‘Käthe adores the very ground you walk on. You’re her hero. She’s never known anyone eat as much as you. In just one meal you’ve drained the farm dry of milk, and eggs, and butter, and bacon, already.’
‘Bettina, you’re a minx. I didn’t eat all that much.’
‘Oh, Max. Believe me. I don’t begrudge it to you. You look so thin, it makes me cry just to look at you. Don’t they feed the frontline troops?’
He shrugged. ‘They try to. But there are occasions when we have to manage on our own for weeks on end. Foraging. Living off the land. Until we can spare a detail to go back to the supply depot. And then there’s very often nothing there. Or lots of something we don’t want. Last year, just as winter was starting, they sent us a batch of thin leather gloves. Hundreds of them. The sort of gloves officers wear on dress parade. The men ate them.’
‘You are joking?’
‘No. I’m perfectly serious. We cooked them up and ate them. They weren’t bad either. They tasted rather strongly of lanoline if I remember correctly.’
Bettina squinted at him, temporarily unable to judge his tone. Then her expression cleared. ‘Maxl! How dare you make fun of me like that.’
‘Make fun of a soon-to-be married woman? Never. The Reinkultur Commissariat would have me up before a punishment board for threatening the future of the German Reich.’ Max glanced up from licking his cigarette paper and caught Bettina’s eye. ‘Was that you in the church this morning? Singing the Bach?’
‘Why do you sound so surprised? I’ve always sung.’
Max shook his head emphatically. ‘No. You never used to sing like that. This was different. You felt the music, Tina. You must be in love. Come on. You still haven’t told me who has been fool enough to ask you to marry him. Is it Franzl? Tasso? Hans-Dieter?’ He made a quizzical face. ‘Who else was there in the assembly line? Let me think. Not that languid Rilke-clone you used to cultivate, the one who promised that he would commit suicide before he was thirty? If it’s him, you haven’t got much longer. You’ll make a ridiculously fetching widow, though, I have to admit.’
Bettina made a face. ‘Stop being so grotesque, Maxl. It isn’t any of them. And there certainly wasn’t any assembly line, as you so grossly call it. I’m not a machine, you know.’ She blushed, as if she had just caught herself out in an indelicacy. ‘It’s Fritz von Wammensee, actually.’
‘Von Wammensee?’ Max looked blankly across at her. ‘Why have I never heard of him?’
‘Never fear. You will. Just wait until you get Papa on the topic.’ She hesitated for an instant, her gaze turning inwards, as if her unconscious mind had unexpectedly forced an entry into the mundane redoubt of her unrealistic, everyday concerns. ‘Maxl, you won’t let them kill you, will you? Those Russians?’
‘Ah. Well. That’s something else again.’ He laughed, but with little conviction. ‘First, I’ve got some more questions to ask you about young Fritz. Before I give him my formal permission, I—’
‘Don’t change the subject! Answer me!’ Bettina was biting her lips to stave off imminently threatening tears. Her eyes were locked onto her brother’s face.
Max tried for another, more convincing laugh, but there was a bitter edge to the sound this time. He glanced away, letting his breath filter out through his lips as if he were attempting – and failing – to blow up a toy balloon. ‘I hardly see how I can stop them. Perinde ac si cadaver essent. It’s simply a matter of percentages. Look.’ He set aside the rug and rolled up his shirt. He pointed to a puckered scar in his side. ‘This one was a piece of shrapnel. It missed my liver by’ – he held up two fingers – ‘so much. And this,’ – he turned his back to her, feeling around for another scar – ‘this was a spent bullet. If I had been standing twenty metres closer to the man who shot it, it would have sliced through me like a hot skewer. This’ – he rolled up his sleeve – ‘was caused by one of our own shells falling short. Someone else got in the way and stopped it. I was only third in line that time. And this,’ – he pointed to the thin, pale scar on his temple – ‘this happened last month. A sniper. He’d obviously been drinking too much vodka and failed to judge the wind direction correctly. Belgrade, Kharkov, Kursk, Khodorov. It’s percentages, as I told you. To all intents and purposes, I’m dead already. It’s simply a matter of finding someone with enough free time to endorse the certificate.’
‘That’s not funny.’
‘It’s true, though.’ The expression in Max’s eyes became bleaker, belying the irony in his voice. He turned towards her again. ‘Don’t believe the quatsch they’re feeding you over here. We’re dying off at such a rate that they’re being forced to call up infants to replace us. There was a rat-boy at the station when I arrived. I gave him a whole salami, I felt so sorry for him. He’s already registered for his call-up papers. He’s not even sixteen yet. He wants them to post him to the Eastern front. Do you know how long he’ll last? With the training they give them now? Three days. The chances are he won’t even get to fire a shot.’
‘Maxl, why are you talking to me like this?’
Max hunched his shoulders. His face looked washed out. ‘Because you asked. And because you’re the future.’ He flicked his cigarette stub away. ‘Who else is there to tell, anyway? Mother? Half of her wants me to be killed, so that the stain on the family escutcheon can be wiped away, and a heroic corpse replace it. Father? He sincerely believes that Adolf Hitler is just a knot on the otherwise smooth bark of Germany’s civilizing tree: get rid of Hitler, and good sense will prevail again and everything return to how it was under the Wittelsbachers.’ He took her hand. ‘No. It has to be you. When I leave to return to the front, I want you to know that the chances are I won’t be coming back. The position is hopeless. We are simply going through the motions out there.’ He raised her hand and kissed it, very tenderly, across the knuckles. ‘No, Bettina. Marry your Fritz by all means. Have your fat babies. And then warn them about us, when they are old enough to hear what you are saying. Tell them what your brother told you, after a few too many glasses of cognac, one freezing winter’s day in the summerhouse. Tell them that mankind is mad, and doomed to repeat old errors. Then cut them loose. Let them float away somewhere. Somewhere uncivilized. Where no one cares about borders, and power, and the purity of this or that. Let them float away to Chile, say. Or Peru. Buy them a ranch, a few cattle, and maybe some horses. And tell them to stay put.’
‘But Max. Don’t you want children someday?’
‘For what? What could I teach them? There was a time when I believed in music – a sort of abstract perfection. Now the only music I could teach them is the music of tanks, and shells, and the screams of dying men.’
Bettina shivered and snuggled closer, savouring the certainty of him, refusing to succumb to his nihilism. ‘But what about love? Can’t love overcome the horrors you are talking about?’
Max smiled. ‘Goethe. You’re quoting from Goethe’s Egmont. Clärchens Lied. I recognise it. “Only the soul that loves is happy.”’ The expression on his face darkened. ‘I love my men. But still they die.’
‘I’m talking about the love between a man and a woman.’
‘I love you.’
‘Not me. A woman of your own.’
He laughed. ‘Where am I to find her? Have you any suggestions? Perhaps one of those Bund Deutscher Mädel girls from the village, with their twin pigtails and their “Faith and Beauty” training? In five years, I’d be fat from too many Spätzle and dumplings, just like Stationmaster Greiner, who, incidentally, has been sent off to serve in Silesia. Can you imagine that? Old Greiner. We must be desperate. Do you think he’s still a stationmaster? Or have they put a rifle in his hands and told him to protect his country?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘No, Bettina. My generation is tarnished. History is going to skip us. If I had the courage, and if my men didn’t still depend on me, I would put a pistol to my head and finish myself off now. Save the Russians a bullet.’
He could feel her turn away f
rom him. Feel the bitter edge of his words spiking the atmosphere between them. Why had he told her the truth? Why hadn’t he fabricated a lie, as he had meant to, as he had promised himself he would on the interminable train journey from Khodorov? Perhaps he had simply been talking to himself, and using her as a conduit into the recesses of his unconscious mind? ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean half of what I say. I’m miserable at the thought of leaving you again, and scared of going back to the front. Each day I wonder if I’ll still have the guts enough to lead my men, or if I’ll simply lose my nerve and let them down.’
‘You’d never let anyone down, Maxl. You don’t have it in you. Look at all your medals. We should be proud of you. We should have given you a hero’s welcome. Instead, all you get is the accumulated weight of our fear. I wish you had someone. Someone to love and who would love you back. It breaks my heart to think of all the waste. All the beauty around us turning into dreck.’
‘Well, I’ve got you to think of. If I had a woman of my own, I’d want her to be just like you.’
‘Hmm. Incest. I always suspected it.’ She sat up and looked at him, cocking her head quizzically to one side. ‘Maxl. Tell me something. Truly. You don’t go to those brothels, do you?’
‘Brothels?’
‘I’m not as naïve as you think I am. I know where there are soldiers, there are always brothels. I was reading a biography of Frederick the Great the other day. I’m sure nothing has changed. You don’t go with those sorts of women, do you?’
He laughed. ‘I don’t have the energy. Whenever I’m relieved of front-line duties I go to sleep. Then I eat. Then I go to sleep again. When they think I’ve done enough of that, they send me back to the front. And by that time, I’m usually happy to go.’
‘You don’t mind me asking?’
‘Of course not.’
‘You don’t think Fritz does that sort of thing, do you?’
‘I’ve never met Fritz.’
‘But in your experience?’
‘I should think it highly unlikely. He’s Catholic too, of course?’
‘That’s never stopped anyone.’
‘Well, what do you want me to say? If he’s in love with you – which I find impossible to doubt – he’ll be looking forward to your wedding night with single-minded passion. Why would he need to go to Army brothels?’
Bettina sighed. ‘Mama told me all men do. She told me even Papa did it during the Great War.’
‘Papa? Please. You are joking, surely?’
‘Yes. I didn’t believe her either.’
‘I’m relieved to hear it.’
She laughed. ‘Oh God, Max, I love talking to you. I can say anything I want, and you’re never shocked.’
‘So, what is it you want to ask me?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You’ve been building up to asking me a question. All this talk about brothels, and Papa, and getting married.’
‘Hmm. I’m not so sure I do like talking to you. You’re too direct.’
‘I haven’t the time not to be. What would you prefer? That I acted more like a woman? Came at things from a right angle?’
‘We don’t do that!’
‘Oh no?’
She punched him on the arm.
‘Ou-ah! That was right on my scar.’
‘Serves you right.’ She burrowed under the fur rug until just her eyes and blonde fringe were showing. ‘Turn away.’
‘Why?’
‘Just do what I say. I don’t want you looking at me when I ask you this question.’
‘A-ha! Now we’re coming to it.’
‘Right away. And don’t you dare look at me.’
‘All right. I’m ready. Ask away.’
There was a silence. ‘I can’t do it. It’s too embarrassing.’
‘Would it help if I got up and went to stand over by the window?’
‘Yes.’
He eased himself out from under the rug, tucking in his shirt as he went. ‘God, it’s cold. Are you nice and warm under there?’
‘Boiling, thank you.’
‘So. Let me make things easier for you.’ He was standing with his back to her, staring out the window towards the woods. As he watched, a roe deer tentatively poked her nose from a thicket at the edge of the clearing and sniffed the air; he could see the steam rising from her nostrils. ‘You want to ask me something about what happens when people get married?’
‘I know very well what happens. I’m not an idiot. But it’s something like that.’
He stayed silent, watching the deer. He hoped his father wouldn’t see her from the house and take a pot shot at her – meat or no meat.
‘Do men feel about it the same way as women?’
‘About what?’
‘You know. Don’t be obtuse.’
‘Why are you asking me?’
‘For the same reason you told me all those things earlier. There’s no one else to ask. And I’ve got to know.’
‘Don’t tell me your darling Fritz’s been putting pressure on you to succumb to him before your wedding day? Tina, I’m shocked!’
‘Stop teasing, Maxl!’ She pulled the rug entirely over her head, muffling her voice. ‘As a matter of fact, he has.’
‘What was that? I couldn’t hear you?’
She flashed the rug down and glared at his back. ‘He has.’
‘And you’re wondering whether he’ll lose interest in you once he’s tasted stolen apples?’
‘That’s not quite how I’d put it. But yes. In a nutshell.’
‘You’re still a virgin, I suppose?’
‘Maxl! How could you ask me such a thing? Of course I am.’
‘Then I think you ought to wait.’
‘Really?’ He could sense the relief in her voice.
The deer had moved out from the protection of the forest edge and was pawing at the snowy ground with her foot, aching to get at the grass underneath. Max rubbed at the glass with his elbow. ‘Put your marriage forward if you have to – convince Mama that Fritz is about to be transferred, or that you’re scared the war will end and want the protection of the marriage state – anything. But don’t just hand him the gift of your virginity on a plate. You must retain your self-respect. Whatever Fritz might declare in the throes of his passion for you, if you give in to him before the wedding, a niggling, guilty part of him will always be wondering if it’s really him you wanted, or simply the fruits of an illicit passion.’ He watched the deer bend gracefully forward and begin nosing at the dead grass. ‘And a niggling, guilty part of you will always wonder whether he married you just for… well, you know what I’m talking about.’
‘Don’t be so dramatic, Max. You’re sounding just like Father Bauer.’
‘Great heavens! You didn’t ask Father Bauer for his opinion, did you?’
‘Of course not! Are you mad? Come back over here. You must be freezing.’
Max tapped sharply at the window. The roe looked up, startled. He tapped again, and she bounded back into the forest, all four legs in the air simultaneously. Max watched her go, then walked back to the swing seat and climbed underneath the fur coverlet. He couldn’t quite believe that it had been him speaking – uttering all the civilized platitudes of a vanishing culture he was no longer sure he even believed in.
Bettina hunched her shoulders together. ‘There’s a part of me that wants to, you see. I’m scared something will happen to him before we can marry. Scared that he’ll never have the chance to…’ Her voice trailed off.
‘What can possibly happen to him? He works at the Army Ordnance Department, for God’s sake. Are you afraid he’ll catch typhus? Or succumb to a galloping goitre infection?’
Bettina’s face closed down.
Max realised he was missing something. Some clue that she was holding out to him but refusing to verbalize. ‘What are you thinking? That he’s hatching something with Claus, Hans-Albin and the rest of that Kreisau circle? Something dangerous?’
‘
I can’t say.’
So that was it. ‘You don’t need to. We know Hans-Albin, don’t we? He’d shoot Hitler himself if he could get anywhere near him and lay his hands on a loaded pistol. Is Fritz like that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that’s why you’re wondering whether to let him prejudge the wedding? Because you’re scared those hotheads will set loose some plot or other which will get them all killed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you heard them talking?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘So I assume you have.’
She refused to meet his gaze.
‘Oh come on, Bettina. What do you think? That I’m going to turn them in?’
‘Of course not.’
‘All right. All right. You’re probably right. It’s best I don’t know.’
She turned towards him, clutching his arm. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, Maxl. But I promised. He made me promise. An oath. Before the Virgin.’
‘And you believe him?’
‘Fritz is serious. In anything he does, he’s serious. I know him.’
‘And you want to know if it would be a mortal sin to snatch a little happiness before the dam bursts? What if he gave you a child?’
‘Would that be so terrible?’
‘Bettina? I can’t believe it’s you speaking. You’ve changed in three years.’
‘For the worse?’
He laughed, surprising himself with his own response. ‘No. For the better. You’ve developed courage. I thought Mama would have indoctrinated you with her pieties by now, and Papa with his rarefied views on aristocratic purity.’
‘You’ve changed too.’
‘Don’t I know it.’
‘No. I mean that you’re more gentle. You still tease me, but you listen to me as well.’
He canted his back head, surprised. ‘Perhaps the war has made me gentler? That would be a good joke.’
‘Maybe, Max. It’s not such a stupid notion.’
‘No,’ said Max, his mind expanding with the sudden insight she had given him into his own state of mind. ‘No. Perhaps it isn’t.’
The Occupation Secret Page 4
