

  He said, “I saw you around here once before.”

  “I know,” she said. “By the river.”

  “How do you know that? You really seem like a clairvoyant, Wanda.”

  “I heard your voice. Who shot the priest from Tomashgrod?”

  “Willi.”

  “Who’s Willi?”

  “Our corporal…Are you glad you’ve found me?”

  “Yes, I already told you I was.”

  “Can we meet again later? I mean tomorrow or the day after…You see, now everything’s going to turn out the way I told you it would: you’ll wake up, and the sun will be shining, and the blackbird will be singing, and everything, all the things that tormented us so much yesterday, will be gone, blown away like feathers. The face of the earth will be healed again, and the marsh, which I think of as a weeping scab on this big face, the marsh will look friendlier too…When will we meet again, Squirrel? Tonight?”

  “But I’m here now,” she said. It sounded like an affectionate reproach.

  “Do you by chance have a dead grandfather with you this time?” he asked abruptly. He looked her in the eye, hard and sharp. She said nothing.

  “How many more times are you going to surprise me?” he asked. “Do you want to lure me into another trap?” He gazed searchingly at the margins of the reed stand.

  “Why don’t you trust me?” she asked softly.

  “Because I’ve had a certain amount of experience with you.”

  “I’m twenty-seven,” she said.

  “A fine age,” he growled, and then he flicked away the end of his cigarette.

  “Come,” she said. “It’s time for us to go.”

  “Where? Do you have to go back already?”

  “The day’s getting tired. Come on, stand up, give me your hand. Don’t forget your rifle. Come with me.”

  “Do you want to stick me in a jug and take me for a train ride?”

  “Don’t talk that way, I can’t bear it. Don’t remind me of what happened, and don’t ask me about it either.”

  She held his swollen, hot hand in hers and pulled him behind her.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Wanda’s taking you where it’s quiet and where nobody ever goes.”

  He smiled.

  She stopped before the stand of reeds, closed her eyes, breathed deep, and then, parting the stalks, kept moving forward. Proska raised his free arm in front of his face to block the reeds as they sprang back. A weary wind blew over them as they crackled and rustled. A marsh bird gave its warning call, kehreh-kehreh-keekeekee, right beside them. The air between the plants was sultry, thick, and dangerous for the blood.

  “Halt,” the man suddenly commanded.

  She paid no attention to his order and penetrated deeper into the reeds.

  “Please stop, Squirrel, I can hardly breathe anymore.”

  “Come on,” she said. “We’re practically there.”

  And after a few more steps, they reached a small, peaceful pond. The evening clouds, which were slowly and laboriously beginning to gather, stared into it thoughtfully.

  “I could live here,” Proska said. He pulled off his uniform jacket, laid it on the ground, and sat down. “Do you want to keep standing up, Wanda? There’s enough room here for both of us.”

  Proska rolled up his shirtsleeves and wiped the perspiration from his muscular forearms. She huddled next to him. He laid his hand on her suntanned knee and was astonished when she let him.

  “You,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  In the distance, there was a rumbling like thunder.

  “I like you a lot, Squirrel.” He pressed her upper body backward so that she lay stretched out before him, and his eyes glided up and down her and finally stopped on her mouth.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said. “I noticed that on the train. Are there more girls like you in these parts?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not enough?”

  “Almost too much,” said he, and he bent over her and kissed her on the chin.

  She stared at the thick, bulging vein that was becoming visible on his forehead and shivered.

  Then he wrapped his strong arms around her, lifted her up to him, and when he felt her returning his kiss, he bit her on the throat—on her throat, which smelled like fresh hay—and panted, “Why do you make me wait, Squirrel?”

  They both got to their feet and took off their clothes, and then he moved close to her and clasped her hourglass waist with his fingers, squeezing so hard he thought she would break.

  In the sparse birch forest, between the sighs of red insects, the girl tends her hot distress. When it rains, she feels good.

  When it rains, then all her wishes shoot up high like chanterelles, and hope’s a Ferris wheel whose tickets sell for half the normal price, and sunlight’s awkward, out of place then when it rains.

  Freedom dwells in moss, and on its tender back the ashes gather after every strike of lightning.

  Girl, my girl, this rain will only break your heart in little pieces; flower that cannot be named, O flower with the thirsty stem, you will not drown before your time is up! The tongue of night, as rough as any ancient cat’s, will lick your fingers, lick your thighs. My girl, you ought to listen, hear the storm! In every war’s vermilion claws, a clock there is of monstrous size, and from its hands come dripping down the soldiers’ final hours. The pride of life collapses, fades away then without echo, without voice; the wind abducts the names and sets them on the seesaw of forgetting.

  Proska fastened the cable spool to his leather uniform belt, played with the safety catch on his assault rifle, and said to the girl without looking at her, “The day after tomorrow? I’ll wait for you here.”

  She nodded.

  “Are you sad, Squirrel?”

  “No, Walter.”

  “Maybe the war will be over by then. I’ll stay here with you. No one will have anything to say against that. We’ll live in a little house, and I’ll go to work, and when I come home, you’ll be in the garden, waiting for me…My greetings to your brother. I’ll talk to him soon. Go on, Wanda, in an hour it’s going to be dark, and it’s a good long way to Tomashgrod. Goodbye! But just until the day after tomorrow, in this very spot.”

  “The day after tomorrow,” she said softly, and then she turned and went away.

  He watched her go for a while, and seeing her walk away like that, so young and carefree, made him feel like calling her back again. But he didn’t do it, for his thoughts were already in the Fortress with his young accomplice Milk Roll. Once Wanda had disappeared behind the reeds, he lit a cigarette and, a little worn out but with a heavy, satisfying feeling in his chest, began to trudge unhurriedly toward his lodgings. The evening was silent and beautiful, something like a discreet, honest citizen who gives no one pause. Citizen Night offered—or at least so it seemed to Proska—nothing suspicious. In the sky, the innocent clouds were grazing; the mute herd made one forget the war. War, yes: the wine-pressing time, when the blood is trampled out. War: the time of iron and its mighty rage, when tanks with indifferent jaws chew the landscape to death. War: the gruesome/absurd adventure that men go on when madness stings them, the days when forbearance and patience grow rare, when a stopwatch is running for everyone and nobody knows the sepulchral timekeeper. War, war, war: the shattered glass of the heart, the springtide of the red sap, the short-circuit of desire. War! Who are you, and what? You, sleep’s blotting paper! You, who breathe on us the sharp breath of misery!

  Proska fell to the ground like a block of wood and didn’t move. He was lying on a hill, behind
an alder trunk, and he watched a young man coming up the slope, peaceful and unsuspecting, with a submachine gun slung diagonally across his back. He was a civilian. He stopped in front of a blackberry bush, bent down a branch, and examined the as yet unripe fruit at length and from all sides. He looked so utterly unwarlike, and he corresponded so little to Proska’s conception of war, that Proska, who already had the stranger in his sights, became impatient, even angry.

  The young civilian released the branch and looked up at the sky. He seemed to find this evening ravishing.

  He’s not normal, the soldier thought. As far as he’s concerned, the war is probably a sentimental walk in the country! Better be on your guard, my young friend! How can such behavior be possible? A man at war must pay attention; he has to kill or get himself killed, and if he isn’t capable of that, he ought to go home. That’s just the way things are. It’s not my fault that I’m here, or that my rifle’s pointed at your chest. But I am here, there’s a war on, and both of us, you and I, have to act accordingly. We have to obey the war, even if we hate it like the plague. After all, we’d both like to live, you and I, and whoever wants to stay alive in a war must think about nothing other than his blood. You should go away, walk in a different direction, do an about-face, or lie down and go to sleep. But don’t dare come any closer to me. Because then I’ll…then I’ll have to shoot. That’s what you would do, that’s what you’d have to do, I know, I’m sure of it. Go away, young friend, I can’t take it anymore. Why are you staring at the grass like that! This is war, friend, at least for now. I can’t help it if I pull the trigger right away. You must see that; now we belong together; you, the man my rifle’s aimed at, you must be the first to forgive me, you alone; for you’re the only one who can understand me. Why don’t you give me some thought? Do you think this is easy for me? No, don’t come any closer. A secret binds both of us. Why don’t you turn around! I don’t love you, but I don’t hate you either. I don’t dare call out to you, for then I might well lose everything. Who knows what you’ve done.

  Slowly, his eyes on the ground, the partisan came nearer. His face was relaxed; Proska noticed, sticking out of the young man’s left breast pocket, a marsh flower’s yellow, weary head.

  Ha! What did I tell you! Why are you torturing me like this? Go in another direction, you still have time. I’ll give you ten steps; I cannot, I may not be more generous than that. You’ve furloughed your vigilance, and that’s your fault. You’ll realize it when it’s too late. Stand still, young man, or beat it. That way, I won’t need to wait so long. For ten more steps, I’m the lord of your life; ten steps. Can’t you sense how tormented I am, how furious I’m becoming? If you only knew what I’m thinking about right now. I see women standing in front of the entrances to their houses. They’re staring incredulously at the men coming home from the war. They look at them with big, oddly calm eyes and speak not a word. And the men wave to them and crack jokes. But all to no avail, all in vain, because none of the women laughs. Listen, young man: I see your mother standing there too, and your wife—I don’t know if you have a wife yet, but I spot her all the same—and both of them have their eyes on the soldiers. Maybe you won’t believe me, young friend, but none of the women is looking for her man or her son. They don’t call out for Walter or Jan or Günter or Stani; they don’t shriek or wail or cry; for their eyes don’t see one particular man, they see them all, all those who return home. The men are surprised to find the women aren’t glad to see them back; they’re surprised and can’t understand why that’s the way it is. But you know the reason, don’t you? The women never leave us alone; they’re always there, wherever we are; when we eat cabbage, when we wash ourselves, when we load our weapons, and when we’re on the march. And when one of us falls, when he goes down, never to rise again, then a woman goes down too. You see? And yet some men are surprised when they come back and the women don’t laugh and rejoice.

  Three more steps. Now it’s already too late. I’m aiming at the weary little flower in your shirt pocket, see? If anyone forgives me, it will have to be you. You must defend me, because you know how cruelly you vexed me.

  Proska curled his finger and pulled the trigger, pulled it with his eyes closed. All the bullets sped away, and then the magazine was empty. He hadn’t seen how the young man clutched the left side of his chest with a slightly amazed, slightly bewildered expression on his face, and how his knees then buckled and he doubled up and fell backward in the grass, rolled over once, and lay still. Proska’s index finger released the trigger only when his magazine could no longer provide death with firepower. Then he stood up and listened for a while, and when he was convinced that the coast was clear, he walked in a crouch to the dead partisan. Proska took away his submachine gun and rolled him onto his back.

  • SEVEN •

  He knew that fish don’t bite as well in the early afternoon as they do in the evening, say, or at sunrise, and he also knew from hard experience that when the weather’s hot and the water’s clear, you can have the best lure in the world and you’ll still get barely a nibble. He knew all that very well; and if he had nevertheless gone down to the languid, lazy river, it was only because he couldn’t wait to try out the new fishing gear his father had sent him from Upper Silesia.

  When Zwiczosbirski was leaving the Fortress area for the river, he’d run into the fat, fire-eating artiste, who’d addressed him with theatrical contempt: “Look, Thighbone, if that pike bites this time and you don’t pull him in, I’m going to lose all confidence in you. I’ll be convinced that a fish is smarter than Zwiczosbirski.”

  And the tall soldier had replied with a friendly grin, “You can slice off chunk of fat from back of neck and melt in pan, pjerunje! If pike bites, all over for him, or I go crazy. This line pike line, he can’t break. This line hold better than Stalingrad front.”

  The fat soldier had clapped him on the shoulder and then, hoarsely calling “Alma, Alma,” had disappeared in the direction of the latrines.

  Ten meters from the river, precisely far enough to keep his shadow from falling on the water, Thighbone stopped, pulled the Osram box from his pocket, and took out the fishing line and the spoon lure. The lure was a good ten centimeters long; just beyond the triple hook, which was hidden by little red feathers, there were two notches in which glass eyes were mounted, and the whole, when dragged through the water, must certainly have whetted both the curiosity and the appetite of every large fish that saw it. Thighbone didn’t own a spinning reel, and in order to prevent the fish from escaping far away with both lure and line should the fishing pole break, he secured his gear by methodically wrapping the line around the whole length of the pole. When he was finished, he could hold the end of the line and the fishing pole in one hand. His preparations now complete, he scrutinized the river, took a small length of line, the one from which the artificial bait was hanging, between two fingers, twirled the shiny metal lure around his head several times, and then released the line. The lure whirred through the air and flew a good distance before diving into the water, whereupon Thighbone started pulling the line slowly backward, against the current. Now and then he could see the little decoy flashing on the surface; the game of fatal seduction had begun. The tall soldier’s first catch was a bream, a broad, goggle-eyed, somewhat naive fish that the lure must have grazed, allowing its camouflaged hook to catch on the creature’s belly. The bream put up but little resistance; once it was out of the water, it hung motionless on the line; and two short blows to the head from Zwiczos’s fishing pole sufficed to stun it. Before throwing out his lure again, the Silesian opened a knife with a lockable blade and slit the bream so wide open that it would never awaken from its daze.

  Again and again, the camouflaged hook whirred through the air; the man on the riverbank constantly changed his position, moving ever closer to the bridge. He pulled in a few perch, a smallish pike, two tench, and even a zander, and he put all the fish in a retired flour sack and hauled the
m along as he went. But the one he wanted to catch, the one that seemed to know him, the one his heart was set on, the wise old pike—that fish he had not seen. He was annoyed, but he consoled himself with the thought that the fish he was after might at that very moment be in the little pond or the ditch, that there would be other days, and that his would come.

  He wanted to make one last and rather difficult try from under the bridge. It was difficult because he could hold the pole only horizontally and so couldn’t cast with it forcefully enough. He was standing right next to a strut, and as he paused to decide where he should throw his lure and his eyes were gliding over the submerged portion of the farthest concrete pedestal, he gave a sudden start. Very close to the artificial stone, a long shadow hovered, still, waiting, in unmoving readiness.

  Very carefully, Zwiczosbirski tried to put himself in a position favorable to casting; actually, he did nothing more than shift his body weight from one leg to the other and place his free hand on the strut. However, the old pike noticed the slight movement immediately and shot like a silent torpedo into deeper water.

  Thighbone cursed but didn’t concede the match. The lure circled and whirred through the air in the direction the big fish had swum away in. Trembling, the angler pulled back on his line: nothing. And so he threw out the lure again, and then again, and yet again; in the end, Mister Pike would get irritated and angry, and…

  There was a mighty tug on the line, which instantly grew taut, and the fishing pole bent in a deep curve. A large shadow appeared on the surface for a few seconds, churned up water, and vanished. The man on the riverbank recognized his wet, powerful foe—Satan, as he called it—and he groaned with pleasure and happiness while sweat ran down his body. He weighs thirty pounds, Thighbone thought. Just keep cool. Give him line—let him fight like crazy until tired—then we see who older and smarter—you have four lines broken, one basket ruined—now you must bite.

  The pike pulled on the line, but as soon as it threatened to break, Thighbone paid out more, and when he felt the beast relax for a moment, he cautiously drew it in again.