The Turncoat

by Siegfried Lenz

Where’s this boy off to now? You can’t close your eyes for a minute without something happening. He just wanted to go over to the track…so where the hell is he?

  Proska called softly, “Wolfgang?”

  There was no reply.

  “Wolfgang, I know you’re around here somewhere. What are you doing? Hey! Why don’t you speak? Wake up, wake up, now!”

  A wild duck flew over his head with loudly flapping wings.

  “We have to go!” Proska called. “Don’t you hear me? Hey!”

  Increasingly uneasy, he scoured all the shrubs and bushes in his vicinity, then went over to the railroad embankment, investigated the pillars supporting the bridge, searched, called out softly and searched, but discovered never a trace of Milk Roll.

  The assistant clamped his rifle between his knees, took out what remained of Wolfgang’s partly smoked cigarette, and lit it. He yawned and cursed.

  Did he run back to the Fortress? But why would he do that? Willi would just chase him out again. As he well knows.

  “Wolfgang! Hey, Woolf-gaang!”

  Well, that’s pretty upsetting, Proska, isn’t it? Consternation turns you into a top, you spin round and round so fast you don’t know what to do next. Crying out is useless, as you’ve noticed—Milk Roll doesn’t report when you call his name. The marsh has swallowed up the boy for an early breakfast. How many possibilities of becoming invisible does the world offer? The marsh has lots of ways of making a man disappear, yet it doesn’t have any more teeth than a chicken. How two-faced Nature is, and how indifferent. Just turn and look around! Milk Roll has gone missing here, and the marsh is silent, as it’s silent about everything, all the same, about the countless births and the countless deaths that take place here every instant. How paltry we are; we still can’t even tell whether the marsh is angry at us or totally uninterested in our presence. Milk Roll didn’t reappear.

  After Proska finally acknowledged that all his searching and calling were futile, he slowly made his way back to the Fortress, hoping that nothing bad had happened to his young comrade. From time to time, he halted—before the bend in the mixed-growth forest, in the middle of the blackberry bushes, and lastly as he was about to cross the ditch—always in the expectation that Wolfgang would show himself. Proska hoped in vain.

  Shivering with cold, he precariously picked his way over the alder trunk and with weary steps trudged up the hill to the Fortress. In the entrance, he ran into the long-limbed Zwiczosbirski, who with a wink gave him to understand that he wished to speak to him outside.

  “What do you want, Thighbone? I’m dead tired. Besides, I have to talk to Stehauf right away.”

  “He just this minute creep under warm blanket again,” the tall soldier said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Ah, he wants to report me.”

  “For what?”

  “For I stay away so long.”

  “And so?”

  “When he hears I lose rifle, he makes double report. Then they do me like this: pfft.” Thighbone put his index finger to his forehead. “This time he make phone call, I know it. House belong not just to people but to bugs too. And Zwiczosbirski’s life belong not just to him alone, but also to his corporal. Stupid me, I rent away my life. And get what for it?”

  “That’s nonsense,” Proska interrupted him. “Why are you babbling such foolishness? Who’s guarding the Fortress?”

  “Poppek.”

  “Where is he?”

  “How can I know where is he? Must be around somewhere. Maybe latrines.”

  “So you left your rifle somewhere?”

  “Left or lost. Nobody know for sure.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you want to look for it? If you find it, then everything will be okay.”

  “I about to ask could you help me look for gun. You or Milk Roll? You tell him who he shot at?”

  “No.”

  Thighbone stretched his neck and inspected the edge of the woods. While the tall soldier stood gazing, Proska considered his Adam’s apple, which rolled up and down quickly twice, and the not very regular line of his pinched, frayed-looking mouth. Little veins showed through his thin-walled ears.

  “Where is Milk Roll?” Zwiczosbirski asked.

  “Disappeared.”

  “Dead? Pfft?”

  “He disappeared. I have no idea where he could be.”

  “O moi Jesus. They shoot him?”

  “No. I would have heard shooting. If I had told him who he shot at, he’d be here now. He thought he’d killed somebody, so he went over to the railroad tracks to see. He couldn’t rest without knowing, even though I told him he wouldn’t find anyone. He didn’t come back.”

  “Is my fault, Walter?” Thighbone turned his head and looked at Proska with tired, worried eyes. He rubbed his thin fingers together, and then he said, “Is hiding. Can be he just go for walk. Maybe will come back soon. What you think? Is possible?”

  “No. Wolfgang wouldn’t stay gone for so long. Something must have happened to him.”

  “Accident?”

  “Could be. I’m going to wake Stehauf up now and tell him.”

  “Ooh, and my rifle? What do I do, Walter? Let corporal sleep some more, yes? He get even more angry, and when he wake up, he crank telephone and speak with Tomashgrod.”

  “All right, Thighbone.”

  “You help me look for damn gun?”

  “Yes, but we have to hurry. Can you remember where you were the last time you had it?”

  “Must been by river. I carry rifle on back, and because always so heavy—”

  “Then come on, let’s go.”

  “Many thank, Walter, moi Schwintuletzki. Zwiczosbirski not forget what you do for him. One day will come, when I—”

  “Don’t talk, be quiet. Or the corporal will wake up.”

  The tall soldier threw his arms around Proska and pulled his head to his shoulder and pressed his chin against the shorter man’s lank hair.

  “Cut it out,” Proska said, warding him off. “I’m not a girl.”

  “Ah, anyone can see that. But you good man.”

  Silently, eyes on the ground, they walked past the two birches, one on either side of them, and then moved through the tangled network of old, tough blackberry bushes to the river, passing the place where the dead Dynamite Jesus lay.

  “My nose report stink,” said Zwiczos.

  Proska nodded and said, “Mine too. Someone must be decomposing.”

  “Man must stink when he turn into earth?” the tall soldier asked.

  “He must, Thighbone.”

  “NCOs too?”

  “Yes, noncommissioned officers too. It’s only majors and higher that don’t stink.”

  “So what they do?”

  “Gentlemen smell. Do you know the difference between stinking and smelling?”

  “Here we must turn. I have go right here, through these little bush, and then I—no, don’t know difference.”

  “Then you don’t need to know it. Knowing a lot just makes a man dizzy.”

  The sun stretched its legs and stepped over the horizon. It brought with it warm light and awakened a great deal of life. The sounds of the day began to wander over the marsh: burbling, chirping, peeping, rustling, crackling, croaking, quacking, creaking, gurgling. The fat waterhole belched, adders sunned themselves, a black grouse gazed wild-eyed upon his befeathered beloved, fish rose from the marshy bottoms and with open mouths goggled at heaven. Their heaven tossed them flies and exhausted beetles, and now and then a whirring butterfly—the fish looked up and nowhere else, in expectation of something that they in fact received.

  Thighbone and Proska walked through the dewladen grass, staring at the ground. The leather of their boots became soaked and
soft, and their metal toe caps gleamed white. The tall soldier walked to the edge of the riverbank, unbuttoned his pants, and relieved himself. This caused him great delight, and he called out triumphantly, “Walter! Look here! I piss in his house. Hoo, he will wonder why back fin suddenly warm. Surprise for breakfast, watch out!”

  “Are you nuts?” Proska asked him grumpily. “Who are you talking about?”

  The tall soldier buttoned up his pants again and said, “I mean Mister Pike. Satan! Always get away. Smarter and stronger than us, I think.”

  “Knock it off and help me find your gun!”

  They searched up and down the section of the riverbank where Zwiczos insisted he had been, but they didn’t find his rifle. The higher the temperature rose, the more nervous and impatient Proska became. He stopped searching and looked alternately in the direction of the Fortress and at his watch. When they saw the bridge, the railroad embankment’s steel continuation, rise up in the distance, Proska stood still and declared, in an unyielding tone, “Enough of this. We’re not going to find the thing. Let’s go back now.”

  “O moi bosä,” Thighbone whimpered. “Corporal crank telephone and—”

  “He won’t crank anything, I promise you.”

  “But phone right there on box, Walter.”

  “I’m telling you, Stehauf won’t be making any telephone calls. The line is out of order.”

  “How you know this? You do cut yourself, snick snick?” He made a scissoring gesture with two fingers and winked at Proska.

  “Come on, man. If Stehauf gets salty, I’ll give him something to gripe about.”

  The two men took the shortest way back to the Fortress. The sun, now diagonally overhead, burned down on them, a torrid challenge. The wind in the willows woke up and stretched, and high time too, for the first clouds were already visible over the horizon. With an effort, the wind arose and went to work.

  Proska and Zwiczos left the little mixed-growth forest, bypassed Stani’s grave, and were about to approach the Fortress from the side when they came to a hard stop as though rammed into the earth. Proska dropped his rifle and raised his hands; the tall soldier felt a booming and buzzing in the back of his head. He got weak in the knees, and saliva filled his mouth. When he too raised his hands, they were shaking. He wasn’t capable of uttering a curse. Proska’s chin was twitching at regular intervals, as though he were being struck heavily and with equal regularity on the nape of his neck. He felt his tongue swelling and thought his heart was trying to get away from him, as a gelding once got away from his brother-in-law Rogalski. The soldiers had neither the courage nor the presence of mind to act, to confront the situation the way they had probably imagined doing from time to time—in less dangerous moments, of course. Behind their Fortress, with the soundlessness of the heat and the suddenness of a clock stopping, a good dozen civilians had appeared, most of them older men—some had faces that looked like maps of the Andes Mountains—and these men, unspeaking, were holding Russian submachine guns in their big sunburned hands and aiming the weapons at the two German soldiers. They all stood there like that for a while, motionless, facing one another, and then the oldest member of the group broke away and went up to Proska.

  “Come,” the old man said curtly. “You too,” he said to Thighbone.

  He picked up Proska’s rifle and threw it to a man who caught it and leaned it against the wooden wall of the fortress. In front of the bench, Willi and the artiste were standing, also with their hands up.

  “There!” said the old man.

  The soldiers formed a line; ten leveled gun barrels guaranteed that the captives made no false moves. The old man called one of his comrades to his side and held a whispered conversation with him, spitting repeatedly as they talked. He had a broad, energetic face, and the upper part of his left ear was missing. His hair was black and thick; at least a week’s growth of beard covered his chin and throat. As the two men whispered, the old man jerked his thumb several times in Proska’s direction, finally nodded, and—after the comrade he’d been speaking with had disappeared into the mixed-growth forest—turned again to the soldiers.

  “You, here,” he ordered Proska, “and you”—he addressed Thighbone—“here too. Corporal and fat soldier, there. Kto—” He interrupted himself and focused his little eyes on Thighbone, who had muttered something to Proska as they stepped out of line.

  Gesturing to a giant civilian in whose hands the submachine gun lay like a child’s toy, the old man pointed to the tall soldier and said softly, “Daj!”

  The giant, dressed only in a collarless shirt and a pair of pants, shifted his gun to one hand, ambled calmly over to Zwiczosbirski, and abruptly smashed his fist against the tall soldier’s face with such force that he fell groaning to the ground. Proska made a movement, but when he saw that the old man was looking at him and the big strong fellow hadn’t budged, as though awaiting another “Daj,” he held still.

  “Who speaks Polish or Russian?” the old man asked sternly.

  “He does,” said Willi, pointing to Zwiczos, who was laboriously getting back on his feet. The tall soldier spat out blood and saliva and shook his head hard, as though throwing off the pain.

  “Ty rozumiesz po polsku?” the old man asked.

  Thighbone nodded.

  Then there was a sound of excited clucking, and Alma, her claws curled, fluttered down from one of the two birches, landed smoothly in the midst of the men, ran a few steps, stopped, and looked around in confusion. The hen ruffled her feathers and jerked her head back and forth, and while all the men stared at her, she started scratching and pecking in the grass. Melon pursed his lips and called to her: “Cheep, cheep, cheep, Alma! Poot, poot.”

  Alma raised her head, listened attentively, and then went on scratching.

  “Coo, coo,” the fat artiste piped, his hands in the air.

  But the hen failed to obey the voice of her fire-swallowing master. The old man made a hasty, impatient sign to the giant civilian and ordered, “Dawaj! Szybko!”

  The giant laid his submachine gun on the ground and approached the chicken, stretching out one hand. “Poost, poost, poost,” said he. Every time the big man said “Poost,” Melon thought he felt a darning needle being thrust into his butt. The chicken raised her head again and to the astonishment of all flew to the civilian’s outstretched hand, hopped onto his shoulder, then onto his head, and then onto his other shoulder. There Alma stopped and sat, a shudder went through her body, and a small, greenish-white mass fell onto the giant’s back.

  All the civilians laughed.

  The old man shouted in his rusty-sounding voice: “Szybko!”

  The giant immediately grabbed at the hen, but at that very moment she gave a hard push, launching herself off his shoulder—he could feel her claws in his flesh—and flew clucking back to the birch in which she had previously been sitting unnoticed.

  The civilians laughed, and their gun barrels waggled.

  Zwiczosbirski wiped the blood off his chin with a handkerchief. He thrust a thumb and an index finger into his mouth and felt around for loose teeth. Corporal Stehauf smiled out of cowardice and fear. The furious giant bent down, grabbed his submachine gun, and walked to the foot of the birch tree where Alma was perched, looking down curiously.

  The giant took aim; the chicken eyed him as though from a great distance.

  “Szybko!” the old man shouted again.

  The gigantic civilian pulled the trigger, and as the shots echoed, Alma fell from the tree like a stone and landed with a thud in the grass. Her feet twitched once, twice, and then she lay still. Melon shut his eyes; his hopes seemed to be lying on the ground with the dead chicken. He swayed slightly, and his face changed color.

  Willi observed him in amazement and then broke into a hoarse laugh. The coughing fit that followed obliged him to lower his hands.

  “Hey!” the old man sho
uted.

  Stehauf obeyed.

  The old man loudly counted the four soldiers: “Jeden, dwa, trzy, cztery.”

  With the tears from his coughing fit still standing in his eyes, the corporal said, “We’re still two short.”

  “Hmm. Co on chce?” the old man asked, turning to Thighbone.

  “He says…two men…still missing,” said Thighbone in a crushed voice.

  “He has no need to tell us that, we know it! All of you, keep your mouths shut, understand? Whoever speaks or moves will be shot. You will be taken away one by one…Proska?”

  “Present,” said the assistant.

  “You will be last.”

  Three civilians led the corporal away; after a little while, three more took Melon, and after they had disappeared, Zwiczosbirski was likewise led into the mixed-growth forest. Proska pricked up his ears, because he was sure he’d hear gunfire soon, but no shot shattered the warm morning air.

  Only the old man and Proska remained. The gigantic civilian, as he passed the dead chicken, had leaned down and picked her up. The grass where she had lain was dark red.

  To Proska’s astonishment, the old man, the last civilian guarding him, slung his submachine gun over his shoulder and then went away too. The assistant watched him leave like a capricious apparition but didn’t dare lower his hands. He had the distinct impression that he was being observed from somewhere, and he was possessed of sufficient instinct to tell himself that putting his hands down could mean death. The watcher or watchers might well be waiting for him to do just that.

  He was standing with his face to the alder bridge and his back to the Fortress. He was about to decide on a time limit for standing there like that when he was addressed, from behind, by his first name. A woman’s voice had called, “Walter!” He knew he’d heard it, even though fright shot up like a flame into his brain.

  He spun around in a flash.

  Wanda was standing in the entrance to the so-called Fortress, her legs planted wide apart, her face deadly serious, her mouth determined. She was holding a submachine gun and pointing it at Proska’s chest.

  “Squirrel,” he stammered confusedly, letting his hands fall to his sides.