The Turncoat

by Siegfried Lenz

  “Hands up!” she ordered, the expression on her face unchanged.

  The confused man obeyed her command.

  “Come here,” she said. “Come right here in front of me. I want to see your eyes close up. I’m sure you won’t take offense.” As she spoke, she hardly opened her mouth. She was wearing pants made of dark blue cloth and an undyed, tight woolen pullover that revealed more than it concealed. Her hair was stuffed under a cap whose worn visor she’d flipped up. Between her somewhat too short pants and her shoes, her legs were partly visible.

  When Proska stood in front of her, she pressed the mouth of her gun barrel into his chest and said, “The safety catch is off. If you lower your hands, I’ll pull the trigger.”

  He was so dismayed by her transformed face that he didn’t dare to contravene her orders. He was convinced she’d fire at him the moment he failed to do what she commanded.

  “You,” she said softly.

  Proska stared at her.

  “Take off your jacket,” she ordered.

  He hesitated a little but did what he was told.

  “The shirt too…And now come closer.”

  She pushed the black muzzle into his naked flesh so hard that he staggered a couple of steps backward. His arms shook as sweat ran out of his armpits and over his loins. The thick vein in his forehead swelled, and his feet burned as they had rarely done before in his life. He could feel the strength of the sun on the nape of his neck.

  “Go ahead and shoot,” he murmured in a daze.

  “Why so fast?” she asked.

  “What is it you want from me? Why do I have to stay here? Did you send the others away so you could torment me in peace?”

  “I want to teach you something,” she said.

  “How to hate you?”

  “Hate and love have the same mother…I want to teach you a feeling. You have to learn what it feels like when the weapon points its finger at you. Look, my gun is pointing at you. It could just as well be pointing at one of your comrades, but apparently it didn’t want that. I think it has something special planned just for you.”

  “What the hell’s all this? Pull the trigger and stop the playacting. Thank God, Wolfgang—”

  “He’s fine,” she said, interrupting him. “He didn’t get a chance to send you his greetings, but—”

  “He’s alive?”

  “He’s alive, and he’s not doing bad, as I just told you.”

  “So what do you want from me, Wanda?”

  “You shot my brother, not long after we said goodbye, you and I. I heard the shots in the distance. He was hit by more than twenty bullets. We found him on a hill, next to some blackberry bushes…You must have done it.”

  “Your brother?” he asked.

  “Yes, my brother.” She pressed the muzzle deeper into his chest.

  Proska stammered, “I did…shoot a man…that’s true. And it was…on the day…when we…were together…that’s true. I remember it clearly…very clearly…I was furious…at him.”

  “Why?” Wanda asked curtly.

  “He was walking so…carelessly…as if there was no war on…He had a look…at a blackberry bush…and he was wearing a flower…a yellow flower…your brother. Was he your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “My God…I didn’t know…How could I…have known? You…never told me. I kept wishing he’d stop walking, your brother…I thought…go back, go back…is what I thought. But he kept coming…coming toward me…I had to shoot, Wanda, otherwise he would have seen me and…my God…if I had only known…he was your brother…”

  “Be quiet,” she commanded. “And get dressed.”

  He did so while she looked out over the marsh. Then he placed himself in front of her again and put his hands up.

  “I’m not going to shoot you,” she said.

  “What do you intend to do with me? Come on, pull the trigger. Can’t you see I’m waiting for it?”

  She looked at the ground and saw that a spider was making a desperate effort to get past her shoe. She raised her foot and waited until the arachnid was inside the Fortress.

  “Go away,” she said. “Go where I can’t see you ever again. Leave me alone, hurry up, disappear! Go into the marsh or wherever you want. Just away from me!”

  While Proska was descending the hill from the Fortress, the girl turned her face away from him and sobbed. Before crossing the alder bridge, he looked back at her, and when he saw that she’d taken off her cap and laid her forehead against the wooden wall, he wavered for a moment. Shall I go back? Is she waiting for me? No. I have to go, I can’t stay here.

  He walked on, becoming smaller and smaller, and when he turned the green corner of the mixed-growth forest, a civilian came toward him and ordered him to put up his hands.

  • NINE •

  Proska did what the civilian had ordered him to do: he walked on ahead, made no effort to turn around, and obeyed the other’s commands calmly and stoically. When the civilian told him to go right, he went right, without any ulterior motive, without checking the escape possibilities that such an opportunity offered. There were a number of tricks he could have used to bamboozle his captor, a surly, lanky youth, but on the other hand, he knew doing something like that would make no sense.

  They moved along in silence over the soft ground. The civilian seemed to want to drive Proska into the river, for he was taking him in exactly the same direction from which a pure, refreshing smell, the smell of the river, was wafting. The lanky lad stank of rotgut. He was blind in his left eye; he didn’t need to shut it when he took aim. His submachine gun chafed against his jacket.

  Proska came to a halt on the riverbank and gazed at the water, and in the water, he could see his face and the sky. Then, over his shoulder, a head appeared; it was the partisan, furtively scrutinizing his own reflection.

  “You,” he said.

  Proska turned his head to the side. “What is it?”

  “Keep going along riverbank.”

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  The lanky lad grinned and said nothing. He circled around Proska like a sheepdog circling his flock, never taking his one healthy eye off him.

  “I’m thirsty,” the assistant said.

  The partisan pointed at the river. “There,” he said. “Plenty water. Drink.”

  Proska lay down on the riverbank, supported his upper body on his arms, and drank. His arms shook with the effort; he closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling hard between the cooling drafts. The water was nearly tasteless.

  Suddenly, he felt a boot on the back of his neck, a boot that was pressing him down. He let himself fall to one side, wetting his shoulder. The civilian stood over him and signed to him to stand up. “You! Enough drink. We go on.”

  As Proska got to his feet, the partisan automatically recoiled a few steps. It was a completely instinctive move whose purpose was to gain enough distance for an overall view, and enough time to act if he had to. The sound of shooting came from the mixed-growth forest. The little explosions, following one another in rapid succession, were like drum rolls that definitively awakened the marsh. Frightened birds darted from their hiding places, spraying out of the treetops like black sparks. The river flowed by, green and placid. It wasn’t beating against its banks.

  “Keep going,” the lanky partisan said, even though Proska hadn’t stopped at all. The command was a preventive measure, and Proska kept walking ahead of him, walking with a heavy head, his hands behind his back, his body bent slightly forward. The railroad bridge became visible in the distance. The struts securing the supporting arches gleamed dully. The two men headed for the bridge. As they climbed up the railroad embankment, some gravel stones shifted and crunched under their feet. A signal hanging as though from a gallows indicated the track was clear. No arriving trains were expected.

 
“Keep going,” the guard ordered when Proska slowed his pace. He was hungry. Had he smoked a cigarette now, he would have got dizzy. He would have got dizzy without smoking too. But things hadn’t gone that far yet. Currently, all he felt was a slight weakness in his knees. Proska didn’t ask his civilian guard if he’d eaten anything that day; as far as he was concerned, the answer was obvious. People under guard all succumb to the same fallacy: it’s obvious to them that their guards are better off than they are.

  “Stój,” the partisan ordered. They were standing in front of the station house in Tomashgrod. Much time had passed since the little building had last been whitewashed. It had only one floor. A round, affable face appeared at a window, one of those faces that delighted children run after because it looks so funny. The lips of this face were moving, and although no sound penetrated to the outside, Proska’s guard seemed to understand what was being said. He gave his prisoner a push.

  “Forward.”

  The door was opened from inside, and the face rose in the opening like a sudden moon. It was still round and full, but no longer affable. Proska’s head was enveloped by a cloud of alcohol vapor.

  “Come,” said the moonface.

  “You, go in,” the other commanded.

  Proska was led into a bare-walled office. This room contained four chairs, one in each corner. The seats of the chairs had been polished to a shine by the behinds of the stationmaster and his assistants. On one of the chairs sat the giant who had knocked down Zwiczos and shot Alma. The giant was chewing something and gurgling as he swallowed it. His submachine gun lay quietly under his chair.

  He was tearing up a large piece of bread and throwing the chunks into his mouth, like a steelworker shoveling coal into a furnace. Never before in his life had Proska seen such a massive guy. Moonface took a seat, and so did the man who had brought Proska in. One chair was still free, but Proska didn’t have the nerve to sit on it. He stayed on his feet.

  Proska was standing approximately in the middle of the room and didn’t know which of the other men would speak first. Given the choice, Proska would have opted for the giant. He had the impression that the huge fellow had been born in the light of truth; he didn’t believe the giant capable of dissembling, or lying, or cynicism. He was a combination of uprightness and biceps, of honest simplicity and ursine strength.

  Proska waited. The soles of his feet were burning. Impatience couldn’t help him; impatience had never helped him. Proska had respect for time—an unconscious humility in regard to that dimension had characterized him even as a child. Patience as legitimate self-defense. His carotid artery twitched. He thrust his chin forward, his neck muscles tensed, and the twitching stopped.

  Moonface licked a cigarette paper, the giant put his gun on his lap, and Proska’s guard wasted the vision in his single eye on the window sash. Proska thought he could detect, along with the reek of schnapps, a horsy smell in the room. Could it be the giant who smelled like that? Proska looked at him appraisingly. He examined the imposing phenomenon, the enormous result of a single act of procreation. Yes, this man might well give off the smell of a horse.

  Moonface lit his cigarette, exhaled the smoke in Proska’s direction, and said unexpectedly, “Tomorrow. Not today. Early tomorrow morning, when the fog moves up the embankment. Understand?”

  “No,” said Proska. He thrust his hands in his pockets, already feeling a little more familiar now that a word had been spoken. All of a sudden, he could afford, he could dare, to shove his fists into his pants pockets. He was hiding his fists from his enemies, and he knew exactly why. Proska repeated, “No. I don’t understand.”

  “Good,” Moonface said. Then he banged his belly against Proska so hard that it looked as though he was trying to wound him.

  “Good. Once again. Early tomorrow morning, very early, you will stand facing the railroad tracks. The others also stood facing the tracks. A man should not look at his own death. Understand?”

  “Yes,” said Proska. He said “yes” dryly and casually; he said “yes” as though he’d been asked to confirm whether he’d received a letter.

  Moonface was smoking some pestilential tobacco. The smoke seeped into Proska’s lungs and made him nauseous.

  “We’re going away. Jutro.” Two men left the room.

  Now the giant was still sitting in one corner, while Proska stood in another.

  “You. Chair,” said the giant amiably.

  The assistant sat down and stretched out his legs. He leaned far back, closed his eyes, and then abruptly jumped up.

  “You, chair,” said his watcher, ingenuously encouraging.

  Proska sat down again, hesitantly, and clutched the sides of the chair seat with both hands.

  The giant shifted back and forth in his corner. He tossed a short, despairing laugh over to Proska. The assistant caught it and threw it back. They played pitch-and-catch with laughs.

  “What are you people going to do with me?” Proska asked.

  “Do? Doing always good. I do very much.”

  “With me!” said Proska. “Do you understand? What are you going to do with me? That’s what I want to know.”

  “Know,” the giant repeated, and then he laughed so loud that the room resounded. The door was pushed open, and in came a barefooted boy who looked around before laying a chunk of bread on the floor in front of Proska’s chair. Then he ran back outside and came in again with a milk jug, which he also laid at the assistant’s feet.

  “Eat,” said the giant. “Eat, do, know.”

  Proska leaned forward and picked up the bread. He ate and drank hastily. He felt his strength coming back, and when he’d finished eating and drinking, he asked, “Do you have a cigarette?”

  “Here,” said the giant. He reached into his pocket and stretched his closed fist toward Proska. Proska held his open hand under it, and when the giant unclenched his fist, out fell a bullet, a submachine gun cartridge.

  “Do,” said the giant, laughing, and after a while, “I, Bogumil.”

  The two men had run out of conversation. They knew nothing, or almost nothing, about each other. They shut themselves off. Neither had any reason to open up to the other. Maybe they weren’t capable of doing that, or maybe they refrained out of consideration for some kind of principle.

  Sleep, Proska thought, lie down and sleep. No one can keep the hour from arriving. If you can’t bear the wait, the best thing to do is to sleep the time away. That’s getting off cheap. That’s strategic cowardice. But sometimes it helps.

  He peered out the window. The sun had already moved past noon. It looked large, invincible, capable of anything. He wanted to smoke, and a quiet rage overcame him. What he most wanted to do was to sucker-punch the giant into unconsciousness. He squeezed the SMG cartridge, and the palm of his hand became hot and moist. By the railroad. They’re going to shoot me. Of course they are, what else are they supposed to do with me? Early tomorrow morning, they’ll lead me to the embankment. Someone will take aim. I won’t see who’s aiming at me.

  Proska sprang to his feet, and the giant, startled out of his brooding, rose and cried, “You! Chair!”

  Proska didn’t heed his words. He walked to the window and looked down the tracks. Two powerful fists yanked him back. He stumbled and fell to the floor. You, leave me in peace! If you leave me in peace, I’ll leave you in peace too. What have I done to you?

  Aloud, he shouted, “What do you want from me! What have I done to you, you big ape? You just wait.”

  He got up from the floor, dusted off his pants, and turned back to the giant. “Don’t flatter yourself, big boy. Don’t think you’re the strongest. There are some guys even stronger than you.”

  “Chair, do!” the giant ordered.

  The assistant obeyed. He obeyed, because in obedience lay his last, his only possibility. Had he not obeyed, not even that would have remained to him; t
he giant would have blown him away with a breath.

  Late in the afternoon, Proska was awakened by a song. He turned his head to the window and pricked up his ears. He’d fallen asleep while sitting on his chair, and then the song had penetrated his hearing, plucked him out of a brief, salutary unconsciousness, and thrust him into the day. His neck was stiff. He massaged it carefully, his eyes fixed on the window in expectation of the men who were singing outside. Their song, interminable and apparently happy, seemed to have but a single refrain, for Proska kept hearing the same words; and although the song gradually faded farther away, became softer and softer, and finally could no longer be heard, Proska continued to stare through the window, steadily hoping to catch a glimpse of the singers all the same. He caught no such glimpse. A woman carrying a new zinc bucket crossed the railroad tracks. She was wearing a bright blue kerchief on her head, and she too was singing, but inaudibly.

  Evening twilight flowed into the bare office. The air grew cooler. Proska turned around again, and the giant nodded paternally to him. There, you see, his nod said, or Now at last you understand that the world outside is not for you.

  Then he stood up and stretched his massive body and yawned. All that mute sitting had made him tired. He stamped his feet; the floorboards creaked. He grabbed his submachine gun by its short, bluish barrel and whirled it around, creating a current of air. Suddenly, he was standing in front of Proska. He smiled down at him and put a hand into one of his pockets.

  “Chair,” he said with childish joy, and then he reached into his pocket, jerked out a beer bottle, opened it, and set it on the floor. A stale smell of strong liquor rose from the bottle and wafted through the room. Proska didn’t know how he should react.

  The giant pointed to the bottle and said, “Do, do.”

  Proska shook his head. He couldn’t drink; at that moment, just the smell of alcohol nauseated him. With the tip of his foot, he pushed the bottle away, taking great care not to overturn it. A cold shiver ran down his spine as the glass crunched over the sand on the floor.